Switzerland, 1969
9. AS BONNIE ENTERS the kitchen from the hallway, she lets in the sound of the hall clock chiming midnight and a breeze that stirs a clashing tone from the clean pots and pans that swing overhead. Bonnie turns up her nose as Marie tips a pot of burnt rice in her direction.
“Want some?”
“Hell no.”
“Your loss,” Marie retorts, eating a spoonful.
The lights of the prairie are extinguished by a sudden gust of wind.
The storm is relentless. The kind that warms the river until it’s rancid and ruins harvests, washing away settled seeds and buds that were already green. The village elders have named her Sheba. She is, they say, a curse that these dark women have brought with them, corrupting Swiss land that had been fruitful and blessed for generations.
Meanwhile, the younger Swiss folks patronize the restaurant a third, a fourth, a fifth time. For whoever does go, it seems, cannot go only once. They return home potbellied and bewitched, without words when asked to describe what they’ve tasted.
Bonnie knots the belt on her polka-dotted raincoat and ties a matching nylon scarf under her chin. She opens the back door, losing some nerve at the sight of the lightning. When it flashes, it reveals how the earth has turned soupy, that the ground is a gargling brown river.
She puts a foot in, and the warmth of the water is a surprise. Something in the air smells good, vaguely of vanilla, thyme, and mud. She takes another step. Underwater, a wire or a branch tears her shin. She trips and falls where the storm has eroded the ground. Armpit deep, with nothing around to grip, she cannot think enough to stand. She is frozen and sputtering. Marie calling her from the kitchen doorway breaks her trance, and she begins to fight and kick.
“Where are you going? It’s dangerous!”
Bonnie grips the iron fence that’s now in reach, pulling herself up. Wading, she reaches the door of Mama’s Peugeot, and, battling against the strong wind, she grips and opens the driver’s side door.
Inside the car she shivers, fumbling around for the keys in the glove compartment, on the door, under the seat. She stops at the sight of the rain on the car’s front window: the world is damn near underwater. It is impossible to see.
“Why are you doing this to me, man?” she says, to Mansour, aloud.
Lost in her thoughts, Bonnie jumps at the sound of the passenger door opening, half-expecting Mansour to hop in, soaking wet, his eyelids sunk low from the long road home. That scent on his scalp and hands after worrying or running, like warm milk and electricity. Kissing her before the door is fully closed, letting in the rain … but Marie hops in shotgun. It’s painful for a moment, and then a relief to see her.
“OK,” Marie says, anchoring her mind by planting her hands on the dashboard. “I wasn’t interested in a suicide mission.”
“Maybe it’ll ease up,” Bonnie says, staring at the water that pounds the front window, still seeing Mansour.
“I’m not talking about the storm,” Marie continues. “I’m talking about stealing Mama Eva Ndoye’s Peugeot.
“I don’t know why all of you are so scared of her.”
“Please. You don’t even talk to her.”
“Why would I unless I have to? Doesn’t mean I’m scared of her.”
“You should be terrified of her!”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, for one, she doesn’t have sex! A woman in her condition is liable to do anything.”
Bonnie chuckles at the depth of her own longing and then falls silent, eyes back on the storm.
“Before I give you these”—Marie holds up the keys—“I need to know your plan.”
Bonnie inhales.
“To get to Geneva, and make sure that body’s not him.”
“Then what?”
“Keep going until we find him.”
Bonnie gestures for the keys. Marie drops them in her hand. Her voice is quiet beneath the sputtering engine as the car starts.
“And what if it is him?”
Bonnie looks at her. “It’s not,” she says simply, and speeds ahead, cutting a path through the water.