The Constant Gardener

Justin was standing with his elegant back to him. His neatly groomed head was turned to the wall and he was studying a graph, one of several ranged around the room, each with a caption of initials in black, each marked in steps of different colors, rising or descending. The particular graph that held his attention was titled RELATIVE INFRASTRUCTURES 2005–2010 and purported, so far as Woodrow could make out from where he stood, to predict the future prosperity of African nations. On the windowsill at Justin's left stood a line of potted plants that he was nurturing. Woodrow identified jasmine and balsam, but only because Justin had made gifts of these to Gloria.

"Hi, Sandy," Justin said, drawing out the "Hi."

"Hi."

"I gather we're not assembling this morning. Trouble at mill?"

The famous golden voice, thought Woodrow, noticing every detail as if it were fresh to him. Tarnished by time but guaranteed to enchant, as long as you prefer tone to substance. Why am I despising you when I'm about to change your life? From now until the end of your days there will be before this moment and after it and they will be separate ages for you, just as they are for me. Why don't you take your bloody jacket off? You must be the only fellow left in the Service who goes to his tailor for tropical suits. Then he remembered he was still wearing his own jacket.

"And you're all well, I trust?" Justin asked in that same studied drawl of his. "Gloria not languishing in this awful heat? The boys both flourishing and so forth?"

"We're fine." A delay, of Woodrow's manufacture. "And Tessa is up-country," he suggested. He was giving her one last chance to prove it was all a dreadful mistake.

Justin at once became lavish, which was what he did when Tessa's name was spoken at him. "Yes, indeed. Her relief work is absolutely nonstop these days." He was hugging a United Nations tome to himself, all of three inches thick. Stooping again, he laid it to rest on a side table. "She'll have saved all Africa by the time we leave, at this rate."

"What's she gone up-country for, actually?" — still clutching at straws — "I thought she was doing stuff down here in Nairobi. In the slums. Kibera, wasn't it?"

"Indeed she is," said Justin proudly. "Night and day, the poor girl. Everything fromwiping babies' bottoms to acquainting paralegals with their civil rights, I'm told. Most of her clients are women, of course, which appeals to her. Even if it doesn't appeal quite so much to their menfolk." His wistful smile, the one that says if only. "Property rights, divorce, physical abuse, marital rape, female circumcision, safe sex. The whole menu, every day. You can see why their husbands get a little touchy, can't you? I would, if I was a marital rapist."

"So what's she doing up-country?" Woodrow persisted.

"Oh, goodness knows. Ask Doc Arnold," Justin threw out, too casually. "Arnold's her guide and philosopher up there."

This is how he plays it, Woodrow remembered. The cover story that covers all three of them. Arnold Bluhm, M.d., her moral tutor, black knight, protector in the aid jungle. Anything but her tolerated lover. "Up where exactly?" he asked.

"Loki. Lokichoggio." Justin had propped himself on the edge of his desk, perhaps in unconscious imitation of Woodrow's careless posture at the door. "The World Food Program people are running a gender awareness workshop up there, can you imagine? They fly unaware village women down from South Sudan, give them the crash course in John Stuart Mill and fly them back aware. Arnold and Tessa went up to watch the fun, lucky dogs."

"Where is she now?"

Justin appeared not to like this question. Perhaps it was the moment when he realized there was purpose to Woodrow's small talk. Or perhaps — thought Woodrow — he didn't take kindly to being pinned down on the subject of Tessa, when he couldn't pin her down himself.

"On her way back, one assumes. Why?"

"With Arnold?"

"Presumably. He wouldn't just leave her there."

"Has she been in touch?"

"With me? From Loki? How could she be? They haven't got telephones."

"I thought she might have used one of the aid agencies' radio links. Isn't that what other people do?"

"Tessa's not other people," Justin retorted, as a frown collected on his brow. "She has strong principles. Such as not spending donors' money unnecessarily. What's going on, Sandy?"