The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer

by Joyce Reardon

  I know not what I’ve gotten myself into.

  And all I want is out.

  19 APRIL 1908—KENYA, AFRICA

  Africa. The dark continent. A man’s place. Primitive and intriguing. The birthplace of mankind, they say. Eden, they say. Skin so black it’s blue. Wild animals in numbers that stagger the imagination. Oh, to have a motion picture camera record this!

  John and I, and three other couples, two from Britain, one from Cleveland (ironically he and John share some business acquaintances there), are escorted into the bush by nearly thirty natives, an Australian guide named Charles Hammer and a Negro gun-bearer named Hipshoo—at least that’s how we all pronounce it. About ten of the thirty are women, two of whom are assigned to me, one named Sukeena, the other Marishpa. They tend to me like court-appointed maids, at my side the moment I need them. Bright-eyed and filled with laughter, they have greatly elevated my spirits, which had been lagging these past several weeks. Christmas away from home was most trying, and though John endeavored to explain to me that I had a new home now, it only made matters worse.

  That home is, of course, the grand house, and what pieces of information we’ve obtained while away are encouraging indeed. The walls are up, the roof going on. It is said to have thirty windows on the front of the house alone. The glass is being ordered for them now. I have continued to collect, starting in the Pacific Islands with lovely wood carvings, some coral and one enormous fish that John had taxidermied. Its species escapes me, though indirectly he’s told me a dozen times as he loves telling this fishing story at nearly every dinner table we enjoy. I believe John caught some two hundred fish during the course of our stay, and with only this one to remember it by, he stretches the story a little longer (the fish too!) each time he tells it.

  But John started me thinking about the house, and now I find I am hard pressed to do otherwise. Planning for its decoration and its completion consumes me. I bought a hundred yards of silk for wall covering while in Siam; beige, and exquisitely woven. Another hundred yards of a similar linen, also for wall covering. (We skipped India because of the anticolonial uprisings there.) John keeps encouraging me to “buy, buy, buy,” emphasizing the enormity of our future home. To my great relief, the home itself has drawn us close together again. We talk of it constantly, consulting the plans, he inviting my opinion. I can actually see it growing as we discuss it, as strange as that may sound. These “visions” of mine seem a preternatural connection to the house itself, effortlessly reaching across the thousands of miles of ocean—a radio of the mind. (Radio has not yet reached Seattle, but it was all the talk before we left.) I have kept the existence of these “visions” to myself—John has no mind for any of it—while all the time actually “seeing” the house grow behind the work of the hundreds of men now on-site.

  A most remarkable thing happened two days ago, worth sharing here. In studying the plans with John, he was pointing out the Breakfast Room, a well-intentioned space left of the Banquet Hall and below the Kitchen on our plans, and one obviously thought up by a man. I’m annoyed with its placement, as its only windows face west into the garden, and any woman knows that it is the morning’s east light that so pleases the morning soul. John argues that I may take my breakfast wherever it pleases me, including the Parlor, which does, in fact, face east and south, but with an uninspired view of the driveway. He reminds me that the home will be staffed with over thirty, and that if I wish to have breakfast in bed every day of my life, so be it. But he misses the point, of course, of the aesthetics of the placement of the Breakfast Room and my belief that it shall go virtually unused because of it. No matter. What was astonishing was this: in the course of our heated discussion, John pointed to a second of the room’s windows in the plans. I told him no, that the window had been lost, as the architect had only recently discovered a need to relocate the pantry from north to south, to provide better access to cold storage and the china storage in the basement below, access to which was to the north of the Kitchen. He’d heard nothing of this, he reminded me, even taking the time to sort through his many telegraphs. But you see, I knew, quite clearly, that this change had been made. I had “seen” the wall being erected already, the bricks laid in place, the trowels tossing the mortar. I knew, and no one had ever told me. When John received a telegraph late that evening, he came to our rooms somewhat ashen. He passed me the telegraph and said, “Explain this, Ellen.”

  “A premonition is all, my love.”

  “A premonition?”

  “Exactly so.”

  “Concerning the house,” he said.

  “This particular time, yes.”

  “You’ve had others, then?”

  “The world is opening up to me, dear husband, just as you said it would. This voyage of ours has already proved most … illuminating. One might even say, enlightening.”

  “And what else do you … ‘see,’ if I may ask.”

  “You dare not ask, I would suggest.”

  “Me? Is it ever me?” He looked nervous, visibly upset.

  “And if it was?”

  “I don’t believe in such rubbish.”

  “Then you’ve nothing to worry about, dear soul.”

  “Do not call me that.”

  “I see you with women,” I answered. “Young women, barely budding. I see you performing unspeakable acts with these dark women with whom we’ve surrounded ourselves since we left home.” I was crying now, but trying so hard not to. I’m sure I must have looked the fool.

  He blanched. “Ridiculous!” A hoarse, dry whisper that I fear even he did not believe. Void of the usual flare of temper, he left our rooms in quietude.

  To my surprise, he returned later, sober and unusually considerate and polite. That night he was husband to me as gentle as our wedding night. He luxuriated me in my own pleasures as he has never done before, and later I heard him crying in his sleep. It’s the heir, Dear Diary, the all-important heir. I am now the vehicle through which to deliver him his lineage, and any other will be bastard. (I fear we have left a string behind us on this trip already!) He needs me in this endeavor, my willingness to take to bed with him, or this dream of passing along his fortune will never take light. It is this need that compels him to treat me with respect and dignity, no matter what the truth of our union be. I do believe I have struck the fear of God in him. But truth be known, it is the Devil, for who else invoked in me such a lie as I told him that night, having never had such visions of him with others. Suspicions, to be sure. But brought forward as images, I do believe that he briefly saw them as well, reliving his unfaithfulness, and that perhaps these memories, so vivid and so clear, afforded him the opportunity to believe that I too had witnessed his depraved acts. Am I to believe he simply invents these things he puts me through when in bed with him? He learned them, of course, and we both know it, and we also know that I am not that teacher.

  And so the little games we play continue. Acting out husband and wife. Reviewing our grand house plans as if none’s-the-worry. Me, beginning to communicate with Sukeena and enjoying her company so very much. He, taking off on his safaris for days at a time and returning with guilt on his face and a fallen impala under his arm. Me, with my visions. He, with his dreams. And my womanhood the secret that holds the balance for both of us. When my monthly issue does come, he shrinks into the bottle and depression for days, only to return to try again, sometimes tenderly, sometimes desperately. I am the key to his future happiness, and he, in turn, is the key to mine. I am beginning to learn the ways of marriage.

  15 MAY 1908—KENYA, AFRICA

  I have not made entries in this personal chronicle for nearly a month—three weeks and five days, to be exact. I do so now, only weakly, unable to hold this pen for long, I am afraid. I have been unconscious for some of this time and delirious for the rest, stricken with what our recently departed fellow travelers believed was malaria. I have lost no fewer than fifteen pounds—my rib cage protrudes front and back like some of the native women
in our employ. I have suffered from fever for days at a time, a complete loss of appetite, sweats and tremors. Only through the tender care of Sukeena and her bitter teas and remedies she has fed me, and my own endless prayers for recovery, have I survived. For these four weeks I have never left the confines of my tent, quarantined from all but the natives. Even John has avoided contact, standing outside at the far end of my tent and talking to me through a small triangle of light caused by a turned-up tent flap. It is this isolation that has worn on me, driven me at times to the very edge of my sanity. Only my rough conversations with Sukeena, an awkward combination of words and gestures, have maintained my link to this world. In my delirium I have traveled to unthinkable places, at times believing it so real, only to have Sukeena pull me back. I do believe that no less than three times I was within a breath or two of death, hovering in a netherworld where at once I felt both refreshed and fearful. This delicate contact with what I perceive of as the other side has left me far less apprehensive of my own demise, and yet with mixed opinion as to whether I was in Heaven, or Hell, or Purgatory. What I know, and know for certain, is that God saved my life, but that the Devil may have bargained for my soul. The exact conversations escape me now (though they were extremely clear at the time), but I know for certain I made promises that perhaps I should not have made.

  Sukeena, who has served me as both nursemaid and witch doctor, as sister and friend, has known the truth all along, that my fevers and infirmity resulted neither from the water nor from the jungle insects that do infest this godless place. Instead my illness was contracted by contact with my husband, for I am plagued by an unmentionable disease carried by men and suffered by women. The remedy for my affliction is most unpleasant, though as I understand it, is far less worse than it is, or will be, for John, who has no doubt undergone, and will continue to undergo, a series of injections to an area of the male body that is also unmentionable.

  This, in turn, explains John’s sweats of nearly six weeks ago, a lingering illness that put him of foul mood, unable to walk, and accounted for his sending for certain medications, of which I was unaware until Sukeena recently informed me. His recovery, however, appears to have gone much more quickly than my own, for he has returned to hunt and safari these last three weeks while I lay here in my tent. (I am told, again by Sukeena, that the reverse is usually true—that women tend to suffer far less than men from this horrible affliction. What curse on me reversed these odds?)

  Husband and wife have not spoken of this, nor will we ever. Of this I am certain. Much have I cried and agonized over my husband’s unfaithfulness, his failure to live up to the mutual consent of our marriage vows and the lack of respect he has shown me. Much have I now suffered for his pleasures, and I ache for a way to return such shame and pain to him. It is the heir, of course. To deny him the right to continue his line, but I cannot throw myself into this cause with much heart, for I, too, would welcome the distraction of children. And yet the thought of joining him physically I find so repugnant as to literally make me sick to my stomach. I vomit if any such image enters my mind. I expel it and swear it will never come to fruition. I have now lived the error of forgiveness (for certainly I’ve known all along what he was up to!). I will never fool myself again. He will be made to beg me. He will be made to cry. To pay, both financially and emotionally, for the trials he has put me through if he wishes to have his heir. This inferno that has lived in my loins and in my head these many weeks has taken root in my condemnation of my husband and my determination for revenge. If it’s money that he loves then I shall bleed him. This grand house of his will never be complete. Construction will never stop. No expense will be spared. He will watch as the frivolity of my mood directs the depletion of his funds in whatever unnecessary and trivial manner I can and do imagine. And he will be loath to stop it, to even try—for my legs shall close upon his lineage forever, like a springed trap.

  The call for revenge drives me to take the soup Sukeena offers. To allow my sweat-soaked bedsheets and nightgown to be removed and replaced, rather than succumb to the fevers. To tolerate the treatments Sukeena puts me through, at once both painful and humiliating.

  I will prevail to leave this tent, to face my husband across the dinner tables erected beneath what appears to be a banyan tree. I will look him in the eye and show him my resolve to right his wrong. And he will know. He will wither under the power I have gained both through my prayers (to both sides) and from my dear friend, Sukeena. She has the power to heal, the power to connect to the other side. Her dolls of black hardwood. Her musical chants and infusions. In what my husband may only slowly come to see, my illness has led to strength of mind, my suffering to strength of heart. He will come to regret his infidelity, ultimately and forever.

  And I shall triumph, Sukeena at my side. She is coming home with us. This is the first of many concessions my husband shall learn to make.

  15 JUNE 1908—CAIRO, EGYPT

  I cannot imagine any place hotter in all the world than Cairo in June. We have sailed down the Nile for days (how strange a world this is that north is downstream?). John is foul of mood, and no wonder: he has not won my affections since late April when he bestowed upon me that horrible curse. And now, in such close company as this small flat-bottomed boat, he cannot find any budding young women to pluck except those of the European families that people this vessel—girls who can speak, read and write—girls who would report him in an instant if he lifted their skirts. He broods and drinks and brags with the other passengers, wisely leaving Sukeena and me to ourselves, except at dinner at a tedious captain’s table where liquor is the official language and all but I speak fluently. I hear him tell his hunting stories and marvel at his ability to win friends, and I watch the women swoon, and I wonder if that is how I once looked in his company as well. I want to hate him, but that vexation is slowly wearing off. Calculated or not, he has taken some time to charm me, has helped me pick out several splendid rugs from Persia (bought in Luxor) and a great deal of woven wicker—baskets and hampers mostly, some seventy-five in all. The prize so far is the hand-carved alabaster. We are to have dinner, bread and salad plates, soup bowls of two sizes, all for a table of forty. It is to be shipped to Seattle within the year, each piece carefully packed. John said that if half the cargo arrived undamaged we should consider it a victory, at which point I increased the alabaster order to a serving for eighty, and watched John wince at the increase in price, although these dirt-poor Egyptian farmers are practically giving away such wares. I could have increased it to eight hundred and not taken a week of my husband’s income. Indeed, if I am to have any revenge on my husband, I see clearly now that it absolutely must come in the construction of the grand house. That is the only weapon I possess.

  I have come to detest the Europeans for their treatment of my dear Sukeena. Of those who acknowledge her presence (precious few, I’m sorry to say), few treat her with any respect above a slave. A French couple was nice to her—the woman offered her some clothes that would fit (mine are far too small for her) and she accepted. A Canadian woman was quite thoughtful and respectful and always greeted Sukeena by name. The rest were brutes. I was glad to be free of the Sun Ra, even if it meant the streets of Cairo.

  Few cities in the world are as densely populated as this one. Brown bodies by the millions, all covered in long cotton robes of soft browns and a few subtle greens. They look like nightgowns—as if everyone has just woken up. The men wrap their heads in white cotton. The women cover their faces—all but the black eyes that stare straight ahead, unseeing and yet all seeing. Water buffalo drag carts through the streets but foul the sunbaked brick and make a stink that rises with the sun. People wash themselves in the river—this river that is the heart of the land—they wash their babies, their food utensils, their camels. The river is putrid and foul—and they practically live in it.

  But to the story at hand! Sukeena and I were bicycled by rickshaw into the city’s main market—deep in the center of humanity
. We were not, by any means, the only visitors to this city, but it felt that way. We collected some trinkets, a good deal of colorful fabrics and a few more pieces of alabaster, these ornately carved. All our goods were stacked high on the three-wheeled bicycle, our driver never hesitating a moment to add to his load. After about an hour of this, we took tea in a small teahouse where young boys circulated the air by manning large fans. The tea helped me to perspire, which in turn cooled me off. I made the mistake of showing my coin purse to pay for the tea—a practice John has warned me against time and time again, and one I just cannot seem to master. At any rate, I committed this mistake (John is right, of course) and must have shown to all those looking a good deal of bills within that small purse, for John had just exchanged some dollars upon our arrival and had provided me appropriate spending money.

  I realize now this must have been staged, but at the time the commotion that arose at the front of the building drove Sukeena and me to the rear, in hopes of escaping the melee. As we slipped out the back, not one, but two very evil-minded men approached, their message clear from the knives they carried: the purse, or our lives. I nearly fainted at this threat of violence, and it did not escape me that as men confronting a white-skinned woman they might want more than just my purse.

  I willingly offered the purse, but Sukeena lovingly took hold of my arm, shook her head “no” and made me to hold on to it. One of the two stepped forward—I believe to challenge us, certainly to challenge Sukeena. But that brave woman stood tall. Her skin so dark it shined blue. “Nubian!” they called out in their foreign tongue.

  And then I witnessed with my own eyes a side of Sukeena I had never before seen. She stared at this man—a glaring stare unlike anything, impossible to describe. She stepped toward him, her body fluid and flawless, moving more like a wave than a step, a snake than a legged creature. And all the while a deep, low, guttural sound pulsated from her throat and chest. This sound seemed to surround us. The man, increasingly uncomfortable with her approach, took a step back, the first sign she had dominion over him. At this point, the guttural sound evolved into language—a tongue I had never heard, not in all our travels in the dark continent. But this man, and his associate, apparently understood the primitive message she imparted. As she waved her hands the man stopped, absolutely still. As still as marble. That knife carried as an ornament, not a weapon. Both men began to tremble—and I swear I felt the earth beneath my feet rumbling—like a self-contained earthquake. Then they folded in on themselves and writhed in pain on the ground as if stricken by some disease to the stomach or bowels. What began as their moaning developed into cries of terror.