Echoes From A Distant Land Part 51

January or February.

He never knew his real parents.

He was adopted.

He was brought to his parent's village by a stranger - a friend of his real mother.

Dana found her voice. 'Do you know the names of your real parents?'

'No.'

'Do you know anything at all about them?'

At this, Jelani dropped his gaze to the floor, but before he answered, he met her eyes again. 'I was told my mother was black and my father was white.'

It's not him after all!

'I'm sorry, Jelani,' she said. 'You must think me very rude asking all these questions, but as I'm sure Emerald has told you, I lived in Kenya for some years, and I have a fondness for it.'

Jelani nodded and a reticent smile crept back to his lips.

'And I'm sure you were loved by your new parents,' she said in conclusion.

'She was a Ugandan woman,' Jelani added, unbidden.

Dana felt the blood drain from her face.

'Ah,' Emerald said. 'So you're Ugandan, not Kenyan.'

'No, she brought me from the coast. From Lamu.'

Dana stepped back; she took the arm of the bench seat to lower herself onto it. Her heart raced and she felt weak.

Emerald quickly took the seat beside her. 'Mother, what is it?' she asked. 'Are you feeling unwell?'

Dana couldn't answer. She stared up at Jelani.

At last!

The question that had lurked at the back of her mind for all those years was answered. He lives.

How could she be so blind? Those features. There could be no doubt about his real father. It was Sam's strong jaw and keen eyes that she'd noticed when she first met him. Tribal similarity, indeed. Now she knew the truth: it was Sam's eyes that looked down at her with kindness and concern.

'You don't look well, Mrs Middlebridge,' he said, standing beside Emerald.

'She doesn't,' her daughter said.

'My, my!' Dana said. 'Is it warm in here? I feel a little ... well, a little faint, yes. But ...'

She looked again at Jelani. She knew she was embarra.s.sing him, but she couldn't take her eyes away. Jelani was her son. Of that she was certain. And now Lamu, and Amina, and Cahill, and the pain - the unbelievable pain of separation - flooded back. Two babies and a kind of Solomon's choice. Should she keep both infants and d.a.m.n her life - their lives - or should she sacrifice raising her son herself so that each baby could have a chance at a life she could never offer either of them on her own?

She had kissed the soft down on his head the day she handed her baby son to Amina, to be given to an unknown woman in the distant Kenyan highlands. A knife had pierced her heart. She prayed that Sam never found out what she'd done to their son.

She raised a hand towards him. To touch him. But she couldn't. Of all the ironies with which fate could punish her, this was the ultimate. Having found her son after so long, she still couldn't claim him.

The details of her life in Kenya had to remain a secret. Oswald was an extremely conservative man. If he ever found out his wife had become pregnant to two men within days of each other, it would shock him to the core and end their marriage. If so, it would also end Emerald's chance to inherit his company. More importantly, if she declared herself to her son, it would mean revealing to Emerald the lie she had lived for twenty years. And although doing so could reinstate her son in her life, it might mean losing her daughter.

Jelani had his hand resting on Emerald's shoulder. It could be a simple show of support for a friend in a difficult situation, or it could be a sign of intimacy. If so, there was an even worse calamity approaching. If she'd read the signs correctly, Emerald and Jelani were falling in love. The prospect galvanised her.

She stood and took a deep breath. She had no choice. She must reveal to Emerald and Jelani the truth of their birth. It would mean telling her daughter, who had no reason to suspect her mother was anything but a staid and upstanding member of London's society, that she had concealed a hideous secret. How Emerald would receive that information was unknowable, but she had to tell her.

'Emerald,' she said. 'We need to ... talk.'

'Now? We'll be on the train together for hours. I'd like to talk with Jelani until then.'

'We're not leaving. We're going to talk.' She turned to Jelani. 'And Jelani, I want to talk to you too. But not here. We're all going back to the Algonquin. We'll go up to our suite, and ... talk.'

Utter silence prevailed as her mother, sitting in the large armchair in the corner of the room, told her story. Emerald felt she'd left her body and floated to the curlicued plaster ceiling rose, hovering there among the chandelier's pieces, a witness to the bizarre events unfolding below. It was simply inconceivable that she and Jelani were twins. Her eyes met his and she saw the same shocked disbelief in them.

Emerald's first thought was that her mother was playing a cruel joke, but she immediately rejected it. n.o.body, least of all her mother, could be so malicious.

Her next thought was: How is such a thing possible? Although she'd asked the question she was almost too afraid to hear the answer.

She flushed as her mother replied using a number of medical terms, most of which required their own elaboration. But her explanation, delivered in a soft toneless voice, was not credible. In fact, it was surely quite incredible. Emerald would not dispute the physiology of it. Stranger things happened in science. She'd heard of a camera that could develop its pictures right before your eyes. But the very idea that her mother - her very proper, prudish, punctilious mother - could have been impregnated by two different men, was absolutely astonishing.

When Emerald regained her concentration, seated not five paces from her mother, she could see how Dana's face had lost its tension and the knot of frown lines on her brow had melted. Her eyes were mostly lowered, but when she briefly raised them to gauge if a point she'd made had been understood, they were full of tears. Her usually tight lips had softened, and almost trembled as she described the other man - the black man she'd had an affair with. She loosened her grip on her hands; and one went to her hair where it found a loose strand. She absent-mindedly twirled it around her fingers like a schoolgirl lost in her studies.

The woman sitting opposite Emerald, talking wistfully of the mistakes of her younger years, was not the mother she knew. She'd become tentative and vulnerable; she was flawed and human in every respect.

After overcoming her shock, Emerald's heart went out to her. She wanted to reverse the roles, to comfort her mother and to tell her everything would be well.

She then began to wonder what could have motivated her to reveal such humiliating secrets. Certainly, her disclosure would mean Dana could start to build a relationship with the son she'd abandoned as a baby. Any mother would find it difficult to pa.s.s up such an opportunity. But her mother could have confessed all immediately she recognised Jelani's pendant. When Dana mentioned her regrets that she and Jelani had not had the opportunity to grow up together, as brother and sister, Emerald got her answer. Her mother thought they were lovers, or at risk of being so!

Emerald could scarcely contain her smug smile at the revelation. She knew her mother better than she realised. It was typical that she would be so sure of herself; so intent on reading Emerald's emotions that she couldn't see beyond the most obvious truths. Emerald liked Jelani, very much, but she had no romantic inclinations towards him. She was also quite sure that Jelani was of a similar mind.

Jelani's first reaction was to doubt that he correctly understood what Dana had said. He shot a glance towards Emerald, and when her eyes met his, he knew he had heard correctly.

His second thought was that Dana had mistaken him for another person, one who also had a lion fang pendant. They were, after all, not uncommon. She had jumped to her conclusion as to his ident.i.ty merely because he was light-skinned.

He shook his head as she talked, trying to gently dissuade her of her unbelievable notion. He'd heard that many older English women were p.r.o.ne to a condition that caused them to become fixed on an idea that defied logic. In Kenya, the whites said it was the African sun. But the Africans joked that the women simply had too little to keep them occupied.

He kept shaking his head until Dana correctly described his birthmark - the one on his ankle. He then had to face the terrible fact that she had identified him and that she - a member of the English tribe and the sworn enemies of his people - was indeed his mother.

He found it difficult to concentrate after this until she'd finally reached the end of her long spiel. He exchanged glances with Emerald, who appeared as shocked as he, though at least her father and mother had been married. Presumably they were, or had been, in love. But what of Dana and his father? Perhaps he had been conceived in a brief burst of pa.s.sion, the unwanted consequence of a moment of wanton l.u.s.t long since regretted. And Emerald's parents were of the same tribe. Jelani's father was unknown, and might never be found.

Beth came suddenly to mind. She would find this bizarre situation very difficult to understand. If his mother could act in such an uncivilised manner, would she be concerned that he might also exhibit similar tendencies? And what effect would his bad blood have on the children they planned to have together?

'Do you know where Jelani's father is now?' Emerald asked.

'No.' Turning to Jelani, she added, 'I'm terribly sorry, Jelani. Can you ever forgive me? He doesn't know about you; and I've lost touch with him. I have no idea where he is or what he's doing now.'

'Is he a Kikuyu?' he asked, straining his voice to surmount his emotions.

'Yes, he is.'

It felt strange to dislike this man - his father - a man he'd never met and knew little about. What he did know was enough. He couldn't respect a man who could tie the gra.s.s with another man's wife. He couldn't believe how, at a time when the whites were already moving the Kikuyu from their traditional land, he could lower himself to lie with the enemy.

He took a deep breath and slowly let it escape. He'd had enough of New York before he learned of this horrible truth. Now he felt exhausted, weighed down by the facts of his life. He needed time to think. Part of him wanted to find his father, but he was afraid that, in spite of his behaviour in the past, he might find him a person he could admire.

'What's his name?'

It was Emerald. He'd noticed that she often thought and acted an instant before him.

'It's a fairly common name, I'm afraid,' Dana said.

'What is it?' he asked after a moment's hesitation.

'It's w.a.n.gira. Sam w.a.n.gira.'

Jelani stared at her. Whatever sympathy he'd felt for her dissipated. In its place was contempt. She had not only abandoned him as a baby, she'd begotten him through a man he knew and already greatly disliked.

'Do you know him, Jelani?' Emerald asked.

'... No.'

'Perhaps you could find him. Will you look for him?'

'No.'

CHAPTER 56.

1952.

Jelani rolled onto his back, panting in the stifling heat of his hut. He turned his head to Beth. Her body glowed in the faint light escaping the blanket he'd hung at the window. Her eyes were closed and her small rounded b.r.e.a.s.t.s rose and fell rhythmically.

It still amazed him how Beth was able to be two different beings: the modest Christian a.s.sistant to Deacon James of the African Inland Mission; and the hot-blooded woman who could transport him to the heights of pa.s.sion.

It had taken time for them to become lovers. Beth's Christian principles intruded every time an opportunity arose until, three months before this, he asked her to marry him. Beth agreed, and the transformation was immediate and breathtaking. Whenever she was able to come down to Nairobi they would spend most of their time together in bed. In the dim light of morning, the heat of the afternoon or at night, they made love. Jelani was in heaven.

He made his long-awaited return to Cook's farm and won his parents' blessing for the marriage. The next steps had been complicated. In traditional Kikuyu culture, each family would appoint a representative to haggle over the details of the marriage and, importantly, the bride price. Much beer and goat meat would be consumed during protracted negotiations until agreement was reached. The wedding day could then be fixed. This was not the case with Jelani and Beth.

Beth's Wambui family had foresworn traditional customs. They insisted the marriage be in the Christian tradition; and they would therefore pay no bride price.

The Karuras' negotiator thought it a scam to avoid handing over a few goats, and stonewalled for weeks.

Jelani pleaded with his parents to reach a compromise. Beth did the same with hers.

Only the day before, Jelani had received word that both families were finally in agreement. There would be a modest dowry paid so long as the ceremony was performed by Deacon James in the mission's church. At Lari.

He had just two duties remaining. Firstly, he had to reveal to Beth the story of his family.

'Beth, are you awake?'

'Hmm?'

'I have something to tell you.'

'Uh-huh.'

'My mother is coming to our wedding.'

'Of course she is, Jelani.'

He sighed. 'No ... I mean my real mother.'

Beth raised herself onto her elbow and turned towards him with a stunned expression. 'I don't understand.'

His explanation, rambling and at times emotional, took him nearly an hour. Beth listened in silence, only occasionally asking a question for clarification.

'How do you feel about it?' she asked when he'd finished.

'I feel terrible. It was bad enough to suspect I had a white father, but having a white mother and a black father is somehow much worse. And it's very strange having a white sister.'

'How do you feel about her?'

'I like Emerald. She was so nice to me.'

'And your mother?'

He thought about it for a long moment. He wasn't sure how he felt now. At first he'd hated the idea. 'But that's not so important,' he said. 'What I need to know is how do you feel about it?'

'I'm ... sad. Very sad.'

'Yes, I can see it, but we mustn't let it spoil everything for us. Beth, please, I can't change who my parents are. I'm the same me I was when we fell in love. It needn't stop us going ahead with our wedding.'

'Jelani, hush,' she said, putting a finger to his lips. 'I'm sad for you. Not for us. Your story hasn't changed anything for me. I'm just glad you could tell me. It can't have been easy. Nothing's changed between us. I love you. You love me.'

He took her hand in his and kissed it.

It had been a difficult story to tell, but easier than revealing his second secret - his support for the Mau Mau cause. It occurred to him that it shouldn't be hard to reveal something he truly believed in. He'd had some trouble understanding recent reports about Mau Mau tactics, and many people were questioning some of their activities, but in a few days he would join Dedan Kimathi on a retribution raid that would restore the Mau Mau's reputation as a champion of the black Africans.

It was shortly after midnight. The light of the new moon lay in dappled pools on the forest floor. Behind the column of ten men, the Aberdare Ranges rose like a black colossus against the star-studded sky. All was silent except for the familiar calls of night birds and the occasional manic screeching of a tree hyrax.