As the Dobsons were finalizing the paperwork for the title deeds up in Mombasa, Anne was announcing to Kublai their imminent arrival, telling him that they’d probably need to do quite a lot of repair around the house, and would most certainly place a large order of materials with him. She was actually savoring the moment when she would take Keith to the store and show him not only how well regarded she was there, but also what lovely people the Khans were. Hopefully that would help to make him like the place more. But when the time came and she offered to make the introduction Keith simply said that he didn’t care to meet any shopkeeper from the village. He had already placed an order for everything he needed in Mombasa and it was due to be delivered any day.
“I hate that horrid little junction anyway,” he said in his disparaging tone. “The less I’ll have to go there, the happier I will be.”
Six weeks later, once the walls had been repainted, the bathrooms renovated and the kitchen redesigned, the Dobsons moved into the Wiltons’ old house, breathing new life into rooms that had been empty for more than two years. Mrs. D’Costa brought over a potted bougainvillea as a housewarming present and Margie showed her around the rooms. They were filled with sturdy furniture in blond wood, with bookcases for the large number of books that Keith meant to read, with a grand piano that Margie meant to play, with an astonishing variety of kitchen utensils, pots and pans, garden furniture and the usual array of paintings people collect during a lifetime in East Africa: there were buffaloes staring down from a ridge, Masai warriors on the hunt holding spears and blazing sunsets over the Indian Ocean. There were, of course, dozens of pictures of the Dobsons’ progeny scattered everywhere, either sailing a dhow off the island of Zanzibar, trekking Mount Kenya or driving open cars through the bush in muddy safari clothes with a beer can in hand. They were two incredibly good-looking boys, tanned, blond, healthy, carrying the great mix of their parents’ genes in their youthful bodies.
Mrs. D’Costa inspected every picture with great care. She was looking forward to meeting the boys when they would come to visit their parents. It would be so refreshing to have some young people around.
Her own children all lived too far away. For them to fly with wives and children just to see her was too expensive. The oldest was a schoolteacher in Brisbane, the other a chiropractor in a small town in northern England, and her daughter was a full-time mother of three in Durban. They all struggled to make ends meet at the end of the month, and though they always promised a visit, they kept postponing the trip and now it’d been close to three years since she had seen them. They often wrote letters (Mrs. D’Costa had firmly refused to learn how to use a computer and to write e-mails) and they called her once every two or three weeks, but she wished she could see the grandchildren more. These days children grew up so fast, one had a hard time recognizing them after only six months.
Looking at these festive family photographs she couldn’t help but admit that her own children had had a very different life than that of the Dobsons. Not so much access to adventure. Well, and very different looking, for sure.
In early December the short rains ended and the weather finally changed. Every morning now the skies were clear, no more rumbling in the distance announcing another downpour. The nights were warmer, the fishermen went out in the evenings in their slim ingalawas, dotting the horizon with flickering lights.
But it turned out that, unlike Lionel and Prudence, the Dobsons hardly ever invited her over, and Mrs. D’Costa’s gin rummy nights with Hamisi continued. One week shortly after they’d settled in she’d asked the Dobsons over to Sunday lunch and had extended the invitation also to her old friend Ada, an ex-nurse who still lived in Mombasa, whom she’d met through the East African Women’s Society. Ada arrived almost an hour late, so that by the time they heard her battered car sputtering and clanking along the driveway, everyone was starved and jittery. They heard the car door slam, then Pickle’s and Chutney’s furious barking over Ada’s high-pitched voice.
“So sorry! I had a bloody puncture and nobody stopped to give me a hand! Off you go! Off! You wretched creatures!”
Ada appeared on the veranda panting and puffing in faded baggy trousers and a strange shirt with a ruffled collar that didn’t make any sense. White roots were showing under a faded hair dye.
They sat down to lunch at last and Hamisi brought his legendary curry to the table. Even before Ada had arrived, Mrs. D’Costa could tell that Keith found the company dull, as he didn’t make any effort to participate in conversation and now ate his food in rapid, greedy gulps, shaking his leg under the table in a nervous tic. Ada began a meandering tale about how she’d just won the yearly contest of the society with her tomato preserves, and how the previous year the first prize had gone, of all people, to Mrs. D’Costa for a multicolored crocheted blanket. Margie half listened while sending quick, concerned glances across the table to her husband, probably gauging his tolerance level, which was clearly dropping by the minute. None of this escaped Mrs. D’Costa, who felt sorry both for Keith, who had to listen to all this nonsense, and for Ada, who was making a fool of herself. She was relieved when Keith suddenly stood up and declared it was time for his nap.
After this experiment Mrs. D’Costa had enough good sense not to ask them again. She thought it wiser to sit and wait for the Dobsons to return the invitation. It never came. If by chance she’d cross their car on the dirt road, the Dobsons would limit themselves to waving a hand and keep driving on.
Often in the evening the breeze would carry the sound of Margie playing the piano, or sometimes she’d hear Keith’s voice calling for Justin, the houseboy they’d taken with them from their previous home, or laughing out loud about something. It was like receiving snippets of a parallel life she had no access to.
“Oh well,” she said out loud to her face in the bathroom mirror. “If they want to keep their privacy, just let them be.” But she knew better.
As the holidays neared, Margie showed up a couple of times by the cottage on her way to the junction. Sometimes she would just honk at the end of the driveway without even getting out of the car, with the engine running. The last few times Margie apologized for being always in such a hurry—she told Mrs. D’Costa that she was terribly busy getting everything ready for Christmas. Their two sons were coming with their wives and children, and there was so much to do. Where should she get the turkey for Christmas dinner? Was it necessary to book one? Would Anne know a good, reasonably priced fundi for repairing the thatch roof of the garage?
Mrs. D’Costa had prepared for Christmas well in advance, as she always did. Early in November she had mailed handmade cards to her children and nephews; with Hamisi she had collected doum palm fruits and all sorts of pods in the garden to make their own Christmas decorations. They’d painted them in silver and gold and scattered them around the house. They’d painted a few shells too, which they hung on the branches of the trees, and they looked really pretty. On Christmas Eve she’d attended the usual tea party at the East African Women’s Society (she was a senior member) and the next day she had Christmas lunch with Ada, as they’d done for years.
Finally, early in the morning on Boxing Day, Justin, the Dobsons’ houseboy, showed up at the cottage with a note. Margie was asking her for supper that evening so she could meet Tim and Mark, their wives and the children.
It was an extremely cheerful evening. Mrs. D’Costa found the boys as handsome as their photographs. The wives, Tara and Ruth, were charming and the children adorable. Mark, the older son, was a lawyer in London; Tim a cook in New York.
“A chef,” Margie made sure to make the distinction. “It’s much more than just a cook over there, of course. Tim was on Zagat’s ten best chefs list last year.”
Tim gave her a look, trying to silence her, but she ignored him.
“There was even a profile written on him in one of the papers, I think it was The New York Times, isn’t that right, darling?”
Before leaving, slightly tipsy from the wine, Mrs. D’Costa kissed everyone except for the children, who wouldn’t let her, invited them all to pay her a visit (you can come anytime, you’re always welcome! Just walk up the stone steps from the beach), but they smiled and thanked her, without making a specific plan.
Before New Year’s, the whole crew of youngsters had gone to the island of Lamu to meet other friends, Margie told her. They’d met by chance at the big Nakumatt supermarket by the Likoni Ferry.
“They fly to Nairobi on Sunday and then straight back home from there,” Margaret said, pushing her cart along the aisle.
“That’s too bad. I was hoping to see them again,” Mrs. D’Costa said.
Margie sighed.
“I feel we’ve had such a little time with them, I’ve hardly realized they were here. I’m afraid that after a few days they get bored with us. Especially Tara and Ruth.”
“Nonsense! They had a marvelous time on the beach. I could see them from my veranda playing and snorkeling. They loved it here. Who wouldn’t? We live in paradise.”
Margie nodded, only half listening, and kept searching the aisle. She examined the label of a pricey French coffee and waved the package in front of Anne’s nose.
“Any idea what this is like? Ever tried it?”
“Heavens, no. I only take Nescafé.”
“Oh well, I’ll give it a try. Keith loves his morning coffee. Perhaps it will remind him of Paris.”
She gave Mrs. D’Costa a faint smile and dumped the French roast in the basket full of imported groceries. Margie didn’t wait for her at the checkout, and Anne saw her Range Rover pull away.
Three weeks later, at two in the morning, Justin knocked frantically at the door of the cottage. He was shaking and tears were rolling down his cheeks.
“Bwana Kee amekufa. Kugia nyumbani tafadhali, Mama naogopa sana.”
Mrs. D’Costa sprang into instant action mode; she knew she was at her best when it came to emergencies. She put on some clothes, woke up Hamisi, asked him to get in the passenger seat of the car and drove to the Dobsons’ at full speed on the bumpy dirt road.
Margie was in hysterics. Keith lay in his bed in his boxer shorts and an old T-shirt. He was dead. Heart failure, most probably. Mrs. D’Costa administered a Valium to Margie, gave orders to the house staff to make chamomile tea, sent for Dr. Singh and asked for Tim’s and Mark’s phone numbers. As it often happened, there was no signal at the house and the landline was down. Margie kept shaking her head between sobs, unable to offer a solution, so Mrs. D’Costa drove straight back to her own house and called from there. She found herself calling England and the United States, having to explain a couple of times who she was to the person on the other end of the line as they had no immediate recollection of her name. She then proceeded to explain in a steady tone that their father was dead, thank God he hadn’t suffered, that she was terribly sorry but they needed to book the first flight out if they wanted to make it to the funeral. Then she added in her matter-of-fact way:
“With this heat we can’t wait around too long, you see. As you know, refrigeration is a big problem here.”
Part of her coveted moments like this. She had always maintained that, living in Africa, one always had to be prepared for anything to happen. And though perhaps it was wrong to feel this way in light of what had happened, she was now secretly enjoying the fact that she’d stopped being invisible to them, and that, even for a short interlude, she was needed again.
Two days later, the whole Christmas crew reappeared at their parents’ home, their faces bloated from too many hours of travel, still faintly tanned from the holiday they’d spent there only a few weeks earlier. Mark and Tim cried, in a manly way—silent, with a few sniffs—holding their mother in turns. She was sent to bed with another pill, as she was completely helpless, given the state she was in. Ruth and Tara were disoriented and jet-lagged, the children seemed frightened by the eerie atmosphere. The two brothers wandered aimlessly around the house—a house that was foreign to them, of which they held no memories—as if searching for an answer to what had happened so unexpectedly and so unfairly. They seemed resentful, as though their father had played a trick on them. Mrs. D’Costa watched them with sympathy. She knew well how one could get angry when an unexpected death occurred.
“There was nothing wrong with his heart. He was in perfect form for seventy-two. Absolutely nothing wrong,” Mark kept saying, his voice raging with hostility toward anybody who rang to offer condolences.
Tim sat in the kitchen fiddling with his laptop while Mrs. D’Costa put the kettle on and spooned the expensive French roast into the pot. Once again she’d been the one to take care of the logistics: dealing with the British High Commission, getting the death certificate from Dr. Singh, straightening things up with the police and looking into the laborious paperwork needed to return Keith’s body to Sussex.
“Are you sure you want to take him to England?” she asked Tim in a soft voice. “Your father lived in Kenya most of his life, why not put him under that beautiful baobab at the end of the property?”
“Because Mummy cannot possibly live here all by herself, so we’ll have to sell this house,” he answered bluntly, without lifting his eyes from the screen.
“Will you? I’m so sorry to hear that.”
There was a moment of silence, but for the sound of Tim tapping on the keyboard. She waited till he was done.
“And where will your mother go from here?”
Tim rubbed his eyes. He looked exhausted.
“We’ll have to see. Probably with my brother in the U.K. for the moment? I don’t know, Mrs. D’Costa. We haven’t had the time to think about it, to be honest with you.”
The kettle started its furious whistling. Mrs. D’Costa took it off the stove, then she put both her fists on her hips and turned to Tim again. She wanted to sound determined in what she was going to say.
“Tim, I want you to know that I’m perfectly happy to look after Margie if you are concerned about her being alone. I could even move in here for a while if you think that would help. At least in the beginning. What will she do in England now? She doesn’t know anybody there other than your brother.”
“That’s out of the question. My mother won’t survive here on her own. She’s never lived alone a day in her life. Mark and I were always against buying this house anyway. We knew it was a mistake.”
“But I could—”
“It’s spooky,” he went on, without listening. “Someone told us there’s a spell on the coconut plantation at the back. The coconut trees keep dying no matter how many times they get replanted. This whole place is jinxed.”
Mrs. D’Costa stopped pouring hot water into the French press and put the kettle down.
“Where did you hear that?” she cried.
“One of the men at the gas station down the road. He worked as the watchman for some of the neighbors who left. He said that’s the reason nobody has bought property around here in all these years. All those abandoned houses along the beach? Owners were either broken into or got into accidents. I hate the energy of this house. My brother felt it, too, the minute he set foot here.”
Anne wouldn’t have it. She pushed her shoulders back and replied, with as much resolve as she could summon, “What utter foolishness! That’s a piece of ridiculous superstition! I’m surprised you took that seriously.”
Tim ignored her and grabbed the kettle, taking over the coffee making. Next door a child was crying and they could hear Ruth soothing him. Tim poured himself a cup, stirred in an artificial sweetener and prepared another mug.
“The Wiltons first. Then Dad. It’s enough deaths, as far as I’m concerned. Please excuse me, Anne, I have to take this to my wife. She needs a shot of caffeine, it’s been a very hard day for her as well.”
Tara and Ruth wanted to get the children out of the house. Too much talk of death upset them, so that evening Ruth asked Mrs. D’Costa if she might take all of them over to her place the next day, while the grown-ups dealt with more phone calls and paperwork.
“I’ll bring some food, you don’t have to worry about anything,” she offered.
Ruth was a good-looking girl of about thirty, with strong muscular legs, a smooth complexion and long hair of an astonishing strawberry-blond color that fell in thick ringlets on her shoulders.
“Nonsense! I’ll make some sandwiches, and we’ll have a picnic on the beach,” Mrs. D’Costa said. “Hamisi and I will get everything ready, please don’t you worry.”
She got up early and prepared cheese, tomato and avocado sandwiches, then pulled some chicken out of the refrigerator, which Hamisi fried till it was golden and crispy. She sent him to the little duka on the main road to buy Fantas and Coca-Colas. She had been so looking forward to having some guests around, especially the young ones.