Women's Wiles

by Joyce Harrington

  Masaka left the shadowed security of the banda wall and moved to the table. She looked up, but made no sign that his presence was a surprise to her. Ras felt his breath catch as he wondered if she knew who Masaka was.

  The lid of the trunk held a collection of tools: files, tweezers, knives, hooks, brushes, a small rake and shovel. In the bottom of the trunk was a roll of netting, a half dozen liter-sized bottles filled with liquids, and several dozen clear plastic boxes of assorted sizes, separated by layers of cotton wool.

  She spoke in quiet, fluent Swahili that surprised them all. “I have come to Zemu Island to gather specimens of seashells. These are tools I need to find the shells and to clean them.” Her hand passed lightly over the contents of the lid and then moved to the items in the lower section. “The large bottles contain cleaning solutions—Clorox, alcohol, vinegar, formaldehyde. These plastic boxes are for the shells after they have been cleaned. Each will be wrapped in a piece of cotton, so it will not be crushed.”

  She had turned in the course of her explanation so that her glance touched each of them—the two Army men, Ras, and Masaka. Ras found it difficult to hide the rush of admiration he felt for her intuition. She might have guessed Masaka would not understand a lengthy stream of English, but she could not have known how angry he would have become if his ignorance were revealed.

  She withdrew a small blue-bound book from the trunk, with a colored photograph of shells on its cover. Ras read the title: Shells of the East African Coast. She opened to several pages. Each had some text accompanying the photograph of a shell.

  “This book describes shells found along the coast of East Africa. I would like to do the same thing about shells in the waters of Zemu Island.”

  One of Masaka’s large hands reached out for the book. He looked at its cover and turned to look inside. He snapped the book shut and thrust it at her. “You will make a book like this about Zemu Island?”

  “I would like to.”

  “Where did you learn to speak Swahili?”

  “In Kenya. I taught English in a school north of Nairobi. My pupils knew their own tribal languages and Swahili. I learned Swahili so that I could teach them English.”

  Masaka’s hands had begun moving one over the other. Ras saw something building in him, but he did not know what it was, or its cause. His concern stirred. When Masaka spoke again, it would not be with an even voice, but with the beginning of some irrational anger. How would the girl react?

  “Kenya has declared Swahili its national language! Why do they still teach English?”

  Something in Masaka’s expression had evidently prepared her for the attack. She only frowned thoughtfully. “English is just one of many subjects taught in Kenyan schools, like arithmetic and history and geography.”

  Masaka stared at her and then his face closed over. He motioned to the two men standing mute behind the table. The three of them marched out the door.

  Ras stared through the open doorway after them. He was not certain whether to feel relief or worry. It was not like Masaka to give way so easily.

  “Can we leave now?” Her voice took him from his thoughts.

  “Yes, we can go,” he said slowly, unable to free himself of the uneasiness he felt.

  “Let’s hurry then.” She smiled at him, a mischievous smile. “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse!”

  Her spirit was contagious. He grinned. “You will insult the Norberts with that kind of talk!” They were both suddenly laughing, and he felt strangely free. He had to remind himself that his position had not changed. He was still a prisoner on Zemu Island. But the gloom of that realization was not as great as it usually was.

  They put her suitcase and trunk into the compartment of his car. When they were driving off, he turned to her and asked, “Did you know who he was?”

  “Masaka? Not right away. It was so dark at first. After the revolution, there were lots of photographs of him in newspapers and magazines, standing on the veranda of the old Sultan’s palace with the new flag draped over the railing. I was scared stiff when I realized who he was.”

  “You did not show it.”

  “I felt it. I’ve never had a head of state come to the airport and check my luggage before.”

  “I told you that you were someone special.”

  “You didn’t say that special.” She leaned back, resting her head against the seat. “Ras, are we going to be seeing a lot of Masaka?”

  The road from the airport to the Manga Hotel was narrow. He was behind a donkey cart laden with bananas, driving slowly. It was easy to turn and look at her. She had called him Ras, not Rashid. There were some things about her that were indeed puzzling—the easy comfort he felt, the strange sense of the familiar.

  He shrugged. “I cannot speak for Masaka. He is not the most predictable of men.”

  “Or the most stable. I heard that on the mainland, but I thought it was just gossip, wishful rumor. But it’s not. That man is cracking up. I’m not sure it’s anything to rejoice about. Zemu Island could be in for a lot of trouble with someone like him ruling.”

  “That is very dangerous talk.”

  “And I should know better. You might turn the car around and head straight back to the airport. Please don’t. I’d be so disappointed. I’ve wanted to visit Zemu Island for a long time. I never thought I’d get the chance. It’s a long way from Boston.”

  “Is that where you come from?”

  “It’s my mother’s home. We went there to live after my father died ten years ago. He was a British doctor. We traveled a lot when I was small.”

  “You had been to Africa then—before the last two years teaching in Kenya?”

  “Yes,” was all she said.

  The last turn brought them into the center of Zemu town, with its narrow Arab alleys that twisted and cut back on each other. To a stranger they were a mysterious labyrinth, but to Ras they were home.

  Some of the old pride stirred in him as he stopped the car in front of the hotel and waited for her reaction. The chalk-white walls appeared almost opalescent in the brilliance of the noonday sun. At intervals bougainvillea clung and tumbled in scarlet cascades. The stairway entrance ascended to a wide arch embracing a massive double door carved of ebony. Spikes of polished brass were embedded in the oiled wood and gleamed in the equatorial sunlight.

  She was silent beside him, staring, her profile still. After a while she turned. Her eyes were shining. “It’s magnificent. I’ve never seen anything like it. And you were right—it would take an elephant to batter that door down.”

  He stared at her. “An elephant—I—”

  Her soft brown-gold eyes gleamed with mischief. “You don’t remember? How absolutely horrid of you!”

  How absolutely horrid of you! Where had he heard those words?

  Then he heard the clink of glass against glass. He saw the blue marble fly from his hand, hit the white one swirled with red, and split it in two. “How absolutely horrid of you!” she had cried, stamping her foot and running off, disappearing behind the garden wall.

  The great double door swung open, splashing reflections of sun onto their faces. An eager young African in a starched white uniform and red velour fez came down the steps and opened the car door on her side. “Jambo, Memsab. Jambo, Bwana. Welcome to Manga Hotel.”

  Winky Norbert was waiting for them at the desk inside. He shook Ras’s hand and smiled at the pretty girl with him. His wiry mustache twitched. “Good you didn’t get here a while ago. Sheer bedlam with that tour. Couldn’t please one of them, no less the lot. If they can’t give Zemu more than four hours, I’d rather they stayed away.”

  “That’ll do with the complaining, Winky.” Margaret Norbert appeared. “You know very well you loved every minute of it. You haven’t been so chipper since the last tour. Twenty-nine lunches are twenty-nine lunches. Makes me feel we’re still running a hotel.”

  She turned to June with a smile that deepened the wrinkles around her mouth and eyes. At fifty-five
she was still an attractive woman. “Welcome to the Manga. I don’t have to guess who you are. You’re June Hastings, our first real guest in a long time.”

  June smiled. “Thank you. It’s as lovely here as I heard it would be. Is there any chance you’ve given me a room overlooking the courtyard?”

  “Take your pick. You can have one next to the Cubans or across from the Russians. The Chinese prefer the hotel down the street.”

  Winky patted his wife’s arm. “Stop twigging the girl, Maggie.” Then looking at June, “We’ve given you a second-floor room that looks right out onto a forest of bougainvillea. I think you’ll like it.”

  The road to Pwani Pwani wound along the edge of coconut plantations and through the ripening groves of clove trees. The warm humid air was heavy with the fragrance of an earlier crop, already harvested and drying in the sun. June had changed into a short blue dress that bared her suntanned arms. She was leaning back against the seat, her hair blowing in the breeze. It was the first time they had been alone since their arrival at the hotel.

  “You’ve had time to remember,” she said.

  “I’d never forgotten. But it was better to pretend. If I had allowed myself to think, I could not have let you come. This way it has happened without my really knowing.”

  “It’s that bad here then?”

  “Why have you come?”

  “Benji sent me.”

  “Benji? Benji died three years ago.”

  “I’m talking about Benji the son.”

  Ras thought of the small boy with the dark eyes with whom he had shot marbles and drunk orange Fanta and gorged himself on sweet cakes—he was a man now. The last time Ras had been to Dar es Salaam, young Benji had been at school in England.

  “Where is Benji now?”

  “I saw him in Nairobi, but he was leaving for New York.” Nairobi—New York—and he could not even go to Zanzibar. “Benji sent you. Why?”

  “To find out what is happening on Zemu Island. No one on the outside really knows. Only a little has gotten out. I wasn’t honest with you when I said I’d not heard of Yukano— I have heard of him. Some people think he is the man who should be ruling Zemu Island instead of Masaka. He would allow the British to return. He would seek American aid, not only Communist.”

  “What would he do for the Indians? Give them back their lives?” He’d spoken so bitterly that he knew she could make no reply. “Benji has a plan?” he asked softly.

  “Not just Benji alone. There are others. But they need someone they can count on in Zemu. Benji wants to know if you will help.”

  “In what way? To make Yukano head of Zemu Island?”

  “You mean he is an African,” she said quietly.

  He felt the bite of her words, the accusation in them and the challenge. She was no stranger to East African politics. She knew the deep animus that lay between African and Indian. She knew the tumult and bloodshed that had thrust the African into power. For those who had been born to the old way, it would never be easy to accept black authority; but to fight it, or pretend that was not the way the tide ran, would be stupid.

  “I know the differences between men,” he said. “There is little likeness between Masaka and Yukano except for the color of their skin. Zemu will rot under the rule of a man like Masaka. I do not know that it will ever flourish as it once did, but with someone like Yukano there would at least be a chance.” He fell silent.

  “But how?” he asked after a while. “It would not be enough merely to get rid of Masaka. They would only put someone else like him in his place. And it would be dangerous—more dangerous than you can imagine. Masaka may be stupid, but those behind him are not. I do not think it was his own intelligence that made him suspicious of your visit. He was warned.”

  She smiled mischievously. “But after today, no one will be suspicious.”

  “What makes you say so?”

  “Today we are going shell gathering—and we’ll be watched. After they see all the trouble we go to to get a few shells they will be convinced that shells are the sole reason for my visit.”

  “Then it is not a pretense?”

  “It is, and it isn’t. Marine biology is my field. I will write a book about the shells I find on Zemu Island. It will be published, and copies will be sent to the government here. If any doubt over the purpose of my visit still lingers, it will disappear when copies of the book arrive. Yukano went a bit overboard when he talked of Olduvai Gorge—Africans are impressed by such things. They are impressed by books even when they can’t read them.

  “But Masaka will be reassured—and so will the Cubans and the Russians. Tours from Western nations will begin to come to Zemu Island, and word will spread that Zemu Island is a lovely place. The government will become complacent and think that people have forgotten how Masaka came into power. It will assume there is no one interested enough in the welfare of this small piece of land floating in the Indian Ocean to plan a counterrevolution.”

  “Those are large words,” he said. “The idea is larger still. You are talking about a long time—many months, perhaps years.”

  “I don’t think Benji or the others involved with him have any illusions that it will be easy, that it will not take months of careful planning. They also know they cannot do it without help from someone here on the island—from you. Your position as Director of Tourism allows you to receive and send letters, a privilege others on Zemu are denied. It is a ready means of communication which cannot be duplicated with anyone else here.”

  “But every letter I receive or write is censored. They are not as naive as you think.”

  She shook her head. “I know. We would use a code.”

  He listened to her unfold a plan that could not work without him. It was a mad plan that had greater chance of failure than of success—but it offered hope, some hope. Ras realized that until she had come, he’d had no hope, no hope at all.

  They had almost reached the place where he should turn off onto a narrow track that would take them to Pwani Pwani. He had slowed down, looking for it. It would be grown over now—perhaps they would have to leave the car and walk in— it would be difficult with the metal trunk. Ah, there it was—the place marked by a dead tree. The growth was not so thick that he could not drive through part of the way.

  “Close your window so you will not get scratched,” he said, rolling up his own. Branches strung with thorny vines and moss arched across the once open path. The perfume of ripening guavas had drifted into the car and touched his mind with memory—he had been picking guavas when the first shot came. Other shots followed, the bullets skipping like footsteps across the sand. Like dolls, his mother and the girls had fallen, brilliant piles of crumpled saris on the sand. Then his father, like a dervish, spinning, falling, coughing, dying on the sand. Ras was flattened in the underbrush of vines, the guavas he had picked and put in the front of his shirt squashed and wet and oozing against his chest, warm from the sun, warm like the blood in which his father lay. Pain exploded in his leg. Blackness passed over him, but in his unconsciousness he strained to remember the familiar face among the bearded strangers, the African whose gun had aimed and with lust had killed—Masaka...

  His hands were clenched around the steering wheel, whitening his knuckles and making the muscles of his forearms bulge. He stared through the windshield at the beach, at water glimmering through the suddenly denser tangle of green. He stopped the car, got out, and reached under the seat for the panga he kept there. The scent of guavas filled his nostrils as he struck at the vines that choked the path. The broad blade sliced through the ropy lengths as if they were bits of string. Sap oozed and trickled over his hands and arms.

  When the path was clear, his arms fell to his sides, the point of the panga stuck in the sand beside his foot. His chest heaving, he turned and saw her standing by the car, watching him with her soft golden eyes, questioning, but not asking.

  “We always came here to Pwani Pwani—my family. It was our special place.
They all died here that first day of the revolution. I was picking guavas. They were walking along the sand. I have not been back, not until today.” His dark eyes looked deep into hers. “It is time. I am ready.”

  She smiled gently and held out her hand. “Let’s go then. There is lots to do.”

  They each took a handle of the metal trunk and carried it onto the beach where they placed it in the shade of a palm tree. He left her to open it while he returned for the two buckets she had borrowed from the Norberts.

  Along the way he glanced on both sides into the dense tropical growth for a sign of anyone hiding there. They would be watched, but they would never know by whom or by how many. Once before, the forest had camouflaged the presence of the enemy.

  He started back toward the beach, carrying the buckets. He spied the tree where he had left her and saw the trunk as it had been, unopened. Then he saw her arm raised in the water, waving to him, splashing. He heard her voice and her laughter. He tore off his clothes and went racing into the waves. In a few moments, he was shoveling and she was using the rake.

  “Here’s a beauty,” she cried. “Look at it.” She held a brown and white spiraled shell in the palm of her hand.

  “There must be hundreds of them just like that all over the beach.”

  “They’d be chipped or cracked. The shells I take back must be perfect.” She dropped it into the bucket of formaldehyde solution and reached for a notebook. “Speckled Turret Shell,” she said aloud, “otherwise known as Terebra oculata.”

  “What about this one?” he said, extending his hand. She reached for it without looking.

  “You don’t take me seriously at all!” He could almost see her foot stamp.

  “Oh, but I do,” he said, tossing the small stone away and giving her a handful of shells he had been saving.

  She grinned at him, and then set about recording the names in her notebook.

  When the buckets were almost full, she rose. “I want to set some traps in the rocks close to shore. Some shells are nocturnal. It won’t take long. Then we can swim until the sun goes down, and come back tomorrow.”