Green City in the Sun (49 page)

     It was not so much the private tutors he minded as he did the missing out on boyhood camaraderie, of belonging to clubs and joining rugby teams. Nor did he so much mind having nursemaids watching over him on hunting safaris as he did his father's refusal to allow him a gun. And as far as the army went, there was no question about Arthur's ineligibility. What sort of earl's son was he, the boy wondered, that he had no school colors or trophies, that he had no buffalo horns or elephant tusks he had bagged himself, and that there was no chance of his ever receiving medals for war service? Someday Arthur was going to be Lord Treverton, and he knew he would feel like an impostor.

     As he did now, in this borrowed outfit. He would never own one like
it, he would never see military action—even though everyone was saying that Europe would soon be at war again—and he would never be given the chance to show the world that a man lurked within the epileptic boy.

     It was for all this that Arthur detested his physical weakness and had been unhappy for all of his life. Until the day he met Tim Hopkins.

     It had been during last year's Race Week. Arthur had come to Nairobi with his father and Geoffrey Donald, who had horses entered in all races, and he had encountered Tim at the refreshment tent. The acquaintance had begun uncertainly and tentatively between the fourteen- and sixteen-year-olds, both being painfully shy and unused to casual conversation with strangers. But then, over scones and tea, they had gradually discovered the most amazing thing: that they shared a great deal in common.

     Upon the suspected murder of his parents at the hands, it was rumored, of drunk Wakamba tribesmen, eleven-year-old Tim had been taken out of school and put to work by his headstrong sister, Alice, to try to save the farm. In the ensuing five years Tim had received a sporadic education from transient tutors, had been unavailable to join clubs and ball teams, had never gone out on hunting safaris merely for trophies, and now, because of a lung weakness caused by the years of strenuous childhood labor, was exempt from military obligation.

     Arthur and Tim had immediately recognized something familiar and comfortable in each other; they had become fast friends at once.

     But there had been obstacles over the past year to impede the development of their relationship. Tim's sister, Alice, was fiercely protective of her brother and jealous of anyone who sought his love and attention, and Arthur's father, Valentine, thought Tim Hopkins too rough and lowborn for his son. So the boys stole moments when they could: during the King's birthday celebrations, at every Race Week in Nairobi, New Year's Eve at the Norfolk, and only last month, when everyone in Kenya had turned out at Lake Naivasha to witness the landing of the first Imperial Airways "flying boat" from England.

     They even exchanged letters. And it was because of one letter in particular that Arthur's father had thrashed him with his belt and had forbidden him to have anything to do with Tim Hopkins ever again.

     Arthur thought of this now as he sat high on his horse, handsome and dashing in someone else's clothes, waiting for the chiming of the hour by the church bells, so he could make his historic ride down Government Road.

     
What if I have a seizure? What if I fall in front of Tim? Will he be shocked? Repulsed? I should have told him....

     Arthur loved Tim beyond words. That was what the thrashing had been for. Arthur's father had found the letter to Tim and had been enraged by the word
love.
It had triggered the beating which Arthur had taken without raising an arm in defense, because he hadn't understood what his father was shouting about, accusing his son of something unnatural and using words which Arthur had never heard before. He had taken the beating without protest and had cried late into the night, the red welts burning his back. He had tried to understand what had happened, and he tried to fathom it now. But all he could come back to was Tim and Arthur's love for each other—the admiration, the sharing bond, the strength they drew from each other, and the solace they exchanged in a hostile, confusing world. It was the one thing in his lonely and bewildered life that finally brought Arthur Treverton happiness.

     In the final seconds before he was to start his dramatic ride to the red ribbon, Arthur decided that nothing meant as much to him, with the exception of Tim's friendship, as his father's approval. He wanted a chance to show the earl that he was a man, not a "pansy," as his father declared. Arthur wished desperately to be allowed a chance to do something more heroic than cutting a ribbon.

     Hearing murmurs from the floats behind him, Arthur turned in his saddle and saw people stepping down to the ground. He looked at his watch and realized the hour was late. He had been daydreaming while waiting for the church chimes and had not realized that the scheduled moment had come and gone and the chimes had not sounded.

     "What's going on?" he called to Geoffrey Donald.

     "I don't know. Seems to be something up. I'll go take a look."

     Arthur saw his sister climb to the top of a minaret on her float, pink silks fluttering in the breeze, and shade her eyes as she peered out over the crowd. "What is it?" he called to her.

     "I can't make it out. There appears to be something going on down the road. The police—"

     Angry shouts in the distance silenced the merrymakers. People looked at one another; men jumped down from floats and climbed out of trucks. Then a man burst onto the scene. Everyone recognized him as the church caretaker, who was supposed to have rung the chimes. "I saw 'em!" he cried. "From the bell tower! The wogs are marching on Nairobi!
Thousands
of them!"

     Chaos erupted. Arthur fought to control his horse as people began to run from the hotel grounds.

     "Mona!" he called. "Can you see?"

     "Not yet. It's difficult—" Her hand fell away from her forehead. "Oh, my God."

     "What is it?"

     "They're coming down King's Way! They seem to be headed for the police station."

     "What's it about?"

     "I can't tell. But they're carrying signs. Arthur, get me down from here, will you?"

     He galloped up to the Malindi float, which was deserted now except for the young harem wife, whose veil fell away from her face as she hastily climbed down from the spire of the sultan's palace. When she was pillion behind her brother, they rode out to the street in front of the Norfolk Hotel, where they found a line of policemen with rifles barring the way.

     Arthur and Mona stayed at the back of the crowd and watched from horseback the slow and steady advance of a great mob of people coming down the road. As the Africans drew closer, the Europeans saw that the bell ringer had spoken the truth; there were thousands of them.

     Mona tightened her grip around her brother's waist.

     Despite their numbers, the Kikuyu were quiet and orderly, marching with determination toward the police station, a few bearing signs that read FREE DAVID MATHENGE and A UNIVERSITY FOR AFRICANS. Mona was stunned by their apparent organization and silent cohesiveness; she had not thought Africans capable of them. Then she saw the likely reason,
marching at their head: a young woman whom Mona recognized as having once attended Aunt Grace's primary school.

     The great mass of Africans who followed Wanjiru were formidable in their silence. Unified in this way, as the white man had never seen them, they presented a fearsome, collective threat that chilled the blood of every policeman in the line. Although there were women and children in the crowd, and none of the Africans carried a weapon, and none made sounds or threatening gestures, yet they terrified the Europeans who faced them at the end of the street.

     Mona sat spellbound. How had they managed it? What mysterious communication network had reached them all over the province and gathered them under one purpose? What united them now and controlled them? She stared at the young woman at the front of the advancing crowd. She walked proudly; there was rebellion and courage in her stride, in the swing of her long arms. And when she raised a hand to stop the mob and she called out three words, "Free David Mathenge!" there was something in her voice the Europeans had never heard from an African before.

     A standoff hung in the air. The police stood at the ready, fingers on triggers; the Europeans watched; the Africans waited.

     Then a noise was heard in the distance: a car motor that rapidly drew close as it sped along the streets. It came up behind the Europeans. Arthur reined his horse aside; a path was made for the governor and Valentine Treverton. Mona looked down at her father as he passed. The way he strode headlong into a crisis, so fearless and brave!

     The governor climbed the steps of the police station and frowned down at the sea of Africans with the look of a father admonishing his children. "Now, now," he said, "what's this all about?"

     Wanjiru stepped forward. "Give us David Mathenge!" she cried.

     The governor was shocked. A
girl
led this mob? "Now see here. You know you can't do this. Go home, all of you."

     "Free David Mathenge!" she repeated.

     Valentine stepped up beside the governor and glared at the crowd. "Is this how you think things get done? By a show of force?"

     Wanjiru walked to the bottom of the steps, put her hands on her hips,
and said, "We are speaking to you in the only language you know! Force is all you understand!" She spoke compellingly, in the crisp, melodious British accent of the educated African. "This is how the Kikuyu vote. We do not put bits of paper in a secret box, as you do, afraid to voice your opinions. We do it openly. We vote by showing ourselves. And what we have voted is that David Mathenge be set free."

     "He was arrested legally and within the law," the governor said.

     "He was not!" Wanjiru brought a piece of paper out of her pocket and waved it at the two white men. "This is what David Mathenge was doing when Muchina arrested him. It is a petition to obtain a university for Africans in Kenya! David Mathenge was acting peacefully and within the law when Muchina had him taken away in chains! You have no right to hold him!"

     Mona felt her pulse race as she listened to Wanjiru's voice. She saw the passion in the girl's stance and thought:
She is in love with David.

     Looking out over the black faces that filled the street all the way to its end and wound back out of sight, Mona felt threatened and excited at the same time. She was filled with a sense of witnessing something profoundly significant.

     "Give us our university!" cried a Kikuyu in the crowd.

     He was backed up by nods, a low, grumbling murmur, and a sudden nervous shifting of the mob.

     "Good Lord," Arthur said quietly to his sister, "I doubt that girl can hold them for long. It wouldn't take much to spark this mob, and once they get out of hand, there'll be blood shed."

     The governor signaled to an officer on the porch and whispered something to him. The man saluted and hurried away.

     "I tell you again and for the last time," the governor said to the crowd, "send me a deputation. Elect three or four men from among you, and I will listen to your grievances. I will not stand up here and be threatened!"

     "It is you who threaten us!" cried Wanjiru. "With your police and your laws and your taxes! You have no right to prohibit our tribal practices. You have no right to forbid worship at the sacred fig trees or the practice of female circumcision! You threaten to erase our way of life altogether! You
threaten to wipe us out as a race! If you do not give us what we want, we will call a general strike. Every African in Kenya will sit down and fold his arms.
You!"
She flung an accusing finger at Valentine. "You will get up tomorrow morning and say, 'Boy! Bring me my tea!' And there will be no tea!"

     The governor threw down his hands.

     "The white men will come to their business offices"—Wanjiru's voice continued to ring out—"but there will be no clerks to do their work for them. The memsaabs will call for their African house girls, but there will be no house girls."

     "I'm giving you all one minute to clear the street!"

     "Mona," said Arthur very quietly, "look up there."

     She looked up and saw soldiers taking places along the police station roof and behind the walls of the compound. A truck rolled silently up; a machine gun stood on its flatbed.

     "Dear God," she whispered.

     "We'd better get out of here."

     "Arthur, look! Something's going on 'round back."

     He turned and saw what none of the Europeans or the policemen had noticed: suspicious, furtive activity going on behind the jail.

     "What do you suppose it means?" Mona asked.

     "My guess is they're going to try to break David Mathenge out of jail." Then Arthur saw something else: Tim Hopkins, in his Stanley costume and carrying a rifle, inching his way unobserved toward the rear of the jail.

     Now Mona was genuinely scared. "Shouldn't we warn the police?"

     "No. It might trigger an all-out massacre. Tim's got the right idea." Arthur tugged on the rein and guided his horse back to the Norfolk Hotel, where he deposited his sister on the veranda.

     "What are you going to do?" she whispered.

     "You go inside, Mona. If there's shooting,
don't come out.
Do you hear me?"

     "Arthur! Stay here,
please.
Stay out of it."

     "I'm going to help Tim, Mona. We can stop them quietly and avoid an incident."

     She stared up at him. "Arthur. Please don't go!"

     He turned and rode away.

     She watched him kick his horse into a light canter so as not to draw attention to himself. Suddenly her brother seemed terribly young and terribly old at the same time. His face was so smooth and sweet, not yet a man's, but the look in his eye and the tone in his adolescent voice that cracked told her that Arthur had just, within minutes, grown up.