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.They had been amassing for a huge secret initiation, the first in years.It was the forbidden ceremony of female circumcision—the clitoridectomy—the operation that had killed Mario's sister."Memsaab," he said, "the girl Njeri Mathenge—"Grace flew past him and down the hall.Mona remained in the window seat, listening to their footsteps fade.She looked out and saw Grace and her houseboy hurry across the lawn to the path that led down to the mission.A moment later a car—an official car—pulled up from the opposite direction.When Mona saw a district officer get out, she left her window seat and went downstairs.Geoffrey stood up when she came into the living room."What's going on?" he said."A policeman's just arrived.It must have to do with the initiation."But the officer wasn't there for that reason at all.He had brought a telegram, which he now handed to Mona."It's for Dr.Treverton, but no one down at the mission seemed to know where she was.I was wondering if you would give it to her."Mona frowned down at the yellow envelope.When she saw that the telegram had been sent from Uganda, she quickly opened it.It was from Ralph, Geoffrey's brother, and it said: AUNT GRACE.SERIOUS OUTBREAK OF MALARIA.MOTHER IS DEAD.FATHER DYING AND ASKING FOR YOU.COME AT ONCE.BRING GEOFFREY."Oh, my God!" she cried.Geoffrey took the telegram, and before he could react, Mona was running down the veranda steps in the direction of the river.When she reached the ridge, where she could see the mission compound, the polo field, and Wachera's hut, Mona could not see her aunt anywhere.32THE CEREMONIAL SURGERY WAS CALLED IRUA, AND IT consisted of three steps: the removal of the clitoris, the trimming of the labia, and the suturing shut of the vulva.Its purpose was to discourage lust in girls, to curb sexual promiscuity, and to make masturbation impossible.With the sensitive part of the genitals cut away and the vaginal opening reduced to the width of a little finger, it was believed that girls would be deterred from experimentation before marriage.Later each girl, upon being purchased by a husband, would undergo an examination to assure him of her virginity, and an incision would then be made to allow for intercourse.Irua was one of the oldest, most revered rituals of the Kikuyu; it marked a girl's official entry into the tribe and celebrated her passage into womanhood.Those who underwent irua were honored and respected among the clan; those who did not were outcast and taboo.Wachera had been preparing her instruments and medicines for days.It had been many harvests since she had last performed the sacred irua—her people's fear of the white man's reprisals had stopped the practice of many important Kikuyu rituals—and so she felt proud and honored to be performing it today.The ancestors were pleased; they had told her so.Just as they had told her of her son's hiding place—in the land where the sun slept.However, they hadn't told her when he would come home.But Wachera was patient.She had faith that her son would someday return to Kikuyuland and take his place as a leader of his people.On that day, Wachera was certain, David would reclaim his land stolen by the white man and drive him out of Kikuyuland.For was not her thahu working?The terrible curse Wachera had spoken many harvests ago in the bwana's big stone house had finally claimed the life of the bwana's only son.The rest of the thahu would work in time, the medicine woman believed, wiping out the seed of the man who had torn down the sacred fig tree.The day would come when the bwana and his family would no longer exist, and it would seem as if they had never been.Still, the fruits of revenge were small succor for the pain Wachera carried night and day in her breast, the pain of missing her only son, of yearning for him, of worrying about his safety and happiness.She received some consolation, however, from the knowledge that David was undergoing a special trial of manhood, just as the warriors of old had done.Whatever he had suffered at the hands of Chief Muchina and in the white man's jail, whatever hardships he now endured in the lands to the west, Wachera knew that her son would return a warrior, a true Mathenge.She paused in her final preparations to listen for the girls' singing, which would indicate they were coming from the river, ready to be operated upon.No one helped the medicine woman in her secret work.Irua, because of its sacred nature, required special ritualistically clean and spiritually pure attention.Not just anyone could wield the surgical razor, in the same way that not just anyone could observe the procedure.Only those women who were themselves circumcised and in good standing with the tribe could watch.And men were so taboo as to incur punishment should they try to spy on the ritual.Wachera knew that what she was going to do today was denounced by the white man.It wasn't against his law; no matter how hard the missionaries had tried to stamp out the ancient ritual, they had not succeeded in making it officially illegal.Yet they strove in other ways to turn the Children of Mumbi away from the traditional practices, and in such ways the missionaries were being largely successful, as in the instance of barring any circumcised child from their schools
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