was the youngest.”
Natalie nodded. “Is your mother a strong person, Mgina? How many of you are there?”
“I have three sisters and two brothers.” Mgina checked the level of kerosene in the hurricane lamp. “My mother is strong but …” She shook her head.
Even in her unhappiness, she was graceful, thought Natalie. “What is it, Mgina? Is something else wrong?”
The other woman gave a small nod. “Odnate would not have been the youngest for long.”
Natalie caught her breath.
“Your mother was pregnant again?”
Another brief nod.
Natalie bit her lip. “And … and she lost the baby?”
Mgina looked at the ground. When she looked up there was a tear in her eye.
Natalie didn’t speak. What was the other woman thinking? That if Natalie and Jonas hadn’t interfered, Odnate would still have died but in a quicker, more natural, less traumatic way? And that her mother would not have lost the child she was carrying?
Or was that Natalie’s conscience talking?
She strained to find something positive to say, to provide the conversation with a lift. “You did right to stay with your mother. She has never needed you more.”
Mgina produced a shy grin through her tears. “What happened to Odnate was very bad. What happened to my mother was very bad too. The rains come all at once, out of season, as we say. But not only bad things have happened.” Her grin widened to a smile: “I am going to be married.”
Natalie felt dizzy. Had she heard right? Mgina’s smile—amid her tears—told her she had. But who became engaged in the middle of mourning, amid the tides of grief?
She reprimanded herself. Who was she to judge? For all she knew, among the Maasai, having a daughter become engaged was the best antidote to grief there was. Come to that, it might work anywhere else also.
Come to that, and despite herself, she felt her own heart lift; she found that she too was smiling.
“But that’s wonderful! When? Who is the lucky man?”
Mgina wiped her eyes and gave Natalie another shy grin. “In a few weeks. Endole Makacha. He’s the son of one of the elders. I’m lucky—I’ll be the third wife.”
Natalie’s stomach churned. Although she had told Christopher Deacon she had studied anthropology as well as archaeology at Cambridge, and although she had no real faith herself, she had been raised a Christian and she found the polygamy of Africa difficult to accept. She was about to say something sharp when again she stopped herself. Mgina didn’t think that her situation as someone’s third wife was odd, so why criticize? Natalie fought with herself for a few moments before asking, “Will you not be having a Christian wedding?”
The other woman still held a bundle of someone else’s washing, which she hugged to her bosom as she shook her head. “A traditional wedding, Miss Natalie.”
Natalie’s face puckered into an expression that was half smile and half frown. “But aren’t you a Christian, Mgina? Hasn’t your village been converted?”
Mgina grinned again and looked at her feet.
“And you are happy being a third wife?”
Mgina was still concentrating on her feet. “My mother says it is better to be married than not to be married. And she says I must not be … jealous? … you say jealous, is that a word?”
Natalie nodded.
“My mother, she says jealousy is like termites in timber, they weaken even the strongest wood.”
“Your mother is very wise, Mgina.”
“Natalie?” The voice broke in unannounced.
It was Russell.
“Just a minute.” She had guessed he would come.
Natalie stood up and crossed to her dressing table. She picked up the tortoiseshell comb Mgina had always admired. “It’s for you,” she said softly, turning to the other woman. “Congratulations.”
Another big grin from Mgina, as she took the comb. She nodded to Russell and then hurried off, carrying her bundle into the gloom.
Natalie turned back to Russell and held up the whiskey flask. “Last night Eleanor noticed whiskey on my breath. I promised to surrender this today but so much has happened, I forgot and so did she. This is our last chance.”
“You see! She’s worse than the Gestapo.” He raised his arm in a mock Nazi salute.
“Stop it, Russell, stop it! Your life is in danger. Forcing you to leave may hurt, but it’s for the best.”
“For the best?” He was dressed in jeans and a khaki shirt. He took one step back, half turned, and pointed in the direction of the gorge. “I’m part of a group that makes the most important fossil discovery in years, one of maybe the