The Last Time They Met_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [59]
—Yes.
The yes matter-of-fact, as if she had expected the offer.
—I saw your husband yesterday, Thomas continued. At the Thorn Tree Café. He told me he might be arrested. I had no idea it would happen so soon.
Mary Ndegwa was silent and very still. Thomas tried to imagine her life on her mother-in-law’s shamba: would there be a hierarchy, a chain of command? Both women reduced to lesser status when Ndegwa came home on weekends?
—He told me that if he was arrested, I should visit you, Thomas said.
—I know this, she said.
Thomas, disoriented, nodded slowly. You’ve been expecting me, then?
—Oh, yes.
And yet he himself hadn’t known until this morning that he would come. A lizard slithered on the wall. Mary Ndegwa adjusted her bulk on the settee.
—How is your son? Thomas asked, the breasts reminding him of the child.
—Baby Ndegwa is just all right.
The pombe was already giving him a kind of hangover. Incredibly, he needed to piss again.
—My husband said that you tell the truth in your verses, Mary Ndegwa said.
Thomas was momentarily buoyed by the compliment, rare enough these days. Your husband is very generous in his criticism, but I can invent the truth when it suits me.
—The truth may be seen from many doorways, Mr. Thomas.
The pronouncement had the ring of having been rehearsed. He imagined a hillside of huts, all with open doorways, mzees standing at the thresholds and looking at a single light on a distant hill.
His eyes adjusting, he could now make out dark circles around Mary Ndegwa’s eyes that spoke of fatigue. He half expected the record player to begin at any minute with another country-and-western tune.
—Have they told you where Ndegwa is? Thomas asked.
—They are keeping him at Thika.
—Will you be allowed to visit him?
She made a face as if to say, Of course not. Our government will not release my husband. They will not tell us the charges or set a date for trial.
Thomas nodded slowly.
—This is a fact that should be spoken of in many places, is it not?
A tiny hitch inside his chest, a moment of enlightenment. Understanding now, as he had not before, why he had been granted an audience, why Ndegwa had sat with him yesterday at the Thorn Tree. Had the man been trolling for journalists? For Americans? Had Ndegwa choreographed his own detention?
—This is a violation of human rights, Mary Ndegwa said.
Thomas was hot beneath his blue sports coat, misshapen now from having been washed by mistake in the bathtub. He, the least political of men, even when there had been marches against the Vietnam War. He had gone simply to be there, to watch the people around him. That the marches might be a means to an end, he hadn’t much credited.
—My government can detain my husband for years. This is not right.
—No, of course not, Thomas said. I am happy to help in any way I can.
—You and my husband spoke of these things?
—Yesterday we talked briefly about the fact that he might be detained. Normally, we spoke of literature. And poetry. Words.
Mary Ndegwa sat forward on the sofa. They have arrested demonstrators at the university. There are now fifty being detained along with my husband. Why have they been arrested? I will tell you, Mr. Thomas. To silence them. To keep them from uttering words.
Thomas ran his fingers back and forth over his forehead.
—Dissidence is only words, she added.
It was a kind of catechism, he thought. I must confess I’m not much of a political man, he said.
—What is a political man? she asked sharply, a sudden spark, noticeably absent before, in her voice. Do you recognize suffering?
—I hope I do.
—Injustice?
—Again, I hope I would.
—Then you are a political man.
There seemed no point in saying otherwise. For her purposes, then, he would be political and would do whatever it was she wished: dispatch himself to embassy officials? Write eloquent letters? Call the press?
Mary Ndegwa struggled to her feet. Come with me, she said.
Thomas, having no wish to disobey, followed her. They left the house through a back entrance. Ndegwa’s