Echoes From A Distant Land Part 48

'I was just thinking out loud that it'd be nice to have someone to show us around.'

'Hey, girl. You're in my bed. Naked. Right? So where do you get off thinking about other guys?'

His outburst took her by surprise and she needed a moment to respond.

'What do you mean other guys?' she asked. 'I just mentioned Jelani because we were talking about Kenya and -'

'Don't think I haven't noticed how you two chatter like a pair of magpies when you're together.'

'Raph!'

'And at the nightclub. I could hardly prise you apart.'

She said nothing to this, but in his petulance he'd answered her question - she was not in love with Raph.

And it came as something of a relief.

CHAPTER 53.

Emerald couldn't decide what she wanted to do about her friends.h.i.+p with Raph. He had an exciting if dominating personality; he was amusing when he wanted to be; and he could be a lot of fun, such as when they fled the police on the day of the protest march, but he had an unpleasant side to his nature that she'd only just started to see. She wondered if she was attracted more to the idea of Raph rather than to Raph himself.

When she could get away from her mother in the afternoons, she would go to him, full of excitement and expectations, but as soon as they'd made love, he became remote. She wanted to hold him afterwards, to feel his body close to hers. And she wanted him to hold her, but he became restless and irritable. He was uninterested in her thoughts and feelings and plans. Recently, he'd been making more of those snide remarks about her friends.h.i.+p with Jelani; and their petty arguments were becoming increasingly nasty. She wanted to put a little distance between them while she untangled her thoughts. In spite of that, when he rang her at the Algonquin, she again agreed to have lunch with him.

They met in the restaurant near NYU they'd chosen as their regular meeting place.

'Where've you been, dressed like that?'

'What do you mean?'

'That blouse. Leaves nothing to the imagination. Every guy in town can see your t.i.ts.'

'I thought you'd like it,' she said, looking down at the blouse.

'It's not what I like to see my girl wearing when she's out on her own.'

'I've only been to my photojournalist cla.s.s.'

'And that's another thing. What a f.u.c.king waste of time that is.'

'It is not!'

'In that whole roll of film at the march - no, two rolls of film - you only had one lousy photo that was worth anything. Why bother?'

'I bother because one day I'm going to earn my living at it.'

'Don't make me laugh. You have no need to make a living. All you have to do is put out your hand and take whatever Mummy and Daddy give you.'

Emerald was about to retaliate again, but held back. She didn't like the way the conversation was going - or the way he seemed to think he could now take control of her life.

'Why are you acting so mean?' she asked.

'Am I? Well, life's like that. A struggle. Rich against poor. Workers against bosses. Privileged against the underprivileged. But you, little Miss Moneybucks, wouldn't know. And probably wouldn't care.'

Emerald had heard enough. She pushed her chair back and stood, blinking the tears of humiliation and anger away.

'You have no right to speak to me that way, Raph,' she said. 'I'm sorry I can't live up to your socialist ideals. You make me feel like a traitor to the human race because my family has money. Perhaps we shouldn't see each other until I'm able to overcome the sin of coming from a privileged background.'

Jelani sat with Emerald in the rotunda by the lake in Central Park. It was late afternoon, and they had the popular picnicking spot to themselves.

'It made me happy when you called,' he said. 'How did you know where I'm staying?'

'I went to the Longsh.o.r.emen's offices,' she said. 'I couldn't think of any other way to contact you.' She smiled. 'If my mother knew I'd gone there she'd have a fit.'

'Why?'

'She doesn't approve of unions. Actually, it's my stepfather who doesn't approve and she just goes along with him. Anyway, someone else was looking for you too. The man in your office said a black man wanted to speak with you.'

'Really? Maybe it was Randolph.'

'No, Randolph was the one I spoke to.'

Jelani puzzled over this. He hardly knew anyone in New York. And Randolph was the only black man who knew him.

'Well, I'm glad you called. Raph's coming too.'

'Oh?'

'After we spoke, I called him, and he said he'd love to come.'

Emerald said nothing.

'I didn't think you'd mind,' Jelani said, seeing her uneasiness.

'Yes, of course it's OK. It's just that I didn't know.'

Her response was not as he expected and made Jelani think again about his conversation with Raph. The Englishman had actually said: 'Then I'd better be there.' Jelani thought it was his unfamiliarity with the English idiom, but the conversation became a little strained after that.

'Tell me about Kenya,' she asked him, interrupting his thoughts.

'Why? It is only a small country, so far away,' he said.

'I'm interested. I was born in Kenya. I think it was somewhere near the capital ... what's its name?'

'Nairobi. Then you are close to my homeland. I grew up near Embu, not far from Nairobi.'

He told her of his childhood, and it emerged that they'd been born in the same year.

'Eleventh of January, 1932,' she said.

'I don't know the month,' Jelani said, a little embarra.s.sed at his ignorance. 'The Kikuyu don't take much notice of birthdays.'

'I'd love to go there someday. Tell me about where you lived.'

'Ah, now you are asking me something,' Jelani began, smiling. 'It is such a small village. n.o.body knows we are there.'

'Tell me anyway.'

'Well ... my home is called Kobogi. It's in the big forest, high in the hills ...'

He could see the little village with its huts of mud and daub and thatched roofs. Drying racks for the hides. The kids and lambs bleating in their staked enclosure. Children running about, laughing. The wood smoke from cooking fires. Dry dung and damp earth.

'You can see the Aberdare Ranges from the village,' he continued, 'and on a clear day, if you climb the ridge to the north, you can see Kirinyaga. Emma, I tell you, it is so beautiful.'

'Kirinyaga?'

'It means mountain of brightness. The Kikuyu people believe that G.o.d lives there. The white people call it Mt Kenya, but oh, it is so beautiful. You must see it if you come to my country.'

'I will, if you take me there.'

He laughed, not sure if she was joking.

'My mother had a maize garden near the stream. And we had many goats. When I was a boy I had to tend them during the day and lock them in the pens at night in case of leopards.'

Then he remembered Kobogi didn't exist any more. His whole extended family now lived on Cook's farm except for those, like Jelani, who'd left to find work in the cities.

'What does your name, Jelani, mean?' she asked.

'It means mighty in Swahili.' He smiled self-consciously. 'Maybe everyone thought I was going to grow tall.'

He remembered the fat Ugandan clerk at the administration office and his joke about his first given name, Zesiro - first born of twins. It had never left his mind that he might somewhere have a twin, possibly someone as light-skinned as he.

'But you are tall. And very handsome, of course.'

He laughed to cover his embarra.s.sment. Emerald was always teasing him about his appearance.

'Do you have a girlfriend in Kenya?'

'I do.'

'Tell me about her.'

'We met when I was about thirteen or fourteen,' Jelani said. 'Beth was a little younger. Then something happened and she went away.'

'Oh, how sad. What happened?'

Jelani wondered how Emerald, or any white girl for that matter, could ever understand the Kikuyu culture. She would think all Kikuyu were savages if he told her about the old chief's desire to have his Beth as a wife. Sitting in a park in New York made the whole matter of his culture too exotic - too strange for that day and that place. Such stories could only be understood in their homeland.

'It was nothing. Her family ... moved away, that's all. But we're together again now.'

'Wonderful. Have you had a letter from her?'

'No. I don't think it would reach me before I leave.'

'Are you in love?'

He thought about it. He had no doubt that his feelings for Beth were different from those he had for any other girl. 'I'm not sure,' he said. 'How can you know?'

Emerald shrugged. 'If you're not sure I suppose it's not real love. Aren't you supposed to feel something really special about that person when you're in love?'

Jelani shrugged. 'Maybe. Yes, I think so.'

'When you see her, does your heart jump?'

He nodded. 'Yes ... I think it does. Like a gazelle.'

'And when she smiles at you, does it make you feel special?'

'... Yes.'

His thoughts carried him into Beth's arms. And even when I just touch her hand, I want to make love to her, he thought. His heart thumped inside his chest and at that moment he wanted to be home in Kenya with her. 'I miss her very much,' he said.

'That's another sign,' Emerald added. 'It certainly sounds like you're in love.'

He hesitated before asking, 'Do you love Raph?'

'Hmm ... I'm not sure.'

Jelani smiled. Emerald had failed her own test. He liked her, but Raph could be difficult at times. Jelani admired Raph's commitment to the union movement, but he didn't like the way he talked to Emerald. He was very demanding of her, and Jelani sensed she didn't like it, although she said nothing. He would have liked to ask her more about her feelings for Raph because in Jelani's view, he was not good for her.

They sipped their drinks in silence.

'When was the last time you went back home to see your family?' she asked.

'I've not been back for so many years, I've almost forgotten them.'

'Don't you miss them?'

He thought again about his family. Every time he'd done so in recent years he resolved to go back to visit them, but then he found reasons or excuses to defer it again. Cook's farm was not Kobogi, which would have made it easier for him, but that, he realised now, was yet another excuse.

'I do miss them,' he said. 'And being here in this great big city makes me miss them more.'

She reached across the table, and put her hand on his arm. 'Oh, Jelani, when you go back to Kenya, you must visit your home again.'