I tried not to budge and failed completely. "Actually, we came here to find her mother," I said, jerking my chin at Suzette. "Or have I been traveling for so long I've lost track of that, too?"
"Many come here to find mothers. Also fathers, siblings, friends, lovers, even themselves. The only way is the famadihana."
"But what is it?" Suzette asked.
"The Dance with the Dead."
I'd expected to see another bus or even the same one in front of the hotel. But the vehicle waiting for us was an old Geo that looked amazingly like the one I'd left sitting in O'Hare's long-term parking. The man thrust the plastic envelopes we'd been given at the airport into our hands and hustled us into the backseat, before getting into the front seat next to the driver. "You've come this far, you don't want to be late now!"
The driver looked over his shoulder at us. "Seatbelts on!"
We obeyed. As I clicked mine into place, I silently apologized to everyone who'd ever ridden in my Geo's backseat. It really was horrible.
Street-level Antananarivo went past in a blur and a cloud of dust; the many-windowed houses covering the hills stared into the distance. The man in the passenger seat was saying something about how the famadihana took place only during the dry season, from June to October.
"Practical reasons for that, of course," he said, peering around the back of his seat at us with a smile. "We restrict your famadihana to the same time. Out of season doesn't work as well for vazaha."
"What's a vazaha?" Suzette asked, leaning against me as we took a corner at 90.
"You are," said the driver cheerfully. "Means foreigner."
We took another corner on two wheels; the city vanished in a cloud of dust behind us. On the hills, the houses continued to stare impassively into the distance.
After a couple of miles, the sound of clarinets and drums came to us faintly under the chatter of the engine. Suzette and I looked at each other; she shrugged. As the music grew louder, I heard accordions and flutes as well.
"I don't think that's the Rolling Stones," I said more to myself than anyone else.
"Maybe it's their opening act," Suzette said.
The man in the front passenger seat turned to say something. Suzette shoved the photograph under his nose but before she could ask about her mother, the driver stood on the brakes.
My forehead hit the back of the seat in front of me-not so hard it hurt, just enough to be startling. The shoulder harness did hurt-I swore I could feel every fiber in the strap bruising my skin.
"What the hell, Suzette?" I yelled. "Couldn't you have waited till we stopped?"
"I didn't do anything!" she shouted over the chaotic mix of laughter, singing and music now surrounding the car. "I dropped it! Where is it? Give it back-"
"Is that klezmer?" I peered out the windows.
Children grinned back at me. "Vazaha! Vazaha!" They jumped around and mimed taking photos. Behind them, several adults went by, carrying a coffin. They were laughing and singing.
"What kind of a funeral is this?" I asked.
"Not a funeral-it's a famadihana," the man told me. "The coffin has been removed from the family crypt. Now the family will dance with their dead, wrap the body in a new lambamena, and return it to the resting place, until next year."
Suzette and I looked at each other; she was as flabbergasted as I was.
"But my mother's not buried here. She's not buried at all. She was cremated and we scattered the ashes." Suddenly, she looked horrified. "My Aunt Lillian! Has something happened to her?"
The man reached down beside his seat and came up with the now dog-eared photo. "I do not know of any vazaha who has died here." His face creased with a mixture of amusement and pity as Suzette took it from him.
"Are you sure? Should we ask the police?" Suzette looked from him to me and back again.
"No, no police," said the driver. It was an order. He put the car in gear again and floored it. I looked out the window to see the people at the end of the procession waving goodbye.
Open country gave way to rainforest. Big green leaves slapped against the car windows. I sat forward, holding onto the back of the passenger seat and peered through the windshield. The "road" was a set of parallel wheel ruts. Very well-traveled wheel ruts-the Geo's off-road limit is an un-mowed lawn-so wherever they were taking us couldn't be too far from civilization.
Whose civilization, however, I wasn't sure of. After traveling to a place whose language and customs we didn't understand, Suzette and I had willingly gotten into a car with two strange men who were now driving us into a rainforest-jungle?-to a destination they hadn't even bothered to lie about because we hadn't bothered to ask them.
Was this the way your life began flashing before your eyes? Nothing remotely similar had happened when the plane had gone into a nosedive-
As if on cue, we were suddenly going down a steep hill into a tunnel. Suzette and I looked at each other; she had my arm in that Death Grip and I was returning the favor.
"Where-" Suzette started.
"Almost there," the man in the passenger seat said cheerfully. The driver put on the Geo's headlights but he didn't really have to: the tunnel lit the area immediately above us as well as a few yards ahead. The illuminated area traveled with us; I looked out the back window to see the lights going off behind us.
"What is this place?" I asked; I was thinking theme park.
The man in the passenger seat waved the question away. "Make sure you carry your documents and you can't get lost."
"I'm lost now," Suzette said. "Tell us where we're going right now or-" But of course, she didn't know how to finish that sentence and neither did I. This was Madagascar. Except right now it looked more like something out of a freaky movie.
The tunnel suddenly opened out into an enormous clear area paved with asphalt-outdoors. Waist-high barriers made of metal tubing held back the thick rainforest. I pressed my face against the window to look up at the sky, wondering if we really were outdoors again or if this were some sort of brilliant illusion.
Abruptly, we stopped in front of some ticket windows and turnstiles in front of what looked like an enormous sporting arena. The man got out of the car, then helped me and Suzette out of the backseat. He led us over to the counter, standing us in front of a specific window.
"Now I leave you." He made a little bow. "May each of you recognize what you seek in your famadihana." I was still trying to parse this when he got back in the car.
"What did that mean?" I asked Suzette as we stared after the car now disappearing into another tunnel entrance.
"Beats me," she said, "but I suspect it's not as good as he wants us to think it is."
"You must be able to recognize a good thing when you see it," said a voice behind us.
We turned to see a woman smiling at us with professional patience. She was in her late forties or early fifties, although her black hair had no strands of gray. She wore gorgeous blue and white printed material in intricate folds. I couldn't imagine where she had come from. Trapdoor? Transporter beam? At this point, either seemed likely.
"Documents, please."
Suzette slid her plastic envelope under the transparent divider. I started to do the same and she shook her head.
"One at a time, please." She opened the envelope and spread everything out on the counter. It was an odd assortment of things-cards of various sizes, some that looked an awful lot like old elementary school report cards, some that could have been I.D. cards or drivers' licenses or even library cards, a plastic thing that I knew was a hotel key-card but not one I recognized, and something that looked like a passbook for a savings account. All of them were marked with a barcode. I wondered what was in mine and decided to have a look.
"Don't do that," the woman said sharply, holding a barcode scanner in one hand and Suzette's high school photo in the other.
"I was just-"
"Don't. Do. That." She put down the photo and slid her hand under the barrier. "Here, we'll avoid temptation. Give it to me."