A Change in Altitude

by Anita Shreve

  For a moment, Margaret was confused. What pill did he mean? She was taking a lot of them.

  “You know, those little pink pills in the case?”

  She pulled away so that she could see his face. “You think I neglected my pills, and that’s why we conceived?”

  “Well, I can’t think of any other way it could have happened.”

  “You think I deliberately didn’t take them?”

  “No, no,” Patrick, up on one elbow, said. “Though you’d been mentioning children here and there.”

  “Once, if I recall.”

  “Well, yeah. Maybe once.”

  “Are you going to feel the need to remind me to take my pill every time we make love?”

  “No, I’m not,” he said. She saw a slight roll of the eyes before he caught himself.

  “Can we do this tomorrow?” Margaret asked.

  “So we’re making appointments now?”

  She shook her head, more dazed than anything else.

  “Fine,” Patrick said. “Tomorrow.”

  In the morning, he woke Margaret from a sound sleep. It was still dark out.

  “It’s tomorrow,” he whispered into her ear.

  Margaret took the assignments Solomon gave her, but photography no longer felt like her passion. She was back on the “grip-and-grin” beat, which, for once, she didn’t mind. Each time she entered the Tribune offices, she felt anxious. She would know, within seconds, if Rafiq was nearby or expected soon. When thoughts of him rose to the surface, Margaret pushed them away. As for the loss of that small beginning on the bathroom floor, that seemed not to leave her but rather to burrow deeper into her belly. She felt helpless to stop it.

  If Margaret couldn’t venture full bore into the Kenya she had begun to know, she could at least play tennis. The club was mixed race, and she made a number of new acquaintances. One could get a decent lunch there, and in the early evening, after the last matches, whoever was left could be found at the bar, a modest setup that nevertheless sold bia baridi, ice-cold Tuskers.

  The tennis club, with its formal rules and dress on the court, became a kind of second home for Margaret. It held no memories, and she was getting better at a game she hadn’t played since high school. She entered a tournament and placed well. Because the event had been an all-day affair, a buffet was served after the last match as a kind of celebration. Margaret was in a personal-best kind of mood and enjoying herself. Each time Patrick looked at her, he smiled. In those moments, Margaret thought he believed her completely healed, both inside and out.

  One night, as she and Patrick were sitting down to dinner, the telephone rang. Patrick had to answer the phone each time it rang, no matter how inconvenient. Margaret could tell from the tone of his voice that he was speaking not to a friend or a colleague but to someone with whom he had a more formal relationship.

  “It’s Lily,” he said, covering the mouthpiece. “Shall I tell her to call back later?”

  “No,” Margaret said, getting up. “I’ll take it.”

  Patrick handed the phone to her and went back to his meal.

  “Lily,” Margaret said.

  “Margaret, there is much chaos here. Mr. Obok has been detained. Rafiq is being deported.”

  “What?”

  “We need you to come in as early as possible tomorrow.”

  Margaret was aware of having to keep her voice businesslike and neutral, though she could hardly breathe.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Mr. Obok and Mr. Rafiq are accused of attempting to libel certain government officials. They were working on a story about a mass grave where students who were shot were buried.”

  It wasn’t a rumor after all, Margaret thought.

  “Of course I’ll help out,” she said to Lily. “Did you say the airport?”

  There was a slight pause at the other end while Lily dealt with the non sequitur.

  “Yes, that is where they are taking Mr. Rafiq just now. He is not allowed to go home to get his suitcase.”

  “Oh, Lily.”

  “So will you come in?”

  “Yes, absolutely,” Margaret said.

  She settled the receiver into its cradle. She had to invent a credible reason for leaving the house.

  When she turned to Patrick, she felt completely calm. “Obok has an assignment for me. It has to be done now,” Margaret said.

  “Now?” Patrick asked, incredulous. Margaret hardly ever worked at night.

  “Yes. He’s been trying to catch a Pakistani diplomat for a shot all day, but the man was always on the move and too busy. Just now an aide called Solomon and said that if he could get a photographer to the airport, I could get the head shot.”

  “I’ll drive you.”

  “No, no,” Margaret said. “I’m perfectly fine. One of us has to eat this wonderful chicken you’ve made.” Margaret picked up her camera from its place on the sideboard. “Save me some. I’ll be right back. I can’t waste a minute.”

  Patrick, looking as though he were trying to translate a foreign language into English, said nothing, and Margaret was out the door.

  The necessity to get to the airport was all-consuming. In the elevator, Margaret pictured the route in her head. She gave George, the watchman, a quick wave, ran to her car, and sped off. She realized she’d never heard of a police car stopping a speeding motorist in Kenya. Besides, she knew she wouldn’t stop even if they made an effort. More than likely, it would be a ruse to steal the car or worse. As she merged onto the motorway toward the airport, she tried to imagine what she would do in that circumstance.

  Do exactly what she was intending to do, she thought, and hope for the best.

  Margaret parked in front of the international terminal. She slung her camera over her shoulder. She slowed down once she pushed open the double doors. As casually as she could, she asked the military officer near the entrance where immigration was. He pointed the way with his arm. Margaret held her keys in her hand and walked briskly in the direction he’d indicated. It was an effort not to run.

  When she arrived at the entrance to immigration, she felt assaulted by bodies. Some people were saying good-bye, others were merely waiting, and still others appeared to be asleep on makeshift beds on the floor. There were Africans and Chinese and French and Indians and Americans and Arabs waiting for their flight number to appear on the overhead electronic sign. Margaret searched for Rafiq but couldn’t see anyone resembling him. She began to panic, certain that she’d arrived too late. She wandered the periphery of the throng, methodically penetrating it, to search for a tall man with black hair. She searched until she thought she’d seen every person in the waiting area.

  Margaret found a vinyl chair at the edge of the crush. She couldn’t bring herself to leave the airport. She watched every face that passed by her.

  Rafiq deported? To where? Not to Uganda, surely. Would he go to Pakistan then, to be with his family? To London with all the cousins? If he did, would he come back? Once you were deported, could you come back? Had Margaret seen his face for the last time in the hospital? And then she thought about Solomon. What had he and Rafiq discovered? How had they been caught? Where was Solomon now?

  In the distance, three men approached the entrance to immigration. Margaret stood up. Rafiq was flanked by two military police, both of whom had handguns in holsters. Rafiq had no luggage and no briefcase. His tie had been yanked down, and one tail of his shirt had come loose from his belt. He caught Margaret’s face, and she moved to intercept him. He shook his head in tiny movements. She held back. Rafiq stared straight ahead. Just as he was about to pass Margaret, he took a quick glance in her direction. He mouthed the word Solomon. Margaret nodded. She ached to say something to him, but he was already walking away from her.

  Margaret watched numbly as the two soldiers and the man parted the throng. And then they were through the door and gone.

  Margaret made it back to the vinyl chair and sat as still as she could. She breathed slowly an
d shallowly, in and out, in an effort to gain control. The sight of Rafiq and then the immediate loss of him had happened so quickly she felt as though she had been punched. She stared at a patch of tile just beyond her. She heard nothing. She saw only Rafiq. His message had been clear. Do something for Solomon.

  Margaret put her head in her hands. Since she’d arrived in Kenya, she’d been robbed, caused a woman’s death, been saved from a lethal snakebite, realized a love that was over before it started, and lost a baby. Now she’d just been silently asked to do something for someone whose life was in jeopardy. She’d had to watch a man she loved walk through a set of doors and out of her life.

  When Margaret felt that she could stand, she made her way back to the place where she had left her car. She nodded at the soldier at the entrance and stepped outside. Another soldier stood next to her car, peering in the windows.

  Oh God, Margaret thought.

  She walked to the driver’s side, knowing she couldn’t avoid a confrontation.

  “This is your car, miss?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “It is illegal to leave your vehicle here.”

  “I just had to run in to say good-bye to someone. I am here now. I’ll get in the car and be gone in a second.”

  “I must reprimand you for a serious offense.”

  Margaret said nothing.

  “What is your name?”

  She told him.

  “We will need to search your vehicle.” He signaled to the soldier just inside the door.

  “Why?” Margaret asked.

  Neither of the men answered her. She’d been in the country long enough to know not to protest, though she bristled when she was asked to step aside, and the other soldier stood guard beside her. The soldier inspecting the car asked for the keys, and she tossed them to him. Inside, he found a jacket of Patrick’s and an old Fanta bottle with a dead fly inside. There were crumbs and candy wrappers and, in the trunk, Margaret’s old raincoat, which she’d been searching for. He asked her for her camera, and she reluctantly handed it over. When he opened the camera and ripped out the film, Margaret flinched as though someone had torn a bandage from her skin.

  The soldier shut the doors and trunk and handed her the keys. “May I see your passport?” he asked.

  “It’s at home,” Margaret answered, instantly anxious. Where would this end?

  “Do you have any other identification?”

  Margaret thought. The car registration was in Patrick’s name. In a slim pocket of her camera bag, she kept a check for emergencies. That would have her name on it. But if she handed the check to the soldier, it might be misinterpreted as an attempt at bribery.

  “May I look at my raincoat?” Margaret asked.

  The soldier nodded.

  She opened the trunk and riffled through the pockets of the coat. She found a ten-shilling note, a receipt for groceries she had bought, a set of directions in her own handwriting, and a pay stub. She wrestled for a moment with the quandary of revealing the pay stub with no work permit to back it up. But it was all she had.

  She handed the pay stub to the soldier. He examined it and looked at Margaret.

  “What do you do there?”

  “I sometimes sell photographs—on a freelance basis only.”

  “And when does your visa expire?”

  “Next May,” she said, though that was wildly untrue. She had no idea when their visas expired. Patrick kept renewing them.

  The officer handed Margaret her pay stub and waved her on her way.

  When Margaret opened the door to the flat, Patrick stood up from the vile green sofa. “Where the hell have you been?” he asked.

  “What time is it?”

  “It’s almost one o’clock in the morning.”

  She put her hands on the back of a chair to steady them. “I was detained,” she said.

  “Detained? By whom?”

  “Soldiers at the airport. Two of them. I’d parked my car illegally, and when I went back out to get it, they interrogated me.”

  “About what?”

  “Everything,” she said. “They searched the car.”

  “Jesus, Margaret. You must have been scared to death.”

  “A little nervous,” she said. “I was sweating.”

  “You’re lucky they let you go.”

  “I guess so.” Margaret did not feel lucky at all. She knew she couldn’t bear it if Patrick crossed the room.

  “I can’t imagine on what grounds they could have held me,” she said as she headed toward the bedroom. “I’d like a hot bath. And then a good, long sleep.”

  “Nothing to eat?”

  “No, I’ll have it tomorrow for lunch.”

  In the bathroom, Margaret turned on the taps and watched the tub slowly fill with water. She knelt in front of it and laid her head on its rim. She could hear Patrick moving around, then making his way into the bedroom. She heard the thump of his shoes, a belt buckle falling to the floor.

  Her husband was just a few feet away from her, and yet she’d just sped to the airport to catch one last glimpse of another man. A man she wouldn’t see again. Margaret didn’t know what would become of Rafiq. She didn’t know what would become of her.

  Lily was rigid when Margaret got to the office the next morning. As she approached the desk, Lily flicked her eyes toward the armed policemen standing twenty feet away.

  “You must go home,” Lily said in a low voice. “We are not needing you here.”

  “What’s happening?” Margaret asked.

  “They are arresting one other reporter.”

  “But surely I am safe.”

  “Not at all. When they search Rafiq’s records, they will see your photo credits accompanying his stories. You do not have a work permit. You must go home and stay there. You must do nothing until someone calls you. You might not be called.”

  “My God,” she said.

  “You must go now,” Lily urged.

  “Are there people trying to help Solomon?”

  Lily leaned closer to Margaret. “Yes,” she said, “but he is in serious trouble.”

  Margaret learned later that afternoon via the Tribune’s competitor that Solomon Obok was being held without benefit of trial and was thought to be imprisoned in a hole near Gilgil. Rafiq Hameed had been deported to London. Obok was accused of treason, a capital offense. No charges had been levied against Mr. Hameed, but his Kenyan passport and all his files had been confiscated.

  When she left the editorial offices, she could do little more than walk the streets. She passed by the shop where she’d once admired a gold-colored teapot and by the restaurant where she’d had a lunch of Samosas. She walked past the Woolworth’s in which one could still buy a Cuisinart. The beggar woman and her children were gone, which alarmed Margaret. She looked for them farther along Kimathi Street but couldn’t find them. Had they been taken in and sheltered? Arrested? Gone back to the slums? She wondered, too, about the parking boys who had once threatened her. What had happened to them?

  But mostly she thought about Solomon and Rafiq. She would go home and write letters to raise awareness of Solomon’s plight and perhaps help to pressure the Kenyan government to release him. But Rafiq? There was nothing she could do for Rafiq. Perhaps he would be happier in London. She thought it right but nevertheless unsettling that he had chosen as his last word to her the name of Solomon. If only there had been time for two words or five.

  When Margaret arrived home that evening, Patrick had both the Evening Standard and the Tribune on the dining table.

  “What do you know about this?” he asked, jabbing the photograph of Solomon.

  “I just learned about it when I went into work today.”

  Patrick moved in front of the table and leaned against it, arms crossed. “You were called out on assignment last night to photograph a Pakistani diplomat.”

  “Yes.”

  “This would have been after Obok was arrested.”

  “I guess so
.”

  “Yet you said nothing to me last night.”

  Margaret set her camera case on the side table. “I didn’t know until this morning,” she repeated.

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Believe what you want.”

  “And I noticed another thing in the Tribune,” he said, picking up the paper.

  “And what is that?”

  “There’s no photograph of a Pakistani diplomat.”

  “The soldier ripped the film out of the camera last night.”

  “They say that your friend Rafiq Hameed has been deported.”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “How do I feel about that?” Margaret asked incredulously. “I feel terrible.”

  “What did you do all day?”

  “You know what, Patrick?” Margaret said. “I think I’m tired of being interrogated each time I walk in the door. I’m going to answer this one question, and then I’m not going to answer any others. If you want to know what I did all day, I’ll tell you. I walked the city streets. I’ve been fired, Patrick. I had a lot to think about.”

  Patrick studied his wife for a long time. Margaret kept her face impassive.

  “Maybe it’s time to get you home,” he said.

  Part Three

  In her bathrobe, her hip resting on the sill, Margaret examined the untended garden. The leaves had a sheen on them, and she heard the clicking of drops falling, a rain following a rain. She could still make out the design of the original garden, a diamond set within a circle set within a square. How many months or years had it been since a gardener had weeded the walkways, thinned the bougainvillea, clipped the lilies? Long, thick stems of roses lifted above the fray, a single blossom of pale cream quivering at each end. Patches of small, furry yellow blooms lay nearly buried beneath roving vines. Margaret saw, in a corner, what might be a statue, though she could make out only parts of stone or cement.