A Change in Altitude Read Free

seemed a straw victory. Not to employ a servant was to deny an African a job.
    At dinner on the evening of that first mention of the climb, Arthur, his wet hair still grooved from his comb, spoke of hypoxia.
    “The lungs fill up with blood,” he said, setting Patrick and Margaret straight. “Typically four or five people a year die climbing Mount Kenya. Usually it’s the fit German climbers who hop off the plane in Nairobi, head straight for the mountain, and practically run up it. They often get into trouble because they haven’t allowed their bodies to acclimate to the height and the thinner air. The slower you climb and the longer it takes, the better off you are.”
    “I should do really well, then,” Margaret said.
    Arthur ignored the joke. “As we climb, we’ll come across park rangers. They’ll be in pairs, and they’ll go right up to your face. They’ll fire a series of questions at you: What’s the date? What time is it? Where do you live? And if you can’t fire answers back at them, they’ll each take an elbow and run you straight down the mountain whether you want to go or not. It’s the only cure.”
    Margaret was thinking that Arthur, by nature, wasn’t an alarmist. Though he could be condescending—she sometimes thought he viewed condescension as a minor sport—he and Patrick had had lively discussions that had lasted late into the night. Patrick would not concede a point if he had facts to back it up.
    “We’ll leave Nairobi midmorning,” Arthur continued. He had on a white shirt, the sleeves rolled to the elbows, a striped tie. He had a pallor that seemed unusual in Africa, a perpetual five o’clock shadow emerging from his skin.
    Diana had on a blue cotton sundress. Her skin had the patina of an outdoorswoman. She had recently cut her bright blond hair, a practical gesture that lent her a gamine look.
    “We’ll take the Thika Road and have a comfortable night, I should think, at the lodge in Naro Moru,” Arthur said. “Then we’ll make our way to Park Gate, where we’ll leave the Land Rover. At the gate, we hire the guide and the porters who will carry the food and gear. They’re meant to be very good, by the way. Then it’s straight up to Point Lenana. It’s one of the steepest and fastest ways up, but an amateur can make it. It’ll take four days, three nights, not including our stay at the lodge.”
    The meal was lamb with mint sauce. The table was elaborately set in the English mode. Beneath Margaret’s place was a mat depicting Westminster Abbey. Patrick had St. Paul’s. Each diner had his own silver saltcellar and tiny spoon. Arthur was generous with the wine, which he poured into cut-crystal goblets. The dinner plates might have been Wedgwood or Staffordshire. The ones in the cottage were mismatched and had chips in them.
    Two children appeared from behind a door. Edward and Philippa, nine and seven, were being raised by an ayah named Adhiambo. The children came and went in school uniforms as if they lived in Kent and not just one road removed from a forest with antelope and lions and buffalo. Diana believed in bringing up children the British way, without excessive praise.
    Adhiambo stepped from behind the door as well. She had a red head scarf over her hair and a pink sweater that might once have been part of a twinset. Her hips were wide, but she was young. Twenty-three, twenty-four, Margaret thought, though she was hopeless at decoding African ages. Adhiambo had a deep scar on her chin and a shy smile that revealed a row of gapped teeth. In her eyes, though, there was something Margaret couldn’t identify—something resilient or simply persistent.
    “Say good night to Mummy,” Adhiambo said to the children.
    In their pajamas, they went to their mother for hugs and kisses that looked real and needy, small blots on a stoic ledger. Arthur demanded kisses and hugs as well. Margaret knew this already to be the evening ritual. Philippa looked like her father, with