Green City in the Sun (79 page)

     She relived it over and over, was obsessed with it, not in a loving, cherishing way but fearfully. Mona was afraid of the perilous brink she and David had reached. In former times they would simply have been scorned by society and cast out from among family and friends. But now, because of the nightmare of Mau Mau, because racial hatred had reached monstrous proportions, because the country was ruled by panic and terror and suspicion, Mona knew that their love for each other was suicidal.

     She had to fight it. For her life, she had to. And for David's.

     That morning, in a village near Meru, a gang of Home Guards, on the pretext of routing out a Mau Mau sympathizer, had burst into the house of an African businessman who was married to a European woman. The gang had tortured the man, raped his white wife, and left them both dead.

     "I will help you lock up the house," David said as they entered the living room. "It's time to send the servants home."

     It was an ignoble way to live. Throughout the Central Province—at the Donald ranch, in Grace's house at the mission, in Bellatu—white men and women were locking their African servants out of the house at sunset and letting them in again in the morning. "Solomon has been with my family for years," Mona had protested when the District Commissioner insisted she comply with the rule. "He wouldn't hurt me!"

     "Begging your pardon, Lady Mona, but if he's been forced to take an oath, then you aren't safe with him. And until we find the oath giver that's working in this area, you can consider all your servants as dangerous.

     Geoffrey had then installed a siren on her veranda and two rockets—one by the kitchen door, the other by the front door. Lighted, they shot far into the sky and exploded so that they could be seen by the lookout post on Allsop Hill in Nyeri, a tower built by a Sikh named Vir Singh and manned by Asian Combat.

     Although many Europeans were abandoning their farms and moving to the relative safety of Nairobi or even giving up their homes altogether and fleeing to England, some remained on their land, determined not to give it up. With the help of sirens and rockets, and periodic overhead surveillance by airplanes and helicopters, the settlers stood their ground.

     Her supper had been laid out on the kitchen table by Solomon. Mona said good night to her maids and houseboys and locked the door behind them. Taking a flashlight, David went upstairs and all over the house, making sure that windows and doors were locked, that balconies and verandas weren't harboring anyone. Then he returned to the kitchen and prepared to leave.

     He paused at the door and looked at Mona.

     "I'm frightened," she said quietly.

     "I know."

     "It's dark out. And it's a long way to your cottage. Mau Mau could be out there—"

     "I have no choice, Mona. I have to go. It is past curfew. I will go quickly."

     "David, wait." She reached into her skirt pocket. "I found this in my letter box this morning."

     He read the note. It contained two words: "Nigger lover."

     "Who could have done it?" she said, glancing at the closed curtains over the kitchen windows and feeling the dark night that crouched on the other side. For as long as she lived Mona would never forget the sight of Mrs. Langly with the Mau Mau spear through her stomach, Father Vittorio running and screaming, his cassock aflame, and David, in the garage, falling beneath kicks and blows.

     "I'm afraid you and I are in a unique position, Mona," he said darkly. "Instead of having just one enemy, both sides hate us. We are caught in the middle of something that is not of our doing and over which we have no control."

     Mona held her breath. David was coming dangerously close to rousing the unspoken thing that slept between them. In the past two weeks they had worked hard together around the estate, uprooting the dead coffee trees, planting new seedlings, rarely speaking except on farm matters, and then parting to go to their separate homes before night fell. They had existed in a kind of hermetically sealed world, a sterile place where Mau Mau was unheard of, where hatred and love were locked outside. But this afternoon they had had to address the issue of Bellatu's serious financial losses. And they had worked past the curfew hour.

     Now they were trapped. Night had caught them.

     Mona had an idea who had written the note. She suspected a hotheaded settler son named Brian who had once been arrested for mistreating one of his African cattle boys. Brian had slung a rope through the man's pierced earlobes and then had galloped off on his horse while holding the other end of the rope so that the poor man had had to run behind.

     "Why has it come to this, David?" she whispered. "What have we done to deserve this?"

     He looked long at her, his eyes sad, his face troubled. Then he reached for the doorknob.

     "Don't go," she said.

     "I have to."

     "Mau Mau might be out there, waiting for you. Or a vengeful white boy.

     "I can't stay here."

     "Why not? You would be safe here."

     He shook his head. "You know why I cannot stay, Mona." His voice was soft, barely heard above the whispering rain. "It is one thing to be with you in daylight, with other people around, doing farm work, but it would be something altogether different for me to be in this house alone with you at night."

     She stared across the room at him. Her heart raced.

     "Mona," he said in a tight voice, "you and I can never be. Perhaps in another place, at another time, among people who are tolerant. But we are here in Kenya in the midst of a shameful racial war. We must not take that final, irreversible step because once it is taken, we can never cross back to the side of guiltlessness and safety."

     "Is it so wrong, the way we feel?"

     "For you and me, yes."

     He unlocked the door and was about to turn the knob when a crash came from the direction of the living room.

     Mona's eyes widened in fear.

     "Give me your gun!" David whispered. Then he said, "Stay here." But she followed him as he walked slowly from the kitchen through the dark dining room. At the doorway to the living room he paused, Mona close behind him, and looked around.

     No lamps had been lit. The only light came from the strong fire in the fireplace. The hearth was illuminated, revealing brass coal hods, andirons, intricate brickwork, an elephant's foot holding a poker, and the three leather sofas facing the fire. But there the light dwindled. It was scattered among mahogany tables, flickering on a poorly defined periphery. Things seemed to move with the firelight: magazines; ashtrays; an antelope's foot that was a cigarette lighter. And then beyond inky shadows hugged the walls, hiding bookcases and other doorways. Occasionally a mounted animal head was caught in passing glow; the staring glass eyes of an oryx or gazelle glinted.

     David crept forward, close to the wall. When he reached the velvet drapes that covered the large windows facing Mount Kenya, he stopped, raised the gun, and parted the drape. Mona, behind him, peered over his shoulder.

     The veranda was dark and rain-swept. A single bulb over the steps cast
a misty circle of yellow light upon wicker furniture, potted palms, and red and lavender bougainvillaea petals.

     David and Mona saw the shards of broken pottery, the scattered soil, the azalea tree lying on the veranda floor. A few feet away they saw what had knocked it over: a small, clumsy shape rooting curiously among the potted plants.

     "A hedgehog!" Mona said.

     "No doubt seeking shelter from the rain."

     David turned to Mona, laughing. She, too, laughed, nervously, in relief.

     Then their smiles faded, and they stared at each other in the intimate half glow at the edge of the firelight.

     "I want you to promise me," David said quietly after a moment, "that you will move out of this house tomorrow and go and stay with your aunt Grace. Tim Hopkins is with her; you will be safer there than here. Do you promise me, Mona?"

     "Yes."

     He fell silent again, his eyes searching her face, following the line of her hair, her neck, shoulders. "It's not safe for you to be alone," he said at last, thinking of the note. "Someone other than Mau Mau has threatened you now."

     "And you."

     "Yes..."

     David brought his hand up and gently laid it on her cheek. "I have wondered so many times," he said, "what your skin feels like. So soft..."

     She closed her eyes. His hand was hard and calloused. Its touch made her feel faint. She felt her breath catch in her throat, the sudden straining of her heart.

     "Mona," he breathed.

     She reached up and touched his cheek with her fingertip. She traced the lines of his face, from his nose down to the corner of his lips, the furrow between his eyebrows, the creases at the edge of his eyes.

     David's hand moved to the back of her head. He drove his fingers into her hair. He bent to kiss her but hesitated. When their lips did meet, it was tentatively, as if taking a first, uncertain step. Then she put her arms around
his neck, and she encouraged the kiss, guiding him, showing him how it was done. Their bodies came together in the flickering fire's glow.

     After a moment David drew back and undid the buttons of her blouse. He marveled at Mona's small white breasts, which his hands covered completely. She parted his shirt and laid her palms flat on his chest. When David was naked, Mona saw the legacy of his Masai ancestry—in the finely sculpted buttocks and strong, lean thighs.

     David picked her up and laid her down in front of the fire. He explored her body. He touched her. Mona responded because she had never known the
irua
knife.

     He placed his mouth over hers again, and she arched her body up to receive him. They lay in the dancing light of the fire, black skin against white.

     M
ONA WOKE SUDDENLY
, wondering what had wakened her. She turned to the man next to her in bed—David, sleeping soundly. How long had she slept? She stretched. She had never felt so good. She had never been so happy.

     They had made love several times, each better than the last. David had been taught the arts and skills of his warrior forefathers; Mona had delighted him with her intense, unexpected responses.

     "Mona!" came a voice from downstairs.

     She sat up. That was what had wakened her! Someone coming into the house!

     It was Geoffrey. He was moving about downstairs and calling her name.

     Mona jumped out of bed and pulled on a dressing gown. Glancing back at David to be sure he still slept, she went out into the hall and closed the door.

     She met Geoffrey in the living room, where a few red coals still glowed in the fireplace. "What on earth are you doing here, Geoffrey?"

     "Christ, Mona! You took ten years off my life! When I found your kitchen door unlocked, I didn't know what to think!"

     She put her hand over her mouth. She and David had left the house open!

     "What are you doing here?" she asked again, noticing that Geoffrey's
mackintosh was drenched, that rain dripped off the brim of his hat. He was carrying a rifle, and hovering in the doorway to the dining room were two soldiers of the Kenya Police Reserve.

     "A routine patrol during the night found a dead cat hanging on the gate to Bellatu. You know what that means."

     Mona knew what it meant. It was a Mau Mau signal that the inhabitants within were going to be the next victims.

     "So we're conducting a general roundup of all wogs in the area. But when I got to David Mathenge's cottage and discovered he wasn't home, in fact, that it looked like he hadn't been home all night, I decided to come up here to ask you if you knew where he was."

     Mona clutched the dressing gown over her breasts. The house was abominably cold.

     "What time did he leave here last night, Mona?"

     
Last night?
"What time is it, Geoffrey?"

     "It's nearly dawn. I've got several patrols out searching for him. I've always suspected that boy of being a Mau Mau sympathizer. He might even be the oath giver we've been looking for."

     "Don't be so ridiculous. And would you please send those men outside? I'm not dressed."

     Geoffrey gave the askaris an order in Swahili, and when they were gone, he said, "Do you know where David Mathenge is?"

     "He had nothing to do with the dead cat."

     "How do you know that?"

     "I just know it, that's all."

     "I don't understand how you can trust him so blindly. What sort of hold does David Mathenge have over you anyway?"

     "I know he's innocent."

     "Well, I want to take him in for questioning. It's time he was detained. You've stood up for him too long. Now tell me, what time did he leave last night?"

     Mona didn't reply.

     "Do you know where he went? Do you know where he is right now?"

     She chewed her lip.