As much as she dislikes Valerie, Bella can’t help wondering about the circumstances of her alleged arrest. You can’t be cautious enough in a country that legally forbids same-sex lovemaking; you are bound to lay yourself open to blackmail and arrest if you engage in “inappropriate behavior,” which has recently become synonymous with illegal behavior in a growing roster of places. In Dubai, a British heterosexual couple smooching in the lobby of their five-star hotel had been jailed for a year, for example.
In Bella’s mind, freedoms are a package, so the freedoms denied daily to millions of citizens in Africa or the Middle East are bound up with the lack of democracy in these parts of the world. The choices individuals make in their private lives are just as important as the choices they make at the ballot box. Public displays of affection, whether between a man and a woman or two men or two women, are but expressions of democratic behavior. No one, not even the president of a country, should have the power and the authority to define love — including whom to love. So while Bella hasn’t a kind word to say about Valerie, she is nonetheless sad to learn that she has been a victim of such repression. True, she and Padmini — particularly Padmini, being Uganda-born — should have known better than to visit a country where they might easily fall afoul of the law. The cynic in Bella wonders if unconsciously Valerie was trying to steal Aar’s thunder by any means possible. He has been dead less than a week, after all.
And then she thinks, enough of Valerie, at least until she learns more about her situation from Gunilla. It is time she thought about other topics of greater personal relevance. Her niece and nephew are far more important than a foolish woman who gets herself locked up in a Ugandan jail.
At last she lowers her seat into a narrow bed and, turning and tossing in the confined space, wills herself to sleep.
—
She wakes when the service trolley rolls over the blanket that has been half covering her feet. She opens her eyes and stares at the flight attendant, waiting for the woman to apologize.
But the stewardess only says, “Breakfast?”
“How much more time until we land?” asks Bella.
“Two hours and a bit.”
Bella orders water, juice, and coffee. When she gets back from the bathroom, she notices that the woman across the aisle is filling in the form for immigration into Kenya. She presses the call button above her seat and asks for a form for herself.
Bella has always found Kenya’s entry form to be ill designed and clumsy. It never gives the traveler the needed space to write the answers. In addition, Kenya has lately been a problem country for Somalis, who are harassed from the moment they present their papers to the immigration officials and are asked relentlessly embarrassing questions. She fills in the form with trepidation, holding her pencil in midair as she frets over the best answers to give for “reason for visit” and “length of stay.” She can’t afford to be in a nervous state when she presents her documents and is questioned about them. She hopes that her Italian passport, which boasts multiple entries into and exits out of numerous countries, will help allay anyone’s worries that she may overstay her welcome in Kenya. Even so, her best option is to state that she is a photographer in the country as a tourist. Then the officer is bound to say, “Welcome, madam,” and stamp her in.
The pilot announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have begun our descent,” and all of a sudden the sky, which has been clear, turns leaden and gray, and clouds envelop the plane like curtains being drawn. It begins to rain heavily, each drop, which are as big as one of Bella’s tears, splattering against the windows. What feels like a tropical storm is raging around them, as though the very heavens were angry. Outside the windows, lightning flashes as the plane careens down through the storm. The darkness becomes more intense and there is a loud banging, as if the wings were coming off the plane, and Bella can see nothing except the occasional flash of lightning and the endless gray clouds until suddenly the plane veers left, as if avoiding an oncoming object, then descends again with a lurch, and suddenly the clouds part and the ground is visible below them, very close.
The pilot lands safely despite the weather and taxis to a stop far from the terminal. He counsels calm, urging the passengers to remain seated, but he allows them to use their mobile phones as they wait for assistance.
—
There is nothing like sharing a near-death experience to bring people closer, even briefly. And later, when they’ve all gone their separate ways, they’ll tell the same stories about it — the story of how the woman with the varicolored hair went berserk, or how another passenger threw off her seatbelt and bounced up and down like a dervish, madly reciting all the while what Bella took to be a Hindu prayer, or how a third was scared so witless that his eyes grew to the size of golf balls, the pupils dilated, and his Adam’s apple went up and down as if he might be choking on his tongue. Amid the adrenalized frenzy, Bella kept calm, even managing to lend a hand to her fellow passengers. Somehow she was certain that this time death would spare her so that she could go care for her nephew and niece.
Now that they are safely on the ground, a general feeling of euphoria sets in, and soon the air is abuzz with the chatter of mobile-phone conversations. Bella can hear some of the passengers repeating the more vivid details of what occurred, and a couple of them are already embellishing the account in preparation for the moment when they will appear on the news.
After a very long wait, airport emergency services show up, and the cabin doors are finally opened. There is terrific chaos when the doors open and the passengers who are closest to the exit collide with the men and women who have been sent to deliver assistance to those in need. With several people shouting for attention at the same time, the mayhem seems likely to sabotage every good effort to provide help until the pilot enters the fray, once more advising restraint. He requests that all passengers not injured in the bumpy descent please sit and remain seated until those who need help receive it. A passenger in business class, accustomed to what he refers to as “the priority for which I paid,” insists that he be the first to exit. It takes the shaming of several fellow passengers and the venomous reprimand of one of the male flight attendants to get him to settle down, but once he does, the mood of the other passengers takes a positive turn. With calmness prevailing, they collaborate in filing out of the aircraft and into the waiting buses in an orderly manner.
Bella, waiting her turn to disembark, negotiates her shoulder bag, heavy with her computer, with a big hard camera case made of shiny metal in her right hand, and a smaller matching case in her left. She is remembering previous, more pleasant visits to these parts, visits that she always looked forward to. Aar used to take her and his children to out-of-town restaurants such as the one in Naivasha, her favorite, which boasted gorgeous vistas, the blueness of the lake complementing a clear sky that extended in every direction. This visit, weighed down by death, will be very different.