“What’s that? What’s happening?”
Facing the inside wall of the dining porch, Fletch looked to his left. The screens were bending toward him. Paper plates were three meters in the air. An empty beer bottle smashed on the stone floor.
Suddenly the air had darkened, yellowed.
“Eat fast!” Carr shouted over the roar. He cupped one hand over his plate. His other hand shoveled food into his mouth rapidly.
“What is it?” Fletch’s eyes were stinging. He could barely see the great lumps of white fish yellowing on his plate.
“Sandstorm! My timing was off. The faster you eat now, the less of a peck of dirt you’ll eat all at once.”
Fletch put fish into his mouth. He coughed. Already his mouth was full of sand. Already a million particles of sand had adhered to the insides of his nostrils.
His filled plate wobbled on the table.
He and Carr both shoved back as the table was pulled up by the wind. It flipped over and skittered to the wall of the porch.
Carr and Fletch sat facing each other, hands in their laps, no table between them.
Fletch shouted, “Shall we go someplace else for dessert?”
Carr stood up. “I’ll ask Hassan to get a cabin ready for us. The only thing for us to do in a sandstorm is get between walls and underneath a sheet.”
As soon as Fletch stood up, his chair fell over. All the porch furniture was sliding by them. “How long does a sandstorm last?”
“A few hours. A day. A week.”
“Can I call Barbara? Tell her we’ll be late?”
“Sure,” Carr said. “There’s a telephone box at the corner. Right next to the pizza parlor!”
“Carr? I saw a murder.”
They were in narrow beds in a small cabin. It had grown dark.
The wind howled. Sand blew through the walls. Lying under the sheet, Fletch had kept his mouth closed. Still, his tongue, teeth were gritty with sand. Occasionally, he had spat into a glass. Carr suggested he stop that, saying his body needed the fluid. Fletch kept his eyes closed until his lips became too heavy with sand. Then he’d roll over and wipe his face against the lower sheet. The sheets became coated with sand centimeters thick. Less than every hour, he would get up and flip the sand off his sheets. Sand was in his eyes, nose, mouth, sinuses, in his skin. He wished he could keep his nostrils closed.
There was a primitive shower in the cabin. It dripped in loud splats. When Fletch could hear the shower splattering he knew the wind was down somewhat. Mostly he couldn’t hear the shower.
At the moment, he could hear the shower splattering.
Carr asked, “Is that the box of rocks you’re carrying?”
“I guess so.”
Carr said, “I’ve got strong legs, too.”
The cabin was hit with another sustained blast of hot, sand-filled wind.
“At the airport yesterday,” Fletch said when he was hearing the shower splattering again. “Just after we arrived.” Talking, he realized just how much sand was in his throat, mouth, on his lips.
“I went into the men’s room while Barbara changed some money. There was a man in there, acting perfectly normal, just washing up. I went into a cabinet. Another man came in. I saw his feet. The two men argued. They were shouting in a language I didn’t understand. Maybe Portuguese. When I came out, there was only one man there, and he was dead. Stabbed. Blood all over the place.”
“The same man who was there when you entered?”
“No. The other man.”
“So you saw the murderer.”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“Carr, I threw up. I was careful to wipe my fingerprints off the door as I left.”
“Could you identify the murderer?”
“Yes. I saw him again, in the parking lot, as we were driving away.”
“A white man?”
“Yes. They were both white.”
“I saw about it in The Nation.”
“I forgot to look in the newspapers.”
“Murders still make headlines here. Unless it’s just Dan Dawes doing his nocturnal duty.”
“No. That’s not how Dan executes people. Whom have you told?”
“Only Barbara. Now you.”
“I see. You made your decision to shut up about this pretty fast.”
“What do you mean?”
“You wiped your fingerprints off the door handle.”
“Carr, I had just arrived in a foreign country. I knew very little about Kenya.”
“There is justice here.”
“A murder investigation is apt to take a long time.”
“Right.”
“Soon, I’ve got to go home, back to work, start my married life. You know?”
“Of course.”
An extraordinary wall of wind slammed against the cabin. Fletch said, “Committed, but not involved.”
After that thick wall of wind passed, Fletch said, “Did the newspapers say who the murdered man was?”
“I didn’t really read it. Did you recognize either man from your airplane?”
Fletch thought a moment. “I don’t know. The airplane was so crowded.”
“Well,” Carr said, “it seems to me you made your decision. You were a witness to a murder, and you chose not to come forward.”
“Yeah, but, Carr? Suppose they convict the wrong guy?”
“There’s always that possibility. They’ll hang him. You’ll never know. You’ll be in the United States downing hot dogs and beer.”
“I don’t want to live with that possibility.”
After a while, Carr said, “That’s a box of rocks, all right. You can’t wait around Kenya for a year or more serving as police witness. And you have a natural disinclination against letting the powers-that-be hang the wrong chap.”
Carr didn’t say any more.
“Carr?” It was hours later, but Fletch knew Carr wasn’t asleep. Shortly before there had been another loud burst of wind. Now the splattering shower could be heard again. “Tell me about my father.”
“What? Sorry. My ears aren’t that perfect, you know.”
“My father. Tell me about him.”
“We’re talking about the man Fletcher.”
“Please.”
“Well. He’s a pilot. Like the rest of us, he’s flown light planes here and there in the world. Somewhere in South America for a while, and then I know he flew in India. He was well off, for a while. He owned three airplanes, his own little airlines, in Ethiopia. Then that new administration took over, and took over his airlines.”
“Just took them over?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t pay him for them, or anything?”
“Because they wanted his airplanes, they also took over his house and his car, to get rid of him. Everything. That government enterprises freely only on its own behalf.”
“Oh.”
“So he arrived in Kenya broke. Flew for me for a while. Now he has his own airplane again.”
“You have more than one airplane?”
“I have two.”
The wind made conversation impossible for a few moments.
“Carr?” Fletch finally asked. “Is he a happy man? Does he give the impression life satisfies him?”
“Pretty much. Flying around is a great life. Aren’t you having fun?”
“Carr?” It was the time of night any dawn would seem a wearisome blessing. The wind was down for the moment, but Fletch knew it would rise again. He felt like a stocking stuffed with sand. “We didn’t anchor down the airplane. What’s to keep it from flipping over?”
“Remember that little guy at the airstrip you thought was so old?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s out there in the wind, hanging on to a wing holding the airplane down.”
“You serious?”
“Of course I’m serious.”
“That skinny little old guy will get blown away, too.”
“We’ll see.”