On the way home I try to imagine going on holiday to the south of France and suddenly recall with pleasure that a great aunt of mine on my mother's side lives in St Raphael. She comes originally from Indochina, modern Vietnam, and this will give me an opportunity finally to get to meet her.
Three weeks later we set off on the long car journey. En route we sing songs or I tell Napirai stories or play fairy tales on cassette. For the first few hundred kilometers everything goes fine but then Napirai starts to get grumpy because she doesn't want to sit in the car any more. Nothing I can do will calm her down and eventually there's nothing for it but to turn off the motorway and find a hotel somewhere. However, it's the middle of July in Italy, near the coast, and that turns out to be a virtually hopeless task. Everything's full and apart from anything else people give us funny looks. I've virtually given up and resigned myself to the pair of us spending the night in the car when we have a spot of luck at the last place we try. It's an old pensiorte in a side street and the room is basic and noisy.
Before Napirai and I settle down for the night I decide we might as well stretch our legs. We wander through the streets of the picturesque little town where all the old folk sit out on the streets by their front doors. Again and again I hear people saying, ‘Che bella bambina! Che bella!’ Some of them are so taken with my pretty little girl that they want to touch her or stroke her hair but Napirai's having none of it and gives them all dirty looks. We go back to the pensione and eat our last sandwiches before falling asleep exhausted.
The next day we put the last few hundred kilometers behind us and thanks to my navigational skills, honed by my experience as a traveling saleswoman, find the villa straight away. Mimi is glad to see us. The house is enormous with a huge pool. That evening she introduces me to her partner. I'm surprised by him and pleased for her: he turns out to be a relaxed, good-natured young man who seems to anticipate Mimi's every wish. We all spend a pleasant evening together.
On our very next day however a tragedy almost occurs.
While I'm out fetching bread, something terrible happens back at the house. Without making a sound Napirai sneaks downstairs to the pool and it's only when Mimi wanders out on to the terrace and accidentally glances over that she sees the mop of her hair floating in the water. She dashes over to the pool and only just manages to pull the child out in the nick of time. When I get back some twenty minutes later, Napirai is still screaming her head off. I charge up the steps in a panic and see her bright-red face.
When Mimi, all in a fluster, starts telling me what happened my legs all but give way beneath me and tears start rolling down my face as I realise my child very nearly died. I sit there and hold her for hours and for the next few days I refuse to let her out of my sight for even a second.
I take her down to the beach and let her play about in the sand. Walking around the village streets we come across a merry-go-round which is the first Napirai has ever seen and really delights her. But apart from that the rest of our holiday drifts past quietly, perhaps too quietly for me. I'm not used to doing nothing and having so much free time.
I keep thinking back to Kenya and my family over there and wish I knew what had become of Lketinga and what he thinks of us now, nearly two years after I left him. I know he's still alive but I don't know where he's living or what he's doing. In his last letter, James said another Samburu warrior had come back from the coast and said Lketinga was living here and there, still had his car but had had a bad accident. Luckily he escaped with no more than a few flesh wounds to his face. The letter worried me but there was nothing I could do. But there you have it, and here I am sitting in St Raphael on holiday and bored.
The only interesting event turns out to be my meeting with my great aunt. We look up her house and without announcing ourselves in advance simply turn up on the doorstep. She's both astonished and delighted to see us. She's a small, dainty, elderly lady with very obvious Asian origins. She tells us stories about the exciting life she led before the war. Her family was very wealthy and employed more than eighty servants, which is something I can hardly imagine. As a child she had her feet bound to keep them small which would make her more eligible for marriage. Later, when she got to know my grandfather's brother and ended up fleeing to France with him, she needed a whole string of operations before she could even walk properly without pain. I've never heard of such a thing and I'm horrified by it, although up to a point it reminds me of the horrible genital mutilation still practiced by the Samburu and other African tribes. Why is it that all over the world girls are mistreated in some way or other, I ask myself sadly.
Then she tells us more fascinating stories from her full life and we sit there listening, absorbed in her tales. As we leave I think how glad I am to have met this interesting old lady. Who knows if I'll ever see her again.
Back home I tell my mother about the near-fatal accident at the pool, to make sure she never lets Napirai out of her sight if she takes her to the swimming pool. But that year in fact my mother teaches her to swim properly without using any inflatable aids, and that's definitely the best way to stop any accident of that sort.
We settle back into our daily routine. I go to work during the day leaving Napirai with my mother or the childminder's family. After our holiday together I find it hard being apart from my child again. But sales are going well and that keeps me busy and happy in my work. My pay is enough to see me by and some months I even have a few hundred Swiss francs over to save towards my tax bill and maybe even another holiday.
On one occasion I drop in unannounced on a potential customer who laughs the minute I enter his shop. ‘What, not another rep! What are you going to try to flog me? This character's already working on me,’ he says, indicating a pleasant-looking man next to him. I keep relaxed and say hello to both of them, noting that at least we're not trying to sell the same sort of goods. He specializes in T-shirts with company adverts printed on them. We chat to one another and end up laying out our wares together.
As I'm leaving my ‘colleague’ invites me for a coffee, saying he'd like a quick chat. We go to a cafe round the corner and before long he's offering me a job, saying that if I want I could come and work for him. It's a company that makes good-quality printed and embroidered T-shirts, sweaters and shirts. There's good money to be made and a great team of people. I'm fascinated by the offer and readily accept his business card which identifies him as head of the traveling sales force. But I have to tell him I'm quite happy with my job as it is, though if anything were to change I'd get in touch.
Back home there's a letter from the German consulate waiting for me. I open it nervously, all too well aware that my social security status has still to be resolved. But when I read the two-page letter inside I'm over the moon again. It appears the details from Kenya were sufficient and what I'm holding is a copy of my new social security registration documents with Napirai included under my surname. That means first and foremost that she has definitely been accorded German nationality and therefore we'll no longer face any problems living in Switzerland. At last I feel sure I've cleared the last hurdle and all I have to do is get on sooner or later with the divorce. However, as I'm not in any new relationship at present that is hardly the most pressing matter and can wait. I celebrate my good news by organizing a barbecue with a couple of my girlfriends and their children.