A Change in Altitude

by Anita Shreve

  Rafiq laughed.

  “I had no idea what the baboons might do to get to what they thought was food. When they advanced closer, I began to sing as loud as I could.”

  “What did you sing?” Rafiq asked.

  “?‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’?”

  Rafiq threw his head back and laughed again. Just looking at him made Margaret smile.

  “The baboons, you’ll be interested to know, were indifferent to my singing,” she went on. “They kept creeping toward me. One would slip closer to me on the right while my attention was on a baboon to my left. I considered getting into the tent…”

  She could see Rafiq shake his head already.

  “… but then realized it was a terrible idea. Being trapped in the tent while baboons crawled all over the canvas would be more than I could handle.”

  “I imagine it might be,” Rafiq said.

  “So, in the distance,” Margaret continued, “I could see this single line of natives walking toward me. I didn’t know who they were or what their intentions might be, but from where I stood, they looked like help. As they got closer, I could see that they were Masai women and that each held a bundle of sticks on top of her head. I couldn’t think of the word for help in Swahili, not to mention Maa, but my predicament must have been obvious. As they approached the camp, they broke apart and ran wildly at the baboons, waving their arms and shrieking. Shrieking. The baboons, naturally, disappeared. I put down the pot.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “When my husband and his friend pulled into the campsite, they found me anchoring one side of a sheet on which I had put everything that remained in the cooler. Anchoring the other sides were six Masai women. Though we couldn’t understand one another, the Masai women chatted among themselves while eating cornflakes, banana chips, triangles of La Vache Qui Rit, and Tetra Paks of milk. I’d have given anything to have known what the women said.”

  “Cornflakes?”

  “Cornflakes. When the men got out of the car, the women stood, put their bundles back on their heads, and left, again in single file.”

  “So,” Rafiq said, pointing to the baboons, “you want to get out of the car and shriek?”

  “Why don’t we just put the car in gear and speed off?”

  “Funny-looking, though, aren’t they?”

  Margaret and Rafiq had driven for almost forty-five minutes, encountering zebras, rhinos, and warthogs, when Margaret said in a low voice, “Stop the car.”

  He glanced at her, and she pointed out the windshield. Not sixty feet in front of them, a leopard lay on the branch of an acacia tree. The animal twitched his nose and stared, and Margaret knew he had spotted them inside the car—probably long before she’d noticed the leopard seemingly lazing in the shade of the twiglike leaves. Perfectly camouflaged. Almost.

  “Roll up the windows,” Rafiq said quietly.

  Margaret did as she was told, but she itched to get out of the car and take a shot. Catching a leopard this close was a rare opportunity, and she wanted to try. The danger, of course, was that any move could cause the sinewy animal to leap out of the tree and attack. The trick, she’d been told by a colleague at the newspaper, was to keep the passenger door open and watch the leopard with the unencumbered eye while trying to frame the shot with the one behind the camera. One shot. That’s all you could hope for. One shot with a zoom lens, and back in the car as fast as you could possibly get.

  “Don’t do it,” Rafiq said.

  Margaret was silent.

  “Not worth it,” he added.

  She raised the camera and thought about trying to get the shot through the window. The angle was off and the lens was catching the rays of a lowering sun, which would destroy any photo of the animal. She would have to get out and stand maybe seven feet from the car.

  She turned to Rafiq.

  “No,” he said.

  “But a shot like this is so rare. Particularly if you can get the light right, which I think I can. I just have to get out of the car and move seven feet to my left.”

  “No,” he said. “Let someone else do it.”

  She bit her lip. “Would you listen to me if I said to you, ‘No, don’t write that story; let someone else do it’?”

  He didn’t answer her.

  “Rafiq,” she said.

  “Ten seconds max. Get out of the car, take the shot, get back in.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I won’t get out to save you.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Margaret thought a long time before she opened the door. She would have seconds to complete a series of actions, the most important of which was to frame the shot and get it. She rehearsed the moves she would have to make.

  “I’m going now,” she said when she had the camera ready.

  She opened the door, moved the seven or eight feet she needed, and raised the camera. The leopard seemed to be looking vaguely in her direction, but it made no threatening moves. The angle of the sun had created a pink light that highlighted the leopard on his branch. Margaret took another step to her left, to make sure she had the sun fully behind her. She knew Rafiq would be going wild in the car, so she didn’t turn to look. It occurred to her that the angle of the sun might partially blind the leopard, but she noticed his eyes move as she moved. She was now ten feet from the car. She raised the camera.

  She took as many shots as she could. She was outside perhaps twenty or thirty seconds.

  “Don’t move,” Rafiq said behind her.

  A knife sailed past Margaret’s peripheral vision even as the leopard rose on its impressive haunches. The knife nailed a snake to the ground. Rafiq put one hand over Margaret’s mouth, the other on her shoulder. The shock of his touch silenced her. He dragged her backward and to the side with his arms and hand.

  “Get in the car.”

  She did as she was told with the speed and agility of an athlete. She couldn’t get the door closed fast enough, though she noticed that the leopard hadn’t moved from his high-alert position. Exposed to danger seconds longer, Rafiq ran around the back of the car, slid into his seat, and shut the door. He exhaled a long breath. They waited.

  “He’s looking at the snake,” Margaret said.

  “It was his concern all the time. The closer the snake got to you, the more danger you were in—not only from the snake but from the leopard, who might have attacked it, with you as collateral damage.”

  “What kind of a snake?” Margaret asked.

  “A black mamba.”

  “It was silver.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Deadly?”

  “Lethal. The most deadly snake in all of East Africa.”

  “How do you know all this?” she asked, beginning to shake from the scare.

  “I’m African,” he said.

  Margaret had never thought of Rafiq as an African, though of course he was, just as Diana had been. With his three-country allegiance, he’d appeared to Margaret to be a citizen of the world.

  Rafiq never took his eyes off the leopard as he put the car in reverse. He backed up ten feet and then shot forward over the long snake, crushing it.

  “Your knife,” Margaret said.

  Rafiq glanced at her with disbelief.

  “It’s just that you’ve had it with you always. You saved my life,” she said.

  “I told you I wouldn’t save you from the leopard. But since I hadn’t promised you anything about the snake,” he said, smiling, “I felt that I couldn’t abandon you to what would have been a terrible fate.”

  “Why is it called a black mamba?”

  “It has an inky mouth. It’s so deadly because it can rear up and strike its victim many times, and the toxin from just one bite can kill between ten and twenty-five men.”

  Margaret felt a pressure at her chest.

  Rafiq glanced at her. “I think what happened back there was more a case of you, rather stupidly if I may say so, risking your life for not a hell of a lot.�
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  “And I risked yours as well.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “I’m so sorry and so grateful.” She reached out to touch Rafiq’s arm to show him how much she meant her apology. She could feel the heat through the cloth of his shirt.

  She couldn’t shake the thought of Rafiq’s hands on her shoulder and covering her mouth. Though the moment had been startling, it was a feeling she did not want to forget.

  “I think we’d better head back,” Rafiq said.

  The sun lowered, and the shadows stretched. The larger birds were black silhouettes against the sky. Rafiq drove for a long time.

  “I think you should stop the car,” Margaret said.

  Rafiq slowed. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. No.”

  They stopped. “What’s wrong?”

  Rafiq glanced through all the windows. He got out and opened her door.

  She stood, and he pulled her to him. He put his fingers in her hair and held her head steady. Margaret thought, Thank you.

  He let his hands fall from her hair as he pulled away. Margaret immediately knew that something was very wrong. Rafiq turned his back to her.

  “What?” she asked, bewildered.

  “I can’t do this,” he said.

  “Do this?”

  “Be together.”

  Margaret was shaken by his words and his tone. “I don’t understand.”

  But she did understand.

  Margaret leaned back against the car. Something large was ending before she’d quite admitted to herself that it had ever begun. The loss of that barely acknowledged entity began to push its way into her chest. “I so wish you hadn’t said that,” Margaret said.

  Rafiq stood beside her.

  “How long have you felt this way?” Margaret asked.

  “That it had to end? Just now. When I realized how much I wanted to make love to you.”

  “No,” she said. “That there was an it at all.”

  “Shortly after I met you.”

  And Margaret had known it, too, hadn’t she? When she watched him as he jogged to his car? When her eyes happened to fall on the skin of his hand against the white cuff of his shirt? When Rafiq had called the house that night? All those times at tea? And especially when he had put his hand on hers?

  “Margaret.”

  She nodded.

  “I have a story to tell you,” he began. “At the Golden Cup, you told one. Now I have one.”

  She waited.

  “When I was in London,” he said, “I had an affair with a married woman. I loved her very much. It was all joy and pleasure for me, but even from the beginning, I could see that it was something else for her. She loved me, but she hated the secrecy and the betrayal. After a time, it became hellish for me, too.” He paused. “Do you understand what I’m talking about?”

  Margaret couldn’t answer him. The revelation of that earlier affair was unexpectedly painful.

  “I can’t do it again,” Rafiq said. “I promised myself I’d never do that to anyone. Because I know how it ends, and the ending is terrible.”

  “We didn’t even…,” she said.

  “Kiss? Make love? No, we didn’t.” He was silent for a minute. “I know this hurts you. It hurts me. I’m sorry. I’m going to ask Solomon not to pair us together.”

  “Oh, please don’t,” Margaret said.

  He put his arm around her. “The less we talk about this,” he said, “the better off we are.”

  Margaret searched for the right words. “It feels as though I’ve lost something wonderful before I even had it,” she said. “Before I even had a chance.”

  “To do what?” Rafiq asked gently. “From here on out, what we had between us would have had to be something very different. And I’m not sure you would have wanted that.”

  “I would have wanted that,” she protested.

  Rafiq again turned away from her. A sharp, rosy light lit up the savanna. Margaret didn’t care if she and Rafiq ever found the gates. She didn’t want to get into the car. She didn’t want the car to move. Surround us with leopards and lions, she thought, but don’t let the car move.

  “Let’s just stand here a minute,” Margaret said.

  The light abruptly left the grasses. Night fell as it always did—a curtain lowering itself. Around them, animals were out and foraging. Soon they would find the yellow Citroën and surround it. None of them would harm Margaret and Rafiq, though, because they’d be able to see, even in the dark, that harm had already been done.

  The stars came out and then the moon. Margaret thought of trying to talk Rafiq out of his plan. She thought if she just turned and kissed him, she would be able to seduce him. But did she really want that? Part of her ached to make love to the man standing next to her, but part of her knew that Rafiq was right. She hated it that he was right.

  After a time, Rafiq opened her door and helped her inside. He put the Citroën in gear. Margaret felt the wheels move beneath them.

  As they passed through the park gate, Margaret turned her head away from Rafiq and stared at the lights of the city through her side window. Patrick would be wondering what had happened to her.

  “Where have you been?” Patrick asked as Margaret walked through the door.

  They had no servant to cook the meals, so they went out to dinner more often than they used to. But today Margaret could smell something savory that her husband had fixed up.

  “You look like hell,” he added. “What happened?”

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” Margaret said. “I had things I had to do.”

  “Such as?”

  She could hardly think. She had little patience for this interview. “I don’t know, Patrick. Things.”

  “I called your office.”

  Perhaps her face registered a small ping of alarm.

  “Solomon said you’d done some work in Ruaraka. But he didn’t know where you’d gone after that.”

  “I told you,” she said evenly, “I had errands.”

  “Solomon said you’d done the assignment with Rafiq.”

  “What are you implying?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”

  Margaret faced her husband squarely. “I. Did. Errands.”

  Patrick flipped a large wooden spoon above his head and let it fall to the floor. “If you want to be like that,” he said.

  “I think this is what you want to know,” Margaret said. “There is nothing between Rafiq and me. Absolutely nothing. That couldn’t be a truer statement.”

  His face relaxed from anger into puzzlement. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “As a matter of fact, I’m not. I’m sorry you went to all that trouble,” she said, pointing to the dining table. “And I’m sorry I’m late, but I think the best thing for me is to go lie down.”

  How ironic, Margaret thought as she left the living room, that she would not have to lie about Rafiq. Margaret felt anger, and she felt an overwhelming ache. She needed a dark room and a bed.

  That night, she drifted in and out of sleep. Each time she woke, she knew that something was wrong, and then it hit her. Fresh news. Again and again.

  And questions. Would she have had an affair with Rafiq? Yes. She had no doubt. Would she have suffered? Yes, probably. Would it have ended well? Inconceivable. Margaret was angry at Rafiq for his arrogance in thinking he could know or predict anything about her. Would it have been better if he had just slipped away from her without having delivered his devastating pronouncement? No, she didn’t think so. She’d have been confused, and it would have been all she’d thought about. She would have had to ask herself, again and again, Why is Rafiq avoiding me?

  She hoped Patrick would think that she had been insulted or belittled at the newspaper and that she was trying to regroup.

  Regrouping, however, was more difficult than Margaret had ever imagined. She was baffled by how enervated she felt. Having a bath seemed an enormous task. Margaret took to spending weekends i
n her bathrobe: she couldn’t summon the will to get dressed. Mostly, she wanted Patrick out of the flat so that she could think.

  She returned to the office the following Monday. She had been reassigned to Jagdish, punishment enough. She thought of quitting, but then what would she do all day? A dilemma more exhausting to think about than getting dressed. Occasionally, Margaret saw Rafiq. They were civil but not especially friendly. She felt that everyone in the office sensed a change. If they hadn’t known before, they certainly knew then.

  And then there was a second loss, one that flattened her.

  As she stepped out of the bathtub one morning, she slipped and hit her hip on the porcelain rim and then again on the floor. She had tried to brace herself with her hands. She lay on the tiles, gingerly feeling her hip. But she was more concerned by a sudden strong pain in her abdomen. Had she torn a muscle? She held on to the toilet as she stood up. When she was on her feet, she reached for her lime-green terry-cloth robe and went out to sit on the bed. Patrick had already walked to the hospital, and Margaret had been getting ready to go to work. She thought she should call Patrick and have him come home. Or maybe she should just pull herself together and try to go to work. Another strong cramp took hold of her. It was like having a period but not. The pain was too sharp, too defined, not achy. Margaret needed to see someone, probably her gynecologist, a doctor she had once visited for a yeast infection.

  Margaret slipped off the bathrobe and let it fall back onto the bed. She walked to her underwear drawer and then began to rifle through her wardrobe for a cotton dress that was clean and hadn’t been worn recently. A cramp bent her at the waist. She whirled around and put her hand out, trying to reach the bed for support. As she did, she saw the bright-red stain on the terry-cloth robe.

  Margaret was taken not to Nairobi Hospital but to a Catholic hospital, where her gynecologist had his practice. She had called the doctor, who had in turn called an ambulance. She arrived at the hospital in her bloody bathrobe. Patrick couldn’t be reached until he returned from Dagoretti, where he was holding a bush clinic.

  She’d been only six weeks along, her doctor informed her. Margaret tried to grasp what he was saying. She’d been pregnant? Was he sure? Yes, he was sure. He patted her hand.