Karen Blixen's evocative book inspired memories of a walk back into her past.
“I had a farm in Africa…” Karen Blixen’s house still stands, gazing out towards the grey green Ngong Hills. Even in her day there were cars, as now, yet I walk with Kenyans who have no other means. I trudge through the suburb, once a coffee plantation, now lined with gracious mansions and high-walled gardens. Then there were red-earth dusty tracks, no gates, no barriers; now, tarmac, steel gates, electric fences.
The house reeks with memories: of a simpler lifestyle horribly complicated by relationships, by disease, by death. How did she live with the recollection of a husband who deliberately infected her with syphilis; a lover who betrayed with other women and, ultimately, with death? I wander from room to empty room, footsteps echoing hollowly on the bare wooden floors. Sadness and melancholy, unhappiness and gloom amidst the vibrancy of Africa.
I have accompanied Karen on many of her journeys. Just as she flew over the dusty landscape with Denys Finch-Hatton, so have I; just as she struggled into the centre of Nairobi in an unreliable car, so have I; just as she walked among the coffee bushes, picking the ripe berries, so have I. Just as she bore the life of Africa in her body, so do I. Her memories were so vivid that she recreated her fascination from distant Denmark. Seas, continents and loneliness could not rob her of her love.
The memories are bitter-sweet, yet the joy, the abundant life, the anticipation and the hope that is Africa journeys on.
