Green City in the Sun

by Wood, Barbara

  The air seemed to crackle with tension. Wanjiru's words were firing their blood. The youths kept an eye on the cellblock, waiting for David and their friends; they also glanced frequently at the soldiers on the rooftops, who were training their rifles on the mob in the street.

  They heard the governor again shouting an order for dispersal, followed this time by a threat to shoot if the crowd didn't clear away.

  The small group at the rear gate shifted uneasily. They felt the weapons in their hands, the heat in their veins. Their orders had been to get David Mathenge away quickly and unseen, to a prearranged hideout in the mountains. But the hot-blooded young men were starting to hear not the orders of a mere girl but the thunder of manhood in their ears. These were young Africans who had never known warfare, who had been born too late to experience the pride and excitement of being warriors, who now suddenly resented these white men who had taken away their fathers' spears.

  And that was why, when they saw a lone European youth creep into the alley, a rifle in his arm, they lost control.

  Several things happened at once. The gang of youths descended upon Tim Hopkins with clubs and knives just as David Mathenge was being brought through the gate. In the same moment Arthur Treverton appeared at the end of the alley, on foot, his ribbon-cutting saber unsheathed.

  There was a moment of confusion, which later none of the participants would be able to unravel for the authorities, in which Arthur, seeing Tim fall beneath the blows and kicks, plunged like a madman into the knot of Africans.

  David Mathenge shouted, "No! Stop!" and saw the second white boy fall.

  Pulling free from the two who supported him, David stumbled toward the fight and grabbed for his crazed friends, shouting at them to stop. He saw a dagger go up and then plunge; he reached for it but missed, falling to his knees next to Arthur's body. Shocked, David saw the dagger go into the white boy's back. He reached for it, pulled it out.

  A cry from the end of the alley made the youths stop and turn, startled.

  A white girl, dressed like an Asian memsaab, stood at the entrance of the alley, her eyes wide, her hands over her mouth.

  The group broke and ran. Two flew over a wall; the rest dashed past Mona and disappeared into the street crowd. She stared at the two white boys lying on the ground and at David Mathenge, who was kneeling by her brother, a bloody dagger in his hand.

  Their eyes met.

  For an instant time stood still as David Mathenge and Mona Treverton stared at each other. Then, suddenly remembering themselves, David's two companions ran forward and dragged him to his feet.

  He held back, to look at Mona with pain-filled eyes. He opened his mouth but was unable to speak. Then his friends pulled him away, and just as shouts from the street were calling for police and the alarm was sounded, David ran, leaving Mona with the body of her brother.

  31

  G

  RACE PUT THE SCALPEL DOWN AND HELD HER HAND OUT FOR A hemostat. She looked at her scrub nurse. "Rebecca! A clamp, please!"

  The woman looked up from her instrument tray, startled. With a mumbled apology she placed the clamp into Grace's outstretched hand and looked quickly away, embarrassed.

  Grace frowned. It was unlike Rebecca to be distracted during surgery. She was one of the hospital's best scrub nurses, vigilant and dedicated, proud to be the only African woman in the province skilled in surgical assistance. But this morning, as they worked in the light of the October sun, Rebecca seemed uncharacteristically inattentive.

  "Another clamp, please. I shouldn't have to ask for them."

  "I'm sorry, Memsaab Daktari."

  "Is there something wrong, Rebecca? Do you wish to be relieved?"

  "No, Memsaab Daktari."

  Grace tried to read the nurse's eyes. Much of her face was hidden by the white surgical mask, but her eyes, which avoided meeting Grace's, revealed a highly emotional state.

  Another of the reasons Grace had singled out this Kikuyu woman for surgery work was her even temperament and ability to remain calm in a crisis. This morning, however, Rebecca seemed to be agitated, and Grace was suddenly concerned.

  "Silk tie, please, Rebecca," she said, holding her hand out for something she should not have to ask for. This was a routine hysterectomy. Grace and Rebecca had performed so many together, that they often went through an entire procedure without Grace's needing to say a word.

  But now, to Grace's further surprise and rising concern, Rebecca confessed that she had forgotten to put silk on her instrument tray.

  "Perhaps you should scrub out," Grace said, signaling to the other African nurse in the operating room. She was the circulator, the member of the surgical team who did not stand at the sterile table. "Bring some silk ties quickly," Grace said to her. "And then see if anyone is available to relieve Rebecca."

  As Grace returned her attention to the wound, clamping bleeders that needed silk ties, she did not see the two nurses exchange a secret, worried look.

  "REBECCA," GRACE SAID as she removed her white surgical gown and gloves, "I want to talk to you."

  The nurse was cleaning up the operating room, her gestures abrupt, her work sloppy. A replacement had not been found; Rebecca had had to stay through the entire hysterectomy, making too many mistakes.

  "Rebecca?" Grace repeated.

  "Yes, Memsaab Daktari," the woman said, not turning around.

  "Is there trouble at home? Are you having difficulties with your children?"

  Rebecca had four boys and three girls, ranging from fourteen years old down to one year; her husband had abandoned her during her last pregnancy to live in Nairobi. In all her years of working at Grace's mission, from the day she graduated from the new Secondary School for Girls, through her training with Grace and her years of working in the operating room, Rebecca had been able to keep her personal life from interfering with her work. But now Grace suspected that the responsibilities of being a single mother were wearing her down.

  And yet Rebecca now turned, faced Grace fully, and said, "No, Memsaab Daktari. There is no trouble at home."

  Grace tried to think. It occurred to her that this morning was not the first time Rebecca had acted strangely. In fact, Grace realized all of a sudden, Rebecca had started to change sometime around the day of the great protest in Nairobi two months ago. Now that she thought about it, Grace was certain that that was when Rebecca had started to act oddly, just days after that terrible afternoon which saw the murder of Arthur Treverton and the miraculous jailbreak of David Mathenge. Was that what troubled Rebecca now? Was her conscience troubled by the reckless actions of a handful of her people?

  Rebecca Mbugu was a devout Christian who attended church in Nyeri every Sunday and was involved in many charitable works. Her children all had been baptized and attended mission schools. Many Kikuyu like Rebecca had been shocked by and ashamed over Arthur Treverton's brutal killing and the cowardly escape of David Mathenge. After that day all unity within the tribe appeared to have broken down; Wanjiru lost some of her influence; the Africans had returned quietly to their farms.

  That day seemed to have had a specially hard impact on Rebecca, Grace decided now; perhaps she had been in that protesting mob on King's Way.

  Grace came up, put a hand on the nurse's shoulder, and said, "If you ever need to talk, Rebecca, or if you need help in any way, you know that my door is always open."

  When she left the operating room, Grace again missed the look exchanged between the two African nurses.

  Grace Treverton Mission covered nearly twenty acres and consisted of stone buildings, which were the primary and secondary schools, the hospital, dispensary, nurses' dormitory, and vehicle maintenance shed. In the center of this collection that resembled a small town, Grace's imposing house stood. It occupied the spot where Birdsong Cottage had once been, but it was much larger and had been built, after the fire eight years ago, with an eye to permanence.

  As Grace crossed the spacious lawn that separated the buildings, she wa
ved to people who called out to her, and she heard children singing in one of the classrooms: "Old MacDonald ana shamba..."

  She had a great deal on her mind. There was the news of a yellow fever vaccine that had just been developed in the United States; her experiments with chloral in treating tetanus; the need to hire a full-time laboratory technician; her plans to travel into French Equatorial Africa at Christmastime. James Donald, on a trip into the Gabon territory last year, had met Dr. Albert Schweitzer and had given him a copy of Grace's rural health manual, When You Must Be the Doctor. Dr. Schweitzer had written a letter of high praise to Grace, inviting her to come and visit him at his clinic in Lambarene, and it was because of this and other things occupying her mind that Grace was unaware of anything amiss on this bright October morning.

  For one thing: that the mission compound was unusually quiet.

  She climbed the steps of the veranda, where imported California fuchsias were just coming into leaf, and looked around in puzzlement. It was her habit to have midmorning tea out here while she went through the day's mail, and Mario never failed to have the table set, the teapot in its cozy. But the table was bare, with not even a white cloth over it, and the morning mail had not been laid out.

  "Mario?" she called.

  There was no reply.

  She entered the solid tranquility of her spacious and stately living room. "Mario?" she called again. The house was silent.

  She went into the kitchen and found that the kettle hadn't even been put on the stove. She filled it and placed it over the heat, then went back into the living room, where, on a large, ornate desk that overlooked her rear garden, the morning's mail lay.

  Wondering where Mario, who was as reliable as the sunrise, could be, Grace went through the envelopes.

  In the past eight years James Donald had gotten into the habit of writing to Grace at least once a month, but his latest letter was long overdue. And there wasn't one in this morning's delivery.

  Grace was pleasantly surprised, however, to find a royalty check from her publisher in London with a letter suggesting that considering the medical and scientific progress these days, Grace think about writing a revised edition of her manual.

  The morning's mail revealed another piece of good news: A letter from the bank informed her that the yearly anonymous deposit into her account, which had not been increased in several years, had just been doubled. The Donald farm, under Geoffrey's keen administration, she decided, must be doing well.

  Setting the rest down on the desk next to her journal, Grace called out a third time. But Mario wasn't in the house.

  Returning to the kitchen to make tea, Grace saw on the table a newspaper, the latest edition of the East African Standard, which had been delivered only this morning and which she had not yet read. When she saw the headline on the front page, she put the teapot down and picked up the paper.

  "Oh, my God," she murmured. Then, thinking of Mona, Grace folded the paper and hurried out.

  SHE ENTERED THE big house by the back door and was surprised to find the kitchen deserted, the stove cold. In the imposing dining room the old grandfather clock ticked faithfully in the oppressive quiet. The living room stood in dark, somber tones; the heads of impalas and buffalo looked down on sofas and chairs that had not seen occupants in weeks. Polished surfaces and gleaming silver were the only evidence that the presence of a human, with broom and cloth, ever passed through here.

  Grace paused to listen. Bellatu was as silent and unwelcoming as a mausoleum. She knew that Valentine, overwhelmed with grief over the death of his son, was in Tanganyika hunting lion and that Rose was dealing with her bereavement in the only way she knew how—in the cloister of her eucalyptus glade. But where was Mona?

  She heard a sound. Turning, Grace found that the living room was not deserted after all. Geoffrey Donald rose from the leather sofa and said, "Hello, Aunt Grace. I hope I didn't startle you."

  "Where are the servants?"

  He shrugged. "I have no idea. No one answered the door when I knocked. I let myself in."

  "Where's Mona?"

  "Upstairs. I saw her at the window. She won't come down and talk to me."

  "Have you seen this?" Grace handed him the newspaper.

  Geoffrey's eyebrows arched. "I say! That's good news, isn't it?"

  "I'm hoping Mona will find it so. Perhaps it will bring her some peace of mind. I'll go up and see her, Geoff. Why don't you put the kettle on and I'll bring her down for tea?"

  WHEN THE DEAD are forgotten, they have died twice.

  Where had she read that? Mona couldn't remember. It didn't matter, though; it was true all the same. And that was why she was never going to forget her brother.

  Mona was sitting in the window seat of Arthur's bedroom, looking out over the vast acres of coffee toward distant Mount Kenya. In her lap lay the poem written by Tim Hopkins which he had given to her on the morning of the parade and which she had never had a chance to pass on to her brother. She had read it so many times that she had memorized it.

  "Mona?" said Grace in the doorway. She came all the way in, shivering and wondering how her niece could stand the chill in the room. As she drew near, Grace studied Mona in concern. The girl had inherited her father's dark good looks, but she had grown pale these past weeks. The Kenya tan common to British settlers had faded to a disturbing whiteness that heightened the blackness of her eyes and hair. She had lost weight; her dress hung on her.

  "Mona?" Grace said, sitting opposite her niece in the large window seat. "Geoffrey's downstairs. Why won't you see him?"

  But Mona didn't reply.

  Grace sighed. She knew that Mona's grief lay enmeshed in a complex web of guilts and punishments. Mona blamed herself for her brother's death because, as she had said, if she had not insisted he be the one to cut the ribbon, he would have been safely seated in the grandstand at the time of the incident. She also blamed Geoffrey Donald, who, Mona had hotly declared, was "doing nothing" while her brother was being murdered. Valentine was also guilty for not having handled the African protest better and for allowing David Mathenge to escape; even Lady Rose, in Mona's convoluted thinking, was culpable insofar as she had never been a good mother to Arthur.

  Finally, Mona blamed David Mathenge for her brother's death.

  Grace showed her the newspaper.

  "He's innocent after all," Grace said while Mona read. "This other boy, Matthew Munoro, has turned himself into the police and has confessed to stabbing Arthur. It wasn't David after all."

  Mona took a long time reading it; then Grace realized that she wasn't reading at all but was simply staring down at the page.

  "Apparently," Grace explained quietly, "there has been a lot of pressure within the tribe for the real killer to come forward and exonerate David. They want Wachera's son to be allowed to come out of hiding, but he won't as long as he is wanted by the police for murder. They say that Chief Muchina has fallen under a thahu and is terribly ill. I would imagine that this boy Matthew decided he would rather face the white man's justice than risk Wachera's thahu."

  Mona looked away, her eyes settling on the sea of green coffee trees reaching to the foothills. "David Mathenge is still guilty," she said softly.

  "But you yourself told the police you hadn't witnessed the actual stabbing. And the only other person at the scene was Tim, who was unconscious and admitted he didn't witness anything. Mona, this boy has confessed."

  "David Mathenge"—Mona's voice continued softly—"is guilty of my brother's death because it was his jailbreak that got Arthur killed. Maybe he didn't plunge the dagger into my brother's back, but he's guilty of his murder all the same. And someday David Mathenge is going to pay."

  Grace sat back. The whole nightmarish affair had torn the Treverton family apart. Here was Mona, plunged into a morass of grief and self-blame; Valentine had run away to vent his anger and helpless rage on the Serengeti Plains; and Rose had made herself just a little more invisible among her precious trees, her only
companion, ironically, Njeri, David's half sister.

  "Mona, please come downstairs and talk to Geoffrey."

  "I don't wish to see him."

  "What will you do then? Never see anyone again as long as you live? This grief will pass. I promise you. You're only eighteen. You have your whole future ahead of you—marriage, children."

  "I don't want marriage or children."

  "You can't say that now, Mona, dear. There is so much time ahead of you. Things change. If you don't marry, what sort of life would you have?"

  "You never married."

  Grace stared at her niece.

  Then Mona said, with tears rising in her eyes, "Have you ever been in love, Aunt Grace?"

  "I was once ... a long time ago."

  "Why didn't you marry him?"

  "We ... couldn't. We weren't free."

  "I'll tell you why I asked, Aunt Grace. It's because I know now that I am incapable of love. I have spent many hours sitting here and thinking. And I've come to realize that Arthur and I were different from other people. I can see now that I'm just like my mother, that I was born incapable of feeling love. She never had any love for Arthur, I know that now. She has never loved either of us. When I try to picture my mother, I can't see her, Aunt Grace." Mona's tears fell. "She's just a shadow. She's an incomplete woman. Just like her, I'll never be able to love anyone, and now that Arthur's dead, I'll be all alone in life."

  When Mona started to cry, memories came rushing into Grace's mind: the terrifying February night eighteen years ago when she delivered an unbreathing baby in a train car; Mona's first laughter, her first steps; the monkeylike creature that had come flying out of the Cadillac, crying, "Auntie Grace! We're home, and I never have to go to England again!" Grace suddenly felt every single day of her forty-seven years.