The Constant Gardener

"What's this?" he asks sharply, lifting his hands from the keyboard as if to disclaim responsibility. For the first time in their relationship, Tessa is demanding a password of him before she will let him in. Her command is finite: PASSWORD, PASSWORD, like a brothel sign winking on and off.

"Shit," says Guido.

"Did she have a password when she taught you how to work this thing?" Justin demands, ignoring this scatological outburst.

Guido puts one hand across his mouth, leans forward and with his other hand types five characters. "Me," he says proudly.

Five asterisks appear, otherwise nothing.

"What are you doing?" Justin demands.

"Typing my name. Guido."

"Why?"

"That was the password," he says, dropping into voluble Italian in his nervousness. "The I isn't an I. It's a one. The O's a naught. Tessa was crazy about that stuff. In a password, you had to have at least one numeral. She insisted."

"Why am I looking at stars?"

"Because they don't want you to see "Guido"! Otherwise you could look over my shoulder and read the password! It didn't work! "Guido" is not her password!" He buries his face in his hands.

"So what we can do is guess," Justin suggests, trying to calm him.

"Guess how? Guess what? How many guesses do they give you? Like three!"

"You mean, if we guess wrong we don't get there," Justin says, valiantly trying to make light of the problem. "Hey. You. Come out of there."

"Damn right we don't!"

"All right, then. Let's think. What other numerals are made from letters?"

"Three could be E back to front. Five could be S. There's half a dozen of them. M. It's awful — " still from inside his hands.

"And what happens exactly when we run out of chances?"

"It locks up and won't try anymore. What do you think?"

"Ever?"

"Ever!"

Justin hears the lie in his voice and smiles.

"And you think three shots is all we get?"

"Look, I'm not a lexicon, OK? I'm not a handbook. What I don't know, I don't say. It could be three. It could be ten. I've got to go to school. Maybe you should call the helpline."

"Think. After Guido, what's her favorite thing?"

Guido's face at last emerges from his hands. "Y. Who do you think? Justin!"

"She wouldn't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because it's her kingdom, not mine."

"You're just guessing! You're ridiculous. Try Justin. I'm right, I know I am!"

"Look. After Justin, what's her next favorite thing?"

"I wasn't married to her. OK? You were!"

Justin thinks Arnold, then Wanza. He tries Ghita, entering the I as a 1. Nothing happens. He emits a nervous scoffing sound that says this childish game is beneath him, but this is because his mind is stretching in all directions and he doesn't know which to follow. He thinks of Garth her dead father, and Garth her dead son, and rules them both out on aesthetic and emotional grounds. He thinks of Tessa but she is not an egomaniac. He thinks ARNO1D and ARN0LD and ARN01D but Tessa would not be so crass as to block Arnold's file with a password saying Arnold. He flirts with Maria, which was her mother's name, then with Mustafa, then Hammond, but none presses itself upon him as a code name or password. He looks down into her grave and watches the yellow freesias on the lid of her coffin disappear under the red soil. He sees Mustafa standing in the Woodrows' kitchen, clutching his basket. He sees himself in his straw hat tending them in the garden in Nairobi and again here in Elba. He enters the word freesia, typing the I as 1. Seven asterisks appear but nothing happens. He enters the same word again, typing the S as 5.

"Will it still have me?" he asks softly.

"I'm twelve years old, Justin! Twelve!" He relents a little. "You got maybe one more try. Then it's curtains. I resign, OK? It's her laptop. Yours. Leave me out of this."

He enters freesia a third time, leaving the S as 5 but turning the 1 back to an I, and finds himself staring at an unfinished polemical essay. With the aid of his yellow freesias he has invaded the file called Arnold and met a tract on human rights. Guido is dancing round the room.

"We got it! I told you! We're fantastic! She's fantastic!"

* * *

Why are Africa's Gays Forced to Stay in the Closet?

Hear the comfortable words of that great arbiter of public decency, President Daniel

Arap Moi:

"Words like lesbianism and homosexuality do not exist in African languages."-Moi, 1995.

"Homosexuality is against African norms and religions and even in religion it is considered a great sin." — Moi, 1998.

Unsurprisingly, Kenya's Criminal Code obediently agrees with Moi one hundred percent. Sections 162–165 lay down a term of FIVE TO FOURTEEN YEARS' IMPRISONMENT for "Carnal Knowledge Against the Order of Nature." The law goes further:

— Kenyan law defines any sexual relations between men as a CRIMINAL ACT.

— It hasn't even heard of sexual relations between women.

What is the SOCIAL CONSEQUENCE of this antediluvian attitude?

— Gay men marry or carry on affairs with women in order to conceal their sexuality.