Green City in the Sun (35 page)

     "I must say your manners are appalling."

     Mona looked at Charlotte.

     "I was talking to you. Are you deaf?" Charlotte turned to Melanie and said in a suffering tone, "She's my cousin, and so
I
am expected to show her off to the school! What will they think of her? Of
me?
"

     Melanie laughed. "Trudy Greystone bet with me that your cousin would wear a grass skirt and have a bone through her nose."

     Mona's chin trembled. "Kenya's not like that."

     "What's it like then? Do you live in a hut?"

     "We have a
grand
house."

     "Bellatu," said Charlotte. "Whatever is
that
name supposed to mean?"

     "It means—" Mona frowned. The name had something to do with
this
house, Bella Hill; she knew they were somehow tied together. It had to do with the fact that this glorious mansion was more her house than Charlotte's, that her aunt and uncle and cousin were only guests here,
caretakers
, Rose had once said. But it was all too complex for Mona.

     "Oh, well," said Charlotte with a martyr's sigh, "you'll learn manners at the academy. They'll see to that!"

     M
ONA FOUND
N
JERI
sleeping on a cot outside her door, and she woke her, whispering, "Get up! We're running away!"

     Njeri rubbed her eyes. "What is wrong, Memsaab Mdogo?" she said sleepily, calling her by the name Rose insisted she use, which means "little mistress."

     "Get up! We're running away."

     Mona was wearing her riding habit, red velvet jacket and white breeches. It seemed more suited to running away than a dress did. And she carried a bundle of things tied in a pillowcase: her hairbrush and comb, facecloth, a half-eaten bag of sweets, and a few articles of clothing.

     "Where will we go, Memsaab Mdogo?" Njeri asked, getting up from the cot and shivering.

     "Just away. They must not find us for a long time. They must think I am dead. And when they do find me, they will never think of sending me away from Kenya ever again."

     "But I don't want to run away."

     "You'll do what I say. You heard what my uncle called you. A pickaninny! You know what that means, don't you?"

     Njeri shook her head.

     "It means
stupid.
You're not going to be stupid, are you?"

     "But I don't want to run away!"

     "Be quiet and come along. We'll stop first in the kitchen and get some bully beef and maize flour. We shall be gone a long time, and we'll need food."

     Unhappily Njeri followed her down the dark hall, terrified of its shadows and peculiar flat people on the walls. Mona carried a flashlight, which spread a dim beam on the carpet before them. Their steps were muffled on the thick weave; the house slept on in night silence.

     At the end of the hall the flashlight swept briefly over something that caught Mona's attention. She stopped and stared up at the portrait, holding the light on a familiar face.

     "Why," she breathed, "it's Aunt Grace! Looking ever so pretty!"

     Njeri looked up, mystified. She recognized Memsaab Daktari.

     "But hasn't she got funny clothes on?" Mona said. Then she realized that it wasn't her aunt at all, but a woman who looked very much like her.

     Mona moved the light away from the portrait and resumed walking down the hall without having realized two things: that the face she had just seen was that of the grandmother she had never known—Grace and Valentine and Harold's mother, Mildred—and that its features bore a striking resemblance to her own.

     When they rounded a corner, Mona stopped short, and Njeri bumped into her. "Someone's coming!" Mona hissed. They scrambled back around and ducked into an alcove.

     The two children watched with wide eyes, their teeth chattering with fear and cold, as a portly figure in a dressing gown went up to a closed door. It was Uncle Harold. He knocked and entered, closing the door behind himself.

     When she heard voices inside the room, Mona crept forward and pressed her ear to the wood. She recognized her uncle's voice and then her mother's.

     "I'm sorry to disturb you at this hour, Rose," Harold was saying, "but what I have to tell you is very important and can't wait until morning. I'll come right to the point. Rose, you've got to tell Valentine to stop his spendthrift ways."

     "Whatever are you talking about?"

     "He hasn't answered any of my letters. The next shall come from the family solicitor, you can tell him that for me. Rose? Will you please put down that yarn and look at me?"

     There was a murmur, and then Harold boomed, "At the rate Valentine is going, there will be nothing left of Bella Hill! He's selling land right and left. It's barely half the size it was ten years ago."

     "But he
owns
Bella Hill, Harold," said Rose's gentle voice. "He can do what he likes with it. After all, it's not as if this were
your
house."

     "Rose, I appreciate the fact that my brother allows us to live here. But I cannot stand by while he ruins the family inheritance and home. You must tell him to curtail his spending."

     "Oh, Harold, you're imagining things."

     "Rose, the coffee farm is running at a loss. It has been ever since he started it."

     Mona heard her mother laugh. "What nonsense! We have parties every weekend, house guests. We are hardly impoverished, Harold!"

     He made an exasperated sound. "And another thing," he said. "Here. Read this. It's a letter from Grace. She wants you to come home at once. It's something to do with your son."

     "Poor little Arthur. He can't help being a clumsy boy. You know, he's forever falling down, banging his head, cutting his elbows. It infuriates Valentine."

     "Rose, this is serious. Read the letter."

     "Harold, I'm frightfully tired right now."

     "There's one more thing, Rose. You can't enroll Mona in Farnsworth's tomorrow."

     "Why ever not?"

     "Because it's an expense Valentine cannot afford. I won't have him selling off more Bella Hill land just to send his daughter to an expensive school."

     "Of
course
we can afford to send Mona to Farnsworth's!"

     "Rose, you are living in a fool's paradise. Hasn't Valentine told you anything about your financial affairs? That farm is being run on a bank overdraft and proceeds from Bella Hill sales! It's only a matter of time before the whole thing collapses!"

     "Mona is going to the academy, and that's all there is to it."

     "I'm afraid not, Rose. In order for her to attend that school, she must have a sponsor here in England who will be responsible for her. That is one of the rules. I am taking back my offer to be that guardian. You must take Mona back with you to Kenya, on the first available boat. As far as I'm concerned, the matter is closed."

     "Then I shall find someone else to sponsor her."

     "Who? You have no family left, Rose. Do be reasonable. Keep the child in Kenya, where you can be near her. I know for a fact that Lady Ashbury's niece attends the European school in Nairobi and that it is very highly regarded. You'll see, Rose. It's the best thing."

     On the other side of the door the two children looked at each other. Then Mona slumped against the wall and smiled.

     She was going home.

D
AKTARI
! D
AKTARI
!"

     Grace looked up to see Mario running into the compound.

     He thundered up the steps of her new thatch clinic, past the crowd of patients waiting on the veranda, and burst in. "Memsaab Daktari!" he cried breathlessly. "Come quick!"

     In their years together Grace had rarely seen Mario so excited. "What is it?" she said as she handed the child she had been examining to the nurse.

     "My sister! She is
dying!"

     Grabbing her medical bag and pith helmet, Grace followed Mario down the veranda steps and through the compound that was formed by six thatch buildings. They ran between clotheslines where mattresses and sheets from the inpatient ward were airing, past the goat and sheep paddock, through the cluster of huts where her ten employees were housed, out through the fence that enclosed Grace Treverton Mission, across Valentine's polo field, past Wachera's hut, across the wooden bridge, and up the opposite slope, where women harvesting ripe beans in the fields paused to watch the memsaab
fly by, her white skirt billowing, the familiar black bag in her hand.

     Mario led his mistress along narrow paths between acres of maize that was in cob and taller than them, across patches of sweet potatoes and pumpkins growing over the ground in tangled mats, past one village, then another, until Grace was out of breath and clutching her side.

     At last they came to Mario's village, nestled in the hills overlooking the Chania River, a collection of round mud huts with cone-shaped papyrus roofs giving off spirals of blue smoke. When they entered the village, Grace saw that no one was working; people were standing about, and a strange silence hung in the air. She pushed through and saw to her surprise one of the priests from the Catholic mission, a young man named Father Guido, fetching something from the pack on his bicycle.

     "What has happened, Father?" she asked as she drew close.

     His face looked darkly angry beneath the broad rim of his sun hat. His black cassock was dusty and sweat-stained; he, too, had come in a hurry. "There has been another secret initiation, Doctor," he said. And then Grace saw what he was retrieving from his pack: items used in performing the last rites.

     "Dear God," she whispered, and followed him.

     Several elders barred the way to the hut; mothers and aunts raised their hands and cried for the
wazungu
not to interfere.

     "Who is in there with her?" Grace asked Father Guido.

     "Wachera Mathenge, the medicine woman."

     "How did you hear about this?"

     "From Mario. This village is nearly all Catholic. The girl is named Teresa; she attends our school.
Kwenda!"
the priest said to the grim-faced elders. "You must let me enter! Teresa belongs to the Lord!"

     Grace studied the fixed expressions of the men and women, law-abiding Kikuyu who normally deferred to the authority of a priest. But this was no ordinary situation.

     The missionaries had been trying for a long time to abolish the practice of circumcision on girls, which involved the surgical removal of the clitoris. It was officially outlawed in Kenya and called for a fine or imprisonment for anyone caught engaging in the ritual. On the surface the initiations appeared
to have stopped. But in fact, they had only gone underground. Grace knew that such savage rites were now being conducted in secret places where the local police could not find out about them.

     "Please let me see her," Grace said in Kikuyu. "Perhaps I can help."

     
"Thahu!"
cried an old woman who must have been Teresa's grandmother.

     Grace felt Father Guido shift nervously at her side. The entire population of the village stood around them in a tight circle; tension and hostility were in the air. "When did the initiation take place?" she asked the priest quietly.

     "I do not know, Dr. Treverton. I only know that twelve girls were involved and that Teresa is dying from an infection to the wound."

     Grace appealed to the elders. "You
must
let us enter!"

     But it was useless. For all their education and Christianizing these people were still strongly tied to the old ways. They went to church every Sunday at Father Guido's mission and then went into the forest to practice the ancient barbaric rituals.

     "Shall I call the District Officer?" Grace said. "You will all be put in jail! He will take away all your goats and burn your huts to the ground! Is that what you want?"

     The elders remained impassive. They blocked the doorway of the hut with arms folded.