Green City in the Sun

by Wood, Barbara

  It's as if, Deborah thought, they are trying to erase our memory from the face of the earth.

  But no amount of "Kenyanizing," Deborah knew, was going to obliterate the Trevertons from this country. They were too ingrained, too much a part of its soul, its destiny. The mission where Mama Wachera lay dying was called Our Lady of Grace Mission, the name the Catholic sisters had given to it when they received it from Deborah's aunt many years ago. But before that it had been simply Grace Mission, named for the woman who had founded it, Grace Treverton, famous pioneer of public health in Kenya.

  Dr. Grace Treverton, a legend as large as her flamboyant brother the earl, had founded the mission sixty-eight years ago, in the wilderness of the Central Province. She was the woman who had reared Deborah in the place of a real mother, and she had gone to her grave with formidable secrets locked in her heart. Aunt Grace had lived through it all, Deborah knew; she had witnessed and been part of every Treverton triumph and shame, had seen Kenya rise and fall and rise again.

  Deborah reached out and touched the items on the bed; she was almost afraid of them. The photos—she barely remembered who the people in them were. Christopher as a youth. But not as a man. I regret that. And the letters—Deborah recalled in them only the few, devastating lines. Lastly, the journal, all that was left of Aunt Grace's legacy.

  Deborah had never read the journal. At the time of Grace's death she had been too grief-stricken to open it; later she had turned her back on the family and the past this book represented and contained.

  She picked it up now and held it between her hands.

  She imagined she felt an energy emerge from it. The Trevertons! In public a beautiful people, rich beyond imagining, members of nobility, gay polo-playing society leaders, primary movers in East Africa; but in private tormented by secrets, by a poor boy's affliction that was the family disgrace, by a sensational trial that had made headlines around the world, by forbidden loves and lusts, and by darker secrets yet—rumors even of human sacrifice and murder.

  And of superstitions—Mama Wachera and her curse.

  And Christopher, Deborah wondered. My handsome, gentle Christopher. Were we, too, victims of the Treverton family's fate?

  Deborah opened the envelope and drew out the photographs. There were seven of them, the one on top having been taken back in 1963, just before Kenya's independence and the end of the world as she had known it. It was a group snapshot, taken with an old Box Brownie. Four children had been arranged according to height: Christopher was the tallest, being the oldest—eleven. Next to him was Sarah, his little sister, the same age as Deborah, who was eight and who stood in the middle. Last came Terry Donald, ten years old and even then a robust little boy in khaki hunting outfit.

  Tears blurred Deborah's vision as she peered closely at the smiling faces. Four barefoot kids, dirty and happy, standing in the middle of goats and chickens, seeming to be without a care in the world, unaware of the storm of change that was gathering around them, that would shatter their world. Four children—two African, two white, and all the best of friends.

  Sarah, my dearest friend, Deborah thought sadly. We grew up together, played with dolls together, discovered boys together. Sarah, black and beautiful, had shared her dreams with Deborah. They had been as close as sisters, had planned their futures together, only to be torn apart by the old medicine woman. What had become of Sarah? Was she still here in Kenya?

  Deborah picked up another photo. It was of Aunt Grace, taken back in the 1930s. Looking at the sweet oval face, the smile, the softly marcel-waved hair that seemed to glow like a halo about her head, Deborah could not believe that Grace Treverton had once been accused of being "mannish." This remarkable woman was known for another great achievement besides the founding of the mission: She had written a book titled When You Have to Be the Doctor. First published fifty-eight years ago and periodically revised and updated, it was one of the most widely used health manuals in the third world.

  The next picture was of a darkly handsome man riding a polo pony. Valentine, the Earl of Treverton, Deborah's grandfather—a man she'd never known. Even in this small and slightly out-of-focus shot she could see what everyone else had seen in him—a strikingly attractive man, with a resemblance to Laurence Olivier. On the back was written: "July 1928, the day we had lunch with His Royal Highness Prince Edward, the Prince of Wales."

  The fourth photograph bore no date, no inscription, but Deborah knew who it was—Rose, Countess of Treverton. It looked like a candid shot; Rose was looking over her shoulder in surprise. There was a timeless quality to the picture, in the simplicity of her white gauze dress, the careless angle of her white parasol, the hair worn down about her shoulders, like a girl's, even though, at the time of this picture, she must have been around thirty. Deborah was drawn to her eyes; there was a haunted look to them, a strange melancholy that made one wonder what pain had afflicted this woman.

  Deborah could not bring herself to look at the last three pictures. The room was becoming crowded with ghosts, and some were the ghosts of people not even dead. Where was Sarah, for instance, at this moment? Sarah, who had had such dreams, such ambition! Gifted with an artistic talent that had made Deborah amazed and envious, Sarah had dreamed of designing a whole new "Kenya look" in clothing. She had dreamed of fame and riches, and Deborah had left her, abruptly, on that fragile brink.

  Sarah Wachera Mathenge, Deborah thought. My sister...

  Then Deborah thought of Terry Donald, a ruddy, handsome boy whose bloodline stemmed from the early adventurers and explorers of the Dark Continent—the last in a line of white men born in Kenya, with the savannas and jungles and the hunt in their very bones.

  And finally, Christopher...

  Deborah put the pictures back in the envelope.

  Was Christopher still in Kenya? Fifteen years ago she had left him without explaining to him why or even that she was going. They had made plans to get married; they were in love. But she had deserted him, as she had Sarah, without a backward look.

  Suddenly Deborah knew she had come back to Africa not because a dying old woman was asking for her, but in the hope of finding herself, her people, again.

  It all came clear. There was Jonathan, back in San Francisco, waiting for her. But Deborah knew that somehow she had hesitated to make that final commitment to him and to the family they hoped to have together, before she had first reconciled the present with the past. Jonathan didn't know much about Deborah's past, about her search for identity. He knew nothing of Christopher, or of the painful truths Deborah had learned about him. Nor had Deborah told Jonathan of the discovery she had made fifteen years ago, when she had found out that Mama Wachera, the African medicine woman, was, in fact, her grandmother.

  Deborah picked up Aunt Grace's journal again, suddenly anxious to read it. She felt a powerful draw to its pages. She trembled to think of the revelations she might read here, yet perhaps there would be answers, too, and a key to her peace of mind.

  As her eyes settled on the first page, on the faded ink and the date, "February 10, 1919," Deborah thought: Perhaps those were the best days, so many years ago; then Kenya had been young and innocent; visions had been crystal clear; people knew where they were going; their hearts were earnest. The men and women who came to Kenya were bold and adventurous, not just ordinary people, but people driven by a pioneering spirit to create a new land for themselves and for their children.

  They are part of me, no matter how hard I've tried to run away from them; they live in me still. But there are others also, those who were already here, living on ancient ancestral land, when the white strangers came. They are part of me, too....

  PART ONE

  1919

  1

  H

  ELP! WE NEED A DOCTOR! IS THERE A DOCTOR ON THE TRAIN?" Hearing the commotion, Grace Treverton opened the window of her compartment and, looking out, saw the reason for the unscheduled stop: A man was lying beside the tracks.

  "What is it?" sai
d Lady Rose as her sister-in-law Grace reached for the medical bag.

  "A man is hurt."

  "Oh, dear."

  Grace paused before leaving the car. Rose wasn't looking good. Her skin had taken on a disturbing pallor in the last hour. They were only eighty miles out of Mombasa, the seaport where they had boarded the train, and they would not arrive at Voi, their dinner stop, for several more miles. "You should eat something, Rose," Grace said, giving a significant look to Fanny, Rose's lady's maid. "And drink something. I'll just quickly see to that poor man."

  "I'm quite all right," Rose said a trifle breathlessly. She dabbed her forehead with a perfumed handkerchief and rested her hands on her abdomen.

  Grace hesitated a moment longer. If there was something wrong, especially with the baby, Rose could not be depended upon to admit it. Giving another look to Fanny, which said, Stay close to your mistress, Grace hurried out of the carriage.

  The desert sun and dust engulfed her at once. After weeks of being cooped up on board the ship and these past eighty miles confined to the tiny train compartment, Grace felt momentarily dizzied by the vast African sky.

  When she reached the stricken man, a group had gathered around him, talking in a mixture of English, Hindi, and Swahili. Grace said, "Pardon me, please," and tried to push through.

  "Stay away, miss. 'Tain't no sight for a lady." A man turned to stop her, and his eyebrows shot up.

  "I might be able to help," she said, sidestepping him. "I'm a doctor."

  The other men now looked at her in surprise, and when she knelt next to the fallen man, they all fell silent.

  They had never seen a woman dressed so strangely.

  Grace Treverton wore a white shirt with a black tie, a black tailored jacket, a dark blue skirt that reached her ankles, and, most curious of all, a wide-brimmed black velour tricorn hat. These colonial men, living out of touch, on the fringes of the British Empire, did not recognize the uniform of an officer in the Women's Royal Naval Service.

  They watched in astonishment as she examined the man's wounds without the slightest flinch, with no sign of fainting. The man was positively bloody, they were thinking, and this queer female was as calm as if she were pouring tea!

  The men began to murmur. Grace ignored them, trying to do something for the unconscious man, who was a native dressed in skins and beads and who appeared to have been the victim of a lion. While she worked with the antiseptics and dressings from her bag, Grace heard the low voices of the men standing around her, and she recognized the drift of what they were saying.

  Some were shocked, scandalized at her behavior, others were amused, and all were skeptical. No proper lady, Grace had heard since she first entered medical school back in London, would involve herself in such unpleasantness. Her behavior was downright improper! But these men could have no idea that the wounds of this poor African were nothing compared with the injuries Grace had treated on board the hospital ship that had assisted in the evacuation of Gallipoli.

  "We must put him on the train," she said at last, when nothing more could be done for him.

  No one moved. She looked up. "He needs proper help. These cuts need to be sutured. He's lost blood. Well, good heavens, don't just stand there!"

  "He's done for, that one," a voice grumbled.

  "Don't know who he is anyway," said another.

  "Masai," said a third, as if that were supposed to explain something. Grace stood up. "Two of you pick him up and put him on the train. At once!"

  They shuffled uncertainly. A few men turned and walked away. The rest looked at one another. Who was she to be giving them orders? They looked at her again. But she was awfully pretty, and she did appear to be a lady.

  Finally two men lifted the native and deposited him inside the brake van. As Grace turned back toward her compartment, she heard a few snickers, and two men looked at her with undisguised contempt.

  But at the carriage another man was waiting, sunburned and smiling, to help her up the impossible steps. "Don't mind them," he said as he touched the brim of his hat. "They're behind the times by ten years."

  Grace smiled in gratitude and paused on the small platform to watch him stride back to the second-class carriage.

  She returned to her seat to find Rose fanning herself and staring out the window.

  Grace reached across and touched her sister-in-law's thin wrist. She counted a strong and steady pulse. Then she felt the abdomen beneath the gauze of Rose's summer dress.

  Alarmed, Grace sat back in her seat. The baby had descended into the pelvis.

  "Rose," she said cautiously, "when did the baby drop?"

  Lady Rose brought her gaze away from the window and blinked, as if she had been far away, out on the plain among the thorn trees and waterless scrub. "While you were outside," she said.

  Grace tried not to let her sudden worry show. Above all, Rose must be kept quiet and untroubled. And this journey wasn't helping!

  Grace opened the flask of mineral water, poured some into a silver cup, and handed it to her sister-in-law. While Rose drank, spilling a little when the train gave a lurch and started to roll again, Grace tried to think.

  The baby had descended too soon. It wasn't time yet. The due date was more than a month away. Did that mean there was something wrong? And how far off, then, could the birth be? Surely we have time! she thought, reflecting on this deplorable little train with its individual carriages that separated the passengers from one another. Once the train was moving, there was no way to stop it to get help.

  Grace was angry with herself. She should not have allowed Rose to travel. She should have put her foot down. Rose wasn't a strong woman to begin with; the rigors of the journey from England had taken their toll. But Rose would not be dissuaded. "I want my son to be born in our new home," she had persisted in her maddeningly illogical way. Ever since Valentine, Rose's husband and Grace's brother, had written eloquent letters describing the magnificent house he had built in the central highlands of British East Africa, Rose had been obsessed with having the baby there. And to weaken further Grace's stand that Rose wait to travel until after the child had been born, Valentine had written insisting that they come, agreeing with his wife that his son should be born in their new country.

  Grace had written angry replies, but both brother and sister-in-law had preferred to set aside common sense and act out their impractical dream.

  And so the two women had left England and Bella Hill, the ancestral mansion in Suffolk, with all their possessions and the company of six servants, to brave the safe postwar seas and come to the recently demilitarized, exotic, and alluring British East Africa Protectorate.

  Lady Rose leaned forward and fussed for a moment over her rosebushes. Although the five other servants and the family dogs rode behind in the second-class carriage, these rosebushes accompanied the countess as if they were children. Grace eyed them in annoyance; those plants had created more than one episode of inconvenience since they had left England! And then she softened when she saw how her sister-in-law fretted over them.

  Soon now, Grace thought, she will have the baby to center her life on. The baby that Rose had so desperately wanted, even after the specialists in London had pronounced her incapable of childbearing. The baby, Grace reminded herself now, that she hoped would make her brother settle down.

  She sighed and gazed out the window. Valentine was a restless man; this untamed country suited him. Grace could see why he had been smitten by East Africa, could understand his decision to leave Bella Hill in the care of their younger brother and come here to carve a new empire out of the wilderness.

  Perhaps this land will tame him, Grace thought as the train rocked her to sleep. Perhaps Valentine will be a new man....

  GRACE WAS STILL THINKING OF MEN WHEN THE TRAIN PULLED INTO Voi station and the passengers made a dash for the dining hut. She had dreamed of the hospital ship again, and of Jeremy.

  Because of her sister-in-law's condition, it was not proper for the
two women to dine with the other passengers, and so a supper was brought into the private carriage and served by an elderly, respectable-looking African. Grace touched little of the boiled beef and cabbage as she looked out the window at the dining bungalow, brightly lit against the desert night. She watched the men inside, eating at tables covered with proper white tablecloths, using china and silver, being waited on by wine stewards and white-jacketed waiters. The night air was filled with the rumble of men's talk and laughter and with the smoke from their cigars. Grace envied them.

  Rose sipped claret out of a crystal stem glass and spoke quietly of her plans for the new house. "I shall plant my roses where I can always see them. And I shall have an At Home every Wednesday and shall invite all the suitable ladies from the neighborhood."

  Grace smiled indulgently at her sister-in-law. There was no need to disillusion Rose yet; she would learn soon enough the reality of her new life when she saw the plantation and discovered that her nearest neighbor was miles away and that the "ladies" Rose spoke of were going to be hardworking farm wives with little time for afternoon teas.

  Something outside the window caught Grace's attention. It was the man who had earlier helped her up the carriage steps. He was overseeing the transfer of supplies from the train to some wagons, and the supplies, Grace saw, were guns and camping gear. So, she thought, he is a hunter and is leaving the train here at Voi.

  Curious about him, Grace watched him. He looked very fetching in his khakis and pith helmet. When he turned suddenly and met her gaze, Grace's heart skipped a beat. He smiled, and then, as he swung himself up onto a horse, he saluted and rode away.

  As she watched him disappear into the night, she realized that this was the way it always was with Grace and men—and how it would always be. She confounded them, like those that afternoon who had not known how to act around her, or she brought out in them some inexplicable resentment, or she received their highest compliment, like the hunter's; that they regarded her as being as good as any man and therefore worth treating as a fellow.