The Constant Gardener

Or in Lamu, a hundred and fifty miles up the coast?

Returning to the counting table, Justin selected this time Lesley's background report on "BLUHM, Arnold Moise, M.d., missing victim or suspect." No scandal, no marriage, no known companion, no common-law wife recorded. In Algiers, Subject had lived in a hostel for young doctors of both sexes, occupying single accommodation. No Significant Other recorded with his NGO. Subject's next of kin given as his adoptive Belgian half-sister, resident in Bruges. Arnold had never claimed travel or living expenses for a companion, and never required anything other than bachelor accommodation. Subject's trashed apartment in Nairobi was described by Lesley as "monkish with a strong air of abstinence." Subject lived there alone and had no servant. "In his private life, Subject appears to do without creature comforts, including hot water."

* * *

"The entire Muthaiga Club has convinced itself that our baby was put there by Arnold," Justin is informing Tessa, perfectly amiably, as they eat their fish in an Indian restaurant on the edge of town. She is four months pregnant and though their conversation might not suggest it, Justin is more besotted with her than ever.

"Who's the entire Muthaiga Club?" she demands.

"Elena the Greek, I suspect. Conveyed to Gloria, conveyed to Woodrow," he goes on cheerfully. "What I'm supposed to do about it I don't quite know. Drive you up there and make love to you on the billiards table might be a solution, if you're game."

"Then it's double jeopardy, isn't it?" she says thoughtfully. "And double prejudice."

"Double? Why?"

She breaks off, lowers her eyes, and gently shakes her head. "They're a prejudiced bunch of bastards — leave it at that."

* * *

And at the time, he had done as she commanded. But no longer.

Why double? he asked himself, still staring at the screen.

Single jeopardy means Arnold's adultery. But double? Double is for what? For his race? Arnold is discriminated against for his supposed adultery and his race? Ergo a double discrimination?

Maybe.

Unless.

Unless the cold-eyed lawyer in her is speaking again: the same lawyer who decided to ignore a death threat rather than imperil her quest for justice.

Unless the first perceived prejudice was not directed against a black man who was supposedly sleeping with a married white woman, but against homosexuals at large, of whom Bluhm — though his detractors didn't know it — was one.

In such a case the cold-eyed, hot-hearted lawyer's reasoning would work this way:

Jeopardy the first: Arnold is homosexual but local prejudice does not allow him to admit it. If he admitted it, he would be unable to continue his relief work since Moi detests NGO'S as much as he hates homosexuals, and at the very least he would have Arnold flung out of the country.

Jeopardy the second: Arnold is forced to live in a state of deceit (see unfinished press article by?). Instead of declaring his sexuality, he is driven to adopt the pose of playboy, thus attracting the criticism reserved for transracial adulterers.

Ergo: a double jeopardy.

And why, finally, does Tessa once more not confide this secret to her beloved husband, instead of leaving him with dishonorable suspicions that he will not, must not, cannot admit to, even to himself? he demanded of the screen.

He remembered the name of the Indian restaurant she was so fond of. Haandi.

* * *

The tides of jealousy that Justin had for so long held at bay suddenly broke banks and engulfed him. But it was jealousy of a new kind: jealousy that Tessa and Arnold had kept even this secret from him, together with all the others that they shared; that they had deliberately excluded him from their precious circle of two, leaving him to peer after them like a distraught voyeur, never knowing, for all her assurances, that there was nothing to see and never would be; that as Ghita had wanted to explain to Rob and Lesley before she shied away, no spark would ever fly; that the only relationship between them was precisely the brother-and-sister friendship of the sort Justin had described to Ham without, in his deepest heart, totally believing himself.