The blasphemers, p.11
The Blasphemers, page 11
Hollis’s ears turned red. “I beg your pardon, sir. What can you mean by making such a statement?”
Lovett remained completely impervious to the apparent rage of a man three levels above him in the chain of command. “Sir,” he said without a hint of deference, “the decision the magistrate read was signed five days ago. Yet I received orders to prepare my askaris to handle the move more than two months ago. Six weeks ago, thirty men were moved here from Naivasha to reinforce our numbers. At the same time, a company of the King’s African Rifles was moved to be within striking distance. All this was done before the judgment was made in court. Yet we are to believe this matter was later decided and fairly. If Hamilton had found in favor of the Maasai, none of the preparations would have been at all necessary. It smacks of a kangaroo court, if you ask me.”
“No one has asked you, Mr. Lovett,” Hollis said. “I suggest you listen to what we have to say and not get so far above yourself.”
One might have thought Lovett was risking his position, but Tolliver had known for some time that as insistent as the higher-ups in the administration might be about the deference they deserved, when it came to the police force, they were so hard up for English officers that they might bluster, but they would never force a man out unless he committed an actual crime. He doubted Lovett had had time to learn this. He was challenging them because he had stopped caring if he lost his position. Tolliver did not blame him.
He now understood exactly why the land officer was not coming. The administration would want to complete the evacuation of the Maasai before they started moving settlers into their former territory.
“Given the steps we must next take, Mr. Tolliver,” Hollis was now saying, “we will want you to join me and Mr. Lovett in directing matters once the move is under way.”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” Tolliver said, “District Commissioner Cranford told me that I might have to attend what he called a powwow, but he assured me that I would not be involved in any real trouble. I am traveling with my wife and my sister. To be honest, I am already concerned about them, considering the alarming thing that has happened.”
“What alarming thing is that?” Hollis asked.
As delicately as he could, Tolliver described for them the murder of the Maasai woman that morning and its connection to the ritual for the girls. “I was interviewing witnesses when I was called here.”
Hollis looked shocked. Evidently Lovett had told them nothing. “Whom do you suspect?” He directed the question to Tolliver.
“It is too early for that, sir,” he answered. “Mr. Bonham-Carter has read from the 1904 agreement a statement about the importance the Maasai attach to the land where they perform their rituals, and they were about to be driven from this place. Evidently they expected to have to leave because, as I understand it, they advanced the day of the rite so that it might take place before the move.”
Tolliver was becoming more and more certain that there was a relationship between the move of the Maasai, the ritual, and the death of Naeku.
13
Though in the past Vera had involved herself in Justin’s investigations, and to good effect, she felt a bit guilty about poking into this one now. He was being so lovely—taking it upon himself to defend the missionaries and still sensitive to her anxiety about the land selection. He hadn’t even scolded her for siding with Constance about the Italian. She wanted to keep him sweet. If he caught her pushing in on his work, he would turn all cross.
She had thought to characterize her visit to the mission as a social call on her father’s colleagues, but she had failed to get that fiction past Finch Hatton. Justin would never fall for it. She had none of the typical British woman’s aptitude for subtlety and beguilement. Everyone seemed to be able to read her mind.
The Maasai men along the sunbaked road, handsome and chic, but as ever emotionless in their aspect, did not seem to take any notice of them. But Vera was certain they watched every single movement.
When she and her little group arrived at the Mission compound, she asked the others to wait for her outside, to which they readily agreed once they saw that there was a bench under a flame tree with a gorgeous view of the lake.
She found Arthur Ramsay where her father would have been on the last day of the month, poring over the ledgers in the Mission office. He looked behind her when she entered, and seeing she was alone, visibly relaxed. “Can I offer you a cup of tea?”
“No, thank you. We will be taking tea at the guesthouse shortly.”
“We?”
“Constance, Finch Hatton, and the duke are out gazing at the wondrous panorama.” She indicated the accounts open before him. “While you, I see, are slaving away on this gorgeous afternoon.”
“I am pitching in for these people until they get a replacement. It doesn’t take much. Miss Van Slyck’s work is always perfect.”
“Couldn’t she pay the accounts, if she is capable?”
“I am sure you are right, but her superiors in Nairobi felt it might be best to have a man oversee what she was doing.”
Vera might have argued the point. Until her death her mother had always been the better of her parents with figures. But just now Vera had other fish to fry. “My husband has been called to a meeting at the railway station. It seems there is a pretty high-level committee here to oversee the move that is about to take place.”
“I suppose word has come from the court.” Disgust had entered his glance. She knew very well the dicey relationship between the Crown’s administration and the missionaries. The former said they were here to “protect” the natives—protect them from interfering with Britain’s goals in the area, more like. The latter sought to bring the local people to Christ, but they talked almost exclusively about combating slavery by making the natives “fellow Christians.”
“It surprises me that you have not voiced any opposition to the move. Knowing your views on preserving tribal rights, I would have expected you to be vehemently against this land grab.”
He shook his head and began to parry her thought in a tone more appropriate to a sermon than to a friendly conversation. On some level he seemed to be defending his point of view to her, as he would have to her father. “I am not entirely against this move,” he said. “One can argue that the Maasai will have an easier time preserving their way of life if they are all together on one continuous reserve. Shortly before I arrived in the Protectorate they were moved and split into two groups, which is how they have remained for nearly ten years. Wouldn’t it be better for them to consolidate themselves?”
“But isn’t it the Maasai themselves who appealed to the court to keep to the old agreement and remain split into two?” She could not resist parroting a phrase she had heard him say many times in conversations with her parents. “After all, if we are here to protect them, we must protect their right to continue to live where they have for centuries.” She shooed away a fleeting thought that she and Justin were about to choose land to take as their own.
A wry smile crossed his features. “Unity has always been my preference. Miss Van Slyck, who after all works directly with the Maasai, convinced me that this move is for their benefit.”
It was time to lead him into talking about the dead woman. “I wanted to ask—”
The door behind her swung open.
“It would be better if they moved,” Miss Van Slyck said as she entered.
“Oh,” Vera said, a bit shocked by her sudden entrance. She wondered how long the woman had been behind the door listening. Obviously, Ruth had heard their last exchange.
“Pardon me for barging in,” she said without a hint of regret. “I saw your friends out under the tree and they told me you were here.”
“Yes,” Vera said with more warmth than she felt. “My husband is engaged this afternoon, and I thought I would stop by for a visit. I have known Dr. Ramsay since I was a child.”
“She says that to make me feel old,” Ramsay said.
Miss Van Slyck pulled up a chair. “To get back to what you were discussing,” she said, all business, “the Maasai have an ulterior motive for wanting to keep to these lands.”
“What could that be?” Vera had always thought the Maasai were completely straightforward.
“They have always practiced that revolting ceremony on this land. Therefore they say this land has special significance. I saw in the newspaper that the Maasai claimed in their lawsuit that this is sacred land to them. It seems they will fight anything that in the least way weakens that tradition, if you can call it such.”
Vera could think of several things wrong with this line of thought. “Surely you don’t you think that, if they are moved from here, they will simply give up the practice?”
“Of course not,” she replied. “But it might weaken the pull of the past if the place were removed from their control.”
That circumstance seemed a shot in the dark to Vera. She turned back to Dr. Ramsay. “You have always been one to defend the Africans’ right to live in their traditional ways.”
“Don’t tell me you approve of their horrific practice.” Ruth Van Slyck’s voice was filled with outrage.
“No, of course not,” Vera said. “I grew up among the Kikuyu. I knew they had a ceremony for girls. For all I knew, it involved dressing them up and fêting them. My friends disappeared for a while afterward. My mother and my Kikuyu nanny told me they were preparing to become good wives. I imagined they were getting cooking lessons and learning where babies come from. Which they already knew.”
They continued to look at her as if she had to prove to them that she was on their side.
“I think it’s horrible. I truly do.” Her voice was becoming shrill. She did her best to lower it. “I also know that if it has been their custom for such a long time, and if not doing it makes a girl a complete outcast, it will be extremely difficult to make them stop. Belonging is everything to them.” She had more than an inkling of what being an outcast would mean to a Kikuyu girl. She was one of sorts herself and it hurt her intensely, and she was supposed to be an independent-thinking Scot. She imagined being shunned would kill them. They would be homeless. They might starve to death.
Ramsay glowered at her. “Not doing it may make them outcasts, but doing it inflicts unspeakable pain, puts them at risk of infections. It can cause infertility, and in some cases even death. Many, many suffer their entire lives. Some, quite a few, suffer for years and ultimately die of the infections. I am a doctor. I cannot let such a thing happen to human beings right under my nose and do nothing about it.”
“In my opinion,” Ruth Van Slyck said, “tribal customs almost always give great advantages to the men and none to the women. Custom says that all the heavy work must be done by the women, that it is a slight to a man’s honor to carry water or build his own house. Where is the justice in that?”
“I have to agree with you,” Vera said. She thought to point out that European customs might be different, but they were also unkind to women, not in such a nasty physical infliction, but in many harmful ways. They would think such an opinion jejune.
Shadows were lengthening outside the window. She stood up. “I am sure my friends have had enough of gazing at the lake. I think I must go.”
Ramsay rose. “I hope you will come back for more visits while you are here. How long do you expect to stay?”
“I am not sure,” Vera said, which was precisely the truth.
Ruth Van Slyck looked up. “Your husband believes that I killed Naeku, doesn’t he?”
Vera found the very notion shocking, but now that the woman had said it, she could not stop herself thinking it was true.
***
Having had no breakfast and little by way of luncheon, Tolliver was ravenously hungry when he sat down to tea. Everyone he had interacted with all day, except for the askaris, had already eaten before he got there. The askaris had been glad to share their rations with him, but he did not think it right to take too much of their food from them.
Madame Gillet’s little cakes and sandwiches, served in her lovely front parlor, were miraculously sophisticated and delicious considering that she had prepared them in the midst of a vast wilderness, but they were elegantly delicate and understated. His hunger would not have been satisfied if he had eaten them all. As it was, his nanny would have been appalled at the speed with which he had consumed more than his share. When they were all eaten up, he stood up greedy for more.
Denys stood too. “I am going to take the ladies out on the veranda to watch the sunset,” he announced.
The duke was looking at the ladies as if waiting for them to leave before he spoke.
Tolliver had planned to take the men aside to talk to them about the possibility of danger and what they should do next. Vera rose and looked at him as if she wanted him to come and be alone with her. She could make such a thought clear to him with nothing but her eyes. She was not after their typical afternoon lie-down. He could see that, too.
Denys, then, in his typical forthright fashion, suggested the thing they all might think improper, but the only one that made sense. “It’s time for us to stay right here and talk over what we are going to do in light of what may happen over the next several days.”
“Including the ladies?” the duke said with an expression just shy of aghast.
Vera nodded agreement and marched back to the chair she had vacated. “Yes,” she said, “including the ladies. It was precisely what I wanted to suggest to Justin.” She looked to the duke. “We are grown women, my dear Gian Lorenzo. We will not faint if we face the facts of our situation.”
“No indeed,” Constance said, but her glance at the duke sought his approval.
“Let us be modern then,” he said with only a tinge of disapproval.
Denys went and asked Madame Gillet to bring more tea.
“You had better start things off, darling,” Vera said to Justin, once they were settled. “You are the one with the latest information.”
Tolliver looked to his sister. In the entire course of their lives, they had never discussed anything remotely this unpleasant. It was considered very bad form for a gentleman to say such things in front of a lady, and he had spent his whole life feeling protective toward her. He refilled his teacup in case he needed a graceful reason to pause, and then he began with the results of the trial in the High Court in Mombasa.
He took a sip and crept up gingerly on the subject of the Maasai ritual and what relationship it might have to the death of Naeku. After he had hemmed and hawed, his sister spoke up.
“You needn’t be so discreet about what they do to their women,” she said. Her voice was determined and strong, even if she was blushing near to purple. “It’s perfectly horrid and must be stopped.”
Tolliver looked from her to the duke, who was gazing at her in disbelief. It surprised Tolliver to realize that it would profoundly disappoint him if Gian Lorenzo gave up on Constance because of her ability to talk about such unpalatable matters. When the duke glanced at him, he looked on his sister and smiled with pride. He had meant it to send a message to her beau, but he realized that he was genuinely proud that she was not the shrinking violet she had been brought up to be.
“Well,” Justin said, “I am not sure why, but I can’t give up the idea that there might be a connection between the moving of the Maasai and the death of that woman.”
Vera was nonplussed. Justin’s instincts as a policeman were ordinarily quite accurate, a talent in which she knew he took great pride. He was frustrated by the compromised form of justice the administrators meted out, but all that mattered little at the moment. She put her doubts aside and reported what she had learned in her conversation with Dr. Ramsay and Miss Van Slyck.
He grunted his exasperation. “I might have known you would put your nose in.”
Denys came to her defense. “We kept close to her, and I must say, this focus on the dead woman is all well and good, but what about the trouble that might explode when the court’s decision is announced. Do we really want these ladies to be in the midst of that?”
“I don’t want to be,” Vera exclaimed. She would not have felt this way in the past, but she was someone’s mother now—a thought that rekindled the longing that imposed itself on her every few hours.
Tolliver reported what he knew. “Bonham-Carter is going back to Nairobi. Hollis is meeting with the officers of the King’s African Rifles and then will go on and bring the news to the lybon.”
“The lybon?” Constance and the duke asked in unison.
“The chief,” Vera and Justin responded, also in unison. They all grinned at the coincidence.
Justin went on. “Evidently the lybon and his tribal council were the plaintiffs in the court case, so they will not be happy, but they are very unlikely to launch into precipitous action. Such tribal decisions are taken very slowly.”
“My father calls it moving on African time,” Vera said. “I was born here and it still makes me impatient.”
“It seems they are cautious,” Gian Lorenzo said, “and in this case caution is called for on all sides, don’t you agree?” He looked around the table, where all heads were nodding.
“My guess,” Tolliver said, “is that it will take at least until day after tomorrow before the announcement of the move is made and at least several days after that until the first groups are made to move out.”
The duke’s brow knitted. “But what about those men who have been standing along the road under the trees?”
“They always do that,” Vera said. “It is what all the tribal men do unless they are hunting or fighting one another—which they don’t do all that much anymore.”
“The famous Pax Britannica,” Denys said with a smirk.
Vera pressed on. “The Kikuyu men now work for the settlers. The Maasai refuse to do any such thing. The young warriors, the ilmurran, go on cattle-raiding parties once in a while, but otherwise they do what their male ancestors have always done—just hang about.”
