Jonathan Strahan - Eclipse Three

"I heard someone say it was ten miles to the city," she said.

The bus went over a large bump and I felt my feet leave the floor, along with everyone else around me. I'd barely caught my breath when we went over two more in quick succession, both larger than the first one so that the bus practically seesawed. As the front half dipped, the back end rose and I caught a glimpse of a familiar tall figure behind a young couple who were each holding a laughing toddler.

It couldn't be him, I thought. He'd have had to go past me and I knew he hadn't. No one had because no one could.

Another bump; the toddlers giggled as his hair flew up with the motion and fell down over his forehead. He laughed with them.

"See anything?" Suzette asked.

"Nothing I can explain," I said.

I looked for him when we finally all spilled out in front of the hotel but he had vanished again.

"The white umbrellas you see there, that's the Zoma." The man pointed out the open window of our hotel room. "Today is the biggest day for it, in fact. 'Zoma' means 'Friday.'"

I looked at Suzette. "Is today Friday?"

"Don't mind her," Suzette said. "We've been traveling for so long, she lost track."

"Oh. Yes. Of course you must be tired." The man looked apologetic. "But you will not be able to rest until after your famadihana. Now it's time to go."

"Can't we have five minutes to wash up and change?" I asked, looking longingly at my suitcase over in a far corner.

"I'm sorry, no," the man said briskly. "You must be exactly as you are for your famadihana."

"What is that?" I demanded.

"It's what you came here for," he said, herding us out of the room.

I tried not to budge and failed completely. "Actually, we came here to find her mother," I said, jerking my chin at Suzette. "Or have I been traveling for so long I've lost track of that, too?"

"Many come here to find mothers. Also fathers, siblings, friends, lovers, even themselves. The only way is the famadihana."

"But what is it?" Suzette asked.

"The Dance with the Dead."

I'd expected to see another bus or even the same one in front of the hotel. But the vehicle waiting for us was an old Geo that looked amazingly like the one I'd left sitting in O'Hare's long-term parking. The man thrust the plastic envelopes we'd been given at the airport into our hands and hustled us into the backseat, before getting into the front seat next to the driver. "You've come this far, you don't want to be late now!"

The driver looked over his shoulder at us. "Seatbelts on!"

We obeyed. As I clicked mine into place, I silently apologized to everyone who'd ever ridden in my Geo's backseat. It really was horrible.

Street-level Antananarivo went past in a blur and a cloud of dust; the many-windowed houses covering the hills stared into the distance. The man in the passenger seat was saying something about how the famadihana took place only during the dry season, from June to October.

"Practical reasons for that, of course," he said, peering around the back of his seat at us with a smile. "We restrict your famadihana to the same time. Out of season doesn't work as well for vazaha."

"What's a vazaha?" Suzette asked, leaning against me as we took a corner at 90.

"You are," said the driver cheerfully. "Means foreigner."

We took another corner on two wheels; the city vanished in a cloud of dust behind us. On the hills, the houses continued to stare impassively into the distance.

After a couple of miles, the sound of clarinets and drums came to us faintly under the chatter of the engine. Suzette and I looked at each other; she shrugged. As the music grew louder, I heard accordions and flutes as well.

"I don't think that's the Rolling Stones," I said more to myself than anyone else.

"Maybe it's their opening act," Suzette said.

The man in the front passenger seat turned to say something. Suzette shoved the photograph under his nose but before she could ask about her mother, the driver stood on the brakes.

My forehead hit the back of the seat in front of me-not so hard it hurt, just enough to be startling. The shoulder harness did hurt-I swore I could feel every fiber in the strap bruising my skin.

"What the hell, Suzette?" I yelled. "Couldn't you have waited till we stopped?"

"I didn't do anything!" she shouted over the chaotic mix of laughter, singing and music now surrounding the car. "I dropped it! Where is it? Give it back-"

"Is that klezmer?" I peered out the windows.

Children grinned back at me. "Vazaha! Vazaha!" They jumped around and mimed taking photos. Behind them, several adults went by, carrying a coffin. They were laughing and singing.

"What kind of a funeral is this?" I asked.

"Not a funeral-it's a famadihana," the man told me. "The coffin has been removed from the family crypt. Now the family will dance with their dead, wrap the body in a new lambamena, and return it to the resting place, until next year."

Suzette and I looked at each other; she was as flabbergasted as I was.

"But my mother's not buried here. She's not buried at all. She was cremated and we scattered the ashes." Suddenly, she looked horrified. "My Aunt Lillian! Has something happened to her?"

The man reached down beside his seat and came up with the now dog-eared photo. "I do not know of any vazaha who has died here." His face creased with a mixture of amusement and pity as Suzette took it from him.

"Are you sure? Should we ask the police?" Suzette looked from him to me and back again.

"No, no police," said the driver. It was an order. He put the car in gear again and floored it. I looked out the window to see the people at the end of the procession waving goodbye.

Open country gave way to rainforest. Big green leaves slapped against the car windows. I sat forward, holding onto the back of the passenger seat and peered through the windshield. The "road" was a set of parallel wheel ruts. Very well-traveled wheel ruts-the Geo's off-road limit is an un-mowed lawn-so wherever they were taking us couldn't be too far from civilization.

Whose civilization, however, I wasn't sure of. After traveling to a place whose language and customs we didn't understand, Suzette and I had willingly gotten into a car with two strange men who were now driving us into a rainforest-jungle?-to a destination they hadn't even bothered to lie about because we hadn't bothered to ask them.

Was this the way your life began flashing before your eyes? Nothing remotely similar had happened when the plane had gone into a nosedive-

As if on cue, we were suddenly going down a steep hill into a tunnel. Suzette and I looked at each other; she had my arm in that Death Grip and I was returning the favor.

"Where-" Suzette started.

"Almost there," the man in the passenger seat said cheerfully. The driver put on the Geo's headlights but he didn't really have to: the tunnel lit the area immediately above us as well as a few yards ahead. The illuminated area traveled with us; I looked out the back window to see the lights going off behind us.

"What is this place?" I asked; I was thinking theme park.

The man in the passenger seat waved the question away. "Make sure you carry your documents and you can't get lost."

"I'm lost now," Suzette said. "Tell us where we're going right now or-" But of course, she didn't know how to finish that sentence and neither did I. This was Madagascar. Except right now it looked more like something out of a freaky movie.

The tunnel suddenly opened out into an enormous clear area paved with asphalt-outdoors. Waist-high barriers made of metal tubing held back the thick rainforest. I pressed my face against the window to look up at the sky, wondering if we really were outdoors again or if this were some sort of brilliant illusion.