Night Must Wait (9 page)

"Wilton overlooks the world," Sandy said. Lindsey didn't seem to hear her. Gilman seemed focused on Lindsey. Sandy wasn't going to repeat herself. But she remembered smelling the odor of paper burning the second night she'd slept at Wilton's bush station, how she'd gone to the screened window and watched Wilton's solitary figure on the open grassy knoll feed scraps of paper to a fire in a great barrel, watching the flames as if she made some ancient sacrifice. The pieces flared and jumped, whirling black rags of ash, and cast Wilton's shadow across the rippling grass.

Discarded sketches of birds? Sandy didn't think so. She let herself retreat into her own memories. Prophecy. Shaman. Yes, that was Wilton's gig.

Sandy jumped when Lindsey said, "Earth to Sandy."

"Remember." Sandy looked back at their puzzled faces. "Hell, remember why we came to Nigeria and look at what we've got. People said we were crazy. My family threatened to put me in an insane asylum. No African county's safe for young white women, they said. You can't do any good. What the devil's wrong with you—do you wanna be a missionary? Except of course they didn't use that language."

Sandy paused a moment and then continued. "Now look at where we are and what we're doing. Gilman making the blind see, the cripples walk. Lindsey getting the best people jobs in her office and beyond. Lindsey setting policy one comma at a time. Building Nigeria. Me, I get to travel and treasure hunt. Like a bitchin' dream come true. You should see the mines up north, smell the oil on the air in the mangrove swamp down south, prime grade. Even your food tastes of it when you're there."

She saw the irritation melt out of Gilman's face, her mouth soften and smile. There, that was better.

"We'll all be okay," Sandy said, "so long as we stay friends."

Hell, now it was her saying it, like a carbon copy of Wilton. And speak of the devil, in came Wilton. More news by the look of her tight face.

"The Biafrans have claimed major sections of the oil production areas for Biafra," Wilton said.

"Oh shit," Sandy said. "That's money."

Chapter 12: Wilton

January 1967

Nsukka, Biafra

The afternoon that Lindsey and Sandy returned West, Wilton drove up one of the great green-flanked hills outside of the town, left the car and stood on the ridge, alone with her Africa.

"I thought I heard you call my name," Wilton said. She walked through the shimmer of wiry grasses, the wind blowing her hair about her face. On every side of her rose the repeating shapes of the ancient land to which she spoke.

Under the clouded sky, that land took on a somber magnificence, the dry grass gold subdued. Swathes of blades bent in the wind, catching the fugitive light with a gleam a thousand times mirrored. Below in the narrow valleys clustered the secretive darkness of palms and vines, more black than green. She heard the wailing, repeated cry of hornbills down among those tangled branches.

Wilton started for the next crest, climbed the rising ridge. She shivered at the sensual attraction of the earth, pushed her shoulders into the full warm rush of air.

She'd bound herself to this place—she knew its secrets. There would come a day when she would hold this nation in her hands and shape it for the future. The most powerful black African nation would become a reality—democratic and tribeless. She swore it anew to the land around her, pacing the spine covered with bent grasses, her hands catching at the wind by her sides.

She looked down at her right hand, and to her eyes, more used to the rich tones of teak or ebony Nigerian skin, that hand looked branded by its pallor. Set apart, excepted. An outsider from the start, all her life she'd worked her will through others, starting with the education and conversion of servants, moving inevitably to the more delicate selling of dreams to her American friends. She had from her birth borne the stigmata of her difference. Scars that held power. She had from youth known that what she did must be done indirectly. Out of pain came the will to act.

She looked up and laughed, not hearing the sound in the wind. Oh no, never a racist—if anyone asked she would honestly say she dreamed of a day when her Nigerians would become her equals, yes, and her superiors too. Now they had no chance. She would make it for them. But to call them her peers today was sentimental foolishness. She and her kind must first share opportunity and knowledge. Her aristocracy took its roots in her education, her culture, her ethics and this God-given vision.

Wilton and her friends would educate, manipulate, groom the best of the Nigerians they found until they were fit for rulership. Lindsey could pull down the foolish men who borrowed her money, dictating policy by economic blackmail. Sandy would keep Lindsey connected to the people—Sandy had a gift for friendship, a talent that would hold Lindsey back from too little passion. That was Lindsey's fault, her indifference to the sins and loves of other human beings. Gilman would be Wilton's one pure gift to the common people, a doctor with gifts of skill and adaptability like no other, who could mend and comfort the poor and wealthy alike.

She whispered their names in painful delight, "Lindsey, Sandy, Gilman," as though she'd tell the land around her who they were. She'd brought them here to serve. What higher calling could they have? What a joy that they were of such quality that separations and trials would never break them. These women were her own tribe until the day no tribes would stand. Wilton, near tears, smiled.

Dreams, such dreams, as though she would be the one to begin and end the story. But for what other reason had she been born and bred and given this vision?

Chapter 13: Wilton

January 1967

Lagos, Western Region, Nigeria

Three weeks later, feeling that she had already been away too long, Wilton went to Lagos to see Lindsey. Dismayed, she hesitated at street level, wondering if the new address might be wrong. An enormous new building, with security guards at the doors. One had to submit identification for inspection. Quite a contrast, too much of one. People would notice so drastic a change, they'd speculate, and that meant possible exposure.

Lindsey was supposed to analyze economic data in the offices that did such work for the American Consulate, acting at need as a business liason to facilitate contractural agreements between the two countries. That's not what it looked like now. This building was Nigerian Government, and Wilton knew there must be rumors.

Wilton crossed the air-conditioned anteroom, white walled, white ceilinged and bare. Cold. No one sat at the polished desk at the back of the reception room. She paused, considering the heavy wooden door without a name on it. The plan had been for Lindsey to keep a low profile. Anonymity bought freedom. Lindsey should be boring, linear, moving behind the scenes. Slow and quiet. Not this leap into a private office with a deserted waiting room, even if the door had no nameplate. Economic advisor, was that her new title? Wilton reached out a hand.

The door swung onto an impression of space and air, and heat. The high ceiling boasted only a fan and two open windows, no air conditioner. For comforts, a pale couch and bare coffee table, a desk of mirror-polished mahogany with accompanying chair, shelf after shelf of books and in one corner like a banner—a geological map of Nigerian brilliance, colors of pink and green and violet tracking the history of soil and stone, stitched in black print.

Lindsey seemed paler than the papers on her desk, silhouetted against the rows of leather-bound books and rolled maps and a scatter of wooden sculptures. A deliberate evocation of an English library, with elements of Africa to jar the senses.

"I see the effects of your promotion," Wilton said.

"Isn't it cool?" Lindsey's fair skin seemed to glow with unusual emotion.

This was what it took to make Lindsey happy? Wilton looked down at the carpeted floor so that Lindsey couldn't read her.

"I never thought to hear you use that expression." Mild. Make it sound like a joke.

"That's what Sandy said when she saw this office."

"How's the war? Does it change things for you?"

"Nothing to notice. Drilling soldiers and articles in the paper, that's all. Traffic's worse than ever. We'll evacuate the Americans from Biafra if the peace conference fails. Let's relocate you to the Mid-West, closer to us, just in case."

"What do you think of Commander in Chief Gowon?" Wilton would not answer such a demand from Lindsey. "Can he make peace?"

"Or war?" Lindsey looked amused. "Member of a minority tribe out of the North. Christian. A good combination for politics right now. He might survive. Other than that I can't say."

Oh, I will do what I can to see that he does.
Wilton looked down at the carpet, aware of the movement as Lindsey turned an envelope. Wilton felt her unease stir again. Lindsey wanted her to leave, not discuss the changes she saw in Lindsey's operation. Why? They couldn't serve a cause without trust between the two of them.

"He's not going to let Biafra secede," Lindsey said. "He's waiting maybe, for a Fort Sumter."

"Not too long?" Wilton let her voice rise as if in a question. "He can't afford weakness."

She turned away, glancing at the large window on the South side of the room. No shutters, wide open with the heat of the day and rumbling street noise sweeping in from the city.

"You shouldn't have those windows open. Your new office, your new status, all make you a target," Wilton said.

"I don't like air conditioning. It reads like an admission of weakness, makes me look like just any other soft expatriate wilting in Africa. Ceiling fans are okay—even the Nigerians use them."

My friend, your days of open windows are over.

"Rumors tell me it's time to give you a personal assistant, more than a guard, more than security. I'll speak with Sandy," Wilton said. "I'll send you Oroko. He's the best of his kind. For any job."

Wilton saw Lindsey's eyes brighten with interest, the coppery glint sharp.

"There are orders I don't want to give Sandy. Childish, I suppose," Lindsey said. "I'll eventually learn not to worry about her opinion."

"No," Wilton said. "Never dismiss what Sandy feels. What Sandy thinks balances you. But there are things you need to make happen and she shouldn't be involved. It might trouble her. She's still very linear."

"Loyal," Lindsey said.

"Oh yes. Loyal and linear. But there must be changes—look at this afternoon. I walked in. No one stopped me. No one asked me why I came. Look at the window, wide open. Given this office, given your sudden rise, the people to whom you report, you can't afford privacy. As I said, I'll speak with Sandy."

She moved back from the desk, feeling off-balance, uneasy.

"The people I report to?" Lindsey said.

Wilton faced her, silent, but in a violation of her normal oblique manner, she looked straight at Lindsey, met those brown eyes. Did Lindsey believe she could deceive her?

Lindsey blinked. "You'll come to dinner tonight?" An offering or a negotiation? She didn't indicate which. "After talking about it for months we finally got a larger apartment to share in Lagos. I'll give you the address."

"Good. But I won't eat with you tonight. I have friends to see. People my father knew."

She shouldn't have said so much. No need for Lindsey to know what she would do that night, but it was too late to take it back.

Chapter 14: Sandy

February 1967

Lagos, Western Region, Nigeria

God, yeah, Wilton and Gilman used to call her "Lindsey's bodyguard," but Sandy hadn't taken it seriously. Not 'til Wilton sent her a new man to interview a few days after Lindsey changed jobs and offices. Sandy waited for him in her spare office, smelling the hot Harmattan air that came dust laden through the windows, and fiddling with a sample of malachite she'd collected up in the tin mine area around Jos. Fuckin' A. She'd damned well prefer to be there now out under a sun so bright it seemed without color, the wind picking up between tumbled rocks like a giant's playthings left scattered across the sere landscape.

"You pay attention to people," Wilton told her. "You're good at it. Lindsey spends all her time moving people around like chess pieces. You like to make them laugh."

"Why don't you hire the bodyguards for her?"

"To have authority over them, it has to be you."

Made sense. Though sometimes Sandy thought it was strange how Wilton brought them all to Nigeria and then seemed to spend all her time out of sight. She flipped the rock in her fingers, admiring the bandings of different greens.

Now Wilton pushed Oroko at Sandy, and something in Wilton's manner made it clear that this one was special. He'd supervise the two bodyguards Sandy hired earlier. Might add to them.

"There's a war coming and who knows what may happen in this crazy city. Besides," Wilton said, "there's some work you need done without close supervision. He's good at that type of detail and you can trust him with Lindsey all the way."

Wilton nodded and stepped out the door, leaving Sandy to pull the cap down over her eyes until she realized she was doing it. She pitched the cap across the room and sat up when someone rapped on the door.

"Come in," Sandy said.

A fine young man, slender, perhaps in his mid-twenties. No scars on his face, no signs of past violence. Precise in a white long-sleeved shirt and pressed trousers. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles, which gave him the look of a scholar, anything but a thug. She rose and offered him a handshake and wondered if this could be the right guy. Simple, good grasp, not too hard, not too rushed. No calluses.

"Mr. Oroko?"

"Just Oroko, Madam Hemsfort."

"I'm Sandy. Have a beer." She turned to the small fridge behind her desk. Sandy felt his hesitation, but didn't wait.

"And take a seat, please."