Chapter Twenty-Four

Tess

As Tess reached the corner of the veranda, she heard the murmur of Gwen speaking to Levi.

Approaching, Tess was able to make out Gwen’s words.

“—that she was raised in Ghana. From her early childhood, I think something's there. I would never ask. I'll tell you this, though, Levi. Tess is one of the bravest women I've ever met. I mean, we have been in some very dangerous situations, and she seems to know somehow how to escape the bad guy, or the weather, or out-maneuver the destruction of force. I'm always glad when I'm assigned to work with Tess because, as fragile as she looks, it’s only one of her adjectives. She can think in the moment. And no insult, but I’d honestly feel safer with her than I would with like someone like you. You might have skills and brawn, but she has tenacity and creativity.”

“She’s a remarkable woman,” Levi agreed.

Tess looked behind her. Should she retreat? Make some noise so they knew she was there?

Iris waved good morning as she and Craig approached. Now, Tess was stuck there, waiting for them.

“Tess said she knew you back in school,” Gwen’s voice floated around the corner. Her voice was no longer flirty like it had been yesterday on the safari. There was a cautionary tone. Tess could imagine that Gwen had realized there was something between Tess and Levi and had adjusted to the circumstances.

“We knew each other in undergrad,” Levi said, “after I joined the Navy, we fell out of contact. Life gets in the way sometimes.”

“I feel big-sisterly toward Tess. Levi, listen to me. I am asking you not to hurt her.”

Before Tess could hear Levi’s response, Iris scooped an arm through Tess’s as she kept walking. “Looks like you’re heading out for an adventure.”

The sky was a brilliant blue, shining through patches of clouds.

As they rounded the corner to approach Levi and Gwen, a change of conversation was in order. Tess pointed up. “They look like the spots on a giraffe's hide.” Then she reached out and gathered the air.

Something was wrong . More wrong today than yesterday.

Tess scowled at the sky. Whatever this sensation was, it was new to her, and she couldn’t predict what would come next. That made Tess feel as vulnerable as Gwen had described her.

As the group approached, Levi and Gwen swiveled outward to include them in their conversation. “What are you seeing, Tess?” Gwen asked. “Those are just cirrocumulus clouds.”

Tess rolled her lips in as anxiety clutched her chest. What was she seeing?

Mojo left Levi and came to sit beside her.

“What’s this?” Craig tipped his head back.

“Those are high-altitude tropospheric clouds,” Gwen pointed.

Tess dropped her hand to Mojo’s head. “It shows that there’s convection and small amounts of liquid water droplets.”

“As opposed to ice crystals,” Gwen explained.

“Water?” Craig held his fists up as if he might be ready to thrust them high overhead in a victory dance. “Rain?”

“Yes and no,” Tess muttered under her breath. “If it does precipitate, you’re looking at a virga—a dry storm.”

“Like Tess’s dry bite,” Gwen explained. “You think it’s going to be something, but it’s not. The precipitate evaporates before it reaches the ground. Namibia won’t get any relief from those clouds.”

Tess looked at Gwen, unblinking for a moment. Her brain was racing so fast that she didn’t even have a clue what she was processing.

“Right, Tess?”

A growing storm were the words that filled Tess’s head. But nothing was there that looked concerning. It was all as expected in Namibia at the very end of the dry season.

Tess exhaled, pulling her lips into the figment of a smile.

She felt the crush of too many people and too much unwanted focus when all she wanted was to look at the sky and understand.

***

Levi’s instructions today were to hang out with Mojo and see how they got along when they weren’t mission-focused.

When Tess said she was interested in going to visit the Himba village, she’d invited him along.

And now that they were here, walking toward the chief sitting under a single tree, carving a giraffe for tourists to buy, she was glad she hadn’t come alone.

This experience was very awkward for her.

After receiving permission to be there and walk past the okuruwo— their sacred flame, Tess, Levi, and Mojo moved forward with their guide.

There were groupings of women in their traditional garb—belts and decorations but little else. The women glowed from rubbing a paste of crushed ochre and fat into their skin. And their hair was protected by encasing their braids in red clay.

Around them, their babies, naked except for cowrie shell belts around their waists, played peacefully outside the huts.

Tess and Levi had an English-speaking guide from the tribe who was there to educate and translate.

And it was all so very uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable.

The best metaphor that Tess could land on was a day when she went to the amusement park with her aunt. There, they had a bird show. A handler would come out with a bird on his finger and start describing the bird, pointing to the body part being discussed.

In this case, a teenage boy from the Himba tribe had a stick in his hand. As he moved through his explanation, he would tap that area of the woman with the end of the stick.

For Tess, the point when she was so uncomfortable that she turned away happened when the teenager talked about how the tribe removed a bottom tooth. He tapped the woman’s mouth, and dutifully, she dropped her jaw to show her teeth.

The Himba people seemed fine. It was Tess who reacted.

Levi leaned in, “What are you thinking Tess?

Then she stopped to consider his question.

Yes, the situation felt wrong to Tess.

But was that the whole problem?

Or was there something more?

“Men and animals have use of the water,” the guide said, “women do not. Instead of bathing in water, they bathe in smoke. A woman will hold her armpit over the smoke of a small fire, trapping the smoke with her cape. She will sit there for some minutes. And then she will move on to a different body part.”

“Smoke bathing,” Tess said, her mind flooding with questions. No water to clean themselves ever ? And what about the monthly cycle? Surely, the women would need water to wash up from that. Those questions were on the tip of Tess’s tongue, but she was not sure she wanted to know.

On the way to the village, Levi shared what Enrico had said the other day, that the tribespeople lived in regular houses. This was their day job. It was like going to see a historical reenactment in the States; the people worked in the eighteenth century during the day with hoop skirts and powdered wigs, and at night, they were just like everyone else, pushing a cart down the grocery aisle and eating ice cream from the carton in front of the television.

Still, the guide was poking the woman with a stick again.

The guide turned to Tess, “What questions do you have?”

Tess turned to an elder. “Are you anticipating rain today?”

After an exchange, their guide said, “No rain any day. Those clouds are normal for this time of year, but rain would be improbable.”

Tess scratched the back of her head and reached out to feel the air again tipping back. “Do you ever get thunder and lightning?” she asked.

The guide looked up at the sky and then at the women. “I've never seen it, no.”

“Huh.” Tess held her arms out wide, palms up. And then let her gaze sweep the sky from horizon to horizon. She weighed the air in her hands as if she were a scale and then lifted one hand up over her head as if she were scooping air into her palm. And then she rubbed her thumb against her fingers.

Mojo had his nose in the wind, nostrils quivering as he sniffed the air, then he gurgled a whine from deep down in his throat.

“Talk to me, Tess,”

Tess focused on the guide. “I don't want to be an alarmist, but I have a question. Are there precautions in place for flooding?”

“Here?” The guide turned and conferred with the elder, listening intently, then told Tess, “When the rains fall in Angola, the floods happen in the villages farther north.” He lifted his chin to show the direction. “Aunty said that when the rains come down, they naturally fill the flood basins. It doesn’t happen often. This is a problem for the people who are not used to flooding because they built their huts where it will flood. This is a poor choice.”

“But here in Etosha?” Tess insisted.

“We're too far from Angola to be bothered by it. Besides, September is the end of winter here, the end of the dry season. We might get some rain next month.”

Tess leaned back and looked at the sky.

Levi stood perfectly still, and she was grateful that he kept his energy away from her. She needed to concentrate. She was remembering. It was something from her deep past. But when she tried to grab at it, it disappeared like smoke in a breeze.

“It rarely floods here, and we like it when it does.

it seeps into the ground, and after, we have a good harvest,” the guide seemed as though he was trying to reassure Tess. “Though, once I was in Windhoek, and we got three weeks of rain in twenty-four hours.” He moved his hands to his heart. “Two children were swept away, and later, their bodies were found by the dam.”

The event had an obvious effect on him. Tess put her hands to her heart in response. “I’m so sorry. Two precious children is a terrible loss.”

The guide looked up at the sky as if trying to see what had upset his visitor.

“This isn't good,” Tess said and blew out. “It's really not good, Levi. I need to call Gwen. I need information.” She rounded one of the huts where the small children sat in the dirt, tracing their fingers through the powdery soil.

When Tess and Levi arrived, she’d spotted their guide on his cell phone over here near the pen with the lone goat. Tess had surmised there was a hidden WiFi connection nearby.

And standing where he had been, Tess was able to get Gwen on the phone. “Gwen, I need you on the computer. Start with history. Has this region ever flooded?”

“Looking.”

The minutes stretched out, and Tess’s anxiety mounted.

Finally, Gwen said, “Yes, about twenty years ago. I’m scanning the article that I pulled up on our system. There was a flood that killed forty-two people, mostly children and elders who were swept away in a flash flood.”

“Where did the water originate?”

“From Angola. Okay, here’s more. WorldCares sent in helicopters to evacuate people stranded on high ground without food, drinking water, or shelter. They dropped MREs and water bottles while they performed the prioritized evacuation sequence—nursing mothers with their infants, then young children, then twelve and up. That was a big mission. But it was in February, which would be the wet season. Wetter than usual.” Gwen paused, then asked, “What does your intuition tell you?”

Tess whispered. “It feels like a disaster.”

“Mom and Dad are here. They need to know what’s going on.”

“Tess, sweetheart, are you in trouble?” Iris’s worried voice came through Tess’s phone.

“Hang on, Mom. Just listen for a minute, okay? Hey, Tess, when we were on safari in Etosha, you mentioned that spaghetti model that trailed down to Angola, the outlier.”

“Yes.” Mojo had rounded in front of Tess and sat on her feet. He scanned the vista just like he had when he climbed the hill to save her that first day.

“If that was the correct model,” Gwen asked, “could the effects of the wobble reach all the way down to Namibia? Do you remember?”

“At the time, I thought southern Angola. But it’s been days,” Tess said.

“The wobble?” That was Craig’s voice. “What kind of weather would that cause?”

“A torrent, Dad.”

“As much as Morocco?” Iris asked.

“No, Mom, if that model dipped lower, that would cause catastrophic flooding across the whole of northern Namibia. Looking, Tess.”

“If that’s what’s happening, we need to warn people—Enrico at Etosha, the rest of Iniquus—and you all need to get out.”

“Get out?” Iris asked. “But we’re near high ground.”

“This isn’t a time when you could go up there and wait to see what happens. A storm the size Tess is talking about causes mudslides. Up isn’t safe.”

“Yes. South. Gather up what you need to save and start driving. Don’t wait.”

“Gwen, dear, this seems excessive.”

“Oh, wow, Tess. Yup, you were right. That darned red line is extending straight south into Namibia. I’ll start making calls.”

“Gwen, now stop.” Iris’s voice warbled.

“Mom, I've heard Tess sound like this too many times to take it lightly. This is how Tess sounds right before a disaster. It’s in her voice.”

“You've been in a disaster with Tess before?” Iris sounded bewildered.

“You have no idea how many times. Mom, seriously, if she's talking about floods, you need to prepare for floods. Do you know what Tess does with her hand in the air? It's like she's sipping information. Tess, I’m back. Where should we go?”

“My first knee-jerk thought is the American Embassy in Windhoek. We drove by it, remember? It looks like a fortress, and while it’s on an elevation. Gwen, here’s the important thing: Enrico knows who you are and what you do. If you just call anyone saying the sky is falling, they won’t listen. Call Enrico. I don’t know how they evacuate, but the infrastructure in the area won’t protect anyone.”

Another group of tourists were entering the Himba village, asking the chief for permission to pass by the sacred fire.

Though the sun was out, and the sky hadn’t changed from its giraffe-spot-clouded blue, a strobe of lightning flashed.

The Himba tribal members stood and looked toward the sky. Then they turned to look at Tess with distress.

A moment later, thunder rumbled from the north.

“Go home!” Tess called as she ran. “Go home! Get as high up as you can! Don’t wait. Go now!” She was sprinting for their Jeep, Levi and Mojo glued to her side.