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By Root 680 0

they were spies — an idea abandoned in the next minute with the realization there’d be little of value to spy on. Still he could not find Linda. From the center of the room, Mary Ndegwa waved to him. Thomas gravitated to her, as a subject will be drawn toward a royal personage. She was holding court in a gold headdress with a caftan of a similar color that made him think of frankincense and myrrh. Thomas could not suppress the thought that Ndegwa’s imprisonment had freed the wife and mother. Freed her to become what had perhaps all along been her nature: a leader with a following. Which raised the question: What would happen if and when Ndegwa were ever released?

—Mr. Thomas, she said. You are looking very handsome tonight.

Power had made her flirtatious. No more handsome than you, he said as expected.

—I was hoping I would meet your wife.

—She’s here somewhere, Thomas said, making an effort to search the gathering, growing like a culture in a petri dish, crowding other cells. I’ll find her in a minute and bring her over.

—I have thanked you already for arranging this, she said. But may I be permitted to thank you again?

—It’s not necessary, Thomas said, waving his hand. Actually, I had very little to do with it.

—Mr. Kennedy did not come.

—No. I’m surprised.

—It is no matter.

And Thomas thought, no, it wasn’t. That now Mary Ndegwa was the personage without peer, though there were supposed to be one or two MPs at the party as well. The guest list had been composed largely of people the embassy wished to reward with attendance at a party at which Kennedy would be (and now wasn’t) present.

—And how is Ndegwa? Thomas asked.

—I fear for him, she said, though Thomas noted she did not look distraught.

—Your book is doing well, he said.

—Yes. Very well. It, too, will be repressed one day.

—You seem certain.

—Oh, but I am, she said, amused that he should doubt this perfectly obvious truth.

—I’m sorry to hear that.

—Mr. Thomas, you must not desert us, she said, touching him on the shoulder.

He was slightly taken aback by the imperative. He hadn’t been thinking of deserting, though, truthfully, he hadn’t been thinking of Ndegwa at all. He sought a suitable reply, but already Mary Ndegwa had lost interest in him, was looking over his shoulder at a woman Thomas vaguely recognized as an Italian journalist. It was an abrupt and total dismissal, not intended to dismiss so much as to discard and move along.

He wandered to the edges of the gathering, trying to get outside of the building so that he could have a cigarette, though the rooms were filled with smoke already and he needn’t have bothered. He wanted to watch for Linda, anxious now lest she not come at all. And then what would happen? Would he have to go to the Norfolk tomorrow only to tell her his wife was pregnant? It was inconceivable, like the earth shifting in its orbit.

He leaned upon a wall at the top of the steps and smoked. There were stragglers and fashionably late arrivals. It was nearly eight o’clock and soon, he thought, people would begin to leave to go to their dinners. Marines stood at attention at the bottom of the steps and made a kind of honor guard through which the guests, in uncomfortable shoes, paraded. He saw her before she had even crossed the street, her companion looking to his right for traffic, his hand at her back, nudging her forward when he thought it was safe. She wore a shawl around her shoulders, holding it closed with her hands just above her waist, and it was such a precise repetition of the image of her walking toward him at Petley’s that his breath caught. For a moment, before she saw him, he endured the sweet mix of pleasure and pain that observing her cross the street caused, running a step at the end (a rude driver) and then lifting the skirt of her dress, white linen, as she stepped onto the curb (she had worn her best dress in Lamu to meet him, he realized now). And watching her, he understood why she was late: she’d been drinking already. How did he know this? It was in the slight loss of balance as she stepped up