If she had the energy or the courage, she would call the Sikh and offer to bring the garden back to life. She would need help—someone stronger than she with good tools to prune the heavy branches—but Margaret had resisted even stepping into the garden for fear of snakes. The blossoms and layers of leaves seemed a perfect place for lurking reptiles. Still, she admired the chaos. She preferred it to the manicured gardens of the houses in Langata and Karen. At least this sad, messy patch of vegetation was honest. How long would it be before no blooms at all were visible? Would the vines burrow under the house and wreak havoc with the shallow foundation? Would the bougainvillea scramble up the building and poke its way through the casements?
Patrick had been working in his study since early morning. Margaret knew his routine even better than she could predict her own. Each weekend day, he got up at seven, washed his face with hospital soap, and fixed himself a pot of coffee and a bowl of Weetabix. He took his second cup and a plate of toast with pineapple marmalade into his study and did not emerge for hours. Today, he would come out in time for Sunday Lunch at the home of another doctor and his wife, both newly arrived from London. The Sunday Lunch seemed still to be de rigueur among the Brits, a rite more sacred, Margaret thought, than attending church. She had offered to make an apricot cheesecake for the lunch but hadn’t been able to summon the energy to find the springform pan, never mind sift the ingredients.
At the image of the sifter, Margaret thought of her mother. She felt a small twist inside her chest. She and Patrick had been away for fourteen months, and though her family sent tapes, called at Christmas, and wrote at least a letter a week, Margaret ached to see them again. Her parents had talked about coming out to visit Patrick and her, but the trip was almost prohibitively expensive for them. The cheapest solution would have been for Margaret to fly home, but then her parents would miss out on seeing Kenya, which seemed to Margaret at least as important as visiting her and Patrick.
Dishes crowded the sink and spread along the red Formica counter. The dining table had not been cleared from the night before. Margaret’s polyester robe wasn’t clean. Her inertia over the weekend had become a near paralysis. When Patrick emerged from his study and saw the mess, he would be annoyed. He expected, after hours of his own work, that Margaret would have done her share, which truly was not very much. She examined the beige and pilled cuffs of the white robe. Margaret had to drive to a commercial laundry. She wore her shirts two and three days at a time to stave off the inevitable.
For weeks, Margaret had been writing letters to senators and representatives at home, to friends who might have political connections, to Amnesty International, to the New York Times, even to her old paper. She wrote that Solomon Obok had been detained and was said to be living in the most appalling of conditions, in a dirt hole in one of the most hellish places in Kenya. From what she had been able to infer from the other Kenyan newspapers, he wasn’t allowed either visitors or books. She wondered if the man had a bed to lie on or a table and chair at which to eat his meals, the dirt hole too closely resembling a grave.
Obok’s location seemed to change each time she read another story, and perhaps his whereabouts were deliberately altered every few days so that there could be no hope of rescue. After that first report in the Evening Standard, there hadn’t been any further mentions of Solomon having pursued a story about fifty students buried in a mass grave. No charges as yet had been filed.
A Kikuyu had been appointed editor of the Kenya Morning Tribune, an appointment followed by mass firings, all Luo, Lily among them. It was, Margaret thought, a kind of silent takeover. The party in power now controlled all of the news media and thus could present its own picture of Kenya to its people.
As good as a coup, to Margaret’s way of thinking.
She hadn’t yet heard from anyone at the paper about an assignment, and she doubted she would ever be asked again to take a picture. She hadn’t told Patrick of the letters she had written, although any day now she was expecting replies, and he would see the return addresses and ask her about them. Would he dare to open the letters himself? He might. He would say that he was worried about her safety, and he would be. But he would be worried about his own as well. More important, he would be concerned about his ability to complete his research.
On that awful night, after Margaret had lost her job and had returned from walking the streets of Nairobi all day, Patrick had said it was time for them both to go home. He hadn’t mentioned it since. What he had meant, Margaret thought, was that she should go home, and he would follow. And who knew how long he might take to leave the country himself? One night at dinner, he had talked briefly about traveling to South Africa to attend a conference, but nothing had come of that either.
When Margaret let her surface worries slide away, she understood she was still in mourning for her stay in the hospital, itself a time of mourning. She wanted only to remember Rafiq’s last visit—the dimmed lights, the rhythmic stroking of her arm, her intertwined yearning both for rain and for the man—afraid that if she stopped thinking about it, the memory would fade and vanish. Deported, like Rafiq himself.
She had heard nothing from Rafiq. She didn’t think she ever would.
The anniversary of the climb approached. Margaret sometimes guessed that Patrick’s increased moodiness could be attributed to that upcoming milestone, one that neither of them had mentioned.
She turned her eyes back to the garden. The chaos on the surface belied tenacious roots beneath. Wasn’t a marriage much the same? If she and Patrick could clear away the wild vines and tendrils, mightn’t they return to what they had once been? A couple who loved each other and intended to stay together all their lives? She realized they had spent more married months in trouble than they had happy.
Patrick, balancing a water glass, a cup, and a plate, opened the door of the study. He paused, as she had known he would, to take in the counter and the table and Margaret in her bathrobe. Instead of sighing or setting a cup down too hard, however, he gently put the crockery on the dining table and came to sit across from her by the window.
He took her hands in his. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
Margaret shook her head.
“Margaret, please.”
Margaret couldn’t tell Patrick the truth about what was wrong without ending the marriage right there.
“I’m sorry, Patrick. I don’t really know what’s going on. It might still be the baby. Mostly, I worry about us.”
“Yes,” he said, “so do I.”
“And without a job, I question why I’m here, what I’m supposed to do. I’ve been writing letters to representatives and senators and different organizations to help Solomon Obok.”
“I know you have,” Patrick said. “Mail came for you at the post office box. I forgot to bring it home on Friday.”
“You forgot?”
“Maybe I forgot.”
Margaret studied Patrick’s face. “You weren’t angry?” she asked.
“I was at first. But then I understood. Of course you’re writing letters on Obok’s behalf. What else could you do?”
“Did you open them?”
“No,” Patrick said. “I didn’t. If you want, I’ll go get them now.”
His black hair was still flattened on one side from sleep. His pale-blue eyes were slightly red-rimmed from so much reading. “I got a letter from my mother,” he said. “I wrote to her because I couldn’t understand what was going on with you. She said to give you time, that losing a pregnancy, no matter how brief, takes a while to get over.” He paused. “It was a terrible time. I’m sorry.”
Margaret realized she had her hands on her belly, protecting what was no longer there.
“Can I get you a coffee?” Patrick asked.
“Water,” she said.
She could hear the cupboard open, the tap running. Margaret took the glass from Patrick and drank. He stood behind her and massaged her back. She thought of her husband, baffled, writing to
his mother for advice. She reached up and took hold of his hand. He came around and sat in front of her again. The chairs were a pair: blue-and-cream-striped upholstery on antique frames.
“The real problem is the climb, isn’t it?” Patrick asked.
Margaret was surprised he had dared to mention it. “The anniversary is coming,” she said.
“You’ve been thinking about it, too.”
“I have,” she admitted. “It’s been almost a year, and we haven’t been right together since.”
Patrick bent his head and studied the floor. He rested his chin in one hand. They would have to talk about it, whether he wanted to or not.
Patrick tilted his head to the side, as if he’d just had an idea.
She waited.
“What we really ought to do,” he said, “is climb the mountain again and get to the top.” He thought a minute. “Maybe that’s the only real way to put this behind us.”
Margaret watched as Patrick looked at the windowsill and then over toward the red counter. He crossed his arms. She knew he was measuring an idea, tossing it about, looking at it from all angles. She needed to stop him before the idea turned solid.
“Patrick,” she said.
“You know,” he said, interrupting her. “You know, it might not be the worst idea in the world.”
“Climbing Mount Kenya is the last thing I want to do.”
“Well, think about it for a minute,” Patrick said, cutting the air with his hand. “It would be just the two of us, with a guide and porters. Or we could ask someone we know well, people we like and trust.” He stood up and put his hand to his forehead. “I think you’re in much better condition than you were then. The tennis, for one thing. We could do it, we could cross the glacier, we could reach the top. And it would be done! It would be done and over with, and we’d have erased—”
“Diana?”
“No, not Diana. I don’t want to do that. We’d have expunged that sickening feeling we had after the climb. That deadly silence. That devastating mistrust. We would be together every step of the way. You’d never be alone, Margaret. We would do this as a couple.”
“Patrick,” Margaret said, putting her palms out, “I hated climbing Mount Kenya. I hated every minute of it. It was physically painful, never mind the rest.”
But Patrick would not be dissuaded. “That’s because we pushed you to go faster than you were ready for. We left you alone. I was an asshole, Margaret. I admit that. I should have stayed with you every second. I shouldn’t have let Arthur get within a ten-foot radius of you. If you look at it one way, the whole fiasco was my fault.”
Margaret arched her back. She tightened the sash of her robe. She stood and walked to the sink to pour herself a second glass of water. She drank the water and turned to her husband, who sat in the chair, whose face showed every new idea and plan as it occurred to him. A twitch here, a blink there. He rubbed his neck.
“Margaret, seriously,” he said. “We’ll plan it for, say, a month from now. We’ll still be at the edge of the dry season. That’ll give you—me—a month to get ready. We know so much more now. We’ll buy better jackets, or, if we hurry, we can have them sent from home. We’ll hike the Ngong Hills every weekend. I know you’re in better shape. You’ve been in the country for more than a year, and your lungs are stronger. We’ll stay in Naro Moru for a couple of nights this time, just to make sure we get thoroughly acclimated.”
“People will think we’re crazy,” Margaret said. “Disrespectful, even.”
“Think what? Who think? No one knows anything about us but us. We’ll be together the whole time, with the Africans and the mountain. We’ll help each other up. Margaret, I really believe this is what we need to do. To break the…” He shook his head, finally at a loss for words.
Ice jam, Margaret thought. She had never seen Patrick so animated—not since before they’d left the States, when they were getting ready to fly to Kenya. Her husband was pacing the room now, a man with a detailed plan.
Margaret considered the idea. Her heart shrank at the memory of the bog and the scree and the rats. The grim, dark cloud overhead. But mightn’t a physical challenge be just what she needed to clear her mind? A task so difficult it would wipe away whatever had gone before? She recalled how hard it was to think about anything else while on the mountain. Surely that in itself would be welcome. She and Patrick could pay tribute to Diana when they reached the glacier. They could remember her. And then they could continue on and reach the top. The idea, as crazy as it initially sounded, had theoretical appeal.
But Margaret shook her head. No, it was insane. If she couldn’t summon the energy to wash the dishes, how would she ever have the energy to climb a mountain, a very difficult mountain? She lifted her hair over the collar of her robe. It was getting hot in the room, and she thought of turning on the fan.
“I think couples need projects,” he said, “to keep them together.”
Patrick had thrown down the gauntlet. To say yes to the mountain was to say yes to the marriage. To say no was to admit that it was as good as over, that nothing could be done. And then, in a matter of weeks, Patrick would leave. He would go to South Africa on the pretext of a conference. Or to China. Or to India. And Margaret would go home. Alone.
Did Margaret have the right to deny the marriage its one chance?
She put her hands on the counter and bent her head. She turned to her husband.
“So what do you think?” he asked again. The hope on his face was like a boy’s. He had gone from unhappy puzzlement to seeming clarity in the space of a minute, two minutes.
“Okay,” she said.
He sat back, as if he didn’t believe her. Perhaps he had planned a lengthier campaign. “Wow,” he said. “You’ll really do it?”
“Yes, I’ll really do it.”
Patrick grinned. He opened his legs and spread his arms along the sides of the chair. “It’ll be great, I promise you.”
“I believe you,” Margaret said.
Everdene and Kevin Winter turned out to be the perfect choice.
The four sat under an arbor of jacaranda while purple petals drifted to the patio stones around them. Everdene had arranged a picnic at an outdoor table. Kevin made generous pours with the wine. Margaret apologized for the nonexistent cheesecake, but Everdene smiled and said she and Kevin didn’t need the calories.
The garden was a wonder, Margaret thought. More an orchard than beds of flowers, it had been planted with produce in mind. In between the straight rows of fruit trees, the grass was cut short, as if sheep had nibbled at it. At the end of the lawn ran a clear stream of water. Even from the table, she could hear the stones clacking over one another in the rushing water.
“This is a kind of paradise you have here,” Margaret said to Everdene and Kevin.
Kevin smiled. “The owners had sheep.”
“Do you have sheep?”
Everdene laughed. “No. Just the illusion of sheep.”
“Hell of a lot less work,” Patrick said.
When Patrick and Margaret arrived at the stone house in Muthaiga, Kevin gave them a tour. The building had once been a men’s club, he said, which explained the grand spaces on the ground floor, the warren of tiny rooms upstairs. This room was once a bar, Kevin said. That one, an old smoking room. He pointed out the library and what had been the front lobby. “Used to be a desk here for the receptionist. A small area there for the porters. The bedrooms are small, just big enough to accommodate a single bed. It’s where the early settlers came for parties or to get away from their wives. It would have been a long journey from Karen, say, in the days when all travel was by horse. If you came here for a dinner party, you probably stayed two or three days. Everdene and I had to knock down a wall upstairs just to fit a double bed and a chest of drawers into one of the bedrooms. Strangely enough, the couple who lived here before us hadn’t done so. We often speculate about the nature of their marriage.”
Patrick smiled.
&n
bsp; Though Kevin was young, his face had weathered into the shape Margaret thought it would always be. His eyes seemed perpetually drafted into a squint. Everdene was lovely, the sort of unassuming, intelligent woman Margaret had occasionally met. Everdene had bangs and light-brown hair to her shoulders. She wore oversize black glasses. Kevin’s specialty was diseases of the bone, Patrick had explained. Everdene, who had a PhD in economics, taught at the university. The couple had been in the country four months and had nothing of the cynicism of some of the expatriates Patrick and Margaret had met before.
Margaret hiked her yellow sundress just above her knees as she lay back in the striped-canvas chair. Kevin continued to pour, and Everdene brought out a plate of cheeses and fruit. Margaret drank a white that Kevin, miraculously, had managed to keep ice-cold in a bucket under the table. It tasted like a Vouvray, and she wondered how Kevin had come by the fruity French wine.
“Sunday Lunch is a brilliant idea,” Margaret said to Everdene. “You don’t mind if we borrow it?”
“A Sunday picnic, really,” Everdene said. “We love them. Hard to come by in London because of the awful weather, which is why we revel in them here. When we first came out, I just couldn’t get enough of the sunshine. Kevin straightaway forced me to wear a hat. He’s right, of course, but sometimes I just love to put my face directly to the sun. Which you can probably tell from all the freckles.”
“I don’t think anyone leaves the country without freckles,” Margaret said. She glanced at Patrick, who was deep in conversation with Kevin.
“Do you want some water to go with that wine?” Everdene asked. “The only drawback of the Sunday picnic, one discovers, is the headache at six.”
“Water would be great.”
Everdene picked up a pitcher and poured ice water into a wineglass, which she then gave to Margaret.
“God, it’s wonderful here,” Margaret said. “I’d never want to leave.”
“We never want to leave, either. Though we do, of course, to go to work. The house has all sorts of oddities. I’m sure Kevin pointed them out. The garden at the back was originally meant for a croquet lawn, and they had garden parties under tents, which explains its size.”