Gordon was surprised to hear this. How did Mr. Ross know about Sally Beth, Lilly, and Phil? “Thank you, Mr. Ross. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to track down the whereabouts of my partner and the others. All we know is that they are likely somewhere in Uganda, and it’s impossible to get any news from there.”
“Of course. That’s why I’m calling. My client wants to help and has asked me to let you know that if you need anything at all, please call me with your request. He feels partly responsible for your troubles because he insisted on your establishing a station in Kagera.”
“Thank you. I can’t think of anything at the moment, except perhaps, if your client is so inclined, there might be something he could do for the employees who were helping John. Three have been displaced because of the war, and four have died. They have families.”
“Yes, I am aware of that, as I am aware that there are several refugees from the mission where Mr. Smith often stayed when he was in Kagera. My client has instructed me to let you know that we have arranged for accommodations for anyone associated with Mr. Smith—his employees at Kigemba, people from the mission, anyone connected with him who has been affected by the war. He wishes you to bring them to Nairobi to stay until they have recovered from any injuries and have found living accommodations. Mr. Smith also may have some relatives or friends who might be coming to Africa to help search for him or offer support. They all will need to be housed during their visit.”
Gordon wondered if he was supposed to round up all those people as Mr. Ross continued, “I have engaged the Victoria Inn for the next month, which I believe will provide the most suitable lodging for a large group. Of course, if it is necessary, I will extend the rental until it is no longer needed.”
“The Victoria Inn?” Gordon was taken aback. “How many rooms?” The Victoria Inn was the most luxurious hotel in all of Nairobi, a colonial palace that had hosted every British monarch from Queen Victoria to George VI. Even after the end of the occupation, it continued to set the standard for luxury, becoming the most sought-after place for dignitaries and personalities who came to Nairobi. It was outrageously expensive. For someone to reserve rooms for a month was unthinkable.
There was a chuckle at the other end of the line. “Well, not the whole Inn.” But we did manage to reserve a block of fifteen rooms. If more rooms are needed, we will try to find another hotel as close as can be arranged.” Mr. Ross paused. “By the way, it might make sense for you to stay there as well, to be the host, so to speak, or at least take some time to help ease the adjustment of some of the refugees. No doubt, some will be feeling vulnerable and frightened, and will need a kind friend nearby. I know it may be difficult for you to run the ranch and entertain a diverse group of visitors, but my client would be most appreciative if you can. He encourages you to hire help, at his expense, of course. We chose the Victoria Inn because it is so close to your ranch. I hope you will be able to assist us.”
“Of course,” stammered Gordon. It would, in fact, be quite difficult for him to keep up his responsibilities at the ranch and play nursemaid to twenty or thirty frightened refugees, but who was he to refuse the generous benefactor who had just given them half a million dollars? He reckoned he would be able to survive the ordeal, especially given the fact that the Inn boasted some of the best chefs in Kenya. He hung up the phone mystified, terrified, and excited.
Lake Victoria
John had shown no signs of improvement. Sally Beth watched in anguish as he grew thinner and paler. Four days ago, Alice had promised her that John would begin to heal in three days. But then, she had also assured her soldiers of victory in battle. She wondered if something was amiss, if the fever would defeat John just as Alice and her men had been overrun. She had prayed incessantly by his bedside, but the coldness of her spirit seemed to extinguish every flame that rose up as she cried out to God, turning it into a curling puff of smoke before it even left her heart. Restless and desperate, she sought for something different.
“Lilly,” she said to her sister, “I need to get away from here, to go someplace quiet where I can be alone with God. I just need to get out of this murky air, someplace I can breathe. I see that big hill over there. Do you know how to get to the top? Would you go with me?”
Lilly eyed her with sympathy. “I’ve been there. It’s pretty, and it would be a good place for you to pray, but Sally Beth, it’s a lot higher than it looks, and it’s terrifying to climb. We went there for the purification ritual before I went to battle with the troops, and it was all I could do to make it to the top and back down again. I can’t even think about going back there without panicking.” She looked at Sally Beth regretfully. “I’ll ask Alice to send someone with you, okay?” she said softly.
“Lilly! You flew from Bukoba to the mission in a creaky little old plane—with me flying, and I had never even taken off before. You weren’t the least afraid then. How can you still be afraid of high places?”
“It’s funny. Planes are fine. I can look down through the clouds and not feel a thing; I can even enjoy it. But when my feet are on the ground and I look down and imagine it falling away, I get this crazy feeling that I’m going to jump, and that scares me to death. I get that same feeling in tall buildings. I know it’s weird.”
Sally Beth put her arm around her. She could feel Lilly’s distress. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I remember how hard it was for you at the Grand Canyon, how hard it’s always been on mountaintops. Never mind. I’ll ask Alice.”
“Ask me what?” came a voice from behind her. She turned to see Alice leaning against a mangrove root.
“Alice, I’m glad you are here.” Lilly put her arm around Sally Beth and pushed her forward an inch. “Sally Beth wants to go to Memmee Hill to pray, and I know it is forbidden for a woman to walk through the forest alone. Would you find someone who knows the way to go with her?”
Alice regarded her coolly for a long moment before she replied, “Perhaps I could go with you, Sally Beth.” Pushing away from the tree, she added, “I, too, wish to go to a high place to pray. The Spirit must be speaking the same thing to both of us today.” She took Sally Beth’s hand. “Natiko’s dress is becoming to you. I hope it lifted the spirits of our friend John. Is he improving today?”
“No, Alice. He has not improved at all. He is still fevered and talking out of his head a good bit of the time. That’s why I want to go pray. I need a quiet place where I can be alone.”
“I see,” said Alice slowly. “He did not make a turn for the better after three days as the Lakwena promised?”
“No, if anything, he might be worse. Fajimi’s herbs seem to be keeping his wounds clear, but she doesn’t know why he has fever.” She fought back tears. “Will you go with me?”
Looking at Sally Beth with narrowed eyes, Alice mused, “There is something you urgently need to speak to God about? The Lakwena is unable to discern the light of the truth when there is a darkness in a man’s or a woman’s heart.” She took a few steps forward. “Come. I will take you to Memmee, and you can unburden your spirit.”
Alice was quiet as they made their way up to higher ground. After they had crossed through the deep shade of the forest, they found themselves suddenly facing a cliff more than a hundred feet high rising up before them like a wall of stone. Sally Beth looked up along a precipitous path that had been scratched into the face of the cliff and found herself wondering how Lilly had ever made her way up the side of this mountain. A year ago, such a climb would have been impossible for Lilly, and Sally Beth felt a small surge of pride for her sister’s strength and determination. Following Alice, she grabbed hold of the rock and pulled herself up onto a narrow ledge.
“When you get to the next ledge, be sure you begin the climb with your left foot, Sally Beth,” came Alice’s voice from above her. When you get near the top, you will need to reach out with your right foot, and you won’t be able to shift your feet at that point. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” Sally Beth concentrat
ed on balancing on the balls of her feet as she reached upward, feeling for a place to grab onto the rock above her. This was far more precipitous than she had imagined it would be.
After nearly ten minutes of climbing the sheer face of rock, they reached a wide ledge, and from there the path grew easier. It was still very steep, but she was able to walk nearly upright, using her hands only to steady herself against the cliff side. Then, before many more minutes had passed, she found herself at the top, where she turned to face out over the vast, shimmering waters of Lake Victoria. The breeze coming up from the water below lifted her hair from the back of her neck, cooling her and bringing the fragrance of the monkey-tree blossoms below. Long, silky grass at her feet rifled in the wind, and the sun beamed its soft, generous rays. The lake spread out in three directions, and as she looked out, she knew this would be a good place to pray. She had not felt such peace since before the war had begun.
Alice stood beside her, looking down to the water. “I will leave you here,” she said quietly. “I wish I could tell you to take your time, but we should go back within an hour. My troops need my presence among them.” She nodded briefly before making her way over the gentle terrain toward a grove of trees a few hundred feet away. Sally Beth sat on a rock and faced the water, lifting her face into the tender wind.
She took a breath. Never had she found it this hard to pray. “Lord,” she began, speaking aloud in case God could hear her voice when He could not hear the cries of her soul. After the first few words of invocation, she faltered as her thoughts turned toward John and his silent suffering. Disquiet seeped into her spirit like a dark, oily smoke stealing through every fissure in her fragile armor. She was barely on speaking terms with God; her prayers still felt heavy and flightless, like a bumblebee with stunted wings. She took a breath and began again.
“Lord, I don’t know how to pray. I feel tired, dead inside. I feel like I’ve been fighting so hard and for so long that I don’t know how to just let go and let my thoughts fly up to You. And I feel as if You and I are not friends any more. Have You given up on me?” Her mind wandered into the horrors of the past weeks; she saw the suffering children, the anguished eyes of women, the bloody, broken people who looked at her with hope while she knew there was no hope. She saw the child with the hole in her face, the piles of rotting bodies along the roadside. She saw John, bleeding and white, fevered, thin, and then she saw his face looking at her, his eyes soft and full of wonder. She saw herself look into those eyes, wanting to lose herself in them, to make him lose himself inside her. The only good thing she had known in the weeks of terror and pain was John. John holding her, whispering promises of safety and warmth, John’s hand on hers, and she whimpered, “Lord, why won’t you heal him? Is it because I sinned?”
And then something fell into place, and she recognized the truth of what she had been hoping she could ignore. She had sinned against God, against His holy ordinances. Not because of her desire for John, but because she had lost faith in what God could and would do. She had shut her eyes against the God she had known since her youth and had turned instead to find her hope and salvation in a mere man. It broke her heart to admit it. But shouldn’t she be allowed to love a man? Shouldn’t a woman be allowed to want a man to protect her? What did God want from her, after all? Was she not to know what it was like to know the joy of human love? It didn’t seem fair.
Sally Beth knew she had to really look at herself and her spirit and be honest about what she had done. At last, she sighed and gave into the judgment. Drawing a deep, steadying breath, she spoke aloud.
“I know, I’ve been resisting this confession. I wanted him, Lord, I wanted him so bad I was willing to exchange You for him, at least for a little while. I know I didn’t give him a choice, but did all I could to seduce him, knowing it was wrong, not just because You told me it was wrong but because I made demands on him that he couldn’t fill. He couldn’t love me, but I wanted to make him love me. I know, I confess that sin. And now he is sick, and I’m afraid You will take him from me forever, and all this is my fault. But Lord, please, I am willing to give him up if that’s what You demand. I don’t want to, but if I have to, I at least ask You to make me want to, because more than anything, I want You to be my Lord again. And I want You to heal John, and if it takes giving him up, I will do it.”
Tears ran down her face as she struggled to say the words she had so long fought against saying. She didn’t want to regret her hours with him, she didn’t want to regret the sweet, overpowering pleasure, the feeling of safety and promise in his arms, but if that’s what it took to give him life, she would do it.
“There is a sin in you that you had not confessed?” The voice beside her was hard.
Sally Beth jumped and turned to see Alice standing behind her. “You are burdened with sin? And it’s been unconfessed since you have come here? Sally Beth! You have put us all in danger.” Alice’s eyes flashed with anger as she advanced upon Sally Beth. “We went into battle when one among us was lying in the luxury of her fornication! The Lakwena cannot see through the darkness you brought, and now you have brought disaster upon us all.”
Sally Beth blinked through her astonishment. “No, I did not!” She stopped, then started again, “I mean, I am not guilty of what you say. I just…” She felt the blush rise to her face. “I wanted to, but I did not.” She tried to explain away her guilt, but at last merely dropped her head, weeping. “I’m sorry,” she said at last.
Alice did not answer. She turned, quickly making her way back down the path. Sally Beth followed her silently, feeling the misery of the burdens that had been placed upon her, the burdens that kept growing heavier as she groped for handholds in the face of the cliff. She was moving too slowly. Alice was nearly at the bottom of the cliff, and Sally Beth knew that she would not be able to find her way back to the camp if she let her out of her sight. She quickened her pace, despite the heaviness in her limbs and in her heart.
She managed to keep Alice in sight until they had both made it back to camp. Alice disappeared into her tent without speaking or even turning to look at Sally Beth. Confused and miserable, Sally Beth made her way to the infirmary tent, but before she arrived, Priscilla and Lilly met her. “Sally Beth!” Prissy cried. “I’ve been looking for you. John is awake, and his fever is gone. Oh, Praise God for His glorious healing!’
Sally Beth looked at Lilly, who was beaming. “It’s true,” she confirmed. “He’s been asking for you in between sips of water. I don’t know what you prayed for up on that mountain, or what you promised God, but it must have worked. He’s going to be fine.”
Twenty-Two
November 23, 1978, Victoria Inn, Nairobi, Kenya
Half of the long table sat in a pool of sunshine, the other half under the dappled shade of strangle fig trees. The rain had held off for most of the day, allowing for a cool, almost dry breeze.
John sat at the head of the table. This was the first day he had been able to walk without the use of a cane, although he still limped and could not stand for long. As he looked at the crowd, he saw the faces of friends and strangers he had never imagined would be assembled together in Nairobi, certainly not at Thanksgiving, and he took a moment to bask in thankfulness for all they had survived.
Nearly everyone he cared about was there, including the one person he had been longing to see for the past four months. Geneva sat halfway down the table beside her husband, looking radiant and beautiful. He studied her discretely, waiting for his heart to tell him what he needed to know, if it would ever be free of her. As she lifted her eyes to meet his, she somehow did not look like the Geneva he had so desperately loved last summer in that time of windswept delirium. That Geneva had been so full of sunlight that she had seemed almost transparent, nothing but glittering edges, sharp and diamond-like, and the image had blinded him, had made him dizzy with the desire of possibility. In that splendid transparency he had felt that he could layer in all of his dreams.
This Genev
a was more substantial, softer, and obviously happier. He had wanted to fill in the transparencies, to make her whole. Now she was whole, and that meant she was now both more and less than sunlight. He could see something he had not seen there before: a woman’s beating heart, flesh and bone, and he suddenly realized he had been chasing a dream, a fiction. He had wanted her not for who she was, but for what she was not: he had wanted her restlessness, her incompleteness so that he could rewrite her to fulfill his fantasies. He had wanted someone to save, someone with whom he could script a heroic ending. And he had been a fool.
He almost chuckled as he realized that he had wanted to be her champion, but she had done the rescuing. She and her family had flown here just to help find them; they had hired mercenaries who had come to the mission and saved everyone there from certain death. He could not pretend to play the hero any longer.
Next to Geneva sat Sally Beth, bouncing Geneva’s baby on her lap, laughing at something Lilly, to her right, had said. Although his heart felt leaden with guilt at how he had hurt her, he could not help but smile—laughter danced in his heart every time he caught sight of her. Sally Beth was fun and funny, and she was able to make him delight in the most ordinary of things. If only he could love her in the way she had wanted him to, his life would be simple and serene, uncomplicated. He had tried, but Sally Beth’s safe, steadfast, faithful love was not what he needed. She was the opposite of the adventure and challenge that he craved in a woman. He lowered his eyes in sadness, hoping she would someday forgive him for what he had not been able to do or be.
Beside Lilly sat Howard Graves, of all people. Why he had come was beyond him; it seemed that he had somehow been involved with the mercenaries and had been instrumental in getting everyone here.
John’s life had changed in ways that he never would have asked for, but he was grateful for most of the changes. His heart full, he slowly struggled to his feet. “My dear friends,” he said, looking at the crowd of people and knowing they were truly his friends. “This is the most thankful Thanksgiving I have ever had. If it weren’t for the absence of Pastor Umbatu, it would be perfect. To have you all here, to be surrounded by so much love and support… well, I can’t thank you enough.” Feeling his throat close, he took a deep breath before lowering his head. “Father, we are truly thankful for all the blessings you have showered down on us, for friends, for love, for hope, for healing, for salvation. Now we ask that you keep Pastor Umbatu safe and that you return him to us soon.”
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