Acts of faith Read Online Free PDF

way it was an act of faith that infused his actions with spiritual value. He missed it and the freedom he found in it from the inner tyrant who kept demanding, I want, I want, I want.
    He booked a seat on the next morning’s flight to Nairobi. One way.
     

    T HE R EVEREND F ATHER Malachy Delaney would have accused himself of speaking high treason if he ever uttered a civil, much less an admiring, word about English aristocracy. Inbred twits who could no longer manage even to be interestingly decadent, their antics fodder for Fleet Street tabloids, their sole achievement was the perpetuation of their titles and privileges decades after their class had outlived its relevance.
    He made an exception of Lady Diana Briggs, partly because she was a Kenyan citizen, British by ancestry only, and partly because her title was conferred rather than hereditary, bestowed for her good works throughout Africa. An admirable woman, hardworking and selfless, was how Malachy described her as he and Fitzhugh drove from the airport to her house in Karen, the Nairobi suburb that remained a kind of game reserve for Caucasians. Lady Briggs had spent several years in refugee camps, laboring to repatriate displaced Africans, and when repatriation was out of the question, she helped them emigrate to whatever countries would take them in. She had sponsored scholarships for poor Kenyan children, served with the Red Cross in Rwanda, and had a genius for getting grant money. Now she was lending her expertise, her time, and some of her money to International People’s Aid.
    Fitzhugh wasn’t sure how much time or expertise she had, but when he and Malachy got to her place, it was apparent that she didn’t lack for money. Two askaris opened a steel gate, admitting them to a world as remote from grimy, crumbling Nairobi as the land of her ladyship’s forebears. Acres of grass and garden, shaded by tamarind and eucalyptus; a rambling main house with white stucco walls, a clay-tile roof, and a veranda upon which wicker chairs practically begged you to sit down with a drink; a guest cottage; a carriage house with a Mercedes sedan and a Toyota Land Cruiser parked beside it; a small stable, an exercise ring. It was February, the beginning of the dry season, and the air at the foot of the Ngong hills was crisp and clear, scented by frangipani, hibiscus, mimosa. Fitzhugh recalled that perfume, and how it went immediately to his head, like good gin.
    While a servant went to summon Diana, the two men waited in the foyer of the main house. Fitzhugh looked at Malachy and raised his eyebrows.
    “Ah, now then, Fitz, I know your feelings about upper-crust do-gooders. Believe me, she’s different.”
    “Different how?”
    Malachy answered that her mind wasn’t the usual hatchery of idiotic schemes to uplift the dark-skinned downtrodden. Diana was practical, hard-headed. She knew what would work in Africa and what would not because she was as African as any Kikuyu, her family having been in Kenya for three generations.
    Fitzhugh pointed at the sepia photographs on the foyer walls: brutal sahibs standing over lions they had shot, memsahibs wearing white muslin dresses and severe expressions—you could almost hear them ordering houseboys beaten for trying to clean tarnished silver plate by rubbing it with gravel.
    “Atoning for her ancestors’ sins with all her charity work?”
    “It isn’t charity,” replied Malachy. “And as for why she does what she does, well now, what difference does that make, so long as she does the right thing?”
    “Apoloreng! You are late!”
    Her tone was cheerfully scolding: a hostess greeting a habitually tardy but always welcome guest.
    Malachy made a pretense of looking at his watch and pleaded heavy traffic. The bloody traffic in Nairobi got worse by the day.
    “Everything in this country gets worse by the day,” she said, embraced him, and gave him each of her cheeks to kiss.
    Malachy made the introductions. Diana Briggs took