The Last Time They Met_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [71]
Sister Marie Francis, formidable and large, keeps passing by and regarding me with disapproval. As well she might, though I think it is only my kanga. Or perhaps she sees the wayward Catholic girl in me as I study the lurid cross on the wall opposite. The girl who used to ponder the subjects of joy and guilt and punishment. The nun walks silently by, and our eyes lock — I cannot help myself; possibly I am looking for a sign, a message from her? — and I feel exposed, more naked than even my casual dress implies.
I didn’t tell you that Peter came unexpectedly after you had left. I was startled by this second apparition of the day, and I backed away from the door. He took my alarm for normal surprise, which he had intended. You still on my skin. I had to plead illness, exhaustion, anything. Ashamed not of you, nor of us, but of my fear of discovery.
Oh, Thomas, despite all this, I am so happy.
Yesterday, I arranged to take the children into Nyeri for a parade in Jomo Kenyatta’s honor. Thirty children crowded into two VW vans and one Peugeot 504 (you don’t want to think about it too much). We stood on a hillside and watched the parade marchers, who were in tribal dress and sneakers and wearing Coca-Cola sunshades, all the while eating Popsicles. We listened to Jomo Kenyatta deliver a speech on harambee and the future of Kenya. Of course, in the presence of the children, one had to be respectful and ignore the irony of the use of the word freedom when men like Ndegwa languish in prison. (Have you heard anything further from your Marine?) Though it must be said that amongst the spectators and marchers alike, tensions were high: Kenyatta, as you know, is not as beloved as he once was. The point of my story is that, quite suddenly and without warning, panic broke out on the hill, and a stampede began. Hundreds of people started running, not realizing they were headed for a barbed-wire fence. The hysteria was infectious. We herded the children into a tight circle and made them crouch down, and essentially we lay on top of them. I thought, Kenyatta has been shot. And then, This is a coup. Peter took a knee to his spine. Soldiers with bayonets kneeled beside us and aimed at the crowd. No one was killed, but dozens were injured as they were crushed into the barbed wire. Later we learned that the panic had been caused by a swarm of bees. Overhead, oblivious to the melee, six fighter planes roared by in a salute to Kenyatta. As we watched, one of them rolled out of formation and crashed on a nearby golf course.
I write of these events as I once wrote of movies or of trips to the beach. I will not say I have gotten used to them, but they don’t shock me anymore.
What shocks me is my love for you.
I would like to think that what we have could exist outside of real time, that it could be a thing apart and not invade. Foolish and dangerous thinking. It has already invaded every part of my life.
Yours,
L.
December 21
Dear Linda,
You write of panic and hysteria, but all I can think about is Peter with you on that hillside, Peter surprising you in your cottage (while I was returning to a fuming Regina). Jealous already. Intense, consuming jealousy that reduces me to a petty, twisted, unlovable creature. Did you sleep with him? That night? So soon after we had been together? That I have no right to be jealous is irrelevant. It is a human passion: the sick, white underbelly of love. Worse, I am jealous of your doctor with whom all the women fall in love. Do you include yourself?
Don’t answer my questions.
Last night, Regina and I attended the launch of a book called Silence Will Speak by Errol Trzebinski. Essentially a biography of Denys Finch Hatton, Blixen