The Other Language(70)

“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.



Mrs. D’Costa was sitting on a mat in the shade of a doum palm, next to Ruth, who’d brought a fat paperback. For the occasion (she hardly ever went down to the beach anymore), she’d put on a large straw hat that flopped slightly on one side and a wildly colored sundress that she hadn’t worn since the seventies; she also wore a pair of very dark sunglasses, so heavily covered in a film of dust that she saw everything in a blur. She looked like a blind woman. The children had once more been slightly intimidated by her strangeness and were splashing in the water at a safe distance while the dogs ran, barking madly after the herons.

Ruth lifted her eyes from her book. “Where are you originally from, Mrs. D’Costa?” She had a soft, rounded American accent; something about her had seemed more relaxed and easier than all the others.

“A little town near Glasgow, a mining town. That’s so long ago, I nearly forget what it looked like.”

“My grandparents came from the bogs of Scotland too. I’ve never been there. I’d like to go one day.”

“It shows in your coloring that you have Scottish blood. Such beautiful hair you have.”

“Thank you. And what is D’Costa? An Italian name?”

“Oh no, dear, that’s Portuguese. My husband’s family came from Goa.”

Ruth closed the book, suddenly interested.

“Goa, you mean in India? How interesting. What did your husband do?”

“He was a pediatrician.”

“And how did you two meet?”

“In college, in Edinburgh. I never got my degree, but he did. He was an excellent doctor.”

“Did you have children?”

“Three, Dana, Philip and Ralph. They all got married and live abroad now.”

“And …” Ruth lingered, uncertain whether it might be rude to ask. “Do you think they feel more Indian or more Scottish?”

“Neither one nor the other, probably …” Anne thought for a moment. “They’ve never been to either place. We no longer have any family there, you see.”

Ruth nodded.

“They feel Kenyan, I suppose,” Mrs. D’Costa said, even though she wasn’t sure at this point what her children felt anymore.

“And have you known Margie and Keith a long time?”

“Yes, since the late fifties …”

She hesitated for a moment. Ruth kept looking at her, waiting for her to go on, as though she knew there was something else Mrs. D’Costa wanted to say.

“But we were never close friends. We belonged to very different worlds,” Mrs. D’Costa said, and, looking back into Ruth’s straightforward gaze, felt good saying it to her.

She felt strangely at ease with this young woman. Ruth seemed earnest, considerate. Mrs. D’Costa realized it had been a long time since anybody had showed interest in the story of her life. She looked out toward the water. It was lovely, the way the afternoon light skimmed the surface in shimmering sparks.

“In those days, if you were an expat, your life revolved pretty much around the Mombasa Club. That’s where everyone met,” she said. “Your whole social life took place there. Margie and Keith were a very popular couple, of course.”

“Yes, they took us all to lunch there when we came one Christmas,” Ruth said. “It still has that old colonial atmosphere. We had visions of people wearing white linen, drinking sundowners on the terrace under the fans.” She laughed, as if to let on she’d found the place ridiculous.

Mrs. D’Costa took off the dark glasses and slowly wiped the sheen of dirt off them with the hem of her dress. She cleared her throat.

“The thing was that before Independence, if you were married to an African, or an Indian … actually to anybody who wasn’t British, or white for that matter …”

She paused and then put the glasses back on.

“Yes?”

“Well, you couldn’t be a member of the club, you see. It was a very … separate society, in those days. Well, we couldn’t even go to the same restaurants,” she said hesitantly, as if it still shamed her to admit that such a thing had happened.

Ruth’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Of course, dear. If we were sick they wouldn’t take us at the Mombasa Hospital. We had to go to Coast General”—Mrs. D’Costa’s voice hardened—“which was hell on earth. Oh yes, that’s what it was like.”

She felt some of her old anger rise to her cheeks. It struck her how certain feelings, no matter how deeply buried, would still come up in a matter of seconds, as if woken by a siren.

“That is totally insane,” Ruth said.

Mrs. D’Costa tipped back the flopping side of the hat.

“Naturally everything changed after Independence. But by that point my husband couldn’t give a flying hoot about getting into the club.” She laughed. “We were never that kind of people, you know; I mean, having sundowners on the terrace under the fans, as you put it.”