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Kichwa Tembo
. Elephant Head. There were a number of commercial camps in the Mara, but Harry was taking her to a private house, owned by an anthropologist who’d married her Maasai translator and so had claims on the land. At the southern corner of the plain the red road tilted up, turning pale and chunky with white rocks. They lurched up a short vertical hill then hugged the side in diagonal slashes of switchbacks. Harry gripped the steering wheel as if he were wrestling something wild. They passed Maasai encampments he told her were called bomas, circular walls of tangled branches containingsmall huts and cattle which had to be protected from wildlife. On a day’s notice the boma would be dismantled and reassembled somewhere else where there was fresh grass.
    Are we close? she said. But she wasn’t impatient. She felt happy and free. The land was majestic and riding beside him she had the feeling she was where she ought to be. It was not a feeling Jane had often.
    Just up here, Harry said, and Jane didn’t care if they ever got there or ever stopped.
    The white road ran along a naturally terraced area of the escarpment. Down to the right was a tunnel of greenery inside which flowed the Mara River. There was no road at all when Harry turned right down a slope of flattened grass strewn with hulking boulders at the end of which sat a stone house with a tin roof.
    They got out. The air was loud with the sound of water rushing by in the river. They went to a door surrounded by a wrought-iron cage with a large padlock on it. No one appeared to be home. Jane sat for a moment in a chair left outside at a green painted table. The river surged by below, the color of café au lait, battering low branches that bounced against the white waves. Above the river a woolly ridge dark as a rain forest rose up against a yellowish sky. It was late afternoon. On the table a wineglass held a coin of red liquid and a dish had the last bits of a tart crust. Harry was digging around in the back of the truck, hauling out the backpack.
    They walked straight up, first in the shade then passing the line into the sun. Jane followed Harry’s large backpack. They came to a narrow footpath. Halfway up they passed a thin woman, chest wrapped in a plaid red and blue shuka, walking down. Her head was shaved and her long earlobes hung with loops and beads. She was barefoot, probably around eighty, walking without hesitation. Jambo, they said and she nodded, passing by.
    It didn’t take long to reach the top, and it felt as if they’d gone higher when they did. Soft wind blew and looking over the valley Jane had the sensation she’d never been able to see so far. Perhaps it was true.
    Harry dumped out the sack and harness. He took off his shirt and putit back in the sack. As he unrolled the parachute it swelled out like foam. He shook it, then stepped into the harness attached to the thin ropes. His helmet was round and white, making his head look too big for his body. He stood a short distance from the edge with feet planted apart. Past the tall grass at the edge, the plain stretched miles below, brownish green but bleached of color. Behind Harry on the ground the chute flowed out like a wedding train. He pulled at it to free it from twigs and thorns, shaking at a dozen thin lines which all branched out into shorter lines attached to the chute. The likelihood of a tangle seemed immense. A harness of black straps fit over his shoulders and chest and wrapped around his thighs, arranged so that airborne he’d be seated. He stood for a while, staring out, listening. He looked at the clouds, gazing overhead, waiting for a gust. A white mist blew over them, dimming the sun and dampening Jane’s face, a low cloud whitening everything. The wind puffed the sheet behind him. His arm kept reaching back to fluff the light fabric, while he stayed face-forward. Wind filled the sail, lifting it, seeming to push him forward. He took a few quick steps.