Karen Blixen owned a coffee
farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills. As she sat at home in Rungstedlund, Denmark, many years later, she remembered her seventeen years in Kenya. Captivated by the beauty of the African landscape and its people, she was struck by the feeling of having lived for a time up in the air. Nairobi was the closest town, twelve miles
away, and when Karen and her husband, Bror, first came to Africa, there were no cars. She traveled to and from the farm, Mbogani House, by mule cart. Her able overseer, Farah Aden, helped her make the adjustment to her new life. From her first weeks in Africa, she felt a great affection for the East African tribes: the Somali, the Kikuyu, and the Masai.
Karen met Kamante Gatura when he came to the small medical clinic she operated for the people on the farm. He looked as if he were dying. Open sores covered his legs, and he seemed to face death with passionless resignation. In spite of her best efforts, Karen’s treatment failed. The disease was beyond her. She decided to send the nine-year-old boy to the Scotch Mission hospital, where he remained for three months. Kamante returned to the farm on Easter Sunday, his legs completely healed. He said, "I am like you," meaning that now he, too, was a Christian.
In time, Kamante was trained as Blixen’s chef. A genius in the kitchen, he could pick out the plumpest hen in the poultry yard, and his egg whites towered up like clouds. He rarely tasted his own dishes, preferring the food of his fathers, yet he grew famous preparing meals for Karen’s friends and guests, including the prince of Wales.
Following a year-long drought, when it seemed the universe was turning away from her, Karen Blixen began to
write. Her workers asked what she was doing. When she said she was trying to write a book, they viewed it as an attempt to save the farm. Comparing her scattered loose-leaf pages to Homer’s
Odyssey (c. 800 B.C.E.), a book pulled from her library shelves, Kamante expressed doubt that she would ever be able to write a book. He asked what she would write about; she replied that she might write of him. He looked down at himself and in a low voice asked, "Which part?" It was many years before she published her reflections of Africa, but when she finally did, Kamante was an important part of her story.
Karen Blixen did not understand the various African dialects, but the regal and intelligent Farah served as interpreter throughout her sojourn in Kenya. Many of the tribes looked to Blixen to settle their disputes. On one occasion, when she was asked to judge a shooting accident, she turned to her friend Chief Kinanjui, who ruled over more than a hundred thousand Kikuyus. By this time, the automobile had come to Africa, and when Chief Kinanjui arrived in his new car, he did not want to get out until she had seen him sitting in it. Finally alighting, he took his seat next to Karen and Farah, and together they agreed upon a fair restitution for the parties in the case: One man must give the other a cow with a heifer calf. Blixen never shied away from such disputes. Eventually she crusaded for the rights of all East Africans to each successive governor of the colony and to any wealthy or influential settlers who would listen.
After Karen and Bror divorced, the farm had many visitors, from large groups of Africans who came for the Ngomas (social dances) to European friends. Berkeley Cole called Mbogani House his sylvan retreat. He brought leopard and cheetah skins to be made into fur coats and fine wines to serve with dinner. He reminded Karen of a cat, a constant source of heat and fun. His stories of the old days would make even the Masai chiefs laugh, and they were prepared to travel many miles to hear them. When Berkeley died young, Karen felt a tremendous sense of loss.
Karen’s friend Ingrid Lindstrom had come to Africa with her husband and children to operate a flax farm. Like Karen, Ingrid worked passionately to save herfarm during the hard times. They wept together at the thought of losing their
land. As the years passed and one bad harvest followed another, Karen’s chances of keeping the farm grew slimmer.
Denys Finch-Hatton gave Karen a powerful reason to stay in Africa, and thanks to his love and encouragement, she fought to stay as long as she could. Although he owned land in another part of the continent, Denys made her farm his home. He lived there between safaris, returning unexpectedly after weeks or months away. His visits were like sparkling jewels. Denys taught her Latin and introduced her to the Greek poets; he brought her a gramophone and classical music. In the evenings, he spread cushions on the floor, and she would sit and spin long tales she had made up while he had been away. Karen and Denys, whenever they were together, had great luck hunting lions. One spring, two lions came to the farm and killed two of the oxen. That night, Denys was determined to get the pair before they could strike again. With Karen holding a torch, they tracked the lions and killed them near the edge of the property.
One of Karen’s greatest pleasures was flying in Denys’s airplane over Africa. His moth machine, as she called it, could land on her farm only a few minutes from the house, and the two often made short flights over the Ngong Hills at sunset. Other times, they traveled farther to find huge herds of buffalo or to soar with the eagles. These happy days did not last, because the coffee plantation was rapidly failing. Too little rain produced poor yields. When the price of coffee fell, Karen Blixen’s investors said she would have to sell.
She was making plans to dispose of her belongings and to find suitable land for her workers when the news came that Denys had been killed in the crash of his plane. Heartbroken, Karen searched in the rain to find an appropriate burial site. Finally she chose a narrow, natural terrace in the hillside behind the farm. At the grave, she and Farah erected a tall white flag so that from her window she could look to the hills and see a small white star. After she left Africa, the Masai reported to the district commissioner that many times at sunrise and sunset they had seen a lion and lioness standing on the grave.
In the dark days following the funeral, Ingrid stayed with Karen. They did not talk of the past or the future. They walked together on the farm taking stock of Karen’s losses, naming each item and lingering fondly at the animal pens and the beautiful flower gardens. Blixen’s last months in Africa took her on a beggar’s journey from one government official to the next. Her goal was to find enough land for her workers to settle on together. Finally, the government agreed to give them a piece of the Dagoretti Forest Reserve where they could preserve their community. In the end, Farah drove Karen to the train station. She could see the Ngong Hills to the southwest, but as the train moved farther from her home, the hand of distance slowly smoothed and leveled the outline of the mountain.
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