Green City in the Sun (85 page)

     And then, suddenly, the moonglow from the window was blocked by a shadow. Mona gasped and sat up. Reaching for her gun, she jumped out of bed and switched on the light.

     She cried out.

     Two Mau Mau, their clothes in rags, one with a beard and long hair, the other with a trusted and familiar face, suddenly filled the tiny room. She raised her gun, started to shoot. And then her eyes met those of the bearded one.

     
"David?"
she whispered.

     He stared at her. A look of confusion swept over his face.

     She looked at the other man: Mario. His face was the same, but his eyes! There was a wildness in them, a savageness that struck terror in her. And then all at once Mona knew: They were after the baby.

     "No," she whispered. "David, don't do this! She's our child!
She's your daughter!"

     He looked down into the crib. His face was like that of a man who has been wakened from a deep trance. He seemed disoriented, as if surprised to find himself there.

     "David!" she cried. "You never got my letters!"

     In a sudden, swift move Mario reached into the crib and seized the baby.
"No!" Mona screamed. She fired the gun. It splintered the wall.

     Mario raised his panga and started to throw it at Mona. David grabbed his arm, but Mario shoved him back, and David landed hard against the wall, dazed.

     The bedroom door burst open. James rushed in, a club in his hand. He swung at Mario. But the panga found him first. Clutching his neck, James dropped to his knees.

     Mona dashed forward and tried to pull the baby from Mario's arms. He wrested the gun from her hand and fired, missing her.

     Then David was on his feet again and wrestling with Mario. The grip on the child loosened; she tumbled to the floor and landed between the scuffling feet of the two men.

     Mona, down on her hands and knees, tried to reach her.

     Mario's gun went off. David flew back, his hands on his chest.

     Mona ran to him. He fell into her arms.

     And then another shot was fired. Grace Treverton was suddenly in the doorway, her pistol held between both hands. She fired a second time, and Mario fell dead to the floor.

     D
R.
N
ATHAN QUIETLY
closed the door to Grace's bedroom and said, "She'll sleep now. I've given her a sedative."

     "Yes," said Geoffrey. He was numb with shock. He had driven as fast as he could from Kilima Simba after receiving the phone call, only to arrive minutes after his father died of the panga wound.

     Tim Hopkins, who had arrived on the scene after the last fatal bullet was fired, roused himself now from his stupor and looked around the crowded kitchen. It was full of soldiers badgering sleepy-eyed Kikuyu with their questions. The oath giver, it was found out, had been Mario. But what David Mathenge had to do with Mau Mau, no one seemed to know. "I say," said Tim, "where's Mona?"

     "I don't know, and I don't give a damn." Geoffrey truly hated her now. This was all her fault. He was glad her black lover was dead, as was their
half-breed baby. It was just punishment, in Geoffrey's mind.

     "Pardon me, sir," said one of the soldiers. "If you're referring to Miss Treverton, she left the house a little while ago and took that path up there."

     Tim looked through the open door. The Tommy was pointing up to Bellatu. "And you let her go? You idiot!"

     He ran out of Grace's house and climbed the wooden stairway up the grassy ridge.

     At the top he paused and looked around. It was a clear night, with full moon and stars. The wilting, unharvested coffee trees stood in thousands of moonlit rows, sweeping away to a silvery, misty Mount Kenya. He turned toward the house. It was dark. But the back door was open.

     He went inside and listened. He heard sounds overhead. Running through the dark dining room and living room, Tim took the stairs two at a time until he was on the second floor. He paused and looked down the length of the gloomy hall. The air smelled old and musty. He saw frail light spilling from one of the rooms.

     When he reached it, Tim found Mona in a dusty, cobwebby room that looked as if it hadn't been used in years. Dominating it was an enormous old canopy bed, its spread and ruffles yellowed with time. And there was a vanity table, cluttered with dried-up perfume bottles. Mona was on her knees, frantically going through a dresser drawer.

     "Mona?" he said, coming in. "What are you doing?"

     She held a shaky flashlight, while with her other hand she madly went through lace and silk and satin.

     Squatting next to her, Tim said quietly, "Mona? What are you doing?"

     "I can't find it," she said.

     "Can't find what?"

     "I—I don't know." Negligees flew out of the drawer, dainty rose-pink nightgowns, and lingerie as delicate as spider webs. "But it
must
be here."

     He looked around. Mona had gone through all the drawers in the room. Things were strewn on the floor—clothing, papers, photographs. He remembered with a chill that this had been Lady Rose's bedroom, closed up years ago. And then he recalled the night of the earl's murder, the desperate bicycle ride.

     "Mona," he said gently, "what is it you're looking for?"

     "I don't know. But it must be here. It was here once...." She started to cry.

     Tim put his arm around her and tried to comfort her. Mona turned into his embrace and wept against his chest. He brought her up to her feet and held her tightly, while she sobbed and cried out all her grief and anguish.

     "I feel such pain! Oh Tim, the pain!"

     He didn't know what to say. But he understood what she was feeling because he had felt it once long ago, when he had come to in the alley and had been told that Arthur had died trying to save his life.

     "Tim! Tim!" she sobbed into his neck. "Hold me! Please hold me! Don't let me go!"

     He tightened his embrace. She clung to him. Tears rose in his eyes, with memories, with sympathy.

     "I feel such
pain,"
she whispered. "I can't bear it."

     Her mouth came up to his. He let her kiss him.

     "Don't leave me," she said. "I can't bear it."

     He cried with her, feeling the old pain all over again and the empty, loveless years that had followed Arthur's death. When she leaned against him, as if no longer able to stand, he guided her to the dusty bed that had made the long journey from Bella Hill in 1919.

     He laid her down and held her, tried to soothe her. She cried in his arms. She clung to him. She kissed his face. She said things he didn't want to hear. And she whispered, "The pain, Tim. Make the pain go away. I can't bear it...."

     And so Tim Hopkins, who had never loved a woman, thinking now of Mona's brother, the only person he had ever loved, and knowing from her hands what she wanted from him, comforted her in his own clumsy, anguished way.

I
T FASCINATED
D
EBORAH THE WAY THE SUNLIGHT DAPPLED
the water. Like amber on diamonds, she thought. She knelt on the riverbank, enveloped in a shaft of golden sunlight, a barefoot little girl whose long black hair had escaped its ponytail and now hung half down her back, half over her shoulder. She was motionless and looked as if she had sprung from the clay, like the bamboo and ferns and river grass that surrounded her. Her white cotton dress caught the morning sun and softened it; the myriad greens of the lush foliage around her cast gentle hues over her nut brown limbs. There was a woodlike aura about her, as though she were a forestland nymph.

     Deborah remained so still because she was watching a pair of otters cavort in a pool among the riverine boulders. Their red-brown bodies were sleek in the sun; their little round heads with short ears bobbed in and out of the water, their whiskers twitching. They seemed to be aware of the little girl as they played; Deborah was certain they performed especially for her.

     As the warmth of the sun penetrated the fabric of her dress, the eightyear-old
was lulled into a drowsy complacency. Her large black eyes contemplated the rippling water, became hypnotized at the yellow, brown, and gray pebbles shining on the river's bottom, like the eggs of lazy birds, she thought, or the castoff jewels from some old king's treasure. She dipped her hand in. The water was icy. That was because it came from the tops of the mountains, Deborah knew, from a place her governess had said was called the Aberdares. This water had traveled all the way down from misty, moorland peaks, through forests so deep no human had ever gone inside, along secret streams, and over waterfalls to splash finally down this ravine that was called the Chania River.

     Deborah loved the river. It was the only world she knew.

     Overhead chatter startled her out of her dreamy state. Shading her eyes, she looked up to see a family of colobus monkeys making its way among the Cape chestnuts. Deborah laughed. She called out to them. They looked like beautiful adornments on the lichen-covered trees, their long white mantles and bushy tails draping the branches like pale moss. They whistled to one another and regarded the little girl with elders' eyes. They were used to her; she was always here at the river.

     Deborah threw herself onto her back and looked up at the sky through the branches. It was a never-ending blue. No sign yet of the rains her mother was hoping for.

     Closing her eyes, she inhaled the heady perfumes of the river's edge: the moist earth; the grass and trees and flowers; the crystalline mountain air that swept down from the Aberdares. She felt a pulse beneath her hands; she heard the wind breathe. Africa was
alive.

     Deborah opened her eyes with a start.

     There was a boy, standing a few feet away, watching her.

     Deborah got to her feet and said, "Hello. Who are you?"

     He didn't answer.

     She studied him. She had never seen him here before; she wondered where he had come from. "Do you speak English?" she asked.

     He stared at her, warily. Deborah thought he looked ready to turn and run. So she asked in Swahili, "Do you speak English?"

     He shook his head no.

     "Swahili?"

     He nodded slowly.

     "Good! I speak Swahili, too! What's your name?"

     He hesitated, and when he spoke, his voice was soft, shy, "Christopher Mathenge."

     "I'm Deborah Treverton, and I live in that big house up there."

     She pointed to the top of the grassy ridge. Christopher turned and looked up. The house couldn't be seen from down here by the river—just rows of dead coffee trees. "Where are you from?" Deborah asked.

     "Nairobi."

     "Oh, Nairobi! I've never been there! It must be very big and wonderful! How I envy you!" She reached into her pocket and then held out her hand. "Would you like a sweetie?"

     The boy looked at the candy in her palm. He seemed uncertain. He was so
serious
, Deborah thought.

     When Christopher finally took one, she said, "Take two; they're awfully good!"

     They ate the candy together, and by the time all the pieces were gone, Christopher was starting to smile.

     "That's better!" Deborah said. "You're new here. Where do you live?"

     He pointed to the mud huts clustered at the edge of the abandoned polo field. "Oh!" said Deborah, feeling a delicious thrill. "You live with the medicine woman! That must be terribly exciting!"

     Christopher didn't look too sure about that. "She's my grandmother."

     "I don't have a grandmother. But I do have an aunt. She owns that mission over there. Do you have a father?"

     He shook his head.

     "Neither do I. My father died before I was born. I live all alone with my mother."

     They looked at each other in the diffuse, tree-broken sunlight. It suddenly seemed very significant to Deborah that this boy also had no father, and she sensed something sad about him. He was older than she was—he looked as if he was around eleven or twelve—but they had something important in common.