Green City in the Sun (67 page)

     Shortly before the prisoner was brought in, the entrance of one more spectator caused at first a stir and then a shocked silence as she made her way through the crowded African gallery, where the people stepped aside for her. By the time Wachera, the medicine woman, reached the railing and looked down over the courtroom, the Europeans in the surrounding galleries and those down below all looked at her in astonishment.

     There wasn't a person in the courtroom who had not heard of the legendary Kikuyu woman who continued to defy European authority and who was a spiritual force behind the largest tribe in Kenya. She stood at the railing like an empress surveying her subjects. At any other time the white men and women might have found her costume quaint and amusing, or tasteless and out of place here, but there was something, this morning, about the tall, strong body dressed in hides and covered head to toe in beads and shells, her head smoothly shaved and crisscrossed with beaded bands, that struck a wrong note in the minds of the Europeans. Wachera reminded them of something they preferred not to think about: that this had once been
her
land, and they were the latecomers.

     Stories of an old
thahu
, pronounced at a Christmas party long ago, had also made their way into the gossip columns. The Europeans thought of it now, as they stared at the medicine woman, and wondered if she had come to see the fruits of that curse.

     
Two Trevertons dead
, they thought.
Three to go
...

     The Lord Chief Justice, Sir Hugh Roper, in black robes and white wig, entered the court and took his place on the bench. And then Lady Rose was brought in from the cells. She walked to the dock like a woman in a trance and seemed not to hear a court official read the indictment. She stood like a statue, her eyes glazed and barely blinking. The courtroom was silent as everyone stared at the pale, slight figure. Many were mildly disappointed; she didn't look like an adulteress or murderess at all.

     As the counsel for the Crown stood to make his opening address, Rose suddenly turned in her seat and looked up, over her shoulder, at the African gallery.

     Wachera's eyes met hers.

     Rose was taken back twenty-six years; she was standing again on the
ridge, holding baby Mona in her arms and looking down upon an African girl with a baby on her back.

     Wachera was also remembering, as she now looked down upon the
mzunga
, that day of fifty-two harvests ago when she had looked up at the ridge and had seen the vision in white, wondering what it could mean.

     And then the trial began.

     It was eventually to run for ten weeks, in which time witness after witness was called, from the most obscure worker on the Treverton Estate who had never even laid eyes on his employer, to members of the family themselves. Specialists were brought in. They included Dr. Forsythe, the pathologist, who demonstrated by matching a flaw in the knife blade to a groove in Lord Treverton's rib, that this was indeed the murder weapon, and who had determined upon autopsy that the earl was already dead from massive internal bleeding when the bullet was put through his skull.

     Servants were questioned. "Are you an askari on the Treverton Estate?"

     "Yes, bwana."

     "Do you know during which hours you were patrolling the grounds on the night of April the fifteenth?"

     "Yes, bwana."

     "Can you tell time?"

     "Yes, bwana."

     "Please look at the courtroom clock on that wall over there and tell us what time it is."

     The askari squinted at the clock and said, "It is lunchtime, bwana."

     So much of the questioning, on both sides, seemed tedious and irrelevant.

     "You are Lady Rose's dressmaker?"

     "I am."

     "Was Lady Rose in the habit of coming to Nairobi for fittings or did you go up to the house?"

     "We worked it both ways, depending on the rains."

     On days when gardeners were questioned, or when the most insignificant of evidence, such as the earl's letters to his wife from his post on the northern border, was studied to the point of madness, the spectators
thinned out, and there were even empty seats. But as the barristers slowly worked their way to the crux of the trial—the love affair and the murder itself—the audience grew in size again.

     Njeri Mathenge, the countess's personal maid, was called to testify. While she was being questioned, her eyes moved nervously from Lady Rose to Wachera up in the gallery back to Lady Rose.

     "Were you with your mistress when she found the escaped prisoner in the greenhouse?"

     "Yes."

     "Speak up, please."

     "Yes."

     "How often did the memsaab visit the man in the greenhouse?"

     "Every day."

     "At night as well?"

     "Yes."

     "Did you ever observe them while they were in the greenhouse?"

     Njeri looked at Lady Rose.

     "Please answer the question."

     "I looked through the window."

     "And what did you see?"

     Njeri's eyes shifted to her mother's co-wife, Wachera, in the gallery. Then she looked at David. And back to Rose.

     "What did you see, Miss Mathenge?"

     "They were sleeping."

     "Together?"

     "Yes."

     "In the same bed?"

     "Yes."

     "Were they wearing clothes?"

     Njeri started to cry.

     "Please answer the question, Miss Mathenge. Were Lady Rose and Carlo Nobili naked in bed together?"

     "Yes."

     "Did you ever observe them to do anything other than sleep?"

     "They ate supper together."

     "Did you ever observe acts of a sexual nature between them?"

     Njeri bowed her head, and tears fell onto her hands.

     "Miss Mathenge, did you ever see Lady Rose and Carlo Nobili engage in sexual intercourse?"

     "Yes."

     "How many times?"

     "Many..."

     Through it all, Rose sat pale and silent in the dock, as though far removed from the courtroom. She never spoke, never looked at the witnesses, seemed not even to be aware of what was going on. If she was innocent, people started to ask themselves, then why didn't she speak up?

     "S
HE WON'T TALK
to me," Mona said when she joined the others in the small, private members' room at the club. A plate of sandwiches sat untouched in the middle of the table, but the whiskey and gin were being paid earnest attention to.

     The strain of the trial was starting to show on the young woman. Her dark eyes stood out on her pale face. "I said to her, 'Mother, you have to speak up and defend yourself.' But she just kept stitching that blasted tapestry."

     "Is it possible," James said, "that she did it?"

     Grace shook her head. "I don't think Rose is capable of murder. Especially in that way—a knife so expertly used."

     "There was a time when we wouldn't have thought my mother capable of harboring an escaped prisoner of war and having a secret love affair with him!"

     Grace looked at her niece. "Don't be so hard on your mother, Mona. Think how she must be suffering."

     "She certainly didn't think how we might suffer because of her selfishness! All those horrid people in the courtroom, their ears wagging as that wretched prosecutor parades our family business in public! And
you!"
She
turned to Barrows, her mother's lawyer. "Why did you bring up that awful Miranda West business?"

     "I had to, Miss Treverton," he said quietly in his South African drawl. "The Crown is trying to build its case on your mother's moral turpitude. He's convincing the jury that your father was a saint, that he had practically done the world a favor by killing the Italian, and that his own death was the greatest loss Kenya has ever known. By bringing up his affair with Mrs. West, I reminded the jury that Valentine Treverton was a man with weaknesses and flaws and pointed out that long before your mother embarked upon her one adulterous affair, your father had already engaged in several."

     Tears rose in Mona's eyes. She wished with all her heart that Geoffrey were home. He was due to arrive any day.

     "What do you suppose they're building in the glade?" Tim Hopkins asked, to change the subject and ease the tension around the table. "It looks like some sort of pagan temple."

     Because she could not be away from her mission for long, Grace made frequent trips back up north and, while there, checked on the progress of the mysterious concrete structure Rose had commissioned to be built among her eucalyptus trees. It was quite large—a good deal of the forest had had to be cleared for it—and decidedly churchlike. The teams worked night and day, as if racing against time. Grace had ventured a look inside and had found it curiously empty. Marble columns supported a vaulted ceiling; the walls and floor were bare. But last week something had been installed inside, and the building was no longer a mystery.

     The workers had placed an alabaster sarcophagus in it.

     And now stonecutters were etching words into the lintel over the doorway: SACRARIO DE DUCA D'ALESSANDRO.

     "It is Carlo Nobili's final resting place," she said quietly.

     "A
crypt?"
said Mona. "She's burying him in her glade behind my house? That's monstrous!"

     "Mona—"

     "I'm going out for some air, Aunt Grace. And then I think I'll have supper alone in my room."

     Grace tried to stop her, but Mona was already crossing the spacious lobby of the club, causing heads to turn and whispers to follow her.

     Out on the street in front of the club Mona stopped and leaned against a sycamore tree, her hands in the pockets of her slacks. People in passing cars stared at her; a group of women on the veranda murmured while casting glances her way. An old newspaper fluttered in the street. It was not a Kenya paper but a piece of the
New York Times
, with its front-page story of the continuing trial of the scandalous Treverton murder. Mona fought back her tears and anger, her feeling of humiliation and of having been betrayed.

     Across the street, gathered in the brief, smoky twilight, a group of Africans in military uniforms talked quietly while passing around a single cigarette. When a white couple came along, the soldiers stepped off the sidewalk and tipped their hats as required, and Mona realized that one of them was David Mathenge.

     He had sat in the gallery every single day since the beginning of the trial. He and his mother watched the proceedings like vultures, Mona thought, like two big blackbirds waiting for their prey to breathe its last. She hated them, just as she hated the white people who came to listen and to gloat and to watch the ignoble downfall of the family they had once worshiped.

     David happened to look her way. Their eyes met.

     "Mona!" called a voice from behind.

     She turned. Grace was at the entrance of the club, waving to her niece to come inside.

     "What is it?" Mona said as she came up the steps.

     "I've a surprise for you! Come along!"

     Puzzled, Mona followed her aunt into the lobby and found a knot of people standing beside the enormous flagstone fireplace. When she saw who was at the center of the group, Mona cried, "Geoffrey!" and ran to him.

     He caught her in his arms and hugged the breath out of her. "Geoffrey!" she cried again. "How wonderful to see you!"

     "Mona, you're as beautiful as ever. I had hoped to get home sooner, but you know military red tape!" He drew back and gazed solemnly at her. "I'm so sorry about Uncle Val and Aunt Rose."

     She looked up at Geoffrey and thought he had gotten taller and more handsome in his five years in Palestine. He looked so much older, too, as though the hot wind and sands of the Middle East had weathered him. Although
only thirty-three, Geoffrey Donald was graying at the temples; his mustache, too, was silvering. Mona saw the lines of war and hardship etched around his eyes and recalled how close he had come, on more than one occasion, to being killed by a terrorist bomb.

     They hadn't spoken of marriage since just before the war, when she told him she needed time. He hadn't brought it up in his letters, no doubt waiting for her to make the next move, as she definitely was going to do, now that he was home.
I shall be able to see my way through this nightmare
, she thought,
now that you're here
....

     "And this is Ilse," he said, stepping aside and holding his hand out to a young blond woman.

     "Ilse?" said Mona.

     "My wife. Ilse, this is Mona, the dear old friend I've told you so much about."

     Mrs. Donald extended her hand, but Mona could only stare at the blond hair, the blue eyes, and shy smile.

     "I'm afraid Ilse doesn't speak much English."

     Mona looked at Geoffrey. "Your wife? I didn't know you had gotten married."