Death in a Teacup Read online

  While I wasn’t convinced Jonas could defend me against the combined onslaught of the God of Death and a shape-shifting vampire, I couldn’t refuse him. We piled into our two-wheeled wooden wagon, and the ox wearily dragged us to Nairobi. Just as enthusiastically, I led the way into the two-story administrative building located halfway down Victoria Street. The roughly hewn stone blocks that made up the walls were unadorned, giving the impression of a dungeon rather than an office. Then again, this was a government office which could be as torturous as any cell.

  Even though there was no one else in the waiting room, we were ignored for several minutes before ordered into a small, airless room. The only furniture was a desk behind which squatted an unhappy fellow. His sagging cheeks, sallow skin, narrowed eyes and thin, unsmiling lips marked him as a career bureaucrat. The nameplate on his desk stated in faded gold lettering that he was the Assistant Native Commissioner. Silently I prayed Yao would keep quiet and Death would stay patient.

  As there were no other chairs, we were forced to stand before the desk as if awaiting judgment.

  “Yes?” the nameless commissioner barked, glaring at us.

  “My apologies for interrupting you,” I said, smiling.

  “And you are?”

  “Mrs. Beatrice Knight Timmons,” I declared. “This man would like to register himself.”

  Shifting his squinting gaze to the three Africans standing around me, he asked, “Which one?”

  Death took a step forward and peered down at the official.

  “What’s your name?” the commissioner snapped as he yanked a form from the pile on his desk and placed it before him. Quill in hand, he waited expectantly.

  “Le-Eyo,” Death replied.

  “Lay Low?” the man repeated, utterly butchering the pronunciation.

  Sniffing in disdain, Le-Eyo sneered and uttered with exaggerated care, “Le. Ey. Yo.”

  “What sort of a name is that?” the commissioner demanded,

  “It’s my name,” Le-Eyo said, a glow forming at the tip of his spear before spluttering and winking out.

  “He’s also known as God of Death,” Jonas said, and then muttered something under his breath in a disparaging tone.

  The commissioner scowled at Jonas. “Hold your tongue, boy. We’ll get to his profession momentarily. Doesn’t he have a Christian name?”

  That last question was addressed to me, as if I should somehow know these details.

  “His name translates as Death,” I said, widening my smile as I tightened the grip on my walking stick. Perhaps it was I who needed to be patient.

  “Death it is,” the commissioner decided, having abandoned any attempt at pronouncing Le-Eyo’s real name. “These natives and their strange names. Occupation?”

  Holding his spear before him, Death straightened up and said, “God.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Death frowned at the man’s inability to understand him. “I’m a—”

  “Gardener,” I interrupted. “He’s my gardener.”

  Both Jonas and Death stared at me, equally outraged. Yao opened his mouth to protest. Before he could, the Assistant Native Commissioner slammed a rubber stamp upon the document, thus sealing the official registration of the God of Death. He would now and forever be known as my gardener.

  Staring up at me, the commissioner asked, “Is there any other native you wish to register?”

  “Yao’s name isn’t in the book,” Yao said as he waved an arm over his head. “Me. Pick me.”

  “Are you residing in Nairobi and its immediate environs?” the commissioner demanded.

  “Unfortunately, he is,” I said.

  “Yes, yes,” Yao added, nodding his head and grinning.

  “Occupation?”

  “Yao occupies many places,” he answered. “Mostly wherever the beautiful, graceful, marvelous Wanjiru is.”

  The commissioner laid down his quill and rubbed his face. For a brief moment, I almost pitied him. Fortunately, the moment passed when he looked at me and grumbled, “Madam, your servants’ attitudes do not reflect well upon you. Clearly, they suffer from a lack of instructions on the appropriate behavior expected of them.”

  Before I could construct a response that wouldn’t result in further difficulties or, worse yet, another form to fill, Yao hastened to reassure the man: “Yes, we are very not appropriate. Is Yao’s name in the book yet?” Leaning toward me, he added, “This assistant isn’t assisting very well. Should Yao bite him?”

  “And we’re done here,” I said, clenching my walking stick while squeezing Yao’s shoulder; it was akin to squeezing sculptured stone.

  Before Death could put his spear to good use or Yao could bite anyone, I escorted them out of the office, leaving the astounded Assistant Native Commissioner to simmer in his outrage.

  Chapter Six

  HAVING REGISTERED THE God of Death without anyone actually dying or being zapped by a lightning bolt, I considered the morning a success.

  Thus bolstered, I decided a detour through the Bazaar was in order. I had created a new tea recipe which required nutmeg and cloves. As I couldn’t leave Yao and Death unattended, I invited them to join Jonas and I on our shopping excursion.

  “Yao likes the Bazaar,” the vampire enthused as he bounced by my side.

  Jonas snorted, his face scrunched into a wrinkled frown. Turning to Death and gesturing with a thumb at Yao, he said, “Him, he burned this place to the ground a few months ago.”

  Death perked up at the news of chaos and destruction. “Did anyone die?”

  “A few zombies,” Yao said, his eyes brightening at the recollection. “They were delicious.”

  While I wasn’t one to shy away from conversations that bordered on the morbid, I had no interest in reminiscing about the night a combination of diseases transformed some of the railway workers into zombies. Strolling ahead, I entered the Bazaar. It was a ramshackle assortment of scrappy tents and iron-sheet structures that all seemed on the verge of collapsing at the next heavy gust of wind. Unlike the precision and order of Victoria Street, there were no straight lines here; rather, a narrow, rough, dirt road wound its way through the Bazaar.

  Sellers called out, pointing to the products displayed on their stalls, tables and blankets spread out on the ground. Meats in various stages of decay, fruits and vegetables, whole spices, bolts of cloth, rope, pots and utensils presented to the observer a jungle of possibilities. The aromas of cooked food wafted across piles of decomposing garbage. The people were as varied as the products being sold: barefooted Africans draped in leather coverings drifted amongst the clusters of Indians wearing ankle-length sarongs.

  Ignoring the attempts of an African youth to sell me combs, I veered to a stall in front of which were tins full of various spices. The scent of a combination of cardamon, cinnamon and nutmeg caused my stomach to gurgle, reminding me it was past teatime. The seller, a thin Indian man with a crooked nose and well-tanned skin, smiled as I approached.

  “Welcome, welcome, Mrs. Timmons,” Mr. Sanjeh said with a head waggle. “What can I be giving you today?”

  “I doubt you’ll give anything away,” I said. “But hopefully you won’t charge me too much.”

  His smile widened.

  As I began the lengthy process of negotiating an almost reasonable price, shouting sounded from deeper in the Bazaar. Around me, people paused in their business to peer eagerly in the direction of the commotion, hoping for some gossip-worthy entertainment. When the shouting neared my location, the crowds stepped to either side of the path to allow a group of English hunters to march unimpeded. Behind them, several Africans carried a giant tusk with a girth almost as thick as my waist and close to ten feet long.

  Gasps, shouts and chatter surrounded the spectacle. Mr. Sanjeh leaned over his stall and informed me, “It’s the trunk from the elephant, from the beast that killed Mr. Turner. They’re going to display it outside the Colonial Store.”

  People rushed forward, jostling
each other as they stroked the creamy ivory. Jonas, Yao and Death positioned themselves so that no one could bump into me.

  “Where’s the other tusk?” I asked.

  Mr. Sanjeh waggled his head and a finger. “There is only being one tusk, Mrs. Timmons.”

  “Only one,” I repeated, my voice falling to a whisper.

  Jonas glanced at my face. “Miss Knight, you, you’re not looking well.”

  “Do you need to sit?” Mr. Sanjeh asked, his eyes widening as he lifted his stool over the counter and handed it to Jonas.

  “No, I’m fine,” I said even as I sunk onto the three-legged wooden stool.

  Crouching by my side, Jonas asked, “Is it the same elephant?”

  Gulping, I sniffed back a tear. “How many one-tusked elephants are there?” I asked. “I hope her baby is safe.”

  Jonas stood and patted my shoulder. “The hunters, they don’t kill babies. There are no tusks. The other elephants will take care of the orphan.”

  My thoughts turned to the baby elephant Koki and I had rescued from a sinkhole, and the grateful response of the mother, the one-tusked matriarch. “She saved us that night the skeletons attacked the Hardinge Estate,” I said as a strange trembling seized me. “She and her herd saved us.”

  My hands covered my midsection as I wondered how the elephant felt as she was dying, knowing she would never see her child again. Unable to look at the gloating hunters and the proud display of the tusk, I lowered my face into my hands and wept.

  Chapter Seven

  IN MY DEFENSE, there was a perfectly logical reason why I ended up at the cemetery that night.

  Granted, my logic didn’t always accord with the general public. As I stood amongst the gravestones, I was certain that Simon would not approve. It was yet another item to add to the list of ‘things not to tell one’s husband when he returns home from prison.’ It was turning into a rather long list.

  I don’t normally divulge details of a delicate nature. However, it must be stated that living in Nairobi limited our access to civilized infrastructure, including chamber pots. We were therefore inconvenienced as the African servants generally refused to touch the pots. While I sympathized with the distaste—cleaning up after other people’s night deposits was a despicable chore—it forced us to either ignore the promptings of nature until the morning or venture out of the relative safety of our homes and use the outhouse.

  Then again, as my dear Aunt Steward expressed, “These are not things, my dear, of which we speak; indeed, we try to avoid thinking of them.” That was all well and good but the advice didn’t stand up to the reality that my condition imposed upon me.

  “It’s all Jonas’ fault,” I muttered as I marched to the outhouse. “Back in London, servants did their jobs. But oh, no, not him. He’s too proud to remove the chamberpot.”

  Desperation soured my mood. Once the pregnancy-induced nausea had finished its course, a new malady inflicted itself upon me: a need to use the facilities with greater frequency. Hence I found myself stomping across dew-dampened grass in the middle of the night, hoping I wouldn’t find any snake curled atop of the toilet.

  Fortune was with me for once, and I completed my business in peace. Upon exiting the small structure behind our cottage, I glanced up at the moon. It was nearly full, its swollen sides glowing a creamy yellow. Crickets and cicadas strummed their music, and an occasional owl interjected with a mournful hoot. Moths swirled toward the moonlight, and bats darted around the feast. Satisfied the world was as it should be, I turned toward the cottage and almost bumped into an elephant.

  “Goodness,” I gasped and staggered backward, one hand gripping my housecoat tightly near the neckline.

  For her part, the elephant remained unfazed by my proximity. Her trunk fluttered before her face as if searching for something.

  As my heartbeat settled down, I marveled at the beast. “How did you sneak up on me?” I asked. As I studied her profile, I knew for certain this was the same matriarch I’d encountered when rescuing the baby elephant.

  The eye staring out of the wrinkled face blinked, the long lashes sweeping against dusty skin. The elephant blew air out of her trunk and shifted her head to one side. Only then could I see the empty eye socket on the other side of her head. Dried blood caked around what was clearly a bullet wound.

  “How dreadful,” I said, my voice hushed lest I provoke the beast to stampede over me. I recalled the minister’s words from the funeral: Mr. Turner, in his last moment of life, killed the elephant with one shot through the eye and into the brain.

  Snorting, the elephant slapped her trunk against the ground. She had no tusks, but one side of the trunk was bloodied, as if someone had recently and violently removed the tusk.

  “I hope your little one is safe. Where is he?” I breathed as I stepped closer.

  The elephant flapped her ears but not aggressively. The tattered outline of the ear closest to me was as I remembered it. The remaining brown eye, surrounded by wrinkled skin, gazed back at me, brimming with the wisdom of years spent caring for her herd and a glint of recognition.

  “It is you, then,” I said.

  The trunk bumped against my shoulder, nearly knocking me down.

  “But shouldn’t you be dead?” I asked, only afterward realizing how inconsiderate the question was. In my experience, dead creatures tended to be sensitive about their demise and lifeless state. The elephant however seemed unperturbed; she wrapped her trunk around my waist and pulled me closer.

  Taking advantage of the proximity, I stared at the wound. It was definitely a bullet hole and perfectly located to avoid the thick skull. A bullet thus placed would have entered the brain and produced fatal results. Yet the creature before me was not a ghost. At that moment, I recalled Death’s words: With the passing of every full moon, the sphere will expand until death is no more.

  “You came back,” I said, my hand hovering above her trunk. As I lowered my hand to touch the rough, wrinkled skin, the elephant bellowed and lifted me up.

  “Oh, dear,” I said before she draped me onto her back where I lay in an undignified manner, my legs on one side and my arms flopping on the other. As I struggled to rearrange myself, the elephant began to walk, her long strides carrying us away from home and toward the farthest edge of Nairobi.

  The breeze created by her passage was cool and sharp. Huddling close behind her ears, I tried to keep warm. Comfort was out of the question: spiky hairs poked at my legs, and the rolling gait of the dead elephant made me yearn for a saddle.

  Before too long—but long enough for my weary body and my prickled skin—our destination came into sight: the small cemetery. Without hesitation, the elephant veered around tombstones until we reached the freshly created grave of Mr. Turner, the hunter. There the elephant stood, looming over the disturbed earth as if waiting.

  “This can’t end well,” I said. Peering down, I calculated the chances of breaking a leg if I slid off the elephant. Deciding the inconvenience of a broken or sprained limb was greater than my current discomfort, I resigned myself to waiting.

  Some minutes passed. The stars, thickly clustered, glittered in the cold, cloudless night, although their light was faint compared to the moon’s. Creatures crunched and snuffled through the undergrowth of the forest but nothing dared enter or fly over the cemetery. Despite the abundance of life in the nearby forest on one side and the savannah stretching across the world on the other, the elephant and I shared a bubble in which the only living creature was myself.

  Movement drew my gaze back to the ground. The upturned dirt of Mr. Turner’s grave convulsed.

  “No,” I whispered. “Don’t you dare.”

  The elephant snorted as chunks of soil rolled off the mound. The surrounding silence was deep enough for me to hear the small pebbles and bits of hardened earth clink against each other.

  “Take me home,” I ordered, slapping the elephant on the head. My hand throbbed with the impact on hard bone; the matriarch didn’
t flinch. I might as well have been a mosquito for all the impression I made.

  The soil lurched up as a large hunting blade sliced up, followed by a hand pushing its way through the earth. Dropping the blade, the fingers waved as if searching for something to grab. Another hand followed, reaching for the edge of the grave where the earth was hard and undisturbed. For my part, I was deeply disturbed.

  “This isn’t happening,” I said as I glanced around for some sign that this was a nightmare. “Wake up, wake up now.”

  The world remained solid even if it was full of shadows created by the silver light of the moon and stars. There was no other being around us, no assistance to be had. Even the breeze whistling through the grass had abandoned the scene.

  I spun my gaze back to the grave in time to see a head and shoulders wriggle out of the earth. Dirt and dried blood streaked across Mr. Turner’s face, obscuring his features. Only his eyes, pale blue framed with dark eyelashes, were clearly visible. They blinked and stared up at me.

  Gulping hard, I whispered, “I hate zombies.”

  The elephant trumpeted, raising her trunk.

  “Slap him down,” I ordered, leaning over her large head to get her attention. “Smack him back into his grave.”

  Once again, she ignored me. Instead, she wrapped her trunk around the man’s torso and yanked him out. His legs kicked the air as he glared at his rescuer. She in turn tossed him with savage force across the cemetery, trumpeted again, flapped her ears and stampeded after him. Being dead hadn’t robbed Mr. Turner of his survival instinct. The moment his body landed, he rolled around, stumbled to his feet and hobbled toward the forest.

  While I hadn’t been particularly sympathetic at the hunter’s funeral, I had a change of heart and was glad the elephant hadn’t listened to me. I had no wish to witness Mr. Turner being pummeled by an elephant. Besides, a second death by elephant would be nothing short of obscene.

  “Mr. Turner,” I shouted. “Do run faster.”