My God, had I brought Ralph home to help me with the tusks, or in order to regain my equilibrium with Jules by exacting a final revenge of my own? Could I take Ralph to my childhood bedroom ten days after my husband had died? Was I still so angry with Jules that I could do something like that?
“A beer,” said Ralph, “the verandah.”
The smallest bottles of beer in our refrigerator were the Tusker Premiums with the foil around the top. I took two and opened them and followed Ralph outside.
“Why have you never married, Ralph?” I asked as soon as we were sitting down. “In all these years why haven’t you ever taken a wife?” It was difficult to see Ralph in the odd patterns of light, but when he spoke he contradicted what he’d told me in the market that day.
“I was married,” he said matter-of-factly. “As it is with your husband, my wife died.”
Could that be true? Could he have left such a thing unsaid for so long, could I have simply not heard about it in the expanding smallness of our town?
“She was killed in a road accident,” said Ralph. “She was driving one of our safari vans and swerved to avoid a pothole. A matatu hit her head-on.”
Ralph’s words seemed rote, as if he’d said them that way many times before, and I wondered how often he changed the order in slight little ways. Was he still experimenting or had he long ago left it alone? I considered how I would tell about Jules’s death, whether I would easily find a way. I looked at Ralph but held my next question back, sensing that he would answer it anyway.
“That was in 1966,” he said, “eight years ago now. Her death was horrible, but beneath it all was the unavoidable fact that we had married too young. And I have to say that the worst thing for me was that I felt relieved when she died. Is it bad to say so if it’s true?”
It had been another long and impossibly difficult day. Nothing was impossible anymore, but I was struck dumb by Ralph’s words. Could he be telling the truth, could such a thing be universal, or had Ralph read my mind? And would I speak of Jules this way after only eight years had gone by? Would I say, “He was killed on our farm. A lion mauled him and then he was shot”? Would I say, “Beneath it all was the unavoidable fact that I felt relieved when he died”? Would I say it the same way every time?
I suddenly felt like falling to the ground and weeping, in grief not only for poor dead Jules, but for our inability to grieve properly. All I did, however, was tell Ralph that what he said sounded too cold.
“Did you not love her then?” I asked him calmly. “When she died did you not mourn?”
Did Ralph understand my questions, with their rigid diction and negative syntax? Did he know I loved Julius Grant too much when he died, and that I was furious with myself now?
“She was leaving,” said Ralph. “She had told me as much on the morning of the day she died. She was an educated girl.”
From the verandah we could see into the kitchen. On the counter was the wine box containing Jules’s arm, and on top of the wine box, with its two tiny tusks touching the window pane as if about to tap, stood the model of Ahmed the Elephant, eight inches tall. From where I sat I could see the model well enough, but had I not known what it was I could never have made it out. It seemed a jumble of circular lines and angles, and its bones somehow seemed black, as if someone had pasted a peculiar ebony rose on the glass. I tried to make it be an elephant again, but it was stubborn, insisting on the abstract, the way a fortune teller’s bones do when they’re cast on the ground.
“A couple of nights ago I was attacked by monkeys,” I told Ralph. “They came up from the valley. They hid in the avocado tree, attacking me when I came home.”
Ralph glanced into the valley, then turned to look at the tree. We had put our beer bottles on the table between the two lounge chairs where we sat. In the moonlight Ralph’s pants and shirt looked clean, though I knew them to be streaked with dirt from the work he’d done. He sat near me but his face was impossible to see.
“One of my wife’s complaints was that I was not ambitious,” he said. “She told me I didn’t have a master plan.”
“If Jules had been unfaithful to me with women I would consider getting even in kind,” I answered. “That would have been easy, but he was unfaithful in the oddest possible way.”
When Ralph stood up, preparing to go, I felt relieved. It had only been a few minutes since I had the idea that I could ask Ralph to stay, but now I knew that that was wrong.
“We should sleep,” I said. “Will you help me again tomorrow?”
Ralph said he would help me not only tomorrow but every day, and I picked up the beer bottles and turned to take them inside. Ralph’s bottle was still one-third full but the beer in my bottle was gone. “Do you want to finish this?” I asked.
“If you will allow me I will take it with me in the car,” said Ralph.
That was all. We didn’t speak once we were back in the house, and when I gave him the keys and showed him to the door again he didn’t turn around.
Alone in the kitchen I leaned against the counter and peered out the window at the spot where we’d just been. I could see everything plainly, the pattern of the lounge chair ribs on the moonlit ground, the tops of the trees in the valley, and the movement that their leaves made in the wind. I could even see two wet circles on the table made by the beer bottle bottoms.
If I could see everything so clearly from here, then why, when I was out there, did I have such trouble seeing things inside? Now the little elephant model was before me, still looking out. I touched it and lifted it off the wine box and turned it in the air and set it down again. Whatever happened, I would keep this little elephant as my own. Without thinking about it I reached up and took Ahmed’s left tusk out of his skull again. I hadn’t touched the right one, but it looked locked in place, and this left tusk was worn better anyway, its end less pointed. Though I worried that the solitary habits of my widowhood were starting far too soon, I would have turned and taken the tusk with me to my bedroom, I think, if I hadn’t suddenly been sure that Ralph was back, that he’d come in quietly and was standing at the kitchen door.
“Our time has passed, don’t you think?” I said, but when I turned, my entire body stern, there was no one there to scold. Ralph stood only in my mind, and when I turned again I put the little tusk back in Ahmed’s skull, pushing it in until, this time, I heard it lock in place.
I went to my bedroom alone after that, no Ralph, and my hands empty at my sides. There was a connected bath, and as I let the water roar and watched the room fill up with steam, I remembered poor Detective Mubia again. I went back into my bedroom and picked up my bedside phone: 222-222. His number had been my mantra for so long. As I listened to the phone ring and heard the water in my bathroom splash, I knew, of course, that Detective Mubia would not be there. I saw the charred logs of my husband’s ever-ready campfire spread out before me on the ground, and as I watched them I had a clearer vision of what the next few days would bring. Tomorrow I would begin my engagement with Mr Smith, finally taking the baton my husband had handed me with his note, finally knowing what to do. And with that baton I would run the rest of the race with speed and determination. And I would not pause, this time, until the race was done.
I dialled again: 222-222. Why wasn’t anyone answering at the police department? Were Detective Mubia’s colleagues sleeping or were they gone?
19
A New Mercedes-Benz
When my father came out for breakfast, he had his old Minister of Wildlife uniform on. I’d been up for an hour and had made pancakes, but my father insisted on standing while eating because Beatrice had just ironed his trousers and he didn’t want them spoiled.
“But how will you get to town?” I wanted to know. “And whom will you impress, wearing such a thing?”
“Uniforms impress,” said my father, “never mind whom.”
All during his time as Minister of Wildlife my father had worn a business suit, never this quasi-military thing.
The uniform had been given to him at the time of his promotion to the job, but I could remember his wearing it only twice, at President Kenyatta’s inauguration, and once on Kenyan Independence Day. The uniform was in good condition, dark blue and well made, but it had gold braids at its right shoulder and reminded me now of something worn in a military band. The fit, however, was fine, and since I could tell my father was not going to change, I turned my attention to the food.
Through the kitchen window and across the valley I could see the top of Dr Zir’s house. I could see his bedroom window and the red awning that covered his porch, but I couldn’t see the driveway where our lorry was parked.
Now that the day was at hand, what was I going to do about Mr Smith, how would I resolve things and begin to take up my ordinary life again? I was sure I’d had at least the beginning of a plan last night, but now, standing in the morning light, I couldn’t remember what that beginning had been. I had intended to negotiate with him from a position of strength, I think, since what I had was of value and what he had was not, but beyond that, I no longer had the slightest idea what my first move ought to be.
I went into the living room and looked at the telephone. I would call him and dictate how and when we could effect an exchange. I would tell him I wanted my husband back but that I wanted money too. There was an obscene aspect to asking for money, but what else could I do, in what other way could I be sure of causing the man pain? Ah, but it was a horrible plan. I didn’t know how much to ask for, and at the same time I knew that no amount would even things out. In pounds and pennies how much was my husband’s life worth, how much should I demand?
When the phone rang it seemed a telepathic response, since I’d been staring at it all this time. And when I didn’t make a move, on the third ring my father came out of the kitchen and picked it up.
“Hello,” said my dad, and Beatrice, her hands in dishwater, said, “There is another someone at the door.”
I wanted to listen to my father, but Dr Zir’s big nose was pressed up against the glass, so I had to go let him in.
“Ah, lovely, Nora!” said Dr. Zir. “It’s a beautiful day!”
“No one bothered the lorry last night?” I asked.
“Safe and sound, Nora. I had my security guard sleep on top of it just to be sure.”
Dr. Zir’s exuberance was something I had never tired of before. Now, however, I wanted to concentrate on the telephone conversation. “There are pancakes in the kitchen,” I said, but Dr Zir put both hands on his belly and said no.
“I understand,” said my father, “but I think that’s a very difficult place to meet.”
“Who is it?” I asked. “Give me the telephone.”
“Yes, yes,” said my dad. “I know all that. Who do you think I am, young man?”
“Give it here,” I said. “Let me talk.”
My father had the receiver clamped to his ear, but when I got my hand around it he suddenly let go, throwing me off balance and sending the telephone crashing from the piano to the floor. Its grey plastic cover cracked around the dial and its back fell off.
“Hello! Hello!” I said. “Can you hear me? Who is this? Are you still there?”
“Your house is not in order,” said Mr Smith’s voice. “That is why things have gone so wrong.”
“Tell me what you told my father,” I said. “And tell me what you did with the detective yesterday, where you let him go.”
“Your father has just said that you finally brought my property back to town. Is this true?”
“I have it,” I said. “What about the detective? What else did you say?”
“This morning I saw the announcement of your husband’s wake in the newspaper. My own father showed it to me and made me feel sorrier than before. We were playmates, you and I, and we should remember better times. Also, my father’s memory is shorter than my own. He has forgiven the issue at hand and does not want me to bring it up again. He does not want to think of it. My father is an old-fashioned man. He has stopped me in my dealings with your father and has saved this detective of yours. As I promised, all I did was give him a ride back to town. I dropped him at Nairobi Hospital, where so much of this latest round seems to want to unfold.”
Could I believe that much? Could I believe that Detective Mubia wasn’t lying dead somewhere, as charred and immobile as his car? I wanted to find out more about the condition he was in, and at the same time I wanted to hurt Mr Smith with words, but I didn’t do it. I had learned that lesson twice before. Now I had to find the discipline to restrict myself to the business we were about. “What else were you telling my father?” I asked. “Where do you want to make the exchange?”
“We will meet at the opera tonight,” said Mr. Smith. “Drive your lorry to the National Theatre car park and when the performance is over walk around the foyer with your keys in your hand. The room will be crowded and well suited to a quick exchange.”
“What kind of exchange is that?” I asked. “What about my husband? Are you going to bring a crew to switch the boxes, to put my husband where your goods have been, all while the opera-lovers are filing out to their cars?”
“Please,” said Mr. Smith. “I am not finished. Listen carefully to what else I have to say and be careful, do not call things by their names. Your husband’s death was accidental. If you take time to think about it, you will agree that no one could have planned a death like that. If you want to ask my father, he will tell you as much. A lion works for no man, do you understand that to be true?”
“Kamau was not a lion,” I said.
“Ah, yes, he was not, but listen again. That fool was actually trying to shoot the lion when he fired. That is the second truth of your husband’s horrible final day. Since your husband was the only one who knew the location of my property, though I was angry with him for stealing it, I would have a vested interest in keeping him alive, would I not? What happened at the hospital was Kamau’s mistake, that is all, the mistake of an amateur and a reckless man, something done out of fear and completely on his own. And I have seen to it that he paid for his mistake. He was working for me, that much is accurate to say, but what he did on your farm and at the hospital was the product of his bad aim and bad judgement, nothing more.”
Detective Mubia’s name was on my tongue again and I very much wanted to speak it into the phone, to tell Mr Smith that I knew Kamau was dead and who had killed him, and by doing so somehow twist in a blade of my own. I wanted to express everything in outraged terms, but I said only, “It was all an accident. Everything that’s happened so far.”
“My original idea was simply to trick your father into acting on my behalf, into thinking that my tusks were not real,” Mr Smith said. “I have wanted to disgrace him, to avenge my own father’s humiliation, as you now understand, my whole life long. In the end we must all strive to defend our fathers, however trying they are, no one knows that better than you and me. But things have gone too far now. I actually liked your husband. I never had violence in mind.”
Mr Smith’s voice was close to conspiratorial, as if, through our moment of shared remembering, we had now become accomplices. But did he think I was as big a fool as Kamau, that I would make the same mistakes my husband and father had made before? He knew I had his box, but did he think I hadn’t looked inside?
“So you believe that our exchange tonight will make us even?” I asked. “That after we trade boxes things will be fine?”
“No,” he said. “My father has told me that something more must be done. So listen one time more. Your husband’s remains are loaded on the back of a new Mercedes-Benz flatbed lorry. I bought it only today. When I come into the National Theatre foyer we will exchange keys, not words, I hope. After that we will simply walk away. I will keep your farm lorry and you will keep my new Mercedes-Benz. The particulars will be in the glove box. It may seem a cold solution, but it is my gift to you for the mistakes that have been made. Anything more would be untoward.”
“Untowar
d,” I said. “Untoward” was a word I had always enjoyed. Its meaning wasn’t clear in its make-up, but it had the ability to fit in nicely, to add oddness to an ordinary phrase. “All right, so I get a new lorry, a Mercedes-Benz.”
I tried to make my tone pleasant and I must have succeeded at least this one time, for Mr Smith heard acquiescence in it and suddenly sighed.
“Oh, good,” he said. “I was worried you might not see it that way. Until tonight then, when Madama Butterfly is done.”
I was about to hang up, to turn to the others in the room and begin to think about what in the world I would really do, when Mr Smith spoke one more time. “May I add that I am sorry for your loss?” he asked. “I am a married man. I don’t know if you knew that, but I know the pain I would feel should I somehow lose my wife.”
“Pain,” I said. “Yes, I’m sure that’s true.”
“Everything was an accident,” he said, “that is all. Most of what has happened was a big mistake.”
Mr Smith risked a laugh then, and his laugh was uncontrolled, and telling in its way. It had a rising intonation that said he had been under pressure too, and that he could not quite believe that now it all might end.
“There is someone at the door,” I told him. “I’ve got to hang up now.”
After that I let the receiver move from my ear to its cradle without saying good-bye. Was that a mistake? I had been convincing, I think, but had my deception needed cementing by a solid farewell, an uplifting note like the one in his laugh, a vocal modulation of my own? When I turned to the others they were all staring at me, sober-faced and strange.
“What?” I said.
“You have given comfort to the enemy,” said my dad.
Dr Zir seemed to concur, but I felt quiet inside. I knew by then that the day was mine to win. Mr Smith was like my father; in a way he was like Ralph and Dr Zir as well. By that I mean that Mr Smith was a man, and among men, when everything is finished, there is always the matter of verbal sincerity and form. A man may cheat and he may lie, he may even commit crimes such as those that had been committed against poor Jules, but when one man speaks forthrightly to another, when he comes out and actually says he was wrong, form dictates a reply in kind. That is why Mr Smith believed whatever it was that I had said, and that is why not speaking at the end, not bidding him a clear and cheerful good-bye, might have been my only mistake, the only flaw in my telephone behaviour that day.
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