The blasphemers, p.1
The Blasphemers, page 1
The Blasphemers
Annamaria Alfieri
FELONY & MAYHEM PRESS • NEW YORK
In loving memory of my brother
Andrew Puglise,
who gave me my sense of adventure
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am deeply grateful to:
Maggie Topkis, my publisher and editor, whose sure and guiding hand is a boon to me as a writer.
Adrienne Rosado, my ever-encouraging agent.
Stanley Trollip, for his continuing inspiration and advice as I seek to give the marvel that is Africa its due.
Risa Rispoli, midwife, healer, and great fan of crime fiction, for helping me get the childbirth scene right.
My tribal brothers and sisters at Mystery Writers of America, New York Chapter, and my splendid blogmates on Murder is Everywhere. They feed my soul.
The skilled and caring people who look after David and give me the peace of mind I need to do my work.
The staff and supporters of the New York Public Library, the most democratic place on earth. Free knowledge for everyone! Without its splendid collection, none of what I write would be possible.
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY!
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
***
I will confess that, travelling in East Africa for the first time in my life, I learned what the sensation of land-hunger is like.
The Right Hon. Winston S. Churchill, M.P. quoted in The Handbook of British East Africa, London, 1912
***
The Masai are...picturesque, brave to a degree, boastful, quarrelsome, comparatively faithful and honorable, and yet economically useless...and as far as anything can be humanly certain, it is certain that they too will lose their birthright.
Lord Cranworth, A Colony in the Making, 1912
***
We blame colonialism as a whip horse but it is colonialism that eventually offered the beacon of light of women’s western education and exposure which propelled us to the outer world and recognition of the commonality of women’s subjugation world-wide.
Helen Chukwuma, “Women’s Quest for Rights: African Feminist Theory in Fiction,” Forum for Public Policy, 2006
Nairobi, Nakuru,
and Their Environs
British East Africa
1913
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
1
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3
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1
Justin Tolliver looked with joy upon his son in the arms of his sister, Constance, who had come all the way from Yorkshire to be baby Will’s godmother. The child wore the family’s christening gown, as had all the Tolliver offspring—beginning with Justin’s older brother, John, then Justin himself, and then Constance. All three had been taken to the ancient font in the sturdy gray stone church at the edge of Tilbury Grange, their father’s estate. Constance had brought the outfit with her when she traveled to Africa for the baptism of the newest Tolliver, the second of his generation.
Justin’s mother, in anticipation of the babies she hoped to have, had purchased the elaborate dress while honeymooning in Florence. That was in 1875—the year the British explorer Verney Cameron became the first European to cross equatorial Africa from sea to sea. Papist, their father called the gown, but in deference to his wife he had allowed his children to be christened in it. And now here was the seven-month-old Will, sleeping in his auntie’s arms, waiting to be photographed.
The man with the camera fiddled with his lens. Tolliver posed beside his wife, lovely in her best daytime frock. They stood in a line—he and Vera, flanked by Constance and his father-in-law, Clarence McIntosh, still in clergyman’s garb after performing the ritual. Looking on from the lawn were the gentlemen and ladies of the Protectorate, nicely turned out. Many had traveled from Nairobi for the occasion—more, Justin imagined, to make the acquaintance of Lady Constance than to honor the child. They had teased her about her hat, which was designed to frame her lovely face rather than to protect her from the dangerous African sun.
Several of the Reverend McIntosh’s Kikuyu converts, in their dark orange shukas and necklaces and bracelets galore, watched the proceedings from the edge of the coffee field, blooming this day in May, after the late long rains.
The family struck several poses. The photographer finished his work and made off with his equipment. The guests arrayed themselves in the shade of the veranda, their conversation heartened by sips of everyone’s favorite Sunday-morning libation—an effervescent concoction they called “waters of the Nile.”
While the ladies cooed over his son, Tolliver stood aside and wondered about the boy, born here in Africa, baptized in this Scottish Mission enclave in the wilderness. Little Will would spend his childhood seeing the beauty and majesty of this place every day: the acres of bittersweet scented blossoms, the cows grazing on the hill beyond, and across the silver ribbon of the river, a vast sea of green dotted with acacias and lovely creatures—giraffes, zebras, varieties of antelope. A London boy would see such animals only in the Zoological Park. As he grew, would Will recognize the glory of it? Or would it be so familiar that it would seem to him nothing special at all?
A gnat of doubt troubled Tolliver. Would Will then grow up as Vera had, not quite British, not really African, but always halfway between the two? As if she had read Justin’s thoughts, Vera gave the child to Wangari, his Kikuyu nanny who had also been hers. She came to Justin, went up on tiptoes, and whispered in his ear: “The ladies are full of advice and conversation for me. Seems I have finally earned my place among the settler women by giving birth to an English gentleman.” The statement was ironic and tinged with more than a little resentment. These were the very wives who had, until this day, judged his light-footed, African-born sylph of a wife as “more than a bit wild.”
Constance approached with a half-empty glass in her elegant hand. “I am tipsy,” she said, though she looked completely steady on her feet. “What is in this drink?”
Vera giggled. “Champagne and brandy. The waters of the Nile do creep up on one, don’t they? It’s a good job nearly all this lot arrived in carriages or on horseback, rather than in motorcars. Their horses, at least, will be sober enough to get them home.”
Constance handed her glass to a passing servant in a white kanzu and red fez. “This is all very lovely,” she said, “but next Wednesday cannot come soon enough for me. I must say, though, my expectations of my first safari are so high that I fear I will be disappointed.”
Vera shook her head and loosened a dark curl. “Wait. You’ll see. It will capture you as it did your brother.”
“I agree,” he said. “There is not much chance of a letdown.”
Wangari returned with Will, now in a blue cotton outfit with a sailorish cut. Vera took the child who immediately grabbed at her pearls. As if some sort of signal had sounded, the crowd out under the shade trees moved to the veranda and began to take their leave.
Much more than on baby Will, they centered their attention on Constance as they bid their hosts adieu. Since her arrival, she and Justin and Vera had been the recipients of dinner invitations from several of the Protectorate’s toniest socialites. Lord and Lady Delamere had even invited Vera’s father along to dine with them—a missionary at their table, unprecedented as far as Tolliver knew.
Last in the line of leave-takers was the most sought-after companion of all, Denys Finch Hatton. Tolliver had resented him mightily two years ago when he had paid too much attention to Vera. Now the man’s bright eyes were resting on Constance in a way that threatened to rekindle Tolliver’s indignation.
***
Vera Tolliver kissed little Will’s hand and removed it from her pearls. She turned him so that he faced outward, away from that temptation, and she breathed in deeply the sweet smell of his hair, so pale that from a distance he looked completely bald.
How would she do without him for the twenty days she and Constance and Justin were about to spend on safari? There had been a time when she wanted nothing more than to travel through the wilderness. Now she could barely bring herself to leave her father’s mission because it meant she must leave her baby behind. She hardly recognized herself anymore.
She carried the little one into her father’s house, kissed his sweet head once more, and handed him over to Wangari.
“You will want to rest, mwari,” Wangari said, calling Vera “my daughter” as she always had. There was no word in Kikuyu for “nanny,” so Wangari had always referred to herself as nuyukwa—mother—to Vera and her brother. She had spoken of them and to them as she would her own children.
Aurala Sagal, a young Somali woman, standing behind Wangari, placed an elegant hand on her pregnant belly and smiled indulgently. “We will take very good care of him when you are away.” Aurala spoke in Swahili—the language of the coast where she had met Tolliver and Vera the previous year. Soon to give birth to her first child, she was hardly more than a child herself. She had fallen in love with Tolliver’s tribal lieutenant, Kwai Libazo, and had come here to hide from the wrath of her fa
Kwai, her child’s father, was on duty up in Naivasha, serving with the Protectorate’s police force.
Vera touched Aurala’s shoulder. “I will be back before your baby comes, and I will have news of the farmland we have chosen. It will be a lovely place for all of us to live—including you and Kwai and your child.” She caressed Will’s cheek and forced herself to turn away from him and go back out to do her duty to the straggler guests.
2
The following day, Tolliver, Vera, and Constance took the up-train from the Athi River Station to Nairobi, just an hour’s ride. Scores of Europeans coming from Mombasa on the coast crowded the first-class cars, most of them too pale and starched to be anything but new arrivals. The two engines also pulled eight goods cars that were no doubt stuffed with their belongings.
“We must not lose another minute selecting our land,” Vera whispered to Justin as they left Nairobi’s inelegant corrugated-iron-and-wood station. “Look at all these people flooding in, hungry for a new start. They will all be applying for land and grabbing up the best places. We’ll be left with some scruffy desert fit for nothing but a few miserable goats.”
Out in the town, the tremble in her heart quickened. Nairobi had not even existed when she was born twenty-one years ago, barely twenty miles east of here. She first knew it as a helter-skelter village of convenience for the railway builders, but England had opened “the healthful highlands” to settlers, and they were gobbling up all the available territory.
Constance looked around, bemused. “I must say that I never pictured Nairobi as such a bustling place.” She swept an arm, taking in the black wires strung on poles. “Or one with electric lighting. I am impressed.”
Justin wrinkled his nose. “To my way of thinking all this modern paraphernalia is an eyesore.”
Vera shook her head. “I like the electric lighting,” she said. “It’s the growth out of control that I find troubling. Father told me there is a huge tent encampment beyond Government House for the newly arrived who can’t find hotel rooms or can’t pay the inflated prices. And they are all looking for farmland.”
“Really, dearest,” Justin said, his tone not at all in keeping with his term of endearment. “We will make our tentative choices today. That will reserve them for us until we decide. No need to be so distressed. Please try to be calm.”
“Calm?” she said. “I’m glad you can be calm. Look at this street!” They were threading their way through the throngs shopping at open-air stalls along Biashara Street. “It’s turned into a madhouse.”
“Really, Vera, this is not like you. Why are you so emotional?”
She wanted to tell him the reason why, but she could not think how to explain it. The thought of losing out on having their own place jangled every nerve in her body. “I don’t see why you are not every bit as anxious as I. Suppose we end up with the wrong sort of place and our farm fails and we lose everything.”
He took out his pocket watch. “Look. I think you need to eat and drink something to calm yourself. We are a bit early for our appointment. Let’s stop at the Carlton Lounge for a bite before we proceed.”
He exasperated her. “I insist we go directly to the Land Office before the whole of Africa is taken over by these Johnny-come-latelies. Frances Bowes told me her brother had to settle for a place more than ten miles from the rail line on bad roads. He can barely get his crop to market before it spoils.” She heard a tremor in her own voice.
Justin harrumphed. “Very well,” he said none too pleasantly.
“Once you have made your choice, we can celebrate at luncheon,” said Constance, ever the peacemaker.
They spent the next hour with Mr. Evans, the Protectorate’s land officer, poring over maps of vast areas of wilderness that had been sectioned into parcels. Desperate as Vera was to be settled into a place of their own, the sight of the divisions gave her pause. For the first time, she saw straight lines imposed on the gorgeous expanse of her birthplace. They brought to mind a drawing she had seen in a butcher’s shop in Glasgow, of a cow with lines on it showing the locations of the different cuts of meat. Her Africa was a living thing like the beast in the butcher’s picture. She pushed away the thought that dividing it would kill it.
Justin was pointing to a large section on a chart and explaining to Constance that there were already designated forest reserves and tribal areas. Vera was of two minds about that too. She wanted to call some of Africa her own, but it rankled that the British acted as if all of it were theirs to use as they wished.
“Taking into account your intention of starting a fruit orchard,” Evans was saying, “I think that one of these two parcels in Ngong—” He pointed out two sections on the top chart. Then he pulled another chart from the bottom of the stack and, with his thumb and forefinger, indicated two irregular sections on it. “—or one of these two up near Nakuru, at the edge of a Maasai reserve, will do very nicely. All relatively close to the railroad and along small rivers to ensure a supply of water.”
Vera, contrite at having been cranky earlier, looked to Justin for approval.
“All four seem to meet the criteria we set,” Justin said.
She nodded as if she were sure, but she felt more anxious than ever. It was such a big decision. She worried that he was overrating her judgment. She was born here, but she was not all that confident when it came to a choice as critical and irreversible as this. “Yes,” she said, despite her doubts. “Let’s concentrate on those four.” She prayed it would all turn out well. Wherever they landed up, she told herself, she would be happy. She prayed it would be so. She and Justin and Will would live there and be happy together. Please, God, she begged.
They arranged with Evans to inspect all four parcels while they were on safari in the following weeks. Justin paid their deposit, took the provisional receipts, and agreed they would make their final decision within the thirty days allotted.
Justin seemed satisfied. Vera forced herself to believe.
They exited the office into the glaring sunlight. “I say champagne with luncheon,” Justin declared.
“It surprises me the quantity of champagne that is consumed in this country,” Constance said with a laugh.
They had moved only a few steps toward their goal when they happened upon Denys Finch Hatton standing in the shade of a blue gum tree. He was chatting with an elegant man whose clothes were better tailored than any Vera had seen in these parts.
“Tolliver!” Finch Hatton called. “Come meet Giovanni Lorenzo di Savoia.” He raised his brown slouch hat to the ladies. “Lady Constance Tolliver, Mrs. Justin Tolliver, Justin Tolliver, may I present His Grace the Duke of Sulmona.”
The duke removed his pith helmet, stood erect, and bowed. “Enchanté,” he said in French. He was as tall as Finch Hatton, but more slender of frame. His eyes were hazel and his hair a shade of brown that confessed it had been blond when he was a child. He was handsome and elegant, as would be expected given his title, but the stiffness of his posture was softened by the warmth of his smile. Vera caught him glancing at Constance’s ring-less finger.
“Very pleased to meet you,” Justin said. “Have you just arrived in the Protectorate?”
“No, no,” the Italian responded. “I have been climbing mountains up in Abyssinia and Uganda and then I came here to scale the Ruwenzoris and to do some hunting. I have come to town to deliver my trophies to the taxidermist.” His English was perfect, if spoken with a soft Latin accent.
“We were about to drop in at the Carlton for luncheon,” Finch Hatton said. “Would you like to join us?”
“We were about to do the same,” Justin answered. “Shall we all go together?”
As they made their way along the bustling street, they separated into two groups, with Justin and Vera walking before and Constance following behind, flanked by the duke and Denys. The threesome paused to examine safari gear on offer in a shop window.
Vera and Justin waited at a small distance. She put her arm through his and squeezed. She forced aside her doubts and made her words light. “I am sorry I was agitated earlier. I worry so that we will not have the future we both so desire. But now my head is full of lovely imaginings of our first real home,” she said. “I see foals running after their mares in a paddock. I see pear and apple and peach trees flowering in the spring.” She had to believe that everything would be perfect.
