A Change in Altitude Read online

  Margaret wondered how Arthur would have played that scene outside the door. Margaret had been terrified and had reached for his hand? Margaret wouldn’t let go? He was so tired he gave up and just went to sleep? Or might there have been enough lantern light from outside for Diana to have seen the position of the hands, Arthur’s over Margaret’s? Would Diana have added that to the litany of perceived slights that had accrued over time: finding Margaret, a strange woman, drink in hand, in her drawing room one day; watching as Arthur put his hand on Margaret’s shoulder when he got up to get her a whiskey; noting that her husband was staring at Margaret while she was naked on the Ngong Hills (when Willem had had the good sense to turn away); observing the way her husband dropped back to give Margaret a push or the way he had shared his chocolate bar with her just the night before? Had Diana seen that?

  Only Willem seemed without accusation. He was preoccupied, as was she, with the image of Arthur losing it on the glacier, yanking the guide rope in such a way as to endanger the safety of the rest of them. Willem would stay near Arthur, Margaret guessed. The guide first, Arthur second, Willem third. Willem would have an ax and would dig it hard into the ice if Arthur wobbled or fell, thus keeping the line steady for the rest of them.

  The rangers arrived from Top Hut.

  The crossing was made without mishap, though the pace was slow. Each minute on the glacier increased the chance that Arthur might fling himself toward Diana, to the place where he imagined his wife lay. When finally they reached the other side, the guide went ahead. The two rangers led Arthur down the mountain, each occasionally taking an arm. Patrick and Willem followed close behind. They didn’t run; the guide forced them to walk slowly, which seemed nearly impossible on the scree, where one was tempted to sit and slide the entire length of it. (Willem had warned that “a skinned ass” would be the consequence.) The bog was almost as miserable going down as it had been going up. Margaret had developed severe cramps along the way and had to retreat often to the bushes with burning diarrhea. Was this AMS in reverse? Or had the shock unnerved her system, too? She felt sick and shaky and at times not sure that she could take another step. She unpacked the meds and took a teaspoon of Imodium. After she had stumbled a couple of times, she noticed that the cook, whose name she didn’t know (whose name she didn’t know!), stood near her in case she fell badly. After the bog, Arthur shook the two rangers off and walked by himself to Park Gate. He seemed to have regained some of his emotional strength and now wanted to mount a rescue mission. Patrick tipped the guide handsomely, but the man wouldn’t take the money.

  At the lodge, Arthur was told that there was little hope of rescue, and that they likely would recover only a body. He collapsed into a chair. A half hour later, Arthur was on his feet, throwing his weight around in an unpleasant way—rudely, condescendingly—though one could hardly blame him. He made phone calls: to the police, to a friend of his in Langata, to James. Perhaps he also made one to Adhiambo, who had the children. Arthur faced another sickening task: having to tell the children that their mother was gone.

  There would be a memorial service to prepare for.

  There was some talk of spending another night at the lodge. But a more rational Arthur realized that he must get to his children, that he had responsibilities—unasked for, unimagined. They had only the one vehicle. Patrick quietly tried to rent another so that Arthur could return with Saartje and Willem only. But there were no vehicles available unless Patrick and Margaret wanted to wait until the next day and take the local bus. Patrick shook his head. They would return as they had come.

  The ride back to Langata was ghastly. Willem drove in what would have been Diana’s seat. Arthur sat beside him, holding Diana’s belongings. Saartje and Margaret had the middle seats, while Patrick took the back, more than willing, Margaret knew, to be away from the rest of them. Saartje had her body turned away from Margaret the entire journey, and Margaret thought the woman must have arrived in Langata with a crick in her neck. From time to time, Margaret had to look between the men so that she wouldn’t become motion-sick. Once, she humiliated herself by having to ask them to pull over so that she could find rudimentary shelter for another pit stop. The cramps had not abated. Margaret wanted only to fall asleep and wake a month later.

  From time to time, Arthur smacked his head against the back of his seat. The scene on the ice, Margaret imagined, would freshly occur to him, again and again, in all its horror. Sometimes he would cry out; at other times, he would simply bend his head forward and weep.

  After they’d arrived in Langata, Saartje and Willem went immediately into the Big House, to be there for Arthur when he told his children, perhaps to be there for the children. It was something Margaret dearly wanted to do as well, to help in some way. She watched them walk off, but Patrick steered Margaret in the direction of their cottage. He would get the gear later, he said. He was insistent that Margaret lie down.

  Patrick wouldn’t say what he wanted to say. The words that had been in their heads on the mountain would not be spoken while they were both too shaken. That conversation would happen in the morning.

  * * *

  Sleepless that night in bed, Margaret couldn’t believe that the tragedy had really happened. Diana was there, making footsteps above them, and then she was gone. Just like that. Gone.

  And Margaret was to blame.

  Was a woman, Margaret wondered, who allowed attentions from a man permitted to accept his touch even though she had no thought of reciprocating? Was she implicitly making a bargain she had no intention of keeping?

  Wasn’t Margaret guilty, since she could see clearly that any exchanges between Arthur and her were causing Diana irritation or pain? And Margaret did see that, she was sure of it. She certainly intuited it. She believed that Diana would have been annoyed at Margaret’s pace up the mountain even if Diana had never met Margaret before. And Margaret remembered that Diana was a person who needed always to get going. But Margaret couldn’t see Diana unclipping herself, knowing how dangerous it was, if those two factors were her only motivation. (And, oddly, Margaret had had nothing to do with the slow trek across the glacier. That had been the guide’s decision.)

  Margaret could imagine, however, the angry white noise inside Diana’s head and the passionate desire to escape the thing that was hurting her, a thing she considered beneath her in the first place (was that why she had needed to be above them?), which would have exaggerated the pain. That, combined with an almost desperate need to get somewhere faster, made sense to Margaret as the real reason Diana undertook the most risky venture of her life. No one in her right mind would have unclipped herself had the white noise not drowned out rational thought. Diana hadn’t climbed Mount Kenya before, so it wasn’t as though she knew the terrain well and had felt confident on the glacier. She was as much a neophyte as the rest of them. Or had she so believed in her invincibility and her capabilities that she thought even if she tried that insane act, she would be victorious?

  And what exactly did Diana imagine she would accomplish? She would have reached the far side of the glacier six minutes before the rest of them. What would Diana have done with those six minutes? Sit down and rest, a smile on her face? Climb up onto a small ridge to be able to look down on the others as they finished the trek? Or was the gesture meant to be a major fuck you to Margaret and Arthur?

  Margaret suspected that a little of everything—pride, hurt, annoyance, an urgent need for speed, anger—combined in a single reckless moment to make Diana unclip herself.

  “We’re going to talk about this once,” Patrick said when he came out of the bedroom the next morning. Margaret had risen early and made him a breakfast of eggs and bacon, mango slices and pawpaw juice. The smell of the bacon would have woken him. “And then never again.”

  In a short-sleeved shirt and jeans, he sat down to breakfast. He toyed with the yolk of an egg.

  Margaret was relieved that he wanted to talk. She hoped this would clear the air. She believed
that by talking about what had happened the day before, they would better understand it. That the talking itself would defuse the tension.

  “There was nothing between us,” Margaret began.

  Patrick brushed his chin with his knuckle. “Yes, there was, Margaret.”

  She was momentarily taken aback. “I was aware that Arthur was occasionally flirting with me, but I believed it was harmless.”

  Patrick picked up his coffee cup and then set it down. “Harmless to whom?”

  “If you noticed anything, and you thought it was causing harm, why didn’t you say something? To me, anyway?” Margaret asked.

  Patrick picked up a spoon. “Because it didn’t seem enough to make a fuss about. I’ve always believed in your fidelity, your integrity. I didn’t like watching Arthur flirt with you, but I was pretty sure it would end soon. I suppose I snapped at the sight of the two of you holding hands. Even if he had reached for your hand, I trusted you to extricate yourself, however awkward that would have been.” Patrick began to rap the spoon against the tablecloth. “But you didn’t. So what did that mean exactly? I had to ask myself. I didn’t want the question. I didn’t want the worry. What I wanted to do was wake you up and shake your arms out of their sockets.”

  The rapping of the spoon grew more rapid. “So I can pretty much imagine what Diana would have thought when she woke,” he added. “She was up before me, and I’m certain that she saw. Otherwise there would have been no fight outside the door of the banda. She believed that something was going on. I know she did.”

  “And because of that, you think me responsible for her accident and her death.”

  The accusation sounded harsh in the sunny room with the cooked breakfast. Margaret hoped that Patrick would immediately say no, that he didn’t, that Diana and only Diana was responsible for what she had done.

  Patrick laid down the spoon, leaned over the table, and put his fingers to his forehead. “I don’t know what I think, Margaret. I wish to God I had some clarity, but I don’t. If you and Arthur hadn’t been holding hands and sleeping so close to each other, Diana wouldn’t have had the anger to do what she did. I guess I believe that.”

  Margaret was still.

  “I’m sorry, Margaret. You asked.”

  She shook her head back and forth. Did he mean to punish her for causing him doubt? For making him have to alter the portrait of his wife? For knowing that he faced a future in which he might never be able to trust that wife again?

  “I’ve explained to you what happened,” Margaret said in her defense.

  He looked up at her. “So you have.”

  “And you don’t believe me?”

  “Oh, I believe you, all right. And had Diana not died in an icy crevasse, we’d probably be jubilant about having reached the top of Mount Kenya and would be crowing about that accomplishment. But she did die, and that changes everything.”

  “Why?” Margaret asked.

  “Because before, the consequences of your actions were irrelevant. Now they aren’t.”

  “You can’t separate the actions from unintended consequences?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Patrick, it’s me you’re talking to—your wife.”

  “I’m very aware of that.”

  “This isn’t happening,” Margaret said, standing. “How can you stay in a marriage in which you believe I was responsible for Diana’s death? How can you possibly love me?”

  “Well, I do love you,” he said, picking up the spoon again and beating it against the lip of the table. “That’s the point.” He looked up at her. “I lay awake last night asking myself the same question. Does this change what I think about Margaret? Do I still love her? And, oddly enough, it didn’t change anything. Not really. I love you and want to stay married to you.”

  “You made a cost-benefit analysis?”

  “Don’t be crude. That’s why I said we would have this discussion once and then never again.”

  “But why have it at all?” Margaret asked. “Why was it necessary to tell me I’m guilty if you intend to stay with me? If you love me, as you say.”

  Was Patrick simply being honest with her, or was there a hint of jealousy of his own?

  “First, you asked,” Patrick said. “And second, it had to be said. This thing would have festered had we not tried to talk about it. I believe you think yourself guilty, too. I don’t mean you believe you directly caused her death. Not that. I just think that you know that had you and Arthur not been holding hands yesterday morning, the day would have gone very differently.”

  Margaret’s legs were beginning to twitch.

  “And third,” he continued, “in case you’re not aware of this, I never lie to you.”

  “You kept from me the fact of the students in the mass grave.”

  “That’s different. That was to protect you. And besides, I’m still not sure it’s true.”

  “Patrick, how do you expect me to continue to love you, knowing you think as you do?”

  “I’m more worried about you loving yourself.”

  “You arrogant son of a bitch,” Margaret said in a deadly quiet tone. She reached over and grabbed the annoying spoon from Patrick’s hand and threw it, watching it ding the wall.

  “That’s what rage does,” Patrick pointed out calmly. “You’re not a person who throws silverware across a room.”

  “This is an object lesson?”

  “I’m just trying to get you to understand why Diana might have done what she did.”

  Margaret sat down and put her head on the tablecloth. She pictured Diana at the bottom of a ravine. She imagined Arthur next door, waking to the knowledge that his wife was dead and having to live through the shock of it. Or would his children be in the bed with him, softening the shock but intensifying the ache?

  Margaret kept her head on the tablecloth. She heard Patrick push the chair back and stand. She expected to feel his hand at the back of her neck.

  “We’re going to have to move,” he said matter-of-factly. “We’d better start looking for places.”

  He was farther away, not closer. So he wouldn’t touch her. He was going to leave her at the table to digest what had been said. He wasn’t going to massage the strife away.

  The memorial service was a quiet affair at a chapel attached to a large Catholic church. Margaret hadn’t known that Diana was Catholic. Patrick and Margaret sat near the back, not wanting to intrude in any way upon Arthur’s moment with his children. The sight of the children—hair shiny and brushed, chins trembling—made Margaret cry. She searched for Adhiambo, who should have been sitting close to them. Had she been fired already? They knew that Arthur was taking his family back to London, that Edward and Philippa were to be raised by Arthur with help from his sister.

  Many of Arthur’s colleagues attended the service, as did a large contingent of Diana’s friends. Women’s faces were obscured by large hats, and it was difficult to spot anyone Margaret knew. She searched for Willem’s oversize body but couldn’t find it. Had he and Saartje gone away? The service was surprisingly formal and lasted nearly an hour. When they all emerged from the darkened church into the blast of the noonday sun, many of the mourners fled to their cars. There was to be a reception back at the Big House, one that Patrick and Margaret would not attend. Instead, they would be packing. They’d found, through a friend of a friend, a house-sitting job in Karen, another suburb of Nairobi. They owned very little, and the packing would be easy.

  Margaret wouldn’t leave, however, without saying good-bye to Arthur. They waited just off the steps of the church, holding their hands to their foreheads to ward off the sunlight. When Arthur finally appeared, he stood alone. The children had gone ahead with a woman Margaret didn’t recognize. Patrick approached Arthur, and Margaret followed. Patrick held out his hand and said how sorry he was. Arthur was in mourning clothes, a dark silk handkerchief in his pocket. His mud-brown hair had been slicked back, as though he’d put pomade in it but hadn’t actua
lly washed it. Patrick said he would leave the keys to the cottage on the table. Arthur nodded and then glanced over Patrick’s shoulder at Margaret. There was a moment—a distinct and unambiguous moment—when their eyes met.

  There was no mistaking the complicity and guilt Margaret read there.

  Part Two

  “You’re sure you’re okay with this.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Some of it will be hard to look at,” Patrick warned.

  “I know.”

  “I just thought you might like to see what it is I do.”

  “I want to. I’m glad you invited me.”

  They emerged from the Peugeot onto the tarmac of Mathari Hospital, formerly called Mathari Mental Hospital. It was still a psychiatric hospital, though the unpleasant stigma had been removed. The government was thinking of changing the name yet again to the Muthaiga Hospital to further sanitize the facility. Mathari suggested squalor, whereas Muthaiga had classier connotations: a playground for the rich, white expatriates of an earlier generation.

  Margaret could feel the heat of the tarmac through the soles of her shoes. She carried her camera; Patrick, his doctor bag. He had recently gotten a short haircut. His skin was white in the places where his hair had been removed, giving him a strangely boyish look.

  The visit to Mathari Hospital marked the first time Patrick had asked Margaret along on one of his academic research projects. She thought perhaps that he was “making an effort” to save a marriage that had plateaued the morning after the fight about what had happened on Mount Kenya. Three months had passed, and their relationship hadn’t worsened, but neither had it improved. Margaret didn’t have a lot of experience with marriage, but she sensed that a plateau wasn’t an especially good place to be, particularly if that plain did not feel comfortable for either of them.