“Shame on the lot of them,” Wendy curses.
Bella knows that these terrorists aren’t true Muslims. Yes, she is a secularist, no more than culturally Muslim. But with a mother born and raised a Muslim and a father born in Italy to Catholic parents and brought up a Christian, she believed she had the undisputed authority to choose her faith. In her youth, growing up in a Muslim country, she embraced her mother’s faith. But she no longer thinks of herself as a true Muslim.
Wendy is saying, “Death is a given, isn’t it?”
“We have no idea of the time of our dying.”
“Nor of the manner of our dying.”
Bella says, “It is only that Aar’s death adds terror to the idea of death, the idea of dying, because he was unprepared for death and did not deserve to die in that infernal manner.”
“He was a good man,” Wendy affirms.
And they say their good-byes.
—
Unable to reach her niece and nephew on their mobile phones, Bella rings the home of their hosts, the principal of the school and his wife. Surely the attack has been headline news in Kenya as well. Finally, Catherine Kariuki, the wife of the principal, answers the phone. Bella asks if the children have heard the news. Catherine confirms that they have and that they are taking it very badly indeed.
“How do you mean?” asks Bella.
Catherine says that they seem to be traumatized and uncertain how to act. One minute they’re a little weepy, the next minute one or the other of them says, “This was bound to happen, given where Dad was,” and the other one commiserates.
“I would like to talk to them, please.”
Catherine goes to call the children to the phone but soon comes back to say that not only won’t they open the door to Dahaba’s bedroom, where they’ve sequestered themselves, they also won’t even acknowledge her knocking or her calls to them.
So Bella simply tells Catherine that she will be on a flight to Nairobi on the morrow, and the two of them burst into tears and weep and weep and weep until one or the other of them drops the line, and the next thing Bella knows, she is holding a dead phone in her hand and listening to approaching footsteps. Looking up, she realizes that Marcella has come back with the boarding pass for the plane ticket she has booked.
Bella puts the boarding pass in the external pouch of her shoulder bag and immediately sets about packing. She decides to take along with her a couple of camera cases in addition to the ones she has brought back from Bahia — who knows how long she’ll need to stay in Nairobi; perhaps she’ll even set up a studio there. She asks Marcella to bring up a couple more from the basement of the building, where Bella stores them. Bella packs her flash leads, hot-shoe-equipped units, and several other essential items. Often, Bella entrusts this job to a young half-Eritrean woman who serves as her assistant, but there isn’t time for that. So, as Bella does not like surprises, she packs for all eventualities, such as whether the sun will bless her with its presence or fail to show, like a hurt lover. Bella knows of an Italian photographer who lost much of his work — a month’s worth — because he hadn’t prepared for the sudden dust storm that swept in after a gorgeous day in Omdurman, Sudan.
Marcella, bless her soul, keeps bringing sandwiches and drinks and asking questions. She expresses surprise at how much equipment and clothing Bella is packing. “Are you staying away for a long time?” she asks.
“What would you have me do instead?” Bella asks.
“Fetch the kids here.”
“And then what?”
“Let them go to school here or in England with their grandmother, who would be more than willing to have them stay with her,” Marcella says.
“Things seem a lot more complicated than that,” Bella says, “what with a dead father and a delinquent mother who may turn up in hopes of having a say in what happens to them. Not to mention that there is the children’s opinion to consider. Maybe they are happy where they are.”
“So are you relocating back to Africa for good?” Marcella asks. “Is that what you are intending to do, carissima?”
“Aar’s death changes all plans,” Bella replies.
“Including where you’ll live?”
“Everything,” Bella affirms.
“And the apartment, what will you do about it?”
“Aar’s death has changed everything,” Bella says again.
“But you are so young and unfulfilled!” Marcella cries, once again unable to keep from speaking her mind.
Disturbed, Bella sits on the edge of the bed, where the camera cases are still open, and puts her head in her hands. She knows there is no simple way she can explain to Marcella or anyone else what it feels like to lose Aar. And now that death has deprived her of him, how she feels she is answering a call to serve, almost a religious calling. As a young woman, she saw herself as his appendage, breathing the very oxygen he breathed. She has never married, never committed herself loyally and fully to another person, man or woman, always and forever waiting for the summons, duty-bound, steadfast in her dedication to her beloved brother, like a hound to its master. She has never forgotten the assistance and love he provided to her when she was a young girl growing up. Now it is her turn to give him and his children all the devotion they require, setting aside her own needs and desires.
“Forgive me for being selfish,” Marcella says.
Bella asks, “What are you talking about?”
“I was hoping you would be here when I go.”
“Go where? Where will you go?”
“I meant when I die,” Marcella says.
Bella is at a loss for words. After a pause, she says, “At the moment, Dahaba and Salif are my priority. You will always be there in my mind and my heart; and of course, I will rush to return if there is urgent need.”
The truth is, Bella hasn’t thought further than the next blind corner in a life marked by labyrinthine turns, as full of surprises as the paths that lead into and out of a casbah. The idea of travel, insofar as Bella is concerned, is bound up with the loading of cameras — the genesis of renewal via self-expression in everlasting images. But she feels in no condition to share all her inner tumult of worries and half-formed plans with Marcella.
“To me, you are the daughter I never had,” says Marcella.
“You’ve told me that several times.”
“I had a soft spot for Aar too.”
“I’ve always been aware of that.”
“I am bad at gaining control of my emotions.”
“Don’t give that a thought.”
“And because Aar’s death has shaken me to the marrow of my bones, I’m even more inept than usual.”
Weeping once more, they hug.
Through her tears, Bella looks down at her bare feet. She must trim her toenails before she goes to catch her flight, she thinks, soak them in very hot salt water and trim the ugly lot, as hard as a young calf’s hooves and just as dangerous, with their jagged edges. In Rio, where she visited her Brazilian lover, she hadn’t the proper scissors with which to cut them, the airline having confiscated her last pair.
“What about Valerie?” Marcella asks.
“What about her?”
“Why can’t she be with her children?”
How can Bella tell this bumbling, adorable fool that there is a right time and a wrong time and place to bring Valerie into the conversation. But Bella, though miffed, won’t say boo to Marcella or speak ill of Valerie to her.
Marcella continues. “Remember, she is their mother and no one can prevent her from making a legal claim to the children as the only surviving parent.”