The Last Time They Met_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [66]
The insanity of the dinner invitation was like a boy’s voice breaking in mid-speech.
—I’m sure he remembers you, Thomas added. Well, I know he does. He still talks about what a good ice-skater you were.
—It seems like so long ago, she said wistfully.
—It seems like only yesterday.
He studied her arm on the table. The hair there was nearly white as well. She seemed to notice his scrutiny, for she withdrew her arm. Perhaps she was still self-conscious about her hands.
—Tell me about your work, she said.
He thought a moment. No.
She looked up and smiled. Touché.
He knew the work was good. It was a simple fact that never left him. And he knew that one day someone else would see this if only he could be patient. He sometimes marveled at his confidence and wondered where it had come from. And though he seldom talked about it, he never mistrusted it.
She rose. Would you like to go for a walk? I could show you the school.
He felt he could have sat in her cottage forever.
His legs were weak as she led him through the back door. He had expected her to put on sandals, but she didn’t, and he noted the toughness of her feet. The path through the bush was narrow, causing them to have to walk single file, making conversation all but impossible. The low grasses, wet from the recent rain, soaked his trouser cuffs, and he stopped for a moment to roll them. They walked through a pale yellow chrysanthemum field and past what appeared to be a small cluster of huts. True huts, with grass roofs, not the sophisticated version with the tin roof and the red vinyl furniture of the Ndegwa shamba. He watched her back, her drying hair. It was chilly after the storm, though the sun was strong, and as they walked through shady patches, they passed from cool to warm to cool again. Occasionally, Linda waved at a woman or a child. He might have noticed the scenery, but he could hardly take his eyes off her. Her walk strong, the cloth of the kanga swaying languidly as she moved. Her hair growing lighter by the minute. They edged a dense forest, and he grew momentarily nervous about encountering another buffalo or an elephant, but she moved without concern, and he chose simply to follow her lead. The forest opened to a village with a dusty duka, a bar, a school — all made of cement. It might have been the Wild West, for its lack of adornment and its isolation.
He meant to catch up to her as soon as they had left the path, but on the road she was immediately surrounded by children, calling to her, reaching out to touch her. Jambo. Miss Linda. Habari yako? Mzuri sana. She scratched the tops of their heads, bent down to hug them. They spoke to Linda in a rapid patois of Swahili and English, and wanted to know, shyly, the identity of the man with her, pointing at him with one hand and hiding their mouths with the other. She introduced Thomas as a friend, and he shook hands all around, their happiness infectious. But then a boy asked Linda where Peter was, and Thomas felt the happiness drain from his body. They began to walk on, the children like grasshoppers beside them. Thomas wanted to take Linda’s hand, ached to do so. She told him that once the village had been a thriving community, but that most of the men had gone into the city, looking for work. Some came back to their women and children on the weekends; others would never come back at all. Women with babies wrapped in slings at their chests waved at Linda from doorways, the ebullience of the children not in evidence there, the waves friendly but somber: the women knew too much, or their men had left them.
Heat radiated from the road. Thomas took off his jacket, threw it over his shoulder. His clothes were now as dusty as the dirt and gravel. Linda opened the door to the school, and the children squeezed past them. It was unexpectedly cool inside the building, the walls solid until shoulder height, where, just below the tin roof, there were open windows with no glass.
—When it rains, the sound on the roof is so loud, we have to stop the class.
—The kids