by Wilbur Smith
‘I think you’re doing the right thing,’ Margaret said, patting Saffron’s hand. She looked at Gerhard. ‘I’m so sorry I interrupted your story.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Gerhard said. ‘I was only going to pass on the final command that Manyoro gave Saffy. He said that when she grows older, it will be her solemn duty to find new young wives for me and make sure that they behave and produce even more offspring.’
‘I say, that’s the spirit!’ Churchill exclaimed.
‘Pah!’ Odette snorted, in true Gallic style, rolling her eyes at the idea. She smiled and said, ‘Look, everyone, here comes Pierre!’
The others looked towards the kitchen, from which the chef and proprietor Pierre Duforge was emerging, wiping the sweat from his forehead as he came towards them.
‘Ah, mes amis,’ Pierre said as he reached the table. ‘It has been too long since I saw you all. And Odette . . .’ He paused and swallowed hard. ‘It is an honour, truly, to serve you again at my table. I saw your film, the one with Anna Neagle playing your part, and my dear wife, she had to stop me from standing up in the cinema and shouting, “I know the real Odette!”’
Odette smiled. ‘Thank you, Pierre. It’s a pleasure for me also to be back here once again.’
As a fellow SOE veteran, Saffron knew the story of Odette Sansom, as she had been called back then: her exploits as an undercover agent in Occupied France; her capture by the Gestapo; the torture she had suffered, and her appalling mistreatment in Ravensbruck concentration camp. But having spent the post-war years in Kenya, she had no concept of how famous Odette had become.
‘I want to pay you my sincere respects,’ Pierre continued. ‘And to offer my most profound sympathy for what you had to endure. The things those filthy Boches did to you . . . they’re no better than savages.’
He sensed a sudden air of silent embarrassment descend upon the table and stammered, ‘D-d-did I say something wrong?’
Gerhard smiled reassuringly. ‘No, Pierre . . . it is just that I am a filthy Boche. But you are right. Some Germans were bloody savages and they did things that shame me to the depths of my soul. But most of us are not like that. We are no better or worse than anyone else.’
‘Look at it this way,’ said Leo Marks. ‘I’m a Jew and I’m breaking bread with him.’
‘I do not wish to offend anyone. Please, I insist, let me give you this meal, as the Americans say, “on the house”.’
‘Thank you, Pierre, that’s very kind,’ said Odette. ‘And don’t worry. You meant well. All that matters is the war is over. Now we can live in peace.’
Saffron took Gerhard’s hand and looked into his eyes. They had been reunited for six years, but it still felt like a miracle to have him by her side.
‘Amen to that,’ she said.
Pierre Duforge regarded himself as a man of discretion. But he was also a businessman, and in the current state of the austerity-ravaged British economy it was not easy to keep a restaurant afloat. The lack of decent food for his customers only made matters worse. Whenever Pierre went home to France, the market stalls were laden down with vegetables, fruits, meats, cheeses and all manner of breads and pastries. Why, he asked himself in profound bemusement, did the British still choose to starve themselves?
As he walked away from the table, his conscience fought with his need to make money. He knew customer confidentiality was an important part of his trade, but these were desperate times; cunning and opportunism were needed to survive. Finally he told himself, This is just a little thing. It will cause no harm to anyone. And I did give them a meal for free. Making sure no one was watching him, he ducked into his office and dialled the number of a regular customer, who happened to be a reporter on the Evening Standard, one of London’s two main local newspapers.
‘Come quickly!’ he whispered. ‘Odette herself is here with a table of her old comrades. And my waiter heard one of them saying she had just come from Buckingham Palace.’
The reporter had a word with his picture editor. They agreed that this was a story that might interest Londoners on their way home from work. And so, when Saffron, Gerhard, Odette and the others emerged from the bistro they were met with the dazzling burst of a camera flash, and a quick-fire series of questions from the reporter.
Odette took the intrusion in her stride, having become accustomed to being a public figure. Gerhard was baffled and a little uneasy at the questioning. It brought back memories of previous interrogations that he would rather have kept buried. But Saffron laughed it off.
‘It reminds me of being a deb, back in the thirties. I was forever being photographed at parties with young men who were supposedly about to marry me.’
Gerhard looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
‘Oh, don’t worry. None of them were remotely interesting. They were either hopelessly shy or ragingly oversexed. You know, wandering hands and all that. Believe me, darling, you were a complete revelation.’
She lowered her voice so that no one else could overhear.
‘You always knew exactly what to do with your hands.’
Kabaya had made sure that the bodies of Joseph and Mary were buried on the night they died. He was back in Nairobi by the time dawn broke the following morning. But for the next several days, he brooded.
The squatters had been warned that anyone who said a word of what had happened to the authorities, be it their farm boss or the police, would be punished in ways that would make the deaths they had witnessed seem merciful. Even so, there was a danger someone might find it impossible to keep their mouth shut. If they talked, the buried bodies might be discovered.
Something had to be done. Ten days after the killings, Kabaya and his men returned to the farm, late at night. He commanded the squatters who had sworn the oath to demonstrate their loyalty to the cause by rounding up every squatter on the property, including women, children and old folk who had not been at the oathing ceremony. They were ordered to bring digging implements.
The assembled squatters were marched to the spot where their two friends’ remains were buried. Kabaya set them to work exhuming the bodies. In the light of flickering torches made from bundled twigs, every man, woman and child was made to remove at least some of the earth, so that none could later deny that they had taken part.
The weather had been hot, with periods of blazing sunshine interspersed with torrential downpours. The bodies had been decomposing fast. The sight and smell of the two corpses was enough to turn the strongest stomach. People were retching, holding their hands to their mouths and noses, or vomiting on the ground beneath their feet. A handful fainted and collapsed unconscious, looking like dead bodies themselves.
Kabaya wanted the bodies destroyed. He lined the squatters up. One after another, they had to step up to the place where the exhumed, putrefying bodies lay.
One of Kabaya’s men handed each a machete. They were ordered to hack off a piece of the body in front of them: a toe, a fingertip, an ear, a slice of fat and skin, or a chunk of jellified meat. Next, they were told to pick up the stinking, festering morsel that they had carved and press it to their mouths, like some Devil’s communion wafer.
‘Break your vow of silence and your flesh will be corrupted like that,’ Kabaya told the squatters.
The fragments of Joseph’s and Mary’s desecrated bodies were gathered up and taken to a nearby patch of woodland, where they were scattered as carrion for animals, birds and insects. Within a few days, there was no trace of Kabaya’s victims to be found. Without bodies to prove death there could be no case against him. He could rest easy.
The squatters had no doubt that Kabaya would not hesitate to kill and torture again. No one told the full story of what had happened to anyone who might report it to the police. But human beings cannot help but talk among themselves. Stories spread, even if no more than vague, nightmarish rumours.
For many months there had been talk in the native and colonist populations about bizarre ceremonials at which terribl
e oaths were sworn. These were embroidered with further tales, often magnified and distorted in the telling, of ritual killings and cannibalism.
The men responsible for these terrible things called themselves muhimu, ‘the important ones’.
But the white settlers had a different name for the rebels. They called them the Mau Mau.
Saffron and Gerhard mingled in the crowds of people thronging the courtyard in front of the Wilkins Building at University College London. The flights of stone steps that rose towards the classical portico, the ten mighty columns that stood guard over the entrance and the dome that rose behind them, were as encrusted with soot and grime as every other building in London. But nothing could diminish the imposing splendour of the institution. Nor could the strain of living in a country still suffering rationing and austerity, six years after a war it was supposed to have won, dim the joy on the faces of the families gathered there.
This was graduation day for the university’s medical students, the moment when proud parents could boast that their child had qualified as a doctor. As the medics poured out of the building in their doctoral gowns and tasselled velvet caps, clutching their diplomas and scanning the courtyard for their families, Saffron kept her eyes peeled for one particular student.
‘At least he’ll be easy to spot,’ Gerhard remarked.
The majority of the newly qualified medics were white. A small number were Asian. But those of African or Caribbean descent could be counted on the fingers of one hand.
‘There he is!’ Saffron cried, catching sight of a bespectacled young man, with the tall, slender physique and dark brown-black skin characteristic of the Nilotic tribes of East Africa. ‘Benjamin!’ she shouted, frantically waving her hand.
Gerhard looked on with an amused smile. It was rare to see Saffron acting with such girlish enthusiasm. But then, he reflected, Benjamin was Manyoro’s son. Leon Courtney had paid for him to study in London. And though she was several years older than him, without a drop of blood in common, Saffron felt as strongly as any older sister would do on their younger brother’s big day.
Benjamin saw them and his face lit up with a broad grin as he waved back. But something distracted him. He held up a hand to say, ‘Hang on,’ before dashing away down the steps.
‘Hmm . . . there’s someone more important than you,’ Gerhard said.
Saffron smiled. ‘I can’t wait to meet her.’
Five minutes later they discovered what the fuss was about.
‘Goodness, she’s ravishing,’ Saffron declared.
‘She certainly is,’ Gerhard agreed, as an ebony vision in a yellow silk sundress walked towards them with the feline grace of a prowling leopard, her head raised with the regal carriage of a princess. Gerhard felt that she might at any moment raise one of her white-gloved hands to flick a dismissive wave at the pale-faced Britons who gawped, open-mouthed, as she strolled by.
She seemed to Gerhard’s eye like an African version of Botticelli’s Venus. She had a high forehead, with tumbling black curls, rather than golden locks; perfectly arched eyebrows, but with deep brown eyes, rather than pale ones; the nose as fine, but the lips fuller and more sensuous.
Gerhard had lived with fifteen years of ceaseless Nazi propaganda about the superiority of the Aryan race. One look at this woman proved what ludicrous nonsense that was.
Saffron met Benjamin with an exuberant hug.
‘Benji! I’m so proud of you!’
Gerhard could see the shocked looks on the faces around them. People were not used to respectable white women throwing their arms around black men.
‘Saffron, may I introduce my fiancée, Wangari Ndiri,’ Benjamin said, with manners as impeccable as his command of English.
‘I’m so pleased to meet you, Saffron,’ Wangari said as Saffron gave her a welcoming kiss on the cheek. ‘Benjamin always speaks very highly of you and your family.’
‘Well, we couldn’t think more highly of him,’ Saffron replied.
Gerhard contented himself with a firm handshake for Benjamin and a lighter one for Wangari.
‘So,’ he said, ‘would you care to join us for a picnic? I certainly hope so.’ He picked up a large wicker picnic hamper. ‘I would hate to think I had been carrying this around for nothing.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ Benjamin replied. ‘But I’m not sure—’
‘Oh, do,’ said Saffron. ‘I’ve so been looking forward to catching up with you.’
‘We’d be delighted,’ said Wangari, taking charge of the couple’s social arrangements.
Saffron beamed. ‘Wonderful! I thought we could set up camp on Primrose Hill. We’ll catch a cab and be there in no time.’ She took Wangari’s arm in hers as they walked out of the UCL gates and onto Gower Street and said, ‘Now, you must tell me all about yourself. Manyoro didn’t mention a word about you.’
‘Perhaps he thought it best to be discreet. You see, my father is Chief Ndiri.’
‘The Kikuyu leader?’ Saffron asked, with surprise.
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, that explains it.’
‘Why’s that?’ Gerhard asked.
‘Different tribes, darling. For the son of a Maasai chief to marry the daughter of a Kikuyu is like, ah . . .’
‘The son of a German industrial dynasty marrying the daughter of a wealthy British landowner?’
‘Just like that,’ Saffron agreed, ‘only worse.’
‘It’s ridiculous,’ Benjamin snapped. ‘In this day and age we shouldn’t be bound by outdated notions of tribalism. Wangari and I are Kenyans and we are Africans. National self-determination and continental unity – that’s where our future lies.’
‘I wish you the best of luck,’ Gerhard said. ‘We’re still trying to get rid of tribal rivalries in Europe after two thousand years of supposed civilisation.’ His face brightened. ‘Aha! A taxi!’
Gerhard hailed the passing black cab. The two ladies sat on the passenger seat, with the men facing them on the jump seats. Saffron continued her gentle interrogation of Wangari and discovered that she too had recently graduated, receiving a First Class degree in Law from the London School of Economics. She and Benjamin had met at a public meeting at the LSE organised by left-wing students and academics under the banner, End the Empire Now. Speeches had been given by Indians and Africans involved in the fight against colonialism, and various Labour and Communist politicians who supported them.
‘A friend of mine knew Benjamin and invited him to come along,’ Wangari said.
‘We started talking, and discovered we were both Kenyan, and that we shared a similar vision for our nation,’ Benjamin added.
‘At the end of the day, we went to a pub nearby and of course the conversation was all about the need for independence and social change,’ Wangari smiled. ‘So we fell in love over Marxism and warm beer.’
‘How romantic!’ Saffron remarked, with irony.
The taxi driver dropped them off at the foot of Primrose Hill, across the road from London Zoo. As they walked through the park that, come rain or shine, war or peace, provided some of the finest views of the city, Benjamin spoke in a voice that was all too often silenced in Kenya: that of the educated, articulate African, making the moral and political case for his freedom.
‘Your father is a good man and my father loves him very much. But the fact remains that your father owns the land and mine does not. Yours has a vote and mine does not. Yours belongs to the one race that rules all the other races, and mine does not. So long as those things are true, then Kenya will be a land of injustice and oppression. And we cannot tolerate that.’
‘Can’t you see, Saffron, that Benjamin and I have a duty to our people?’ Wangari’s voice was gentle, but her resolve was clear. ‘It is because we have been given so much, and are so privileged, that we have to give back to those who are not so lucky. We have to use our talents to make their lives better.’
Gerhard nodded appreciatively. ‘Well said. I felt the same way wh
en I was your age. I wanted to use my family’s money and industrial power to make life better for the poor. That never happened – or not yet, anyway. But your ideals are noble, and I applaud them.’
‘Thank you.’ Benjamin sounded pleased, but also surprised. ‘My ambition is to dedicate my life to the fight to end colonialism and create a new, free Africa.’
‘And I will stand beside you, my love,’ said Wangari.
Saffron looked at the two of them: so proud, so gifted and so much in love. Yet her mind was filled with trepidation.
‘Will you make me one promise, Benjamin?’ she asked. ‘Tell me that you won’t make this a war between our people. I couldn’t bear to think of you as my enemy. It would break my heart.’
‘And mine too,’ he replied. ‘But if your people are not willing to talk – if they refuse to be reasonable or fair – what else can we do but fight?’
‘We can be friends,’ said Gerhard. ‘It is a beautiful day. The grass is green, the view is magnificent, the women are beautiful and charming. Let the future take care of itself. For now we have climbed far enough up the hill, and I have carried this hamper so long my arm is about to drop off.’
‘You should have carried it the African way, on your head,’ Wangari said. ‘Much easier.’
‘Now she tells me!’
They stopped and all talk of politics ceased as they looked down from the top of Primrose Hill and saw the view across the skyline of London. The dome of St Paul’s was visible, and Big Ben too.
Saffron opened the hamper and produced a tartan picnic blanket on which she laid plates, knives and forks. Next came four crystal wineglasses, followed by a bottle of champagne, wrapped in a damp cloth to keep it cool. Gerhard popped the cork, poured them each a glass and they drank to Benjamin’s success, and Wangari’s too.