from Africa, Africa!
by Frederic Hunter
An American couple in Nairobi discovers that expatriate living enlarges a
family.
He was a thin, young Kikuyu with a well-modeled face and dark, alert eyes. When
Derek said that he and his wife had come to look at the house, the young man returned to
the servant’s quarters behind it and came back holding the keys on a piece of bent
wire. He led them to the entry porch and unlocked the door.
"Do you live here?" Dee asked.
"Yes," he replied, pushing the door open and
stepping back from the threshold, obliging and respectful.
"Is it a good house?" Derek asked.
"It is a good house," he answered, his face open
and so honest that it told both all and nothing about him. "It is all right."
The Turners had not been long in Nairobi then and were
looking for a place to live, a place with sufficient space for Derek to set up a
journalist’s office. The house stood on a five-acre plot of ground at the end of a
lane of jacarandas in rolling country planted with coffee. An orange-brown anthill
stretched, taller than Derek, beside the front walk. There was room enough for them to
live well and for Derek’s office, and the rent was controlled. Those were the
advantages of the house, important ones for people who wanted to save money, but had also
secretly dreamed of living on a plantation in Africa. |