For several minutes I had stood in front of the departures board. Dubai, Shanghai, Sydney, Boston, Mumbai, Istanbul. Anywhere. Cairo, Tel Aviv, Kilimanjaro. Tom’s alimony was extremely generous. I had so much choice.
And if I had chosen Cairo? Or Sydney? What unconscious criteria led me to Kilimanjaro? A memory of snatched conversation, a picture in a magazine? No. I was propelled away, not toward. I thought of my father’s favorite saying, ‘The journey is all, the end is nothing.’ I was sure he’d never considered the intense vertigo of a totally blank future. I had no image in my head, no expectation. Only where I would go and not hear Kindermörderin, Kindermörderin.
I walked to the KLM desk and bought a ticket for Kilimanjaro. It wasn’t a decision, it wasn’t a choice.
All my life had been a segue.
Meeting Tom. Being left by Tom. Even the accident. Even Magulu.
And even in this moment when I step toward Davis — who stands at attention, his smile intact; even at this moment — in the fading light of a courtyard in western Tanzania — I’m not making a choice.
I’m yielding.
Davis takes my suitcase and I do not resist. He puts it in the back of the Land Cruiser. He reaches for the box but I shake my head. No, I must hold this. He opens the passenger door. I get in. There’s a glow-in-the-dark crucifix rosary draped on the rearview mirror. Davis starts the car. We drive off.
Who is Davis? Am I to be taken to some forlorn place? Murdered? The truth is I don’t care. I have nothing to live for — a bland expression that I now understand. That I welcome. Because life, like a wire, requires tension on both ends. You care to live and someone else cares that you live. What’s the point of holding the slack end?
We drive out of town, Davis saying nothing, focusing intently on the road and the objects veering into it: suicidal donkeys, overloaded cyclists, battered pick-ups groaning under the weight of a million green bananas. Children, always more children.
‘Where are we going, Davis?’ I ask.
‘Tanga,’ he says.
I have no idea where Tanga is. Or why we’re going, or how far.
And only now do I recall Dorothea: ‘The uchawi will direct you.’ But I put the idea to one side, onto the shelf with my parents’ kachinas and saints, their Buddhas and bundles of sage: the tchotchkes of belief.
Night narrows around us. The road burrows through it like a tunnel.
Arnau, March 20
The front door buzzed.
I did not answer immediately. Who could it be? Now, after dark. A boy I vaguely recognized running off, laughing and shouting curses? Another plastic bag filled with dog shit? I was weary, but had no right to be so.
‘Hello?’ I said through the intercom.
‘Strebel,’ he said. ‘Paul.’
He came up the stairs, hesitated at the door, his hair at odd angles, his tie askew. He gave the impression of a man in a hurry, with something important to say.
‘Come in.’
He did, and looked around, looked at me. ‘I’m sorry to intrude.’
‘It’s fine, please.’ My calm tone belied the fear that a new witness had come forward. Someone to say: That American woman aimed her car straight at those children, she drove straight, straight on.
Strebel and I surveyed each other.
‘Do you have anything to drink?’ he asked, as if to allay my fear. ‘Not tea; a drink drink.’
‘Wine?’
‘Thank you, yes. Please. A large glass.’
‘I have red. Bordeaux.’
He nodded. ‘I should explain.’
I grabbed a bottle, handed him the corkscrew. Neither of us spoke again until the wine was poured. He took a sip. ‘You can ask me to leave.’
‘Why?’
‘If you don’t want me here.’
‘The wine,’ I said, because I did want him here. ‘It’s not very good.’
‘Oh, the wine.’ He looked at it in his hand. With the other he tried to smooth his hair, but he only flattened it on top, leaving the sides askew.
‘Tom always bought the wine. He knew all about it. I just choose by the labels.’ I rotated the bottle with its pretty blue label so Strebel could see.
‘I think there’s a lot of fuss. Like coffee. We should just get on with it.’ He took a purposeful sip and gave a hesitant smile. ‘I was at my granddaughter’s birthday.’
We sat and he slid the glass back and forth over the tabletop. He took another sip. ‘I’ve been a detective for twenty-six years. I should be able to deal with things like this. We’re trained to be objective.’
‘Objective? About the sight of three little bodies in the road?’
He rubbed his eyes, as if to remove the image. ‘I really shouldn’t be here.’
‘But you are.’
He regarded me in a way that felt acutely masculine. I knew he was thinking that I was attractive — he was allowing himself that thought. He said, ‘The wine, it really is not very good.’
‘It’s awful.’
Strebel lowered his eyes and then he stood.
‘Is that why you’re leaving? Because of the wine?’
‘I’m leaving because it’s absolutely not what I want to do.’
We moved toward the door. I began to open it. But then I stopped. Strebel was close to me, and I turned so that my shoulder brushed against his chest. I’m not sure if I did this on purpose. But when it was done I was overcome by the need for him to touch me. He stayed absolutely still.
I cannot now remember the way our bodies turned to speak, whose hand first touched whose face, but there was a kiss. He was afraid to offend, afraid to assume too much. I took his hand and led him to the bedroom. For a moment he hesitated. ‘I’m too old,’ he said. Then he kissed me again.
He was not Tom. Perhaps that was what mattered most.
‘I want to tell you something,’ he said much later. I stretched my body against the length of him, the warmth of him. He would go soon, after he had said what he needed to say, and we wouldn’t sleep together again. This much I knew.
‘I want to tell you what happened.’
‘Why? Why would you do that?’
‘Because of how we were talking the other day. The distress you feel at not remembering. But the parents expect you to remember. They need you to explain. It’s like my granddaughter’s coloring books, where you color in each part, carefully between the lines, so simple, and then you have a whole. Then you have the picture.’
‘But who would want that picture? Of the children, like that.’
Turning toward me, he propped himself onto one elbow. ‘The parents want to make sense of it. My wife—’
He stopped.
‘Let’s not pretend you don’t have one.’
He kissed me, perhaps grateful for the reassurance, and then he went on: ‘My wife has dreams. They make sense to her, but I think only in the retelling. She chooses what to leave in and what to leave out. I think there is no meaning, dreams are images, the brain processing. But she needs meaning. So she imposes it. And in my way, as a policeman, I also impose order. Motive, justice. It’s natural. Otherwise we’re just atoms rushing around.’
‘But the inquest.’
‘If the inquest is based on your current statement, it will satisfy no one but the file clerks. There will be a recitation of technical facts and a conclusion of “no fault.”’
‘Are you suggesting I make it up?’
‘No, no.’ He touched my cheek with his fingertips. He wanted to reassure me. ‘I’ll tell you.’