A Change in Altitude (23 page)

He stood next to her. “No more talk about the marriage.”

“No more talk about the marriage.”

The next morning, Patrick and Elena went to a meeting while Margaret had the day free. The man at the front desk suggested a walking tour, but Margaret found herself off the trail almost as soon as she’d started. Side alleys beckoned: the eighteenth-century houses of coral covered with layers of ancient plaster beguiled her. She noticed the carved wooden shutters and doors, and, from time to time, when one of them opened, she caught a glimpse of courtyards with fountains and carved niches and low white sofas. She wanted to be invited into one of those courtyards with its hint of jasmine.

Everywhere she walked, she saw Rafiq. Each man she passed might have been his cousin. All the native women wore the bui-bui. Had Rafiq ever been to Lamu?

On the cobblestones, donkeys and cats roamed freely, and occasionally, on what seemed to be a narrow passageway, Margaret found a store: one that sold silver jewelry; one that sold itos, round painted eyes from Swahili dhows; another that offered kikois, patterned wraps worn by Swahili men. She’d discovered that the prices on Lamu were extravagant. A beer at Petley’s the night before had been nearly a hundred shillings. Of course, it all had to do with the difficulty of importing foreign goods to the island, but even the locally crafted silver jewelry was dear. Margaret bought a kikoi for Patrick and an ito for the household. She half wondered what Patrick would think of this talisman meant to ward off the evil eye. The other half wondered if it would work.

She returned to the hotel in time for lunch and found Elena and Patrick waiting for her. They were still in that animated state of two people fresh from a meeting, whereas Margaret had just returned from another century, one with a much slower pace. Sensing Margaret’s near stupor, Patrick ordered for her.

“You okay?” he asked as he cocked his head.

Margaret tried to open her eyes to a normal size. “I’m perfect,” she said, meaning it. “Can we live here?”

“And she hasn’t even been to the beach yet,” Elena said. “You positively won’t be able to leave if you spend any time at Peponi’s.”

A man, a hotel employee, stopped at their table. “Mr. McCoglan?” he asked.

“That’s me,” Patrick said.

“I have for you this message.”

“Thank you,” Patrick said, tipping the man.

Patrick opened the envelope and read the note inside. He laid it on the table and slowly rolled his head back as far as it would go. He closed his eyes. Elena looked at Margaret, who picked up the piece of paper.

Dear Bwana Patrick,

The house is empty. Bandits came and took everything except from your bedroom, which is still locked. The police came. Please return soon.

Your friend, Moses

Margaret imagined Moses dictating the note over the phone to the man at the front desk, who might, in writing down the message, have corrected Moses’s grammar. Margaret turned to look at her still-immobile husband.

All his research.

She held the note out to Elena.

“I’m so sorry,” Elena said when she read it. “Everything?”

Elena arranged for Patrick and Margaret to fly out of Manda that afternoon. Lamu left Margaret as if it had been only a dream.

The scene when they arrived at the Karen house was as alien as any Margaret had ever witnessed. When Moses said “everything,” he meant it. The drapes had been hacked from the windows, all the telephones and wires taken. The sconces over the fireplace had been dug out of the walls. One bathroom was without a toilet. Margaret thought about the dinners they had had in the dining room, the phone calls at the hall table, the cocktails she and Patrick had had on the sofa in the living room. All vanished. That the avocado and lime trees should still be out back struck her as surreal.

She stood with Patrick when he entered the study. All his research, all his books—gone. His notes, the family photographs from home—gone. Patrick leaned against the doorjamb. There was nothing Margaret could say to him. There was no reassuring him that the papers would be found; no consolation available in the hope that there must be copies somewhere. Had he used carbon paper for everything? She didn’t think so. And what about all the handwritten notes, the ones he hadn’t typed up yet? Irreplaceable.

Margaret was relieved that she’d taken her cameras with her, but there were other things she would deeply miss: funny illustrated letters from Timmy, the photos that weren’t on file at the
Tribune,
the cloth Adhiambo had made.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

“We’re cursed,” he answered quietly. “The other thefts, the climb, then this.”

“We are not cursed,” Margaret countered, wanting to dispel that notion. She thought of the ito, the good-luck charm she had in her suitcase. When was that supposed to kick in? she wondered.

“Excuse me.”

Margaret turned to see a Kenyan policeman in civilian clothes.

“I need to speak with you both, if you please. I am Inspector Wambui,” he said, showing them his badge.

They followed the man into the foyer of the house. Three large stones, each a little bit smaller than a bowling ball, lay on the wooden floor near where the hallway table used to be. Margaret wondered if the thieves had contemplated ripping up the expensive parquet.

“Are these yours?” the inspector asked.

“Those rocks?” Patrick answered in disbelief.

“I didn’t think so. Then these are what the thieves were going to kill you with, had you been in the house.”

Margaret was speechless.

“Do you know who is doing this to you?” the inspector asked.

“No, no one,” Patrick answered.

“Do you have any enemies?”

“I don’t think so,” Margaret said. “Really, I can’t think of anyone who wishes us harm.”

“We have examined the house. There is a broken window in the kitchen. We have interrogated your house servant and the neighborhood askaris, as procedure dictates. I do not think it was the house servant. He was sleeping at the time, and he is as distressed as you. He is afraid of what his employers will say. Do I understand that you were renting the house?”

“Not actually,” Margaret said. “We were house-sitting. Our job was to make sure nothing happened here.”

The inspector raised an eyebrow. Patrick ran his hand through his hair.

“We will be needing the address and telephone number of the owner,” the inspector said.

“I know their name, but Moses has all the contact information. I hope he kept it in his own house and not here.”

A consultation was had with Moses. The contact information was found, and it was agreed that Patrick should make the call. Moses, clearly, was terrified.

“How do I tell a couple that everything they once owned is now gone?” Patrick asked.

The violation felt personal. Nothing was left—not a spoon, not a toothpick, not a glass to fill with water. It had to have been a gang, Margaret thought. A normal move would have been arduous; this would have been a gargantuan task. She thought of the owners’ heavy sideboards and their sofa. She remembered rooms filled with furniture.

Margaret turned to the inspector. “How could this have happened without someone seeing or hearing it?” she asked. “There had to have been a vehicle involved.”

“The thieves, they are very quiet. Always. They carry the goods to a waiting car, sometimes parked in the woods. They cannot be stopped. Unless you have the askaris or the gates. Still, it sometimes happens then, too. Usually when the owners are away. Often these things are random. Can you tell me who knew about your trip?”

“Moses,” she said. “Some people at the newspaper where I contribute photographs from time to time. On a freelance basis only,” she added, realizing she was talking to a government official. “It was to be such a short trip—two nights only—that I don’t think I bothered even to tell our friends.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“Someone who could have overheard you speaking of the trip?”

“I suppose any number of people might have overheard me speak of it or later learned of it at the newspaper. But, honestly, I’m sure no one there would do this.” Margaret tried to think. Had she told anyone but Moses and Rafiq and Solomon Obok? “The people at the airport would have known,” she added, thinking. “You might check the personnel at Wilson.”

“We have done that. You were a woman traveling alone. If an agent there was a thief, he might have assumed that there was a man who remained at the house.”

Patrick had to go next door to make the phone call.

Margaret walked upstairs and unlocked their bedroom door. It was exactly as she had left it the day before: towels slung on doorknobs, one of the pillows knocked askew.

She sat heavily on the bed, no longer able to stand.

“We are not cursed,” she said aloud. “There’s no such thing as a curse. I’ve never believed it before, and I’m not going to start now.”

Patrick entered the room and sat beside Margaret. “This looks like a movie set in a vast empty studio.”

“How was it?” she asked.

“It was horrible, just as you’d expect.”

“They’re mad.”

“Furious. They seemed to think we were supposed to be in the house at all times. When I told them we were in Lamu when it happened, they went insane. They never asked about our personal losses. Then they asked to speak to Moses. I felt sorry for the guy.” He smoothed the covers. “Well, at least we can sleep here.”

Margaret leaped from the bed. “Are you crazy? And lie awake all night waiting for the thieves to come and empty out this room as well? With us in it? Didn’t you see those three rocks? We’re packing up our stuff and getting out of here.”

“And going where?” Patrick asked. “I suppose Karim and Aarya would take us in. We could sleep on their floor.”

“Maybe,” Margaret said, “but I have a better idea. Let’s just head for the Norfolk.”

“It’ll cost a fortune.”

“I don’t much care at this point,” she said. She sat again on the bed beside her husband.

“We’ll have to rent a place now,” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to get a house-sitting reference.”

“I’ll start looking for places tomorrow,” Margaret offered.

“Some of the research is at the hospital. The most recent, in my briefcase. I’ll try to patch it together as best I can. I was almost always working with someone else.”

They lay back together and stared at the ceiling.

“I’m not leaving,” Patrick said.

“I’m not leaving,” Margaret said.

P
atrick and Margaret found a flat not too far from the hospital. A physician, vacating it to return to Delhi, had posted a handwritten
For Let
notice on the bulletin board. They’d spent two nights at the Norfolk and knew they couldn’t afford many more.

The flat was in a large stone house that had once been stately, and as they drove up along the walled driveway, Margaret grew mildly intrigued. Shaded by tall jacaranda and eucalyptus, and surrounded by overgrown gardens, the house seemed like one an early settler might have had and then, down on his luck, abandoned.

Inside, Patrick and Margaret were surprised to find both an askari in a uniform and an elevator in the lobby. An elevator! As the askari used the telephone to call the owner, Margaret reflected that a doorman was an askari without the machete. The owner, a Sikh, took them up to the third floor. Selecting a key from an enormous ring, he opened the door to 3F.

Margaret was reassured to find casement windows that opened outward to the untended garden, and they were both surprised to discover that the flat had two bedrooms, one of which Patrick could use for a study. (The next morning, Patrick called for a locksmith to install a double lock for the study door.) There was a fireplace for the cold nights, a dining table of decent size in the space shared by the living room, and a kitchen with all the “mod cons,” as the turbaned owner was quick to point out. The mismatched furniture reminded Margaret of grad-student housing in the States, and she wondered if they could survive the vile green sofa. With a little work, she thought, Patrick and she could make a go of it. They’d wanted a flat in a building with other tenants, since they no longer wished to be isolated. They thought that a flat on the third floor would present a challenge to the usual thief.

“Thick walls,” the owner said, patting the plaster. He had brought the paperwork and a pen.

Patrick settled into his routine of going to the hospital every weekday and often traveling on weekends as part of his promise to visit clinics all over the country. Margaret went with him on the excursions when she had an urge to photograph a person or place, or an animal she hadn’t yet photographed for her brother, Timmy. She stayed home when she felt the need to work on her portfolio. She had found a darkroom in a camera store in town, the owner willing to rent out time. On weekends, Margaret might sign up for six or seven hours, depending upon what she thought she could afford.

Margaret still had so much to learn—about light, about equipment, about developing prints. If Patrick had come to the country to research equatorial diseases, Margaret had inadvertently undertaken her own research as well: to learn as much about photography as she possibly could. She yearned one day to illustrate a book about Kenya, though it might not be one the average tourist would want to buy. There wouldn’t be, in this imaginary book, a single shot of an animal (though Margaret did love photographing them) but rather a series of portraits and candids of the Africa few tourists seemed to know about.

At the
Tribune,
Margaret was still assigned to Rafiq, who was writing longer features only. She worked with him on a piece about widows (photo: a pregnant woman with her hand over her eyes, standing in front of her husband’s grave, the markers of a thousand graves behind her); a portrait of the famous Kenyan writer Ngu˜gı˜ wa Thiong’o (photo: the man, midspeech, brows furrowed, eyes flashing—a man of righteous anger); a piece on why female circumcision should be abolished (photo: two women bent over a young girl lying on the ground in protest, as if they might be going to do something to her—actually a setup with locals willing to play the parts since Margaret refused to be party to an actual circumcision); an intriguing piece about children from a remote village in the Narok District voluntarily gathering each morning to be taught to read and write in their vernacular and to speak Kiswahili (photo: children of many sizes in tribal dress in front of hut with disintegrating roof).