Green City in the Sun (98 page)

     She thought of what she and Deborah had had for supper: veal cutlets with mashed potatoes and gravy.

     It was too much for a woman her age, Grace decided, and reminded herself that she should draw up a modified diet.

     She looked down at the sleeping face and thought of all the sleeping faces she had watched down through the years. Was it only yesterday that she had supervised the construction of four poles and a thatch roof? And then there was little Birdsong Cottage.

     Grace rubbed her stomach. The upset was getting worse.

     The wind seemed to be stirring up more than leaves and dust tonight; it was whipping up old, forgotten memories. Images came into Grace's mind, and the faces of people whose names she no longer knew. She even saw Albert Schweitzer, whom she had visited in his jungle clinic years ago.

     When the nausea grew and a mild perspiration suddenly came to her hands and face, Grace began to wonder if the food had somehow been tainted. Phoebe, her Meru cook, was normally quite fastidious in the kitchen. Grace hadn't had to worry about food since the days of Mario, who had been known to be lax.

     Then her breath came short, and Grace's worry turned to alarm.

     This was more than an ordinary stomach upset.

     Finally, when a sharp pain sprang from her chest and shot down her left arm, she knew.

     
Not yet! I still have so much to do

     She tried to stand but fell back into the chair, clutching her chest. She tried to call out, but she had no breath. She looked down the long ward at the desk at the end. The sisters weren't there.

     "Help," she whispered.

     Grace attempted to get to her feet, but the pain pressed her back down. It seemed to pin her to the chair, as if a spear had pierced her heart. The
ward tilted and swam around her. She fought for air. An incredible weakness flooded her, as if her bones had suddenly melted. And the pain was immense.

     She heard voices—distant and sounding tinny, as if played on an old Victrola.

     
"Che Che, can't you make these wagons go any faster?"

     
"Do you mean to tell me, Valentine, that the house isn't even built yet?"

     
"Grace, please meet Sir James Donald."

     "Thahu! A
curse upon you and your descendants until this land is returned to the Children of Mumbi!"

     The pathetic scream of a young girl, Njeri, at the
irua
ceremony.

     "Help me," Grace whispered again.

     She clutched the arms of the chair. The pain seemed to be cleaving her in two. She imagined her heart bursting.
Not yet. Let me finish my work
....

     But her only company was voices from the past.

     
"I'm sorry to have to report that His Lordship drove out in his car sometime during the night and committed suicide with a pistol."

     
"I'm going to have a baby, Aunt Grace. David Mathenge's baby."

     
"We all must pull together in our new Kenya.
Harambee! Harambee!"

     Grace felt the light around her grow dim; darkness encroached upon the edges of her vision. She felt all feeling, except for the intense coronary pain, ebb from her body. She was helpless to move, helpless to call out. A strange, floating sensation engulfed her. And then Grace felt a worried, loving presence swirl around her, like a warm mist.

     She bowed her head. "James" was the last word she spoke.

T
HE EULOGY WAS DELIVERED IN THE CHAPEL OF
G
RACE
Mission, where, fifty-one years ago, Grace Treverton had marched up to the Reverend Thomas Masters, who had been sent by the Mission Society to take over her mission, and said, "I want you to leave, sir, and I don't want you ever to come back. You are an unlikable, narrow-minded, un-Christian man, and you are doing my people more harm than good. You may also report to your superiors in Suffolk that I no longer need their support."

     No one attending the funeral today knew of that event; no one, except for a few non-English-speaking Kikuyu, had witnessed it. But it had been a monumental hour in Grace's life.

     The Lord Mayor of Nairobi was telling the enormous crowd now of Dr. Grace Treverton's life, and although the dismissal of the self-righteous reverend was not numbered among Grace's achievements, many others were.

     Deborah, her eyes red and swollen, sat in the front pew with Geoffrey and Ralph Donald. In the simple casket lay the woman whom Deborah had
thought of as mother, a source of love and protection and understanding for as far back as she could recall. Although it caused her pain to do so, Deborah allowed herself to think of how Aunt Grace had so lovingly taken her in when Deborah's mother had left Kenya. A bedroom had been converted to suit a child; Grace had bought toys and dolls; she had read stories at night to an unhappy, abandoned Deborah, had played "tea set" with her, and listened to a little girl's fears and dreams. Deborah remembered her aunt's tenderness, the cool and gentle hand on her forehead during a bout of measles, her patience at teaching, her plainly spoken explanation of Deborah's confusing emergence into adolescence, her laughter that was sometimes so hard that tears ran down Grace's cheeks. And then there had been the days spent in the mission's various health facilities, Aunt Grace showing Deborah how to use a stethoscope, letting her attend the morning dispensary hours, placing her first hypodermic syringe in her hand, explaining vital signs, quietly instructing Deborah in the mysterious secrets of healing and medicine.

     Aunt Grace had always been there for Deborah. It was impossible to imagine a world without her. Deborah felt a terrible emptiness within herself, the sudden, isolating loss of family.

     
We all must die someday
, she tried to tell herself. And it was fitting that Grace had been found slumped in a chair at a patient's bedside.
She would have wanted it that way.

     But it was little consolation to Deborah.

     When Grace went at last into the ground, in a special plot at the side of the chapel where a bronze monument to her would one day stand, Deborah threw the first handful of red Kenya earth onto the coffin. It made a lonely, thudding sound.

     D
EBORAH PLACED THE
journal to one side and told herself that someday, when she was over her grief, she would open it. But right now she was too distraught to read her aunt's private words.

     Wiping her eyes, once again, with a handkerchief, she wondered when the crying would stop. When would the awful pain of loss finally dissolve
and she accept the finality of death?
We were going to work together, Aunt Grace. But now I shall be Memsaab Daktari.

     She was sitting in the center of the living room floor, warmed by the sunlight that streamed in through open windows and doors. Deborah had opened up the house to keep it light and cheery, as her aunt always had. And she was going through boxes of Grace's personal things, collected over the years. Grace Treverton, it appeared, hadn't been able to throw anything away. Deborah found photographs, receipts of purchases, faded greeting cards, letters from Sir James.

     There was Aunt Grace's military medal, the Distinguished Service Cross in its velvet case, awarded to her for valor and bravery during World War I. Deborah came across a small ring which was perplexing in that it looked like a school ring, but that she had never seen her aunt wear. And here was the turquoise brooch Grace had valued so highly and with great sentiment. A "lucky stone" Grace had called it, which was supposed to fade when the luck was used. Deborah now pinned the brooch to her dress but returned the other precious mementos to Grace's jewelry box.

     There were unexplainable curiosities among her aunt's things: an old and yellow clipping from a newspaper, announcing Grace's presence in British East Africa to a man named Jeremy Manning; a menu from the Norfolk Hotel; a pressed flower. There were letters from famous people—Eleanor Roosevelt, President Nehru—and crayoned cards signed with names written in childish scripts.

     Grace had saved everything. It seemed to Deborah that every moment, every breath of her aunt's life had been carefully preserved in these boxes. And now they all belonged to Deborah.

     Grace's house had also been left to her, to live in for as long as she wished. The mission, however, by prearrangement, had been left to the order of Catholic nuns, with the provision that Deborah be allowed to practice there upon completion of medical school. But Deborah didn't want to live in this house. She wanted to open up Bellatu again, to take the boards off the windows, pull the sheets off the furniture, and bring life into it, with Christopher, with their children. She would let the nuns have Grace's house.

     A shadow suddenly appeared in the doorway.

     Deborah looked up and saw Sarah standing there, a parcel in her hands.

     "I'm sorry, Deb," she said softly. "I only just heard about your aunt. I've been working in Nairobi, and I didn't see any newspapers."

     Deborah stood and went into Sarah's arms. They held each other for a moment. Then Sarah said, "Christopher told me. What a terrible shock for you. He also said you're not going to California, that the two of you are going to get married. It's too much, Deb. Such good news following such sad."

     "I'm glad you're here, Sarah. It seems so strange, Aunt Grace being gone. I keep expecting her to walk through the door or to call me for tea. I can't imagine what it's going to be like living in this house all by myself. Will I ever get used to it, do you think?"

     "We'll help you, Deb."

     "I feel like an orphan. I have no family now. I feel so alone in the world."

     "Christopher and I will be your family from now on."

     "I'm glad you're here, Sarah."

     "I came by to show you something. But I think I should come back another day."

     "Please come in. Have tea with me."

     They sat at the kitchen table, drinking Countess Treverton tea. Sarah did not unwrap her parcel right away. "Do you know, Deb, that my grandmother offered a Kikuyu prayer to Ngai for your aunt?"

     Deborah was surprised. "I always thought they were archrivals. Your grandmother never liked any of us. She even cursed my grandfather once. Or so the rumors say."

     "Still, she respected your aunt. They both were healers."

     "What did you bring to show me, Sarah?" Deborah said, not wishing to talk about death anymore. "And what were you doing in Nairobi? Christopher said you had come up with some new designs while you were in Malindi."

     Sarah took the parcel to the kitchen counter and opened it. When she was ready, she turned around and unfurled the cloth like a banner, holding it between her outstretched hands.

     Deborah stared. "Sarah," she whispered.

     "What do you think?"

     Deborah was overwhelmed. This cloth was nothing like the batiks Sarah had made down by the river. This was a whole new creation, something that didn't exist, Deborah was certain, anywhere else on earth.

     As her gaze traveled over the stunning colors, followed the shapes and curves and lines, she began to discern the swirling, blending themes: of a sunset melting into an aqua sea, which fanned out into green palm trees, which curved against the back of an African mother, who walked a red ribbon of road, which led to distant purple mountains, which were capped by silver snow.

     "It's beautiful, Sarah! How on earth did you do it?"

     "I've been working on it for nearly three weeks. You have no idea what went into this."

     It made Deborah shiver. The pattern was hypnotic. The people were like the landscape, and the landscape resembled people. It was so African. So
Kenyan.

     "I want to make dresses out of it, Deb. I've even come up with a new design. Let me show you."

     Sarah draped the fabric around herself; it fell in subtle folds so that the scenes were cleverly continuous. The dress would have wide sleeves, and it flared at the hem, which reached the floor. It was a simple cut, but elegant. It set off Sarah's glowing black skin, her crown of cornrowed braids. "Do you think women will buy it?"