Green City in the Sun

by Wood, Barbara

  PRAISE FOR BARBARA WOOD

  "From page one, I knew I was in the company of an accomplished storyteller. Barbara Wood has written an enthralling saga, packed with memorable characters and rich detail. Treat yourself and read it."

  —John Jakes, New York Times bestselling author

  "Barbara Wood brings the beauty of the African landscape I know and love stunningly alive."

  —Barbara Taylor Bradford

  "Superb storytelling ... the language sings as the reader is given an education ... a page turner."

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  "Barbara Wood is an entertainer."

  —The Washington Post Book World

  "Tremendous ... a reader-pleaser in every way ... The people, places, and times that she evokes so movingly, so vividly, will haunt me long after I've put the book aside ... Such a moving ending—and exactly right."

  —Phyllis Whitney

  "An irresistible setting, glorious in the 'crisp and buoyant' luminosity of its air, the vulnerable beauty of its terrain, and the ironies and agonies of its clashing cultures."

  —Chicago Tribune

  "Barbara Wood is a master storyteller. She never fails to leave the reader enthralled."

  —Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey, author of A Woman of Independent Means

  Other Books By

  BARBARA WOOD

  Virgins of Paradise

  The Dreaming

  Green City in the Sun

  Soul Flame

  Vital Signs

  Domina

  The Watch Gods

  Childsong

  Night Trains

  Yesterday's Child

  Curse This House

  Hounds and Jackals

  The Divining

  Books By

  KATHRYN HARVEY

  Butterfly

  Stars

  Private Entrance

  Turner Publishing Company

  200 4th Avenue North • Suite 950

  Nashville, Tennessee 37219

  445 Park Avenue • 9th Floor

  New York, NY 10022

  www.turnerpublishing.com

  Green City in the Sun

  Copyright © 2012 Barbara Wood. All rights reserved.

  This book or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Green City in the Sun is a work of historical fiction. Although some events and people in this book are based on historical fact, others are the products of the author's imagination.

  Cover design by Gina Binkley

  Interior design by Mike Penticost

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Wood, Barbara, 1947-

  Green city in the sun / Barbara Wood.

  p.cm.

  ISBN 978-1-59652-871-0

  1. British--Kenya--Fiction. 2. Kenya--Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3573.O5877G74 2012

  813'.54--dc23

  2012006383

  Printed in the United States of America

  12 13 14 15 16 17 18—0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This book is dedicated to my husband,

  George, with love.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank the following Kenya people for their kind assistance:

  In Nairobi:

  Professor Godfrey Muriuki and his wife, Margaret, with the University of Nairobi; Philip and Ida Karanja; Rasheeda Litt of University Safari Tours; Allen and Gachiku Gicheru; Dr. Igo Mann and his charming wife, Erica; John Moller, who explained about hunting; Valerie and Heming Gullberg, coffee growers; and the staff of the Kenya National Archives, for smoothing the way.

  In Nyeri:

  Satvinder and Jaswaran Sehmi, who became our good friends; Mr. Che Che, manager of the Outspan Hotel; Irene Mugambi, for sharing her invaluable insight into Kenya women.

  In Hanyuki:

  Mr. and Mrs. Jacobson; Mr. Edmond Honarau, general manager of the Mount Kenya Safari Club, for making our stay there so pleasant; Jane Tatham Warter and her friend mrs. Elizabeth Ravenhill; and P. A. G. ("Sandy") Field, for a delightful afternoon of talk.

  Thanks also to Terence and Nicole Gavaghan, for an invaluable introduction; Tim and Rainie Samuels; Marvin and Sjanie Holm, who gave us that first, critical introduction; and, finally Bob and Sue Morgan od Survival Ministries, for taking us to their Kenya friends, and for coming to our aid in a dire moment.

  And to Abdul Selim, surely the most patient and cheerful driver in all of East Africa, a special asante sana,

  A NOTE ON FOREIGN WORDS AND

  SPELLINGS

  All kikuyu and Swahili words and names are pronounced as written. The name of the African family Mathenge is pronounced

  Ma-THEN-gay.

  Kenya was, until 1963, pronounced Kee-ya. After independence the e was shortened and the pronounciation became officially Ken-ya, as in

  "pen-ya"

  FOREWORD

  Kenya came into existence by accident.

  In 1984 the British were anxious to get to Uganda, a strategic military point at the headwaters of the Nile in the heart of Africa, so they built a railway from the east coast of Africa inland six hundred miles to Lake Victoria, the gateway to Uganda. As it happened, that train crossed a stretch of land inhabited by wild game and warring tribes, a land that appealed only to intrepid explorers and missionaries. When, after it completion, the Uganda Railway proved to be a financial drain and a white elephant, the British government sought a way to make the railway pay for itself. The answer, it was soon seen, lay in encouraging settlement along the line.

  The first to be offered this "vacant" territory were the Zionist Jews, who were at the time searching for a permanent homeland. But the Jews declined, wanting to go to Palestine. So a campaign was launched to lure immigrants from all over the British Empire. Treaties were drawn up with the local tribes, which had little concept of treaties and were somewhat preplexed by what the white man was doing here; then the government offered cheaply, huge tracts of "unused" wilderness to anyone who would come and settle and develop it. The central highlands of this country, being at a high eleveation, were cool and fertile and lush; many Britons from England, Australia, and New Zealand, looking for a new home, a place to make a fresh start and build a new life, were attracted.

  Although the Colonial Office staunchly maintained the area was just a protectorate and would one day be returned to its black inhabitants when they had been taught how to run it. In 1905, when two thousand whites were outnumbered by four million Africans, the British commissioner for the East Africa Protectorate declared that the protectorate was a "White Man's country."

  PROLOGUE

  D

  R. TREVERTON?"

  Dr. Deborah awoke with a start. She saw the Pan Am flight attendant smiling down at her. Then she felt the shuddering of the plane which meant it was beginning its descent to Nairobi. "Yes?" she said to the young woman, shaking off the lingering effects of sleep.

  "We have received a message for you. You will be met at the airport."

  Deborah was breathless. "Thank you," she said. She closed her eyes again. She was tired. The flight had been a long one—twenty-six hours almost nonstop, with a change of planes in New York, a refueling in Nigeria. She was going to be met. By whom?

  In her purse was the letter that she had received the week before at the hospital and which had taken her by surprise. It had come from Our Lady of Grace Mission in Kenya, which was requesting that Deborah come because Mama Wachera was dying and asking for her.

  "Why go back," Jonathan had said, "if you don't wan
t to? Throw the letter away. Ignore it."

  Deborah had not replied. She had lain unable to speak in Jonathan's arms. He would never understand why she had to go back to Africa or why it frightened her to do so. It was because of the secret she had kept from him, the man she was going to marry.

  After Deborah had claimed her suitcase and gone through customs, she saw, in the crowd waiting on the other side of the guarded exit, a man holding a chalkboard with her name written on it. DR. DEBORAH TREVERTON.

  She stared at him. He was a tall, well-dressed African, Kikuyu, Deborah judged, the man the mission had sent to meet her. She walked past him and hailed one of the taxis lined up along the curb outside. This, Deborah hoped, would buy her additional time. Time in which to decide if she was really going to go through with it, go back to the mission and face Mama Wachera. The mission driver would report that Dr. Treverton had not come in on this flight, and so they wouldn't be expecting her. Not yet.

  "Who is this Mama Wachera?" Jonathan had asked as he and Deborah had watched the fog roll into San Francisco Bay.

  But Deborah hadn't told him. She had not been able to bring herself to say, "Mama Wachera is an old African medicine woman who put a curse on my family many years ago." Jonathan would have laughed, and he would have chided Deborah for the seriousness of her tone.

  But there was more. Mama Wachera was the reason why Deborah lived in America, the cause of her leaving Kenya. It all was tied up with the secret she kept from Jonathan, the chapter in her past which she would never talk about, not even after they were married.

  The taxi sped through darkness. It was two o'clock in the morning, black and chilly, with the equatorial moon peeping through branches of flattopped thorn trees. Overhead the stars were like dust. Deborah withdrew into her thoughts. One step at a time, she reminded herself. From the moment she had received the letter asking her to come, Deborah had moved only one step at a time, trying not to think of what lay beyond each of those steps.

  The first thing she had done was arrange with Jonathan to take care of her patients. They were in practice together, two surgeons sharing an office; they had become business partners before deciding to become marital partners. Then Deborah had canceled her speaking engagement at the medical school and had arranged for someone else to chair the annual medical conference in Carmel. The appointments for next month she had let stand, confident that she would be home long before then.

  Finally Deborah had obtained a visa from the Kenya Embassy—she was a United States citizen now and no longer carried a Kenya passport—had purchased malaria pills, had received last-minute shots for cholera and yellow fever, and had, twenty-eight hours ago, miraculously, finally boarded the plane at the San Francisco airport.

  "Call me the instant you get to Nairobi," Jonathan had said as he had held her tightly at the departure gate. "And call me every day while you're there. Come back soon, Deb."

  He had kissed her, long and hard, in front of the other passengers, so unlike Jonathan, as if to give her an incentive to return.

  The taxi followed the dark, deserted highway and took a curve at high speed, its headlights sweeping over a roadside sign and briefly illuminating the words WELCOME TO NAIROBI, GREEN CITY IN THE SUN.

  Deborah felt a pang. It rocked her out of the numb state the long flight had lulled her into. She thought: I have come home.

  The Nairobi Hilton was a golden column of light rising from the sleeping city. When the taxi drew up to the brightly lit entrance, the doorman, an African in maroon coat and top hat, hurried down to open Deborah's door. As she stepped into the cool February night, he said, "Welcome, madam," and Deborah found herself unable to reply.

  She was suddenly remembering. As a teenager she had accompanied her aunt Grace on shopping trips into Nairobi, and Deborah had stood on the sidewalk in those days gawking at the taxis pulling up to the fronts of fabulous hotels. Out of those cars tourists had stepped, amazing people from faraway places, decked out in cameras and stiff new safari khakis, surrounded by heaps of luggage, laughing, excited. Young Deborah had stared, fascinated, wondering about them, envying them, wishing she could be part of their wonderful world. And now here she was, paying a taxi driver and following the doorman up marble steps to the polished glass doors he held open for her.

  It made Deborah feel sorry for that young girl. How wrong she had been.

  The people behind the front desk all were African and young, dressed in smart red uniforms and speaking perfect English. All the girls, Deborah saw, wore their hair in tight cornrow braids, twisted into intricate birdcage styles. She also saw what they chose to ignore: their receding hairlines. By middle age these young women would be nearly bald—the price for high Kenya fashion.

  They welcomed Dr. Treverton warmly. She smiled back but spoke little, taking refuge behind her facade. Deborah didn't want them to know the truth about her, didn't want to give herself away with her British accent. The desk clerks saw a slender woman in her early thirties, looking very American in blue jeans and western shirt. What they did not know was that she was not American at all, but pure Kenyan like themselves, who spoke their native language as easily as they spoke it.

  There was a basket of fresh fruit waiting in her room, and the bed had been turned down; a chocolate mint in silver foil lay on the pillow. A note from the management said, "lala salama," "sleep well."

  As the porter pointed to the bathroom, the minibar, and the TV, Deborah went through the money she had obtained from the cashier downstairs, trying to recall the current exchange rate. She tipped the man twenty shillings and saw by his smile that it was too much.

  And then she was alone.

  She went to the window and looked out. There was not much to see, just the dark shapes of a city folded up for the night. It was quiet, with not much traffic and not a pedestrian in sight. Nairobi, which Deborah had said goodbye to fifteen years ago.

  On that day an angry and terrified Deborah, just eighteen years old, had vowed never to set foot in this country again and had walked onto the airplane determined to find herself a new home, a new place in the sun. She had worked hard in the following years to create a new self and to put behind her this Africa, which was in her blood. Deborah had found an ending at last in San Francisco, in Jonathan. There she had found a place where she could belong, a man who could be her sanctuary.

  And then the letter had come. How had the nuns found her? How had they known the hospital where she worked, that she was even in San Francisco? The sisters at the mission must have gone to a lot of trouble and expense to find her. Why? Because that old woman was dying at last?

  Why ask for me? Deborah mentally asked her reflection in the window. You always hated me, Mama Wachera, always resented me because I was a Treverton.

  What have I to do with your final moments on earth?

  "Urgent," the letter had said. "Come at once."

  Deborah rested her forehead against the cold glass. She was remembering her last days in Kenya and the terrible thing the medicine woman had said to her. With the memory came all the old pain and sickness Deborah thought she had rid herself of.

  She went into the bathroom and turned on the bright light. After running hot water into the bathtub and scenting it with the Nivea bath foam the Hilton provided, she turned to look at herself in the mirror.

  This was Deborah's final face, after so many, and she was satisfied with it. Fifteen years ago, when she had first arrived in America, her skin had been darkly tanned, her black hair curled short under the ears, and her clothing had been a simple sleeveless dress of Kenya cotton and sandals. Now the skin was pale, as white as she could make it, from years of pointedly avoiding the sun, and the hair was ironing-board straight, gathered in a gold clasp and flat down her back. The shirt and jeans had designer labels, as did the expensive running shoes. She had worked hard to look American, to look white.

  Because she was white, she reminded herself now.

  And then she thought of Christopher. Would h
e recognize her?

  After her bath Deborah wrapped her long, wet hair in a towel and went to sit on the edge of the bed. She found she was not ready for sleep; there had been enough of that on the plane.

  She picked up her carry-on bag, which she had not let out of her sight since leaving San Francisco. Besides containing her passport, return ticket, and traveler's checks, the bag held something more precious, and Deborah drew it out now and laid it on the bed beside her.

  It was a small package of brown paper and string. She picked open the wrapping and separated the contents: an envelope of faded photographs, a bundle of old letters tied with a ribbon, and a journal.

  She stared at them.

  This was Deborah's legacy, all that she had come away with in her flight from Africa, all that was left of the once proud—and infamous—Treverton family. The photos she had not looked at since collecting them into this envelope and sealing it fifteen years ago; the letters she had not read again since that awful day when Mama Wachera had spoken those words to her; and the journal, an old and battered leather volume begun sixty-eight years ago, Deborah had never read. Stamped in gold on its cover was the name TREVERTON.

  A name that was magic in Kenya. Deborah had recognized the expressions on the faces of the young Africans downstairs when she had checked in: the brief, startled look when she had said her name, then the moment of staring at her, of being enchanted for an instant, followed by the inevitable shuttering, the retreat behind a fixed smile to mask the hatred and resentment because of the other things the Trevertons had stood for. Deborah had been used to those looks as a child; she was not really surprised to find them here still.

  There was a time when the name Treverton had been worshiped in Kenya. Deborah's hotel stood near a wide street that had once been Lord Treverton Avenue. Today it was Joseph Gicheru Street, named for a Kikuyu who had been martyred for independence. And the taxi had passed what had once been Treverton High School, and Deborah had seen the new sign which said MAMA WANJIRU HIGH SCHOOL.