The Constant Gardener (37 page)

And outside, a tiny veranda with two chairs for sitting under the stars and fighting off the bugs once the kettle boils.

•      •      •

“I hear they're going to arrest Arnold now,” Sudan Sarah said comfortably when they had duly lamented Tessa's death. “Well, they should do that. If you've set your mind on hiding the truth, then the first thing you've got to do is give people a different truth to keep them quiet. Otherwise they'll start to wonder whether the real truth isn't out there hidden somewhere, and that will never do.”

A schoolmistress, Ghita decided. Or a governess. Used to spreading out her thoughts and repeating them to inattentive children.

“And after the murder comes the coverup,” Sarah continued in the same benign cadences. “And we should never forget that a good cover-up is a lot harder to achieve than a bad murder. A crime, you can maybe always get away with a crime. But a cover-up is going to land you in jail every time.” She was indicating the problem with her big hands. “You cover this bit up, then out pops another bit. So you cover that bit up. Then you turn round and that first bit's showing again. And you turn round again and there's a third bit, just sticking its toe out of the sand over there, sure as Cain ever killed Abel. So what should I be telling you, dear? I'm getting a feeling we're not talking about the things you wish to talk about.”

Ghita began cunningly. Justin, she said, was trying to piece together a picture of Tessa's final days. He would like to be assured that her last visit to Loki had been happy and productive. In what way exactly had Tessa contributed to the gender awareness seminar, could Sarah say? Had Tessa delivered a paper perhaps, drawing on her legal knowledge or her experiences with women in Kenya? Was there a particular episode or happy moment that Sarah recalled and Justin would like to hear about?

Sarah heard her out contentedly, eyes twinkling under the brim of her costermonger's hat while she pecked at her tea and flapped a big loose hand at the mosquitoes, never ceasing to smile at passersby or call to them—“Hi there, Jeannie sweet, you bad girl! What you doing with that layabout Santo? You going write to Justin all about this, dear?”

The question unsettled Ghita. Was it good or bad that she should be proposing to write to Justin? Was there innuendo in all? In the High Commission Justin was an unperson. Was he one here as well?

“Well, I'm sure Justin would like me to write to him,” she conceded awkwardly. “But I'll only do that if I can tell him things that will put his mind to rest, if that's possible. I mean I wouldn't tell him anything that was going to hurt him,” she protested, losing her direction. “I mean Justin knows that Tessa and Arnold were traveling together. The whole world knows by now. Whatever was between them, he's reconciled to that.”

“Oh, there was nothing between those two, darling, believe me,” Sarah said with an easy laugh. “That was all newspaper talk. There was just no way. I know that for a fact. Hi, Abby, how you doing, darling? That's my sister Abby. She's had more than many. She's been married almost four times.”

The significance of both statements, if there was any, passed Ghita by. She was too busy shoring up what sounded increasingly like a silly lie. “Justin wants to fill in the blanks,” she struggled on bravely. “Get the details shipshape in his mind. So that he can piece together everything she did and thought about in her last few days. I mean, obviously—if you told me something that was going to be, well, painful to him—I wouldn't dream of passing it on. Obviously.”

“Shipshape,” Sarah repeated, and shook her head again, smiling to herself. “That's why I always loved the English language. ”Shipshape“ is a right word for that good lady. Now what do you think they did when they were up here, darling? Spooning around like honeymooners? That wasn't their way at all.”

“Attending the gender workshop, obviously. Did you attend it yourself? You were probably running it or something grand. I never asked you what you do here. I should know. I'm sorry.”

“Don't apologize, darling. You're not sorry. You're just a little bit at sea. Not quite shipshape yet.” She laughed. “Yes, well, now I remember. I did attend that workshop. Maybe I led it too. We take it in turns. It was a good group, I remember that. Two bright tribeswomen from Dhiak, a medical widow woman from Aweil, a bit pompous but receptive despite her pomposity, and a couple of paralegals from I don't know. That was a good team, I'll say that straight. But what those women will do when they get home again to Sudan, that you can never tell. You can scratch your head and you can wonder as much as you will.”

“Maybe Tessa related to the paralegals,” Ghita put in hopefully.

“Maybe she did, dear. But a lot of those women never rode in an aeroplane before. A lot of them get sick and scared, so we're obliged to cheer them up before they'll talk and listen, which is what they're brought here to do. Some of them get so afraid they never talk to anyone at all, just want to go home to their indignities. Never get into this business if you're afraid of failure, darling, I tell people. Count your successes is Sudan Sarah's advice and don't even think about the occasions when you failed. D'you still want to ask me about that workshop?”

Ghita's confusion increased. “Well, did she shine at it? Did she enjoy it?”

“Now I don't know about that, darling, do I?”

“There must be something you remember that she did or said. Nobody forgets Tessa for long.” She sounded rude to herself, and didn't mean to. “Or Arnold.”

“Well, I won't say she did contribute to that discussion, dear, because she didn't. Tessa did not contribute to that discussion. I can say that with certainty.”

“Did Arnold?”

“No.”

“Not even read a paper or anything?”

“Nothing at all, darling. Neither of them.”

“You mean they just sat there, silent? Both of them? It's not like Tessa to keep quiet. Nor Arnold for that matter. How long did the course last?”

“Five days. But Tessa and Arnold didn't stay in Loki five days. Not many people do. Everyone who comes here likes to feel they're going somewhere else. Tessa and Arnold were no different from the rest.” She paused and examined Ghita, as if measuring her suitability for something. “Do you know what I'm saying, darling?”

“No. I'm afraid I don't.”

“Maybe it's what I'm not saying that you know.”

“I don't know that either.”

“Well, what the hell are you up to then?”

“I'm trying to find out what they did. Arnold and Tessa. In their last few days. Justin wrote and asked me to particularly.”

“You got his letter with you then, by any chance, dear?”

Ghita produced it with a trembling hand from a new shoulder bag she'd bought for the trip. Sarah took it into the tukul to read it by the overhead lightbulb, then stood by herself before returning to the veranda and sitting herself down in her chair with an air of considerable moral confusion.

“You going to tell me something, dear?”

“If I can.”

“Did Tessa tell you with her own sweet mouth that she and Arnold were coming up to Loki for a gender workshop?”

“It's what they told all of us.”

“And you believed her?”

“Yes, I did. All of us did. Justin did. We still do.”

“And Tessa was a close friend of yours? Like a sister, as I heard. But all the same she never even told you she had some other reason to come up here? Or that the gender workshop was a straight pretext, an excuse, same as SelfSustainment is a pretext for you, I expect?”

“At the beginning of our friendship, Tessa told me things. Then she became worried for me. She thought she'd told me too much. It wasn't fair to burden me. I'm a temporary employee, locally employed. She knew I was thinking of applying for a permanent post. Sitting the exams again.”

“You still thinking along those lines, dear?”

“Yes, I am. But that doesn't mean I can't be told the truth.”

Sarah took a sip of her tea, tugged at the brim of her cap and sat herself comfortably in her chair. “You going to stay here three nights is my understanding.”

“Yes. Back to Nairobi on Thursday.”

“That's nice. That's very nice. And you will have a good conference. Judith is a gifted practical woman who takes no shit from anybody. A little sharp with the slower-witted ones, but never deliberately unkind. And tomorrow evening, I shall introduce you to my good friend Captain McKenzie. You never heard of him?”

“No.”

“Tessa or Arnold never mentioned a Captain McKenzie in your hearing?”

“No.”

“Well, the captain is a pilot here with us at Loki. He flew down to Nairobi today so I guess you and he crossed each other in the air. He had some supplies to pick up and a little business to attend to. You will like Captain McKenzie very much. He is a nice-mannered man with more heart to him than most people have body, and that's a fact. Very little takes place in these parts that escapes the notice of Captain McKenzie, and very little escapes his lips either. The captain has fought in many unpleasant wars but now he is a devoted man of peace, which is why he's here in Loki feeding my starving people.”

“Did he know Tessa well?” Ghita asked fearfully.

“Captain McKenzie knew Tessa and he thought she was a fine lady, and that was that. Captain McKenzie would no more presume on a married lady than—well, than Arnold would. But Captain McKenzie knew Arnold better than he knew Tessa. And he thinks the police in Nairobi are all mad to be going after Arnold like that, and he's proposing to tell them so while he's there. I would say that is one of the pivotal reasons for his making the journey to Nairobi at this time. And they won't like what he is going to tell them because, believe me, Captain McKenzie speaks his mind without let or hindrance.”

“Was Captain McKenzie here in Loki when Tessa and Arnold came up for the workshop?”

“Captain McKenzie was here. And he saw a lot more of Tessa than I did, dear, by a long chalk.” She broke off for a while and sat smiling at the stars, and it seemed to Ghita that she was trying to reach a decision in her mind—such as whether to speak out or keep her secrets to herself, questions that Ghita had been asking herself these last three weeks.

“Now, dear,” Sarah went on finally. “I've been listening to you. And I've been watching you and thinking about you and worrying about you. And I came to the conclusion that you're a girl with a brain in your head, and you're also a good, decent human being with a well-developed sense of responsibility, which I value. But if you're not that person and I have misread you, between us we could get Captain McKenzie into a whole heap of trouble. This is dangerous knowledge I'm about to acquaint you withand there's no way, once you have it, to get it back in the bottle. So I suggest you tell me now whether I am overjudging you or whether I have read you accurately. Because people who talk out of turn, they never reform. That's something else I've learned. They can swear on the Bible one day and the next day they're at it just like before, talking out of turn again. The Bible didn't make a whit of difference to them.”

“I understand,” said Ghita.

“Now are you going to advise me that I have misinterpreted what I have seen and heard and thought of you? Or shall I tell you what I have in my mind and you bear that heavy burden of responsibility for ever after?”

“I'd like you to trust me, please.”

“That's what I thought you'd say, so listen to me. I'll say it quietly, so bring your ear a little closer to me.” Sudan Sarah gave a tug to the brim of her hat so that Ghita could get alongside her. “There. And maybe the geckos will favor us with some loud burping, I hope. Tessa never came to that workshop, nor Arnold neither. As soon as they were able, Tessa and Arnold got into the back of my friend Captain McKenzie's jeep and drove quietly and sedately out to the airstrip with their heads down. And Captain McKenzie, as soon as he was able, he put them in his Buffalo aeroplane and flew them up north without benefit of passports or visas or any of the normal formalities imposed by South Sudanese rebels who can't stop fighting one another and haven't got the spirit or intelligence to unite themselves against those bad Arabs in the north who seem to think Allah forgives everything even if his Prophet doesn't.”

Ghita thought Sarah had finished and was about to speak, but she had only begun.

“A further complication is that Mr. Moi, who couldn't manage a flea circus with the assistance of his entire Cabinet, even if there was money in it for him, has taken it into his head that he's got to have the managing of Loki airstrip, as you will have noticed. Mr. Moi has a very limited affection for NGO'S but a great appetite for airport taxes. And Dr. Arnold was very particular that Mr. Moi and his people did not take cognizance of their journey to wherever they wished to go.”

“So where did they go?” Ghita whispered, but Sarah rolled straight on.

“Now I never asked where that place was, because what I don't know I can't end up saying in my sleep. Not that there's anyone to hear me these days, I'm too old. But Captain McKenzie knows, that stands to reason. Captain McKenzie brought them back early next day from wherever he took them to, discreetly, the way he took them out the day before. And Dr. Arnold, he says to me, ”Sarah,“ he says, ”we never went anywhere except here to Loki. We were attending your gender workshop twenty-four hours a day. Tessa and I are grateful to you for continuing to remember that important fact.“ But Tessa's dead now, and she's not likely to be grateful to Sudan Sarah or anybody else anymore. And Dr. Arnold, if I know anything, he's worse than dead. Because that Moi has his people everywhere, and they kill and steal to their hearts' content, and that means a lot of killing. And when they take a man prisoner with the intention of extracting certain truths from him, they abandon all compassion, and that's a fact you'd do well to remember on your own account, my darling, because you are treading in very deep waters. Which is why I've decided it is essential that you get into conversation with Captain McKenzie, who knows things I'd rather not. Because Justin, who's a good man from all that I hear, he needs to have all the information that's available on the subject of his dead wife and Dr. Arnold. Now is that the right way for me to be thinking, or is there a better way?”

“It's the right way,” Ghita said.

Sarah drained her tea and set down the cup. “Very well then. So you go and eat and get your strength up and I'll stay here for a little while, dear, because this place is talk, talk, talk, as you will already have appreciated. And don't touch the goat curry, darling, however much you like goat. Because that young Somali chef, who is a gifted boy and will one day become a fine lawyer, has a blind spot where goat curry is concerned.”

•      •      •

Ghita never knew how she got through the first day of the focus group on Self-Sustainment, but by the time the bell sounded for five o'clock—though the bell was only in her head—she had the satisfaction of knowing that she had not made a fool of herself, had spoken neither too much nor too little, had listened with humility to the opinions of older and more knowledgeable participants, and had taken copious notes for yet another unread EADEC report.

“Glad you came?” Judith asked her, cheerfully grabbing her arm as the meeting broke up. “See you down the club, then.”

“This is for you, darling,” said Sarah, emerging from a staff hut to hand her a brown envelope. “Enjoy your evening.”

“You too.”

Sarah's handwriting came straight out of a school copybook.

Ghita dear. Captain McKenzie occupies Entebbe tukul, which is number fourteen on the airstrip side. Take a hand torch with you for when the generators are switched off. He will be happy to receive you at nine o'clock after your dinner. He is a gentleman so you need have no fear. Please give him this note so that I can be sure it has been sensibly disposed of. Take very good care of yourself now and remember your responsibilities as regards discretion. Sarah

•      •      •

The names of the tukuls read to Ghita like regimental battle honors in the village church close to her convent school in England. The front door to Entebbe was ajar, but the mosquito door inside it was wedged tight. A blue-shaded hurricane lamp burned and Captain McKenzie sat in front of it, so that as Ghita approached the tukul she saw only his silhouette, bowed over his desk while he wrote like a monk. And because first impressions counted greatly with her, she stood a moment observing his craggy look and extreme stillness, anticipating an unbending military nature. She was about to tap on the door frame but Captain McKenzie had either heard or seen her or guessed her, because he sprang to his feet and made two athletic strides to the mosquito door and pulled it back for her.

“Ghita, I'm Rick McKenzie. You're bang on time. Got a note for me?”

New Zealand, she thought, and knew she'd got it right. Sometimes she forgot her knowledge of English names and accents, but this was not one of the times. New Zealand and on closer inspection nearer to fifty than thirty, but she could only guess this from the hairline cracks on the gaunt cheeks and the silver tips to the trim black hair. She handed him Sarah's note and watched while he turned his back on her and held the note to the blue lamp. By the brighter glow she saw a sparse, clean room with an ironing board and polished brown shoes and a soldier's bed made the way she was taught to make her bed at convent school, with hospital corners and the sheet folded over the blanket at the top, then folded back on itself to make an equilateral triangle.

“Why don't you sit yourself over there?” he asked, indicating a kitchen chair. As she moved toward it, the blue lamp moved behind her, to settle on the floor at the center of the doorway to the tukul. “That way nobody gets to see in,” he explained. “We've got full-time tukul watchers here. Take a Coke?” He handed it to her at arm's length. “Sarah says you're a trustworthy person, Ghita. That's good enough for me. Tessa and Arnold didn't trust anyone except each other in this. And me because they had to. That's the way I like to work too. You came up on a Self-Sustainment jag, I hear.” It was a question.

“The Self-Sustainment focus group was a pretext. Justin wrote to me asking me to find out what Tessa and Arnold were doing in Loki in the days before she died. He didn't believe the story of the gender workshop.”

“He's damn right. Got his letter?”

My identity paper, she thought. My proof of good faith as Justin's messenger. She passed it to him and watched while he stood up, pulled on a pair of austere steel-framed spectacles and stepped obliquely into the arc of the blue lamp, keeping himself out of the eyeline of the door.

He handed the letter back. “So listen up,” he said.

But first he turned on his radio, anxious to establish what he pedantically termed the level of acceptable sound.

•      •      •

Ghita lay on her bed, under a single sheet. The night was no cooler than the day. Through the netting that surrounded her she could watch the red glow of the mosquito coil. She had drawn the curtains but they were very thin. Footsteps and voices kept passing her window and every time they passed she had an urge to leap out of bed and shout “Hi!” Her thoughts turned to Gloria, who a week ago, to her confusion, had invited her to a game of tennis at the club.

“Tell me, dear,” Gloria had asked her, having trounced her six games to two in each of three sets. They were walking arm in arm toward the clubhouse. “Did Tessa have some kind of crush on Sandy, or was it the other way round?”

At which Ghita, despite her addiction to the altar of truth, lied straight and fairly into Gloria's face without even blushing. “I am quite sure there was nothing of the kind on either side,” she said primly. “Whatever makes you think that, Gloria?”

“Nothing, darling. Nothing at all. Just the way he looked during the funeral, I suppose.”

And after Gloria, she went back to Captain McKenzie.

“There's this crazy Boer who runs a food station five miles west of a little town called Mayan,” he was saying, keeping his voice just below Pavarotti's. “Bit of a God thumper.”

His face had darkened, its lines deepened. The white light of the huge Saskatchewan sky could not penetrate its shadows. The little town was a lost city, three hours' rail ride out of Winnipeg in the middle of a thousand-mile snowfield, and Justin walked in it determinedly, avoiding the gaze of rare passersby. The constant wind from the Yukon or the high Arctic that all year round whipped across the flat prairie, icing the snow, bending the wheat, buffeting street signs and overhead wires, raised no points of color on his hollowed cheeks. The freezing cold-twenty and more below zero—only spurred his aching body forward. In Winnipeg before he took the train here, he had bought a quilted jacket, a fur cap and gloves. The fury in him was a thorn. A rectangle of plain typing paper nestled in his wallet: GO HOME NOW AND KEEP QUIET OR YOU JOIN YOUR WIFE.