Eclipse Three

Don't Mention Madagascar by Pat Cadigan

For Allen Varney

I don't actually remember meeting Suzette. It's like we were heading in the same general direction and fell into step together. She knew everybody I knew and vice versa, but amazingly enough we had no ex-boyfriends in common. But we'd never have let a guy come between us. "No penis between us," Suzette used to say with her big old grin. Girlfriend had a great grin.

Suzette was about five-four, five-five, and proportioned like a dancer. I think she had trained as one once but she never said and I never asked. I've never asked a lot of questions; still don't. It's not that I don't care or I'm not interested. I've just always figured that if there's anything I need to know about anyone, they'll tell me, no need to interrogate. Not that I mind answering questions as I also figure if anyone wants to know something, they'll ask; no need to admit to anything prematurely.

Suzette was more forthcoming. She'd drop tantalizing little tidbits into a conversation in an offhand way-like, "Hey, I used to have shoes like those but someone stole them while I was getting defibrillated. I swear, you gotta keep an eye on your stuff every minute in Mongolian emergency rooms." Anyone else, it would have been showing off; Suzette just knew how to take things in stride. I like that in a person.

The only time I ever saw her ruffled was on this one occasion. At the time, she was an office manager for a real estate agency and coming in regularly to the coffee bar. By day I made soy lattés and iced half-caff mochaccinos with a twist, and I studied computer engineering at night school. About 11 o'clock on a Tuesday morning, she showed up looking like a woman who'd just been caught in a high wind-rumpled, dreadlocks practically standing on end, eyes too wide and too bright, and a little out of breath.

I said, "Jeez, what happened?"

"I just quit my job," she said.

"Oh. Well." I knew this couldn't be what had her all freaked. "Are congratulations in order?"

She flicked a glance to my right and I knew The Great Dick Tater had to be giving me the stink-eye because I said something to a customer that wasn't What can I get for you today? The GDT took his assistant manager responsibilities very seriously.

"I don't know what's in order. Everything's out of order." She glanced to my right again; the GDT must have been wearing a face that could sour milk. Soy milk.

"What can I get you today?" I said cheerfully.

Suzette's mouth opened but nothing came out.

"One medium American filter, mellow blend of the day, room for cow," I announced, repeating her order from yesterday. I rattled off the price while I double-cupped it to go, staring the GDT down with my back. Suzette paid and dropped a few coins in the tip jar. All the baristas split the tip jar, something you should keep in mind if you like your overpriced coffee without extras like employee saliva. Suzette was top of the no-spit list (posted conspicuously in the locker room, along with security camera photos to prevent episodes of mistaken identity), a policy that even the GDT respected.

Transaction done, Suzette went upstairs to sit. I gave it five minutes before announcing I was going on my break.

"Jeez, Pearl, what kept you?" Suzette said when I finally joined her.

That annoyed me; she knew damned well what the GDT was like. "Sorry," I said, taking off my apron and folding it up. "I couldn't just drop everything. Then I had to walk up the stairs because the teleporter's broken again."

Suzanne gave me a sharp look at that last.

"Kidding," I said; as she visibly unclenched, I added, "The teleporter's not really broken, I just needed the exercise."

Bam-she was white-knuckled all over her body again, which was a neat trick for someone with skin that dark. "Stop that," she growled. I felt a sudden seriously terrible pain in my upper arm; Suzette had me in a Death Grip of Doom.

"Ow." I thought I could hear bone start to crack within the pulp formerly known as my bicep. "What kind of day are you having?"

"Odd." Her grip loosened.

I pulled away fast before she changed her mind. "How odd?" I asked.

She took something out of her back pocket, unfolded it, put it on the table: a photograph. I winced; folding photographs goes against my personal code of fussy conduct. I'm no tight-ass-I'll tear the tags off pillows, jaywalk, even wear white after Labor Day. But fold a photograph? It's practically a physical pain.

"Look at that." Suzette tapped her finger on it hard. I winced again because touching the surface of a glossy-finish photograph is another of my fussy things.

"What is it?" I said.

"Rolling Stones, late 1960s."

"Really?" I almost forgot how fussy I was. It was an outdoor venue in sort of jungle-ish surroundings and the vantage point was onstage, far to the right. Only Keith Richards and Mick Jagger are in the photo. Keith Richards was still pretty rather than craggy, with the wide-eyed look of someone whose reality is exceeding his dreams, not the sneer of an old-timer who's seen it all. Mick Jagger was singing and pointing at a bunch of screaming girls. One had hoisted herself up on the others and seemed about to climb onto the stage in the hope of touching His Satanic Majesty.

"Where'd you get this?" I said. If it hadn't been for the folding and the fingerprints, the photo could have been taken the day before rather than forty-odd years ago. Heavy on the odd.

"My boss's desk," she said.

I was stunned. Suzette never stole from anyone, no matter how much they might have deserved it.

"He showed it around this morning. Said his uncle took the picture when he was a stringer for some music magazine back in the day."

I looked from the photo to her and back again, frowning. "And that made you, uh… kleptomaniacal?"

She tapped the photo hard again, her finger on the faces of the screaming girls. "See this woman? That's my Aunt Lillian. And the one trying to climb up on the stage?" She moved the photo so it was directly under one of the bright ceiling lights and pointed. "That's my mother."

"Are you sure?" I tried not to laugh and failed.

Suzette tossed her dreads, offended. "What, you think I don't know my own mother when I see her?"

"OK, so it's your mother. Why does that upset you?"

"Dammit, you're not looking!"

"Jeez, just tell me already." I drew back a little. "And then let me know if my head's still there or did you bite the whole thing off."

"Sorry," she said and managed to look it for all of a second. "But that's not my mother back in the day. That's her now."

"Oh?" I picked the photo up and angled it under the light. None of the people with her were very young. They were really cutting loose and that made them seem youthful but they hadn't been girls for some time.

"Or rather, it's how she would look now," she added.

I frowned, not understanding.

"She died when I was sixteen."

"Oh," I said. "Well, then, it can't be her."

"It is."

"OK, have it your way. It's her. Photoshopped. Do you know when your boss met your aunt? And did you know they were such tasteless practical jokers?"

Suzette grimaced impatiently. "I tried calling my Aunt Lillian. Some guy answered, said he's her house-sitter while she's on vacation. She's been gone two weeks and he's not sure exactly when she's coming back."

"Did he say where she went?"

Suzette's dark eyes seem to get even darker. "Where this picture was taken." Tap-tap-tap with her finger again. " Madagascar."

(I know what I said. Don't interrupt.)

Now, this next part is kind of a blur. It's not that I don't remember what happened, it's that I don't have a reasonable explanation for it.

It certainly seemed reasonable at the time-well, after listening to Suzette for a while-to go downstairs, toss my apron in The GDT's face, and walk out the front door with her.

First stop after I went home to pack a bag and grab my passport was Suzette's aunt's house in Chicago, to meet this alleged house-sitter and see, as Suzette put it, just what his shit was made of. That was an eight-hour drive in my ancient Geo, a subcompact car which a lot of my friends have described as being only just too large to hang on a charm bracelet. Taller people grumbled, then stopped when they found out what kind of gas mileage I could still get out of it. I'd have bought a hybrid a long time ago except that being virtuously green has always been the domain of the extremely wealthy, who probably weren't so virtuous while they were getting that way. Suzette and I discussed that on the road; by the time we hit the Loop, we had an airtight argument for why all the hideously rich had to help all the rest of us get virtuously green by buying us hybrids and solar panels and shit. If I ever remember it, there'll be one hell of a revolution.

Suzette's aunt's place was a condo halfway up a high-rise with a nice view of Lake Michigan. I was surprised but no more than Suzette was herself.

"You've never been here?" I asked as we got into the elevator.

"She moved here last year. Or maybe the year before, I can't remember."

"Haven't seen her for a while?"

"She's always busy," she said, sounding defensive. "You want to see her, you gotta make an appointment."

I started to tell her that I hadn't meant anything by that question but we were already at the right floor and heading down the hall, which smelled like a mix of potpourri and carpet shampoo. Suzette stopped at a door decorated with a wreath of artfully woven twigs and pussy willows, hesitated, then rapped on it hard, squarely in the middle of the wreath.

The guy who answered was better-looking than anyone calling himself a house-sitter had any right to be, tall, bearded and golden-skinned. We'd have stared even if he hadn't been wearing a turban.

"Ah, Suzette," he said. "I recognize you from your pictures." He stood back to let us in, giving me a polite little nod as if to say that I was welcome, too, even though there were no pictures to recognize me from.

His name was Jamail, he told us over coffee, and he was a student at Northwestern. One of his professors lived down the hall and when Suzette's aunt was looking for a house-sitter, he had introduced them. "I'm what you call a mature student," he said. "I believe learning is for life. Your aunt feels the same, obviously."

"How do you figure?" Suzette asked.

"I chose to go to university, she to Madagascar." He lowered his voice ever so slightly on the last word.

"Is that where you're from?" Suzette stared pointedly at his turban.

"No. I'm from Scottsdale."

" Scottsdale?" Suzette was openly skeptical.

He shrugged. "My grandparents were from India. I'm a Sikh." The only contact information he had for Suzette's aunt was an email address on Google Mail; there was no hotel or cell phone that he knew of, or so he claimed. Both Suzette and I found that hard to believe. Jamail took our suspicion graciously. He was really quite a sweet guy; I found myself wondering if Sikhs ever dated outside the church, so to speak.

Finally, he played the I-really-must-study-now card and started clearing away the coffee cups. As he turned toward the kitchen with his hands full, Suzette stopped him. "Thanks for letting me know my aunt's in Madagascar."

He smiled faintly. "Don't mention it."

"Did she take her wheelchair?"

Wheelchair? I looked around. Nothing suggested a wheelchair user had ever lived here.

"I'm sure she took everything she needed. Now, if you'll exc-"

Suzette shoved the photograph in his face. "And she never said anything about this?"

He dropped everything with a godawful crash. "Where did you get that?" He reached for the photo.

Suzette whipped it behind her back. "A friend."

"I see." Jamail hesitated, then went into the kitchen and came back with a small business card. "If anyone asks, you just found this somewhere," he told Suzette firmly, looking unhappy as he handed it over.

"OK. Thanks," Suzette replied.

I started to bend down. "Here, let me help y-"

"Don't." He didn't snap or even raise his voice but the command was so forceful that we backed off immediately, and kept backing off, out the door and down the hall to the elevator.

"'Miles 2 Go,'" Suzette read from the card as the elevator descended. "'We'll Get You On Your Way. Jinx Gottmunsdottir, Senior Agent.'"

"Hey, does your aunt really use a wheelchair, or was that a trick question?" I asked.

She flicked a glance at me. "She's been in a wheelchair for ten years. I told you. What kind of a name is that?"

"No, you didn't and it's Icelandic, like Björk." I was only half listening. The elevator we'd gone up in had not had mirrored panels.

"I mean 'Jinx.'" Suzette was impatient again. "A travel agent named Jinx? Seriously? There's pushing your luck, there's tempting fate, and then there's teasing fate unmercifully till it bites you in the ass and gives you rabies."

"Is it rabies if this isn't the same elevator?" My reflections and I watched each other with wary solemnity on infinite repeat.

"What are you talking about?" Suzette glanced around quickly, then made a face. "So it's a different elevator. There're two. We went up in one and now we're coming down in the other." She studied the card again. "Address and phone number but no website. What kind of business doesn't have a website?"

I was busy trying not to feel spooked at my endless duplication. "This is not the same elevator. And when there are two, they're usually identical."

"So? I don't think there's a federal elevator law about it."

We went all the way to the ground floor without stopping and for a split second, I had the crazy idea that the doors would open onto a different lobby. If so, what should I do-go back up to Suzette's aunt's apartment and ask the Sikh's advice? Or just get off and take my chances with whatever was coming up next?

But it was the same lobby, of course, and there were, indeed, two elevators. The other one, however, was blocked off by a ladder with a sign taped to it that said OUT OF ORDER. I stared, sure that hadn't been there when we'd come in. Then something else occurred to me.

"Hey, Suzette, if your aunt's in a wheelchair-"

But she was already halfway across the lobby, muttering about bad names for travel agents.

Jinx Gottmunsdottir was a pink-cheeked strawberry blonde somewhere between fifty and sixty-five, with sapphire blue contact lenses and generous proportions made to look even more so by her cabbage rose print dress. She did business in an indoor market between a sports souvenirs stall and a place selling Russian nesting dolls custom-printed with your own face (X-tra Faces = X-tra $-Ask 4 quote!). Her "office" was an ancient desk with an even older typist's chair, and two other chairs for clients: a molded white plastic thing and a vinyl beanbag that was a lot more bag than bean. Overlooking all of this was a poster stapled to a heavy dark blue drape, a generic landscape of rolling dark green hills with a glimpse of ocean in the background; flowery script at the bottom said, Bulgaria… Let It HAPPEN… To YOU.

She looked up without much interest from the motocross racing magazine on her desk. "If you want cut-rate fares to London or Paris, you're in the wrong place. I specialize in roads not taken." Suzette slapped the photograph down on her desk. Immediately, Jinx Gottmunsdottir swept the magazine into the center drawer. "Have a seat."

I let Suzette have the white plastic chair. The beanbag was hopeless so I just sat cross-legged on the floor.

"Normally, I have a spiel I go through," the woman said in an important, business-like tone. "However, you're obviously familiar with the caveats so I can save my breath."

Warning bells went off in my head. I got up on my knees to suggest she go through her spiel anyway and suddenly found myself rolling around on the floor; Suzette had pushed me over.

I pulled myself up on her chair. Suzette gave me a warning glare and mouthed Shut up.

"But I will remind you that you have to follow the itinerary exactly," Jinx Gottmunsdottir was saying as she took two ticket folders out of her right hand desk drawer. "Miss a connection and it's immediate cancellation. No refunds." She checked the contents of each folder, nodded, and smiled at Suzette expectantly. "We take all of the usual credit cards."

"Is there a discount for cash?" Suzette asked.

The woman blinked in mild surprise. "Do you have some?"

"No. I was just wondering."

"Ah. Well, no, it's the same price regardless. We don't do bulk, either. I'm sure you can see why."

Suzette, still bluffing, nodded; I decided to assert myself. "I don't."

Jinx Gottmunsdottir's professional smile disappeared, replaced by an expression of cold irritation with an undertone of revulsion.

"Don't mind her," Suzette said brightly. She produced a credit card and pushed it across the desk.

Jinx Gottmunsdottir produced a wireless electronic credit card machine and spent a lot more time tapping the keypad than seemed usual. When she offered it to Suzette, I saw that below the tiny screen there were two separate sets of keys, one with standard numbers and one with symbols that I mostly didn't recognize, although some of them seemed vaguely Greek or Cyrillic.

Suzette barely hesitated before entering a PIN. The woman pulled the machine back before we saw anything on the screen. Seconds crawled by while she stared at the device and we stared at her and I wondered if Suzette's bluff had failed. I actually hoped it had. Bluffing isn't anything I think you should do outside of poker and, truth be told, I'm not that wild about poker, either.

But then a slip of paper came out of a slot at the top of the machine and Jinx Gottmunsdottir beamed as she tore it off and handed it to Suzette along with the folders. "Enjoy your trip."

"Will do," Suzette replied briskly and helped me to my feet. "Bye now."

Jinx Gottmunsdottir gave us a distracted wave. The racing magazine was already back on the desk in front of her.

Since our flight was at four-thirty the next morning, we found a hotel near the airport and didn't so much spend the night as take a nap. Normally, that alone would have been enough for me to bail-early morning is not my natural habitat. But Suzette and that damned picture seemed to have me under a spell.

Of course, the alternative was just another barista job, or temping in an office. Or cleaning it. Or trying to survive on unemployment until something else opened up in the great minimum-wage wasteland. Go to college, get a degree, they said. Yeah, because nothing impresses the civil servants at the unemployment office like someone reading Proust in the waiting room. Flying to Madagascar definitely seemed like the better option.

Suzette was also paying for everything at this point. She didn't even ask me for change. Any time I offered, she'd wave that credit card. Finally, over breakfast in the airport-coffee and limp croissants at one of those tall round tables where you have to stand up and eat (which I would like to go on record as saying is adding insult to the dual injury of the price and quality of the food, thank you so much), I said, "Haven't you maxed that thing out yet?"

She shook her head. "I couldn't find anything about a limit."

"What is it, platinum Amex?"

Suzette pulled it out of the back pocket of her jeans and studied it. "Actually, I don't know what it is."

"What?" I snatched it away from her. The bright colors seemed to be a mix of Visa, Master Card, and Sears; I had just enough time to see there was no name on the front and no signature strip on the reverse before she snatched it back. "Where'd you get it?"

"My aunt's place. I helped myself to some of her mail while What's-His-Name was making coffee."

"Really getting into this stealing thing, aren't you?" I said, mildly creeped out. "You sure it's hers? Maybe it's his-a special Sikh membership card."

Suzette frowned. "If there is such a thing, I doubt it would work like a credit card."

A new thought occurred to me. "How did you know the PIN number?"

"It was with the card."

"Credit card companies don't do that."

Suzette shrugged. "This one did."

"Did you take anything else?" I asked.

"A couple of bank statements. Nothing crucial."

"You think bank statements and a credit card with no limit are 'nothing crucial'?"

The sleepy-eyed man behind the counter perked up a bit. Suzette glared at me. "Keep it down, Ms Accessory-Before-and-After-the-Fact."

"Unwitting," I said emphatically.

"I was kidding, Pearl. This is my aunt's. She's family. My family wouldn't prosecute me. Would yours?"

I winced. "I've never told you about my family, have I?"

"Tell me later." Suzette finished her coffee in a gulp. "We'd better check in."

There was no line at the desk. Suzette handed over our tickets and then both she and the man behind the counter waited while I dug around for my passport.

When people take a long time checking in at the airport, I always wonder why. Everything's on the computer. Even if you don't have a seat assignment, how long can that take? If most of the flights I've been on are typical, the only ones left are middle seats in the last two rows.

Our check-in took a long time, apparently because there were a lot of connections. The man kept shuffling slips of paper and stamping them, reshuffling them, sorting them into two piles, which he recombined and shuffled through again. That was what it looked like to me, anyway. Finally, I said, "How many times do we change planes?"

He looked up at me sharply, as if this were an especially stupid question. "It's complicated." His gaze slid to Suzette and then back to me. "You know you have to make your connections, right?"

"Right," Suzette assured him.

"There's no taking a later flight, no re-booking, or anything like that."

"We know," Suzette said.

"I've got to match up all the arrivals and take-offs so you can make those connections. Some of these windows don't stay open very long and the ones that do aren't always at the right time in the right flight path. And then there's the fact that there's two of you." He sighed. "I'm sorry, I must sound like a crabby old man. This kind of thing gets more complicated every day."

I wanted to ask why we couldn't just fly direct but Suzette was standing on my foot with a glare that said Shut up. The man finished shuffling and stapling and tucked a sheaf of coupons and boarding passes into each of the ticket folders.

"I've stapled itineraries inside each wallet." He shoved mine at me and opened Suzette's on the counter to show it to both of us. "You'll have plenty of time to make each flight-"

"What if we're delayed?" I asked, a bit belligerently. "Can you guarantee we won't be delayed?"

His look said he thought I was insane as well as rude. "Yes. From Berlin, you go to Rome, then to Morocco, and then to Johannesburg. There'll be a lot of turbulence on the flight out of Jo'burg. Don't let it scare you. Just finish your drinks early and keep your seatbelts on. After that, you have the layover." He closed Suzette's folder and slid it under her hand. "Bon voyage."

I looked at the itinerary inside my folder. " Johannesburg to Mombasa? I thought we were going to Madagascar."

"Don't mention Madagascar," the man snapped in a half-whisper.

"Thanks very much for all your help," Suzette said quickly, pulling me away. I wondered if the whole trip would be like this-me making people angry and her dragging me off before they took a swing at me.

Someone told me once that flying to London during the day rather than overnight made jetlag easier to handle. Or maybe I only dreamed that; I was a zombie. I gave up trying to tell what time of day it was as I marched through Heathrow behind Suzette. If I'd been even slightly more awake, I might have asked if we were going the right way. It seemed to be the long way; one hallway would let out onto a concourse which would take us to another hallway and then another. Occasionally someone in a uniform carrying a radio would wave us on. When I tried to stop and ask a woman in a maroon blazer a question, she told me to keep going, everything would be taken care of at The Desk. I could hear the capitals when she said it.

"I don't think there is a flight to Berlin," I said to Suzette as I shuffled down another hallway behind her. "We're actually walking there."

The hallway let out onto a concourse, smaller than any of the others and deserted except for a woman stationed at a counter in front of something that might have been one of those exclusive airline clubs, except there was no company name or logo. She reminded me a little of Jinx Gottmunsdottir, only a few decades younger and nowhere nearly as generously proportioned. I followed Suzette over and she greeted us with the restrained, professional smile people wear when they're not sure whether they'll have to let you in or throw you out.

"Is this The Desk?" Suzette asked.

The woman nodded. "Tickets, passports, and landing cards, please." She sorted, shuffled, and stamped, and sent us through a turnstile to a waiting room where the flight to Berlin was already boarding.

In Berlin, we debarked outdoors in the middle of what looked like a parking lot for airplanes and boarded a shuttle bus. Instead of getting off at the first stop with most of the other passengers, however, an attendant told us to stay on and we were ferried to another plane, much smaller than the one we had arrived in.

The flight attendant who checked our tickets as we boarded seemed more like a security guard. She pointed each passenger to a specific seat with an air that suggested she wouldn't look kindly on anyone wanting to switch places. I fell asleep before takeoff and didn't wake up till after we landed in Rome, which made me grouchy with disappointment-I'd hoped to get at least a glimpse of the city from the air.

Another shuttle bus took us to the next small aircraft. There were fewer passengers and no assigned seats. I had intended to stay awake but there was a long delay before takeoff. When I woke up, we were in a holding pattern over Morocco.

The shuttle bus waiting here was all but hermetically sealed against the heat and the windows had such a dark tint, it was practically impossible to see out of them. Tired, I leaned over to Suzette and whispered, "I'm exhausted. You go on, I'm gonna stay here and see when I can get a flight home."

"You are not." Suzette said, grabbing my arm in that Death Grip of Doom again. "You can't."

"I'll pay you back the airfare." I tried prying her fingers off me and couldn't.

"Pearl, you can't just bail. This is a trip for two. You're locked in." Suzette looked significantly at the uniformed man standing by the exit.

"Are you kidding me?" I started to get up and she pulled me down.

"Don't. He's armed." She leaned toward me and lowered her voice. "I'd have quit after Berlin. But we're committed."

"You can't force people to travel. It's illegal."

"It's not a matter of legal or illegal," said a firm voice. I looked up to see the guard standing over us. "You are in transit. You cannot leave a plane in transit. You stop when it stops." The bus came to a halt and he pointed at the exit door. It slid open to reveal the steps up to the next aircraft. "You haven't stopped yet."

The flight to Johannesburg was the longest and the one where sleep deserted me. The flight attendants looked as tired as I felt. I considered slipping one of them a note: Help, I'm traveling against my will. Seeing those morose faces, however, made me decide against it. They'd probably just tell me to be glad I was sitting down.

Someone had left a thick paperback book in the seat pocket in front of me. It seemed to be a thriller involving spies who had sex a lot but I couldn't be sure. It was in French, a language I'd had little acquaintance with since high school. Eventually, I got bored enough to try reading it and discovered that I could make out slightly more of the text than I'd expected but not, unfortunately, in any of the parts where the spies had sex a lot.

Suzette by contrast did sleep most of the time, and so heavily that I wondered if she had taken something. I hadn't seen her do anything like that but then I hadn't seen her steal her aunt's mail, either. I'd have to ask her when she woke up. Girlfriend, if you've got some Ambien on you, is it too much to ask you to share?

By the time the seatbelt sign came on for the descent into Johannesburg, I felt as if I'd spent a year in that stupid, lumpy seat. Again we exited the plane outside on the tarmac, far from any buildings. But this time, there was no shuttle bus. The plane for the final leg of the journey was waiting for us just a little ways away. A guard wearing the same uniform as the one who had spoken to me in Morocco led us over to it and checked our tickets at the foot of the steps before allowing us to board.

Just as I reached the open door, I heard a commotion at the bottom of the steps. A tall man with thinning brown hair was arguing with the guard, who was pushing him back. A jeep with three other uniformed people, two men and one woman, appeared out of nowhere and screeched to a stop beside the steps. All four of the guards were carrying the struggling man by his arms and legs toward the jeep when the relentlessly smiling flight attendant at the door pulled me inside and asked me to sit down in a way that made it sound like an offer I couldn't pass up instead of an order I didn't dare refuse.

I've since tried to figure out that technique for my own use but I always end up just straining my vocal cords.

All the attendants for this flight had relentless smiles; it was a special charter. They moved around the cabin distributing snacks, drinks and folders thick with information about the city of Mombasa as well as Mombasa District and the area of Kenya where it was located.

"Did you know this was a charter?" I asked Suzette, paging through a booklet on Kenya 's flora and fauna.

"Does it matter?" She stuffed her folder in the seat pocket without looking at it.

"Hey, don't you want to keep that?"

"You can't keep it. It belongs to the charter company."

That was a non-answer if I'd ever heard one. "Then they'll have to catch me," I said, feeling contrary. "After seeing this, I kind of wish we really were going there instead of M-"

"Keep your voice down," Suzette snapped in a loud whisper.

I shrugged. "Fine. Sorry. But I don't know what all the big-" At that point, we hit the turbulence we'd been warned about and I lost my train of thought. Shortly after that, I also lost the drink I'd just finished along with the peanuts from the last flight and the pretzels from this one.

Nausea takes up all of my brain, leaving little room for anything other than wishing I were dead. But I did notice that the airsick bag was much larger and sturdier than average. It was made of untearable paper, printed with word games, riddles, and puzzles-Fun Facts About Mombasa!-and lined with heavy-duty plastic.

The turbulence lessened sometimes but never stopped. I kept the sick bag clamped to my face, wondering if anyone had ever died of nausea-not throwing up, just nausea. I couldn't remember ever feeling this bad. Was I just overtired or had those stupid snacks poisoned me? Suzette wasn't doing any better. Nor was anyone else on the plane, apparently. Even the flight attendants looked green.

Abruptly, there was a jolt so hard that if I hadn't been belted in, I'd have gone through the baggage compartment above me. Then the plane went into a nosedive.

Oxygen masks dropped out of flaps overhead. I couldn't hear myself scream over everyone else. I grabbed my oxygen mask, drew the bright yellow cup to my face and then hesitated. Passing out was probably preferable to feeling the impact-

Rough hands pushed the airsick bag away and forced the oxygen mask over my nose and mouth. Something fresh-smelling hit my nostrils and I inhaled deeply.

"Don't hyperventilate! Breathe normally!" scolded a flight attendant. There was no relentless smile behind the transparent oxygen mask she wore; it was attached to a small tank strapped to her back. She pulled herself up the aisle, checking on each passenger.

"Holy shit!" I shook Suzette, twisting around to stare after her. "That woman's a hero!"

"Just breathe already," Suzette said irritably. "And don't shake me or I'll-" She lifted her mask briefly so she could use the sick bag.

And all at once, the plane leveled out. Everyone screamed again, this time in a mix of surprise, relief and extreme joy. Well, that was why I screamed, anyway. The flight attendant reappeared complete with relentless smile, telling us to keep our masks on until after we landed. No problem; I didn't have the will or energy to take it off. I was feeling dizzy now as well as wrung out; dizzy, wrung out and sleepy.

"Sleeping through a landing after a nosedive isn't just being tired," I whispered to Suzette as we went up the walkway from the plane to the arrival area. "They must have sedated us."

Suzette shrugged. "Did you really want to be awake for the landing after that?"

"No," I admitted. "But don't you think that's sneaky?"

"It's a special charter. They have their own way of doing things."

That made no sense to me but I didn't argue. Instead of going through the arrival gate, we were led down a long ramp to an area I thought was customs, except it had no separate divisions for arrivals from different countries. We all waited together to be seen at one of two dozen numbered desks. Fewer than half of them were staffed but there weren't that many of us in line. Still, the wait seemed interminable anyway. To distract myself, I looked around at our fellow travelers, wondering if I'd recognize any of them. Not that I'd been paying much attention.

Only one person looked at all familiar, a tall man seven people behind me. It took a few seconds to place him and then I had to force myself not to stare. Either the man I had seen forcibly carried away by security guards in Johannesburg had an identical twin or the guards had brought him back and let him board the flight after all without my noticing.

The woman who saw us at desk 23 had very close-cropped hair, which showed the perfect shape of her head. She found Suzette's dreads fascinating.

"Have you worn those a long time, my sister?" she asked, looking from Suzette to her passport and back again. Her accent sounded musical to me; I was caught between wanting to hear more of it and trying to see where the tall man was now. To my surprise, he was already at a desk, having his passport stamped. A second later, he had been waved on. I watched as he disappeared down a corridor.

"Yeah, they're easy to take care of," Suzette was saying.

The woman looked from Suzette to her passport and then to the monitor on her desk. I couldn't see the screen. As tempted as I was to move so I could get a look at it, I had a feeling it would be a bad idea. Nearby, a tall guard in an immaculate khaki uniform held a weapon that looked both lethal and complicated. I stood very still.

"The information you need to book your new flights will be waiting for you at your accommodations," the woman said. "You will make your choices within twenty-four hours." She used the largest metal stamp I'd ever seen on our passports and gave them back to us. "Stay together, until you leave."

"We'll do everything we're told," I said solemnly. Suzette gave me a look; I was trying to speak loudly enough for the soldier to hear without actually shouting.

The woman beamed at us warmly. "Welcome to Madagascar! Enjoy your stay!"

We were directed to the baggage claim area where our baggage had already been claimed on our behalf and loaded onto a motorized cart.

"Welcome to Antananarivo, mesdames." A dark-skinned man in light, loose-fitting shirt and trousers materialized beside us. He was holding a tablet notebook like a clipboard; a jute carrier bag dangled from one arm. "Your luggage will be taken to your accommodations for you-don't worry, we have never lost a single bag!" Chuckling, he reached into the bag and handed each of us a zippered 8 x 10 envelope; I could just make out a lot of printed documents inside the frosted plastic. "Everything you need for your layover is in there-food and drink vouchers, transport tickets, and of course the passes for your famadihana."

"'Famadee-yan'?" I said, mystified.

"The bus is outside, you must go now." He shooed us toward the nearest exit.

There were a lot of buses lined up at the curb outside and they all seemed stuffed to capacity and beyond with people and luggage. "Maybe we're just supposed to get on anything with room for us," Suzette suggested doubtfully.

Abruptly, two women pushed us toward an ancient white school bus, already overcrowded with passengers. Suzette hesitated; as the people nearest the door pulled her up the steps, the tall man reappeared beside me. I was torn between wanting to ask him who he was and keeping track of Suzette. Smiling, he made an after-you gesture. Then I was being yanked up the metal steps while the two women gave me an unceremonious push from behind.

I had never been in such a crush. Every color and shape of humanity seemed to be represented-fair-haired Nordic types, Latins, Japanese, Chinese, Indians, Middle Easterns, North Africans, South Africans of all colors. People called to each other in Russian, Italian, French and other languages with clicks and glottal stops. It was so fascinating I almost forgot about the tall man.

I couldn't see him anywhere up front. Apparently I'd been the last sardine in. Maybe security guards had carried him off again. The bus started off with a jerk. There was nothing to hold onto, no hanging straps or poles within reach but it didn't matter. I couldn't possibly fall down. "How long do you think this'll take?" I asked Suzette, who was wedged under my left arm.

"I heard someone say it was ten miles to the city," she said.

The bus went over a large bump and I felt my feet leave the floor, along with everyone else around me. I'd barely caught my breath when we went over two more in quick succession, both larger than the first one so that the bus practically seesawed. As the front half dipped, the back end rose and I caught a glimpse of a familiar tall figure behind a young couple who were each holding a laughing toddler.

It couldn't be him, I thought. He'd have had to go past me and I knew he hadn't. No one had because no one could.

Another bump; the toddlers giggled as his hair flew up with the motion and fell down over his forehead. He laughed with them.

"See anything?" Suzette asked.

"Nothing I can explain," I said.

I looked for him when we finally all spilled out in front of the hotel but he had vanished again.

"The white umbrellas you see there, that's the Zoma." The man pointed out the open window of our hotel room. "Today is the biggest day for it, in fact. 'Zoma' means 'Friday.'"

I looked at Suzette. "Is today Friday?"

"Don't mind her," Suzette said. "We've been traveling for so long, she lost track."

"Oh. Yes. Of course you must be tired." The man looked apologetic. "But you will not be able to rest until after your famadihana. Now it's time to go."

"Can't we have five minutes to wash up and change?" I asked, looking longingly at my suitcase over in a far corner.

"I'm sorry, no," the man said briskly. "You must be exactly as you are for your famadihana."

"What is that?" I demanded.

"It's what you came here for," he said, herding us out of the room.

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."

I hesitated. "Why can't I look?"

"It's not time." She frowned at Suzette, who took the envelope from me and passed it to her. She set it aside and went back to scanning barcodes. When she had finished, she did something under the counter and a flatscreen rose up from a slot that had been invisible thus far. I couldn't see what was on it from where I was standing; after checking for armed guards (none), I stood on tiptoe and tried to crane my neck. What little I could see didn't tell me anything-a few straight lines radiating from a point and a square the size of a postage stamp cycling through the color spectrum.

"There are many different routes from here but of course, not all of them are desirable-"

Suzette pressed the photo up against the barrier. "Is there one that goes here?"

The woman barely glanced at it. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because you're already here."

"Wait a minute." Suzette put the photo on the counter and pointed. "This is my mother. I'm trying to find her. And my Aunt Lillian-"

The woman motioned for her to pass it to her. "That narrows things down." She studied it for a moment and then concentrated on the screen, touching it occasionally, frowning at the result, touching it again, and frowning more deeply. After a few more touches, she stood back.

"I'm sorry, you can't get to her."

"What do you mean?" Suzette asked.

"There is no possible itinerary that will put you with her."

"You sound like you're booking flights," I said.

The woman nodded. "Yes, of course. What did you think you were doing here? However, I can give the both of you much better routes."

Suzette and I looked at each other. "What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

She emptied my envelope and spread the contents out. It all looked like bus tickets, appointment cards, and the written portion of the driving test in Massachusetts. "I can give you both a route where you graduate from your respective universities magna cum laude and you meet for the first time during post-graduate study abroad." She touched the screen again. "It comes with single parenthood but you'll both be fairly well off."

"Magna cum laude in what?" I said. She was speaking English but nothing made sense.

The woman smiled. "That's up to you. Isn't that nice? You get the choice. Please pick something beneficial. You don't have to, of course, but if you did, it would make planning routes much easier in the future."

"My mother-"

"Your mother's itinerary does not intersect with yours. At least, not any more than it already has. Your flights in relation to her are unchanged."

Suzette shook her head, baffled.

"On your itinerary, she still dies when you're sixteen. But on her new itinerary, she never has children. I'm sorry, but there was no route with offspring that didn't include an early death. Once she understood this wouldn't affect your existence, she decided. I don't blame her."

"This," Suzette said, "isn't happening."

"Oh, it is. And it's not going to get any better, believe me." She put everything back into the envelopes and passed them back to us. "Through there," she said, pointing at the nearest turnstile.

We went through and down a passageway to a metal door. "This way to the egress," I said with a nervous laugh.

"On three," said Suzette. "One… two… "

We pushed through and the noise hit us like a physical blow.

We should have realized that it wasn't going to be a Rolling Stones concert, either in the late 1960s or from last week. I was actually hoping but when we pushed through that door, we found ourselves out on the tarmac at an airport. The wind was blowing and it sounded like a hundred jets were revving up for takeoff all at once. My inner ear suddenly turned against me and I felt myself falling. But before I could hit the ground, two strong hands caught me and set me on my feet again-an armed man in a uniform. He smiled at me and Suzette as he hustled us over to a shuttle bus and pushed us onto it.

The bus took us not to the airport building but to another plane. I was too boggled to do anything except get on board and sit where the flight attendant said to. "I guess this means we won't be enjoying the Zoma," I said to Suzette as we sat down. Another flight attendant standing nearby gave me a disapproving look.

"Keep your voice down," she said. "I don't think this is… you know."

"No," I said. "I don't know."

"Excuse me," Suzette called to the flight attendant. "What's the name of this airport?"

The woman raised one eyebrow, as if she thought Suzette was being rude in some way.

"The full official name, I mean."

"Moi," the attendant said. " Mombasa Moi International Airport."

"Thank you." Suzette turned to me with an I-told-you-so look.

"OK," I said. "Just tell me how we got here from Madagascar -"

"No, no, no," said the flight attendant, looming over us now. "You don't mention Madagascar."

"But-"

"No." She raised a finger and I thought she was going to shake it in my face.

"This has got to be a trick," I said.

"It is," said the flight attendant. "And it's a very good one. So be quiet. Don't tell how the trick is done."

We'd been in the air an hour before Suzette realized she had left the photo behind.

We flew to New York and then to San Francisco, where we live. Suzette has a degree in economics and works on budget planning. I'm an architect, which I find amazing; I never thought I had it in me.

Neither of us is a parent yet. I don't think we're even close to it but the trajectory of this route allows for surprises. Other things, however, it doesn't allow for.

I'm more easygoing than ever, tearing the tags off pillows, jaywalking, wearing white after Labor Day. I got over my thing about folding photographs. People should live life just the way they want. So go ahead, dye all your hair purple, live in a tree, hitchhike your way around the world in a chicken suit. Whatever turns you on, yanks your crank or gets you through the night is OK with me.

Just don't mention Madagascar. At least, not where I can hear you.