Everfair (31 page)

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She woke early. An effect of age. It was still dark. Last night she'd hung her repeater by a ribbon from the hammock's headbar. She refrained from setting it off immediately. Instead she tied it in place around her neck and slipped silently to the floor, deftly avoiding brushing against Rosalie on her way to the bath. Sheltering the watch in between her hands and chest, she made it ring. Two minutes past five. There remained almost an hour till sunrise. She changed back into the tunic and trousers she'd worn yesterday. Attending the Mote hadn't soiled them much, and today she would toil heavily, loading and unloading freight.

The melon was a bit overripe, but the papaya seemed fine. Daisy cradled it in her arms, shifting it back and forth as she tried to unlock the door and depart without rousing Rosalie, as she normally did on her way out.

She failed. “Mama? Are you going? What about me?” Obviously not completely awake, her daughter blinked at the pale sliver of morning light showing where Daisy had cracked the door open. “Wait up—I'll only be a moment.”

“I'll be outside.”

Resisting the temptation to walk off on her own—that was no way to treat Rosalie—Daisy sat down on the cool grey stairs. Anyway, her ultimate destination, the airfield, wasn't a secret.

Her neighbors were mostly musicians and sailors of the rivers and the air. One man, Mola, had also been given a role in
Wendi-La,
though he played not the boy with his name, but The Elephant Doctor. The apartments across the yard where he and his wife and brothers-in-law stayed were dark-windowed; naturally, they'd have gone to bed late after the show. But life stirred in the residence above his—silhouettes passing to and fro, then little Za coming down to loose and feed the chickens.

She thought she shouldn't have gone to the show. But it had been a chance to see Lisette again. And Rima Bailey, naturally. Both women had looked annoyingly well, and their hands had stayed joined like lovers' after the new ing
é
nue pulled her mentor out onto the stage. It had seemed they'd be up there together always, that the wild acclamation would never stop.

Everfair's anthem had risen in Daisy's throat unbidden, but she'd known from the first line that it was the only way to make that endless moment end. Even then, though, Rima had known all the words. The song hadn't separated them in the least. Daisy left the Circus as quickly as possible.

A speckled hen half-flew, half-leapt up the steps below. Did she expect Daisy to feed her? But Rosalie opened their door, emerging at last, scaring off the bird, and they set on their way. Without the detour to Bafwaboli Street she'd originally intended.

An airfield had been established on acres formerly given over to the cultivation of maize and cassava. This lay west of town; Bafwaboli was in the opposite direction. Daisy and Rosalie walked wordlessly. By the time they reached the field, the sun was just topping the surrounding verdant jungle. It peeped between clouds for a moment, gilding the rain-wet gas bags and gondolas. Tethered aircanoes cast huge shadows on thatch-roofed warehouses, open-sided or mat-walled according to the needs and resources of the various goods distributors. Suddenly the sun retired, probably for the day.

Daisy, accompanied by Rosalie, reported to the chief coordinator in his roundhouse at the field's center. She used his knife to slice and score the papaya, sharing it with him.

“I thank you.” Mr. Beamond was Welsh, but since moving to Everfair, Daisy had learned to ignore these little differences. He wiped his face with a spotted bandana. “It's a shame I can't return your kind attentions with a little extra in the way of work assignments. But I can't—at least, not now. Perhaps a bit later?”

Daisy didn't understand. No aircanoes were due till next market, but— “There are watercanoes at the landing, waiting for their loads. Aren't there? Yesterday—”

“Those? They're all seized.”

Every visiting French and Belgian vessel had been commandeered by order of King Mwenda. That was nearly all of them. Those Daisy had seen before the Mote were empty, then, and would stay empty for the time being, till the newly reconstituted army decided their disposition. So Mr. Beamond said.

And so it proved. Carefully descending the muddy slope to the riverside, Daisy and Rosalie found the paddlers gathered morosely about their beached canoes. Their white passengers and captains were nowhere in sight; overnight, the men said, they'd disappeared. Gaol was the best guess.

“And will you fight for their release?” Daisy's Kee-Swa-Hee-Lee was sharp with practice, but despite that, her question was misunderstood. It gradually became obvious that the paddlers wondered why they should wish their tormentors free.

Things had not improved so much as she had hoped in Leopold's other colonies since the end of his reign. These men didn't complain of conditions, but their manner made that evident.

“Will you return without them, then?” Daisy asked. Rosalie displayed signs of impatience, shaking the umbrella she'd brought to keep the warm rain off them, mouthing silent words to her mother that Daisy couldn't quite make out: a snail hunter? A meeting? But the paddlers discussed the issue heatedly, breaking into smaller groups. Should they throw their lots in with King Mwenda? They wouldn't have to attack their own people:
Okondo
would carry them to Lake Tanganyika to wage war on another naval front.

Against the British.

 

Bookerville, Everfair, September 1914

Martha Livia Hunter Albin refused to weep. Not even with joy. She clutched her Bible in one hand, her wooden pendant in the other, and walked downhill to the flats by the river as steadily as her fifty-six years allowed. No rushing, though the welcome sight of
Phillis Wheatley
coming round to anchor made her heart leap like it would burst up out of her throat. Either George was on board the aircanoe as the heathen drums had claimed, or he wasn't. Running and crying and losing her dignity wouldn't change the situation.

She arrived at the landing field just in time. A ladder was lowered from the gondola and her dear climbed nimbly down, the first to disembark. Surely that meant he was eager to be with her? She moved toward him, slowly beginning to smile. He grinned like the boy he'd been when they met and gathered her, Bible and all, in his arms.

“Did you miss me, darling?” he asked between kisses. “I came back soon as I could manage.”

Had
she
missed
him
? Martha laughed, throwing her head back to avoid showing too many chins. Vanity was the devil's snare, but— No. She wouldn't give in to it. She looked back down.

“More than you missed me,” she replied, “with all the distractions of the capital. Are you quite sure you needed to be present for every one of those Motes?”

“Don't tell me you didn't have your hands full here, rebuilding from the ground up! But look who's come with me to help!”

Peering up over her husband's shoulder, Martha saw two more descending passengers: a man and a woman. The man she recognized as Mr. Ho, dressed as usual in the loose, short-legged trousers most laborers preferred. Not a Christian, but decently behaved. The woman she recognized too, less happily: it was Miss Toutournier, the mulatto.

“I thought the new military hospital was to be in Lusambo.”

“The facilities for landing aircanoes are better here.”

Of course. The terrain around Bookerville was much gentler, and they'd set up three pairs of tethering masts here.

Martha let George release her. Together they turned to welcome the others and invite them to stay in their home. There was really no choice, though Toutournier pretended she'd rather camp on the clinic's—now hospital's—foundations.

George vetoed that idea. “I have no idea what Martha has devised for our home, but I'm sure it has at least a roof. You'll sleep with us—won't she?”

“Not
with
us, dear. There are two separate rooms.” Though the entrance to the back room was through the one in front … “You're very welcome, and Mr. Ho as well.”

They dined out-of-doors. Six degrees south of the Equator, it was a little cooler and a bit drier than Kisangani. Rain was not actually falling from the sky.

George said the blessing: “Lord, we pray this food makes us strong to smite our enemies. Let them be stricken with fear at the rumor of our coming; let them scatter before us in battle like ants before the lion.” Did ants even notice animals as large as lions? “We ask you to watch over us and keep us ever on the path to righteousness and victory.”

Neither guest said “amen,” Martha noticed, though Mr. Ho, at least, had bowed his head.

Afterward Mr. Ho insisted on helping Martha put away the used utensils and bury the dirty banana leaves that had served as bowls and plates. The traction engine was the first machine they'd resurrected. Drawing hot water off its boiler via its newly installed tap, Martha filled a rubber-coated gourd. She added the leaves and stems of a local sudsing plant. They would need to keep gathering it in sufficient quantities to wash patients before treatment.

George and Miss Toutournier went to the site of the clinic—hospital—to discuss its expansion. She must remember that the Frenchwoman had been like a mother to him. She must curb her jealousy, though Toutournier was exactly old enough to be of interest to her husband and exactly young enough that no one could truly blame Martha for her feelings.

“How does your family do, Mr. Ho?” she inquired politely. The man gave her a startled look. “You saw them on your most recent trip to Macao, I believe?”

“Yes.” He laid the last fork he'd dried in the compartmented basket. “My grandmother and grandfather are well. They have selected my little brother's wife. I met her. And my second-eldest sister has married a good man who works as a doctor. My eldest sister and her husband share a home and place of business with them, a shop selling medicines.”

“Oh! Have you brought any back with you?”

He nodded and shook out the damp cloth in the damp breeze. “I gave samples of their stock to Mademoiselle.”

“How nice.”

“I expect she'll show them to you tomorrow.” He followed her inside. Light coming through the doorway gilded the lower portion of the house's dividing wall. “I used to wish my family would join us and become citizens. Now that we're back at war again I'm glad they've decided to stay clear.”

What she'd gathered about the situation from George's letters was that no one would be able to stay clear of it, no matter where they were. Should she try to explain that? But Mr. Ho had been in the capital. He'd attended Motes himself. Certainly he knew at least as much as she did. Maybe more. How unkind to deprive him of what had to be an illusion he'd chosen—that anyone in the world was safe.

Embarrassed at being so unprepared for visitors, Martha showed Mr. Ho the narrow folding bed where he would sleep. His silence remained as impassive as his face until she nervously pointed out George's pallet against the far wall.

“It's only meant for one? Then where are you going to sleep?” he asked.

“I thought that Miss Toutournier and I would reserve the more private inner room for ourselves.”

“Don't you want to go to bed with your husband after three months?”

“Of course! But that can wait—”

“Why? Mademoiselle and I will be fine out here—”

The entrance of George and Miss Toutournier saved Martha from having to respond.

The mulatto had a duffle slung over her shoulder by a plaited strap. She hovered just inside the doorway, her wide grey eyes glinting brightly.

“Come see where we're resting for the night,” Martha said, her gaiety feeling forced and probably sounding that way as well.

“‘Where
we're
resting'? No, Mrs. Albin. Many thanks for the offer, but I'm convinced you and your husband would make the more harmonious pair.”

“You don't intend to go off and lie out in the open, do you?”

“Why, no! But as we've discovered, your traction engine's shed has a roof. I'll be protected well enough from the weather, and since it's next to your house, I should be safe from animals.”

Nothing Martha could say would change the stubborn woman's mind.

She hated to feel herself beholden to such a hussy. But after prayers, she and George retired to the back together to enjoy the pleasures with which the Lord God had provided them. Awake, at first, and later, dreaming, she was grateful.

 

Manono, Everfair, December 1914

Beauty had to exist somewhere. But Tink knew there was none here. Just raw mud. Stoically, he splashed along the path between the town's open-sided worksheds. December was the wettest month in Manono. Normally any rainfall drained quickly away into the Lukushi River. Or so he had been told. He'd been here since October and the rain had only gotten worse.

Why had he come? Why had he done anything since Lily died? Ten years ago.

Tink shut the lid on that old basket, the basket containing his sadness. Through the downpour, he spotted what he was looking for: the long, narrow building jutting out over the dammed river, and the spinning turbines that gave the manufacturing town its electricity. The Bah-Looba called it “waterfire.” And so it was. Fire from water, flowing in currents like the Lukushi, streaming through copper wires.

Under the building's thick thatch, Tink was able to wipe and blink his eyes enough to see the huddled banks of charged batteries as more than shadows. A bigger space than usual had been left between the walls' tops and the roof's overhang. The lamp toward the middle of the single room also helped. By its speckled light, he even made out the smile splitting the face of his acquaintance from the hospital in the first Bookerville, Mkoi.