The Last Time They Met_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [74]
Rich is coming on Tuesday, and we will be going on safari for a couple of weeks. I was looking forward to this (and I suppose I still am), though I am distraught at the thought of not being able to receive a letter from you. (You should perhaps not write to me for two weeks. No, do write, just don’t send them until I’m back. I hate this fucking subterfuge. It demeans us as well as Peter and Regina. But I don’t see how it can be avoided, do you?)
I followed a tip from a friend (acquaintance) and went to visit a man in Nairobi who runs a magazine to see if he would want to publish any of my poetry. It was a long shot, but I was in Nairobi anyway (making my twelve-dollars-a-minute phone call to the New Yorker — probably spent all of forthcoming check), and I thought I’d give it a try. It’s a strange hybrid of a magazine, something between McCall’s and Time (interviews with high-ranking politicians next to recipes), but I liked the editor. He was educated in the States — in Indiana, as it happens — and he invited me to lunch. He will publish several of the poems. (Actually getting paid there, too. An embarrassment of riches.) An offshoot of this visit, however, was that he said he was desperate for reporters, and he asked if I would do one or two pieces for him. I told him I’d never been a journalist, but that didn’t seem to bother him — my qualifications chiefly, I gather, that I am available and can write in English. I thought, Why not? and so said yes. As a result, I am to leave tomorrow to cover a siku kuu (literal translation: big day) at the Masai bomas in the Rift. Accompanied by a photographer. I don’t see how it can’t be interesting on some level.
Linda, I am dying. I must see you soon. Is there any chance you could get away for a few days? I am thinking (probably hopelessly) about meeting somewhere on the coast. Regina, who will be with us on safari, will go back early after we get to Mombasa (she can’t tolerate humidity). I could persuade Rich to go back with her (he’ll have had more than enough of his big brother by then and will probably be desperate to be alone). To be with you in Lamu would be heaven. Have you ever been there? Alternatively, forget the coast and just come to Nairobi. Or tell me that I can come to Njia. Could we meet in Limuru? My body is aching.
Love always,
Thomas
P.S. I hate the way letters close — either too tepid or too sappy for the occasion.
P.P.S. Today’s headline: RAMPAGING ELEPHANTS DESTROY CROPS.
January 17
Dear Thomas,
I am very sad today. David died this morning at Mary Magdalene. Dr. Benoît did everything he could, but the pneumonia had invaded both lungs, and David hadn’t the strength to fight it. I have just come from telling his mother, who herself is gravely ill; she seemed hardly to hear my news. What is this terrible disease, Thomas? Dr. Benoît is furious with himself and with Brussels; they took too long to send back the results of the culture. They, too, are baffled, however, and have sent the samples to the CDC in America. Dr. Benoît says he has seen other, similar, cases and is concerned about the disease spreading before he can discover what it is.
David was a brave boy. There will be a funeral tomorrow. Yes, it may be possible to meet you on the coast. I would have to arrange either to go with Peter or return with him, but it might be possible to find two days to be with you. I, too, am aching, though I am fearful of seeing you again. Perhaps it is my disheartened mood today, but I see no good outcome to our being together. None. Someone — and I believe we have to hope it will be us — will be desperately hurt.
I am glad for your news from the New Yorker. You must send me the poems they are going to publish.
Thomas, I love you beyond anything I thought possible. It makes me sad for Peter, for what he never had from me.
I will omit the tepid closing. No words are adequate.
Linda
P.S. I took