Desertion

by Abdulrazak Gurnah

  ‘Sir,’ the wakil said, beckoning Frederick to follow, and waggling his head with self-important urgency. The crowd that had accompanied them through the lanes pressed past them and fanned out in the clearing, facing the direction the wakil indicated. As Frederick followed behind the wakil he saw a small shop ahead, a duka, the crowded merchandise store which proliferated in Indian cities, and which Indian traders had brought to this part of the world. They weren’t all owned by Indians, traders from Hadhramut also had a forte for this kind of commerce, but the idea belonged to the Indians. He wondered if that explained the orderliness of the clearing, if this was an Indian enclave. In these parts, wherever Indians went, there prosperity followed, although of course it depended on the class of Indians. In Zanzibar he had seen the street-sweeping variety that clogged Indian cities living in degrading penury and begging in the streets, whining and screeching their grating racket, and most of the vendors of the hole-in-the-wall shops were Indians. But the general idea was true: get the right kind of banyan in your district and prosperity will surely follow.

  There were two or three customers outside the shop, and some elderly men sitting on a bench beside it. Frederick wondered why they were heading for the shop anyway, perhaps to ask for directions. No sign of his bedraggled troop of loyal bearers yet. He lengthened his stride so that he was beside the scampering wakil as they approached the shop. The elderly men rose to their feet and so did the dukawallah, stepping down hurriedly from the platform above his wares. They did that, apprehensive and respectful whenever a European approached, and Frederick quite understood why. Suddenly, it seemed, everyone was talking at once and casting wary glances at him. The wakil, he saw, was alternating a stern demanding tone to the dukawallah with sagacious and understanding waggles of his head. After a few exchanges at this dramatic intensity, while Frederick was still at a loss about what exactly was going on, the dukawallah went back into his shop, and through it to open the door to his yard. The wakil stepped inside and beckoned Frederick in after him. One of the elderly men kept the crowd back with his stick, but they thronged the doorway and some clambered to the top of the yard wall.

  It was all so unexpected. Frederick knew, at the instant before he stepped through the door into the yard, that the wounded man would be inside, but he only knew at that exact instant and had no time to adjust anticipation. He saw a long-haired, bearded man lying on a mat under a thatched awning, covered from feet to shoulders in a cream-coloured sheet with red and white borders. There was something classical and ancient about the colours, the colours of a Roman toga. The man’s head was turned to one side, his mouth slightly open, exhausted and anguished, in an attitude so familiar it was almost blasphemous. Beside him on the mat sat a woman, her legs folded and completely covered by her faded green dress. She was on the point of rising to her feet but seemed undecided, arrested in astonishment. She turned her head away as they walked in and drew the shawl across the lower part of her face, but Frederick had seen enough to know that she was a pleasing-looking woman in her thirties, perhaps, probably of mixed local production, with that shadowy brown gloss that suggested Bajun or Somali origins. He guessed she was Mrs Dukawallah, and he wished him joy of her. For an instant, hardly an instant, more like a flash, he thought of Christie in England and missed her. Hardly missed her, more like a single pulse beat stronger then subsided. He would think of her properly later.

  Frederick knelt on one knee beside the wounded man and put his hand on the side of his neck. He was warm with a strong pulse, but he did not feel feverish. The man opened his eyes and let out a low and drawn-out groan. It sounded like a muffled bleat, the piteous croak of a dying animal. The woman said something, and when Frederick looked up at her she nodded, as if to reassure him. He rolled back the sheet to see if there was blood or a wound, but there was no sign on the body, only emaciation and dust. He stood up and looked around him and he was suddenly struck by the strangeness of everything, him in this place, in the yard of these people’s house, standing in his waxed riding boots, tapping his calf impatiently with a riding crop, surrounded by these dark unfamiliar people that he felt inexplicably angry with and with a sick man at his feet. It was a familiar strangeness, as if a part of him was beside himself looking on, but it was necessary now that he take no notice of it. He shook himself free of this feeling, which he thought of as irresolution and weakness despite its humane impulse, and made a sign of a stretcher with his arms. ‘We have to take him away from here,’ he said, speaking to the wakil first and then turning to the plump, sad-looking dukawallah. ‘We have to take him away from here at once. Jaldi, jaldi. Fast, fast’ he repeated, miming picking up and carrying the body out of the yard.

  Somehow the wakil took charge and managed the arrangements, speaking with a calmness and authority which surprised Frederick after his deferential antics earlier on. Frederick couldn’t understand a word the wakil said, but he thought he managed to make everything sound calculating and crooked nevertheless. There was the usual chaos and noise, and people milling about, but eventually three men lifted up the poor fellow, mat and all, and prepared to set off. ‘Where are his things?’ Frederick asked. ‘Property. Where’s his property? His goods.’ The wakil did what he could, but he could get nothing out of the dukawallah and his wife. The wakil shouted at them and wagged a finger dramatically, and Frederick guessed he was haranguing them for the robbery, or even more likely, making arrangements to ensure they would keep his share. He added a few sharp words of his own and scowled at the dukawallah, without producing the required result. Some of the crowd joined in, shouting their idle rubbish, and Frederick thought it best to get the man to safety before everyone became hysterical. They would return for the property later, he told the wakil, when the poor man could give an account of what he had lost.

  When the procession had wound its way out of the lanes, Frederick found Idris sitting under the huge mango tree in the square, with an audience of children silently staring at the horses. He stood up at once when he saw the melee, but he kept his distance, waiting for instructions. Frederick liked that, the discipline of it. He pointed his riding crop in the direction of home, and Idris mounted Sharifa and led off. His presence in the procession added even more drama to the event, and by the time they reached his house, it had turned into a medieval pageant. They had some trouble getting rid of everybody, especially the wakil, but Idris and his servant Hamis managed to confine them all to the hallway downstairs and gradually disperse them, distributing coins to the men who had helped carry the sick man. He was now installed in the guest chamber and was beginning to come to. The men had put him on the bed still wrapped in the old straw mat, like Cleopatra smuggled into Antony’s chamber. Frederick unwrapped him, to find him still covered in the cream and red sheet, and he now had time to notice that the cloth was hand-woven and thick, probably new. He felt the man’s forehead to check his temperature, and the man opened his eyes at the touch and looked directly at Frederick.

  ‘How are you feeling, old chap?’ Frederick asked gently.

  ‘Have you ever been to the Seychelles?’ he asked, and Frederick grinned at the unexpectedness of the question and at his unmistakably English inflection.

  ‘No such luck,’ Frederick said, relieved that it was not a Lutheran fanatic.

  In this part of the world, you always have to be on the lookout for a bit of foul play, as you yourself know very well, of course,’ Frederick said, and then sucked long and sweetly on his cigar. He blew the smoke out in a great gushing geyser and the sight filled him with elation and contentment. ‘I must say, it’s very good to have you back in the land of the living, my dear Pearce. It’s something of a miracle to see you sitting there so composed after the state we found you in. You must say when you’ve had enough. Don’t let me tire you. I’m dying to hear about your adventures, of course, but there’s plenty of time. I think you’ve done remarkably well as it is, to be on your feet again so quickly, but you mustn’t overdo it. At least you don’t seem
to have picked up anything. But you must have been in that terrible sun for days, and that can give you quite a headache, I believe. Well, you aren’t hurt, anyway. In fact, old chap, I’d say you are pretty jolly lucky not to be. There are some fiendish brigands in that hinterland. I can only assume that somehow or the other you managed to avoid being seen by anyone in your solitary travels, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. You know, when I first heard the news I thought it was one of the missionary fellows up on the river, the Lutherans. There were some deadly attacks up there a few years ago, and there are always rumours of Abyssinian levies up to no good, robbing and slaving as a way of life. You were extremely lucky not to run into them, I’d say, although a European is probably safer with them than any other kind of body. Anybody else would go straight to the slave market in Harar probably, but they know we don’t take ndly to that sort of thing.’

  Frederick sucked at his cigar again and then casually knocked the tip of ash off on to the floor of the veranda. The breeze had subsided after dark, but it had done its work, and the air was balmy and moist. Below them, the sea was running into the bay in long arcing swells.

  ‘Have you been to the Seychelles?’ Frederick said, chuckling. ‘Funny first words. You said that when you came to, do you remember?’

  ‘Yes,’ Pearce said wearily, smiling. ‘And you said, No such luck.’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not. Do you see those swells in the sea? There is no reef across the bay, very unusual for these parts, because of the river discharging a few miles north of here. There’s nothing between here and the Seychelles, due east. That’s where those swells started off. I hear it’s a beautifully unspoiled place, despite the French and the missionaries, a kind of South Sea paradise. Have you been there?’

  ‘No,’ said Pearce.

  ‘The coco de mer,’ Frederick said musingly. ‘It sounds quite a disgusting idea, a fruit that looks like genitalia. Trust the French to discover islands where even the flora is smutty. Well, they didn’t discover them, I suppose, we must have done that, but you can be sure that as soon as they saw what kind of fruit the islands produced, they knew they were meant for them to settle.’

  Frederick refilled his glass and glanced at Pearce, merely a polite gesture, because he would not allow him a drink even if he asked. Pearce was lying back in his recliner, and in the glowing light of the kerosene lamp Frederick could not be sure if he had dropped off.

  ‘Lovely,’ Pearce said softly. ‘The sea.’

  ‘Yes, it is. There’s nothing out there for a thousand miles, you know, until you hit your Seychelles. And yet the sea is so well-behaved. That’s the Indian Ocean for you, at least this part of it, a pond compared to the beastly Atlantic. It gets quite rough before the north-easts steady, around November or so. The port is useless then, s I’m told. That was just before I came, and even now the wind is quite stiff at times. I’ve only been on post for the last four months, but yes, the sea, the best thing about the place. Not much else that’s any good, really. The land is not bad but too sandy and shallow, the rain is adequate, but you can’t get people to work as they should. You can’t get them to make any effort. It’s slavery that did it, you see. Slavery and diseases that sap their strength, but slavery most of all. In slavery they learned idleness and evasion, and now cannot conceive of the idea of working with any kind of endeavour or responsibility, even for payment. What passes for work in this town is men sitting under a tree waiting for the mangoes to ripen. Look at what the company estates have achieved. Brilliant results. New crops, irrigation, rotation of the fields, but they’ve had to get people to change their whole way of thinking to get that. We need some British estates around here, and my guess is that it won’t be long before we do. The Arab landowners will have no choice but to sell soon.’

  ‘Yes,’ Pearce said.

  Frederick sipped his drink and drew on his cigar in the silence, then when Pearce grunted softly, he took it that he was asking him to continue. ‘The town was more or less abandoned for a century or so after the Portuguese built Fort Jesus and moved everything to Mombasa. Jolly ungrateful of them really, considering. Then about forty years ago, Sultan Majid of Zanzibar had the brilliant notion of reviving the town as a plantation colony. In theory, of course, he was sovereign over this whole coastline. So he sent over his Arabs and a troop of Baluchi mercenaries, and thousands of slaves. The harvests for the first ten years or so were excellent, so even more slaves were sent over and the locals began raiding the nearby tribes for more. The town became prosperous again and enormous fortunes were made. The Bohras came in to set themselves up in commerce, and you know I always say, if you see an Indian trader setting up in business, you can be pretty certain there is a penny or two to be made in the place. The Indians have been here a long time, or at least they were already here when the Portuguese came to plant their cross. It’s even said that the pilot Da Gama, picked up from here for the final run to Calicut, was an Indian sailor. I can believe it, or more likely he was an Indian slave. Everything was done by slaves, and even the slaves owned slaves.

  ‘It was during these years that the company was granted its charter and began its work. Everyone can say now that the company didn’t have a chance, but I don’t suppose it looked that clear-cut to McKinnon and his crowd. It certainly didn’t look that way to the Sultan of Zanzibar. I don’t think the Sultan was Majid by this time, in fact I’m sure it wasn’t. Perhaps Barghash, or more likely the one after him, the mad one, Mahound, something like that. He, whichever one it was, looked to benefit from British methods and science, and so asked the company – or somebody asked for him – to send one of its managers to run the plantations here. A bad mistake. The company sent a gentleman called Tinkle-Smith, some such name, who immediately freed all the slaves on the plantations and then re-employed as many as were willing as waged labour. He fixed the price for a slave’s freedom and offered to lend it to any slave who agreed to work on company plantations afterwards. This set the slaves on the other plantations off, and most of them ran away, not wanting to work at all. They all rushed off into the interior for a holiday instead of taking the paid work the company was offering. By this time even the slaves knew that the Sultan’s theoretical sovereignity was only ten miles deep, after the Anglo–German agreement on spheres of influence. So all they had to do was bolt ten miles into the interior and they were safe. The result . . . impoverished Arabs. This was only a few years ago, eight or nine, but you can see the derelict plantations now if you take a look around. But those runaways are trickling back and we settle them on abandoned Arab land a little south of the town. It causes trouble, but there’s nothing much the Arabs can do about it apart from grumble and decamp to Mombasa. Well, it would all have come to an end quite soon anyway, as soon as the Protectorate was declared in ’95. Oh dear, you’ve nodded off,’ Frederick concluded, as he heard Pearce gently snoring. He poured himself another drink and relit his cigar.

  He would give him a few minutes and then wake him. The mosquitoes would slaughter him if he left him to sleep on the veranda. But perhaps he was used to them, mosquitoes and beetles and snakes. He guessed Pearce had something disgraceful to tell. No one travelled alone like that, unless he had been sent as an emissary from a travelling group, and even then would have been accompanied by a porter or two. He could have been robbed or been abandoned by his guides. In either case, he would have said something by now, blurted something out. Frederick had gone back to the dukawallah’s house with Hamis the servant to translate, and had questioned the man almost to the point of violence, but the podgy dukawallah had adamantly, tearfully in the end, maintained that Pearce turned up empty-handed. No doubt there was an explanation, but Frederick suspected that Pearce was hiding behind his exhaustion. Not that he was not exhausted, that was evident and unmistakable. He had been sleeping all day and now there he was, sleeping again. All he had been able to eat were a few spoonfuls of the broth the cook had prepared. Perhaps, it occurred to Frederick, he was not really asleep even as
he snored gently there beside him on the veranda. Perhaps he had been asked to leave an expedition for a caddish act, and was understandably reluctant to talk about it. He glanced at Pearce beside him, reclining and indistinct in the light of the lamp. He had an austere look that was probably not entirely due to his recent privations, some self-importance, something to do with labours and principles. Frederick poured himself a final drink and warned himself not to get carried away with his suspicions. ‘Steady on, young man,’ he whispered to himself, smiling. Don’t let the sherbet run away with you. This may be a man returning from the extremes of experience, some encounter with the sublime, who has not yet found his way to the surface.’