A Change in Altitude Read Online Free PDF Page A

know?”
    Another man set a suitcase among the others to be collected.
    “I just brought this tiny suitcase,” he said. “What you see me in is what I’ll be wearing for three days.”
    What Margaret saw him in was a pair of blue sneakers, brown-and-white patterned trousers, and a red polo shirt with white piping.
    “I hear there’s more ivory there,” he said.
    More than where?
Margaret wondered.
    She had a tall glass of iced tea at the Thorn Tree Café. She couldn’t remember when iced tea had ever tasted so good. She fingered the mint and read the notes tacked onto the message board beside her.
Shenaz, I am needing my washing machine back. Peter Shandling, if you get this message, please call Mark at New Stanley House. Needed: Cocktail waitresses for Swiss embassy party on the 19th. Ask for Roger at the InterContinental.
    At the Thorn Tree Café, an African woman was not allowed to sit at a table without a man. If she did, she would be asked to leave. It didn’t matter if the woman was a banker or an editor or owned her own shop and felt as desperate as Margaret had for a tall glass of iced tea. If the woman was an African, it was assumed she was a prostitute.
    A dark man in an embroidered kaffiyeh wore a jacket with a Nehru collar. Margaret was having trouble observing the man because he was openly staring at her.
    From where she was seated, Margaret heard five languages she could identify: English, Swahili, Urdu, German, and French. She thought there must have been at least four or five others just beyond her hearing and comprehension.
    Margaret examined the menu. The prices were impressive. Didn’t the tourists realize they were being fleeced?
    At the next table, a foursome explained their dining instructions in exaggerated detail to the waiter, as if he might not understand English. When the waiter left, a woman at the table rolled her eyes.
    At Margaret’s left, two African students spoke in excellent, if accented, English. She missed most of the conversation but heard something that unnerved her. The government had rounded up fifty students at the university, one of them said. The students had been massacred and tossed into a mass grave.
    Margaret was stunned. Was this a rumor, or was it true? If it was true, why didn’t Patrick and she and everyone else know about it? Why wasn’t it on the front page of the newspapers? Margaret sat still and listened for more, but the students had gone silent. Possibly one of them had seen her cock her ear in their direction. Maybe the other had cautioned silence.
    *   *   *
    Margaret searched for the boot shop and twice missed it, its discreet sign not intended to lure customers. She entered through a polished wooden door and took off her sunglasses. She guessed the enterprise to be as close to a bespoke shop as one could find in Nairobi. The men behind the counters and on the small floor were white. She saw immediately that women’s clothes were displayed as well as men’s. She wouldn’t mention Arthur’s name, even though, at dinner, she might have to say she had and had therefore received excellent service.
    Margaret was allowed to browse before being accosted. In the end, she had to ask for help. She needed hiking boots, she explained. She was to climb the mountain in ten days’ time and wanted something sturdy but flexible so that her feet wouldn’t hurt. The slender young salesman snapped his fingers. An African associate brought out a device meant to measure her foot. She took her sandal off, exposing dust-covered skin.
    “May I have a cloth?” Margaret asked.
    It seemed not to be an unusual request. Two cotton cloths, one damp and one dry, were presented to her on a brass tray. After she washed, the African disappeared and the British salesman gently took her right foot and placed it in the measuring device. His hand on her heel and sole felt soothing. He asked her to stand up, and he recorded her size, a number she didn’t understand. She was