CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ride of the Brilliant Chicken
Wrenching my way out the maddeningly small bathroom window, I momentarily sat on its sill estimating the distance upwards to the car's roof. The length of four feet seemed impossible to conquer, especially while maintaining a grip on my attaché and valise. Hearing the muted shouts of confusion from the opposite side of the tracks, it was a matter of seconds before Pat's diversion ran its course. I had to move immediately and I did so, only in the opposite direction. Raising myself to stand on the wooden ledge, the train leapt forward with a violent jolt and sent me tumbling backwards, forcefully landing on the concrete rail bed.
"Neeyuk!"
In the process of my graceless fall, the exposed tip of a nail found its way into the seam of my pants, opening a gap in the garment from crotch to ankle. Quickly, it became the least of my concerns.
"Là ! Capturez cet homme !"
There was no need to look for the source of the order. With a groan, I shot upright onto my feet and sprinted parallel to the train away from the station platform. The sound of multiple footfalls behind me added to my motivation, sending my mind spinning back to the days spent training for the University curling team where, unfortunately, we did very little in the way of physical exertion and exercise.
My immediate options were limited by the historic Moroccan/Algerian dispute, complete with all the drama and headstrongness of an intra-family feud. The friction between the two countries consisted of a piquancy found while attending annual family reunions -- as well as birthday, wedding and funeral gatherings docketed in-between -- meaning the Oujda station, rubbing against the Algerian border, served as the end of the line. There existed no easy or swift passage between the two nations, for when one was locked in a longstanding disagreement with a stubborn relative, what was the point of being neighborly?
That fact alone did not inhibit me from sprinting to the concrete wall at the end of the track and flinging myself up its smooth surface, hoping in a perverse sense to grab hold of its barb-wired crown and drop safely into the perhaps more hostile territory on the other side. Thankfully, my frivolous attempt came to a rapid conclusion, leaving me temporarily motionless at the base of the impenetrable mountain of cinderblocks.
"I say, middle aged man!" An anonymous female voice called from an open window near the rear of the engine. "You're in a bit of a spot, what?"
Indeed, I was. An older and wiser a person, I felt, would have been better suited in dealing with such a jam. To my left, just outside the station platform, a throng of taxis and cars congregated in front of a jumble of sand colored buildings baking under the hot sun. I would have to leap through an open-air portal, then scale a wrought-iron fence, but if I hurried and luck was with me --
"Halt! Halt!"
-- which, at the very moment, it was not. I kicked my pace into high gear just as the train came to life once again, reversing its direction and jerking its cars backward like a giant mechanical serpent slinking out into the arid desert sun once more. Running past the nose of the growling engine, I gauged the distance in hope of timing my leap.
"Halt! Halt!"
In a matter of seconds I would have no choice. The remaining alternative was to turn and confront those chasing me while convincing myself that I -- along with Pat and Ethelene -- would receive some type of equitable treatment from Jan Brat and his cohorts.
"Arrêt! Je tirerai!"
Gunplay or not, there was no stopping now. I took the open archway like an Olympic hurdler, using near perfect form with my right leg out straight and stiff. Clearing the opening I hit the steps in full stride, weaving past the lax security guards enjoying their smokes in the shade of the long building. Managing a one-handed leap over the final barrier -- a shaky waist-high metal fence -- I found myself on a moderately busy sidewalk which curved parallel to the line of battered vehicles constituting the local taxi corps.
"Algeria? Algeria? Algeria?" I questioned, trotting by drivers huddled in groups outside their vehicles, some dressed in customary turbans and gandoras while others wearing westernized Oxford shirts and chinos. Their interest in me was sparked by the clamoring of agitated civilians pouring out through the station doorway, some waving weapons in the air indicating the direction in which they intended to run. The supply of available hackneys dwindled with each passing step and the thought of entering a foreign city on foot without knowledge of its streets or neighborhoods was not a decision to be made in uncomfortable circumstances. "Algeria, someone?"
"The Englishman who fell from sky!" His words hit my ears just as his course-altering grip flung me through the open back door of a dusty Toyota. "Get in here like the bunny or you be killed like it was no time tomorrow."
My feet were still in motion as I hit the bench face-first, thwarting my desire to initiate a thoughtful conversation with who I presumed would be of assistance. "Neeyug!"
"And your head down too fellah or we get stitched up like a kipper, as you say."
"I said nothing of the sort, friend." I spoke loud enough in competition with the vehicle's lack of a muffler. "I'm simply looking to find my way into Algeria."
"'Indeed', as you will probably say at some point."
"Are you putting me on?" I braced one hand against the floorboard, narrowly avoiding the large rusted opening to the street below. We were traveling at a high rate of speed while encountering several turns. "How are your brakes these days?"
"These brakes, she work fine. And, no quite frankly, you're not being put on and stitched up. Now, be quiet or be killed. My name's Karim and I will be the pilot today."
"Where to, Karim?"
"First stop, mother's. You need costuming to stay alive. Then to my cousin Kamal in Oran." He issued a burst of torrid language, apparently addressed at my pursuers, as we exited the station's main entrance. "The French do not realize they overstayed their welcome."
"Perhaps we could tell them later?"
"They should go back to their own country. They will find they are foreigners there, too."
"True that." I adjusted myself into a kneeling position. "Thank you for what I'm interpreting to be your help, Karim."
"I help any man from Trowbridge. I heard your voice, I said 'that's Trowbridge'. I saw your walk, I said 'that's Trowbridge'. All my relatives in Trowbridge would be proud of me right now."
"Mine, too," I hastily agreed, peering over the rim of the seat to see if anyone of a threatening manner was following us. Given the moment and situation, I decided honesty was not the best policy. In fact, there was to be no disclosure program whatsoever. If anything, as our exodus progressed, I would align myself in full agreement with my generous chauffer. "Trowbridge is a wonderful community populated by fine people."
"Indeed and quite. We love Trowbridge and its people." He copped a brief glimpse of me in the rearview mirror. "Fish and chips! Yea!"
"Yes, jolly old Sir Isaac Pitman, progenitor of the shorthand system." I harkened back to the days of my book tour for The Brassiest Bearings in Birmingham and the night my agent and I spent at a pub in Trowbridge so named for the legendary note-taker. "It's simply a wonderful community populated by lovely people. All way around."
"Trowbridge football, yea!" Karim wheeled us down a series of interconnected side streets before veering onto a main thoroughfare. "We talk Trowbridge later. You meet mother next. We must hurry. The Frenchman after you looked like, how you mighty say, asshole."
"Agreed. I appreciate you expeditious manner, by the by."
"We get you to Oran. Then you pay me. Then you help me and my cousin. Then your bill is settled." He laughed, not unfriendly so. "You know American football?"
"I'm the biggest NFL fan this side of the Pond, wouldn't you know."
"You prove big help to Kamal in Oran. He will be pleased. Your big help. You're from Trowbridge. Wow, indeed."
The stop at mother's was, more or less, an idling drive-by scraping the door of her threshold. With very little used in the way of words
, Karim tossed a robe and hat onto me with the instructions to cover my British appearance while emoting I was in great distress.
"We must convince sentries you are Algerian and need to get home."
"Sentries? But there isn't a border crossing, is there?"
"Not official. More efficient than bureaucrats. You see in a minute." Karim ran the busy street like a slalom course, shifting me about in the backseat as I tugged the gandora down over my sweaty, dirty clothing. "Correct headwear, too," he said, tapping a finger inside his thick growth of black hair. "You must develop accent, too, in next few seconds. No English."
"What?"
We swerved down a side alley, heading directly for a wooden barricade. Karim slammed the car to a stop and honked the horn three times. Opening from within, we were allowed to enter and face yet another barricade, this one taller than the first, the former of which was now closing behind us. "We're locked in now. Start your accent."
"But I --"
"No English, Trowbridge!"
We were immediately surrounded by a dozen men in long black robes, their faces covered but for a barely perceptible slit showing their dark, serious eyes. Karim instantly began a spirited dialogue with a handful of our greeters, including much gesturing toward the rear of the car where I sat under the scrutiny of those not engaged in now multi-voiced eruptive conversation.
Keeping my head bowed, I conjured an image of the good luck cricket stationed on the hearth at Tumultuous Manor and began clucking, clucking as though I was answering the very calls of fellow VIOLENCE members. As my squawking rose sharply in volume and cadence, a swirling bewilderment came upon my audience. Catching fire with a rhythmic beat, I cackled to the tune of (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction and noted, to my delight, more than one head bobbing along to the refrain. Suddenly the auto yawed forward through the next open gate, where a smaller contingent of armed men -- dressed in the same nondescript uniform -- lowered their barrels through the open windows. Karim nudged the muzzles away from his head, slipped a sealed envelope out the window and jerked his thumb at me, inducing a round of deep throaty laughter from the group. Apparently in agreement over our passage, the third gate swung back. We eased the vehicle across a series of pronounced speed bumps and, with a surge of acceleration, slipped through the final gate of meshed wire and out into the open sunlight.
"You make for brilliant chicken," Karim laughed uncontrollably. "Cluck, cluck, cluck! Still, I said you were a crazy Algerian who escaped two months ago."
"Which crazy Algerian might that be?" I sat upright in the seat, gratefully squaring away my attaché and valise.
"Anyone of them. Anyone of us. We're all crazy here, just like you." Karim smiled while viewing me in the rearview mirror. "What do they call you in Trowbridge, mister?"
"Von dek Horn," I answered boldly, intuiting that Karim and his clan might be willing to form a constructive and meaningful alliance with me. "Baron von dek Horn."
Baril de Singes [Barrel of Monkeys] Page 44
