Harmattan

by Weston, Gavin

  I was delighted that he had remembered and was interested enough to ask. I unwrapped my bundle and showed him my pictures one by one.

  ‘So these are your friends from Ireland?’ he said, shining a little torch onto the photograph of Katie and Hope in the snow.

  ‘Yes. Do you know them?’

  He looked surprised. ‘ Know them? Good God, no!’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, disappointed.

  ‘What made you think that I might know them?’

  ‘My teacher showed me a map of your country and said that it was a very small island and that very few people live there,’ I said.

  Archie shook his head. ‘Oh it’s small all right. But not so small or unimportant for my countrymen and women not to fight over who governs it.’

  ‘Like the Touaregs here?’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘A little like the Touaregs, yes. At present both the Irish and the British governments lay claim to parts of my country. I come from a place called Wicklow. Where did you say your friends live?’

  I shrugged and fumbled in my bundle for one of the letters, then handed it to him. He shone his torch on the crumpled paper. ‘Ballygowrie. That’s in the north,’ he said. ‘Different story. Different government!’ He smiled. ‘Don’t look so puzzled, Haoua.

  But the answer to your question is, I’m afraid, no. I don‘t know your friends.’ After a while he began whistling, his feet tapping out an accompanying rhythm. ‘Do you like music, Haoua?’

  ‘ Oui, Monsi… Archie.’

  ‘I like music. A lot.’ He grinned. ‘And dancing. That’s how I met your brother, you know? I’d taken a young lady to the Hotel Rivoli to dance the night away in their compound. Great music. I got talking to Abdel at the bar. We just kind of hit it off.’

  ‘You have a girlfriend?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not as such. Not now anyway.’ He gave me a little sad smile. ‘Who was she?’ I said, surprising myself.

  ‘Dorette. Jamaican. She worked for the World Health Organisation. I met her at the Rec Centre.’ He sighed. ‘God! I love your dusty country, Haoua.’

  ‘Do you have many girlfriends?’ I said.

  He put his fingers to his lips and a great grin spread across his moonlit face.

  ‘What about my brother?’ I pressed. ‘He told me about his friend and her baby.’‘Efrance.’

  ‘Yes. Efrance. Does he love this woman?’

  ‘Perhaps you ought to ask him that yourself,’ he said, with a nod.

  I looked up and saw that Abdelkrim had woken and propped himself up on one elbow.‘Ask me what?’

  ‘We were talking about Efrance… and Momi.’

  ‘Haoua was just wondering if you are in love,’ Archie said, grinning again.

  ‘ Walayi!’ Abdelkrim rolled his eyes and lit a cigarette. ‘It is bitterly cold now,’ he said. He lifted his chin and blew a cloud of blue smoke towards the moon.

  ‘But very beautiful,’ Archie said. ‘Like Mademoiselle Efrance!’ he added, with a wink.

  Abdelkrim ignored the comment. He stood up and stretched, then massaged the back of his neck with his free hand. ‘What time is it?’

  Archie glanced at his watch. ‘Two a.m.’

  ‘We should get back on the road soon.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I’m hungry,’ I said.

  ‘I can fix that.’ Archie stood up and crossed to the car. When he returned, he was carrying a fresh bottle of water and a package wrapped in greasy paper. ‘Samosas! –

  From the supermarché!’

  For a moment, he reminded me somehow of my father, in the old days when he had seemed happier. When my mother had been well and the rains came and our crops were good.

  Archie handed the bottle to Abdelkrim. ‘It’s cool enough to drink without your teabags now.’

  ‘Merci.’

  The samosas were delicious, the water pure and clean. I looked up at the moon again and tried once more to imagine what life would be like without my mother. I wiped my hands on my pagne and gathered up my postcards and photographs which had been lying strewn on their cloth. When I had finished this task I tied the bundle to my waist again and began fiddling with the cockerel’s foot which Madame Kantao had given me.

  Abdelkrim looked at me and shook his head. ‘Spirit nonsense!’

  I did not reply.

  ‘Perhaps I should have a little fidget with my leprechaun?’ Archie said.

  I shrugged. ‘My friend Miriam Kantao’s mother says that everyone needs an amulet for the road.’

  ‘At home we also have Saint Christopher,’ Archie said.

  Abdelkrim sighed. ‘There are no gods, no spirits.’

  ‘There’s at least one fellow in Niger who perhaps wouldn’t agree with you, my friend,’ Archie said.

  Abdelkrim spilled his hand open. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I haven’t told you about my journey to your country, have I?’

  Abdelkrim shook his head.

  Archie turned towards me. ‘I first came here eight years ago,’ he said. ‘I was backpacking. No real plans. Just drifting. I’d travelled overland from Tangier and then hitched a ride from Tamanrasset with a French couple and their Spanish friend.

  They were idiots. All of them. Completely unprepared. No sand tracks. No shovels.

  Idiots!’ He shook his head. ‘Back then they were still working on Route Nationale Deux – laying a big black bitumen strip across the desert. We’d got talking to some nomads one day and they’d told us that the road crew, some sixty kilometres ahead, were a Belgian outfit with lots of equipment. This French guy – Guillaume – decided we could get a decent meal out of them. So we hauled up outside their great mobile compound and bluffed our way past their security guards.’

  Abdelkrim leaned forward and gave a great, wide yawn.

  ‘Is my story that boring?’ Archie said.

  ‘No, no, continue, please,’ Abdelkrim said. ‘Really. I’m interested.’

  Archie continued. ‘Well, the Belgians fed us all right. Plied us with wine too. I think a couple of them had their eyes on Guillaume’s girlfriend, Adrienne. They seemed quite a friendly bunch. There was music, singing, story-telling, even some very drunken dancing. Eventually it got really late. The road crew was due to work the following morning. The foreman told us that we couldn’t stay inside their compound – reasons to do with insurance he said. So we thanked them, gathered up our stuff and drove a few kilometres back down the road, where we pulled over, spilled out on to the roadside and collapsed immediately.’

  ‘You were drunk?’ I said.

  ‘We were drunk. That’s right, Haoua.’ Archie looked at Abdelkrim again.

  ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I’d dragged a sleeping bag out of the car and forced myself into it – it was pretty cold, you know. A night very like this one. Moonlit. Chilly. I don’t think I’d slept for long; it was still dark when I woke up. I was sweating profusely and my guts were churning. I thrashed around for a while and then crawled out of the bag.

  The other three were still sleeping soundly. I made my way around them to the car and found some toilet paper, then headed across the tarred road towards some bushes.

  That was the first of many such visits to that spot! I was shitting and vomiting all night. I’d break into these raging bouts of sweat and then, just as suddenly, my teeth would be chattering with the cold. Then along would come the churning guts and the hot flushes again. It seemed like the night would never end. It got so bad that I stripped naked and lay on top of the sleeping bag.’

  ‘We know what that feels like, my friend,’ Abdelkrim said, glancing at me.

  I nodded. Bunchie had told us that there had been devils living in her stomach for as long as she could remember.

  ‘Yes, but that’s not the whole story,’ Archie said. ‘My head was throbbing, my stomach muscles ached and my ass was on fire after a final, violent episode. I was walking back across the road in my bare feet, toilet roll in hand, and rea
lised that the bitumen surface felt nice and cool on my soles. It seemed like the obvious thing to do at the time – my companions had not stirred and there was no sound except for the cicadas. I lay down on the road and put the toilet roll under my head. The moon-cooled bitumen soothed my burning skin. I was exhausted. I went out like a light.

  Bang. It was the most comfortable I’d felt in hours. I’m not sure how long I lay there, but eventually, through my feverish slumber, I became vaguely aware of some vibration and a distant rumbling sound. God only knows what I put it down to in my drained state. Certainly not a vehicle. But, of course, that is exactly what it was. The vibration increased and the sound intensified. Finally, somehow, I became aware that my naked body was being bathed in bright light. I sat up and opened my eyes, just in time to scuttle out of the path of a huge truck hurtling towards me! The driver blasted his horn as I dived into the scrub, but still the others didn’t stir.’

  Abdelkrim was shaking his head and chuckling. ‘Bad enough that you pick up a dose of amoebic dysentery, but then to almost get flattened by a camion too!’

  ‘Well, yes!’ Archie laughed. ‘I often wonder what the driver made of the sight of a naked white man, at night, in the middle of the desert. I like to think that he thought he’d witnessed some kind of ghost!’

  We were all laughing now.

  Archie covered his face with his hands, as if he were embarrassed. ‘You know I definitely took some chances with the water along the way – forgot about the odd purification tablet maybe… couldn’t resist an occasional swig of that wonderful ginger water they sell by the roadside – but my French companions had another theory.’

  ‘Uhuh?’

  ‘Yes. They wondered if our Belgian hosts might have added some nasty ingredient themselves. The French aren’t the Belgians’ favourite nationals, you know!

  Within a few hours of getting back on to the road, my three companions had the same thing. It was horrible, really. At one stage we had to stop for Adrienne to empty her bowels in full view of some nearby villagers. She just flung the car door open, bundled herself out and dumped her load right next to some poor bastard’s hut! There was no controlling it. No dignity. Embarrassing too. It was months before we shook it.’

  A serious look came over Abdelkrim’s face. ‘This is Africa, my friend. We know about lack of dignity. At least you and your European friends had medicines available to you.’

  Archie nodded. ‘Sure,’ he said, genuine sadness in his voice now, ‘I know, I know…’

  Back on the road, I slept again. I had prayed that the spirit of my mother would come to me in a dream and, sure enough, God now answered my prayers. At first I could not tell if the figure in the dusty haze before me was my mother or Bunchie. A blizzard of sand swept across my vision, from right to left, obscuring the solitary form as it moved slowly towards me. The wind howled. I did not feel frightened. The experience did not then seem strange. I was standing alone, in a bleak, unfamiliar place, waiting for my mother. It seemed the natural thing to do. I stretched out my hands before me but they too disappeared in the swirling, gritty air. I dropped them by my sides again and when I looked up my mother was standing directly in front of me. At first she said nothing. As I tried to focus on her rheumy eyes – sand and dust battering my face all the while – her features became like liquid and reformed again to reveal the face of my grandmother. Then, just as swiftly, Bunchie’s features melted away to reveal those of my mother again. I tried to speak, but my lips seemed tightly locked. I tried to lift my hand to touch my mother’s face but found that this too was beyond my power. My eyes were full of grit now and I seemed powerless even to be able to blink. Again I attempted to open my mouth. It was set fast. The image before me was fading, reappearing, then fading again, like the picture on a faulty television set. I summoned all my strength and tried to communicate with my mother through my eyes alone. There was a great flurry of sand and a shrill, haunting whistle. Then at last, the wind dropped and my mother spoke.

  ‘Haoua,’ she said, in a voice that I did not recognise. ‘There is a great storm coming.’

  Although the wind had died down, the veil of dust between us remained in place. I did not understand my mother’s words. In vain I tried to tell her so. There was no sound now, as if the volume control on the broken television set had been turned right down. I stood there, confused, rigid as a statue, willing my mother to speak again. What do you mean? I wanted to ask. The storm is here. The storm is here.

  She did not speak again. Instead, she turned and walked away, pausing briefly to look back over her shoulder at me. Once more I strained to focus on her features. Her mouth seemed different now: her lips pinched, grey and twisted, like those of the drowned man in the mortuary. Panic surged through me as she finally disappeared.

  Perhaps I would have followed her into that soundless blizzard. Perhaps the crash was God’s way of preventing me from doing so.

  A sharp pain in my ribcage made me open my eyes. Even in the half light, I immediately recognised the interior of Archie Cargo’s car. I found myself on the floor, wedged behind the driver’s seat, with the remainder of the case of mineral water bottles strewn over and around me. The vehicle had come abruptly to a halt and was now sitting, nose down, at an alarming angle.

  Someone was groaning in the front. ‘What the hell happened?’ Archie Cargo shouted.

  I sat up just in time to see him untangle himself from my brother who was squashed against the driver’s door.

  Abdelkrim shook his head and then pulled himself up to peer over the back of the seat at me. ‘Are you all right, Little One?’ There was blood trickling from a cut just above his left eye.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, rubbing my ribs.

  ‘Fuck it, man! What happened?’ Archie said again, dragging himself across the front seat and through the passenger’s window, before falling out on to the ruined road. ‘I don’t know!’ Abdelkrim said. ‘You tell me.’

  ‘I was sleeping, man. Maybe you were too?’

  ‘No. One minute we’re on the road, the next we’re in the ditch!’ Abdelkrim put his shoulder to his door and tried to force it open. ‘Damn these ropes!’ he hissed, groping his way through his window instead. He tumbled out and made his way towards the rear of the car, pausing to yank at my door. ‘Wait a moment,’ he reassured me, ‘we’ll have you out of there in a moment.’

  Archie had already untied the second rope which had been holding my mother’s coffin to the roof, and now opened the other rear door, scooping the jumble of plastic bottles, paper wrappers, blankets and jackets out of the way. ‘Give me your hand, Haoua,’ he said.

  I reached out and he pulled me up and out on to the sand.

  Abdelkrim staggered out of the ditch and lay down on the ground, a few metres away from where I stood.

  ‘You’re hurt, Abdel,’ I said, scrambling towards him.

  ‘It’s nothing!’ he snapped.

  Behind us, one corner of the rear end of the car protruded over the ditch.

  Archie had scrambled down and was inspecting the front for damage. A torrent of foul language told us that all was not well.

  Abdelkrim sat up and steadied himself. ‘What is it?’ he called.

  ‘ Merde!’ We heard the clank of metal being slapped or kicked, then Archie appeared before us. He took a deep breath. ‘Are you both okay?’ he said, but did not wait for us to answer. ‘Looks like we’ve had a blow-out. Driver’s side, front tyre.

  Torn to shreds.’

  ‘You have a spare?’ Abdelkrim said, daubing at his forehead with a scrap of cloth. ‘Of sorts.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means that your military comrades helped themselves to it the last time I made a trip down to Benin. Tax they called it. Took my spare battery too – and charged me three thousand CFA! Bent bastards! Someone gave me a replacement, but I haven’t really checked it out…’

  ‘Uhuh.’

  ‘That’s not all.’

  �
�No?’

  ‘No. I don’t think we’ll shift the car by ourselves. The chasis seems well and truly wedged on the rubble. And there‘s fuel everywhere!’

  ‘Great!’ Abdelkrim said, standing up. ‘Well, let’s see what we can do.’ He patted my shoulder and then turned to face his friend. ‘I told you I didn’t fall asleep,’ he shrugged.

  Archie put his hand on my brother’s forearm. ‘There’s something else, Abdel.’

  ‘ Toh. What now?’

  Archie’s face contorted. ‘It’s your mother…’

  We made our way to the top of the ditch and peered down at the twisted front end of the Mercedes. At first I could not see that there was a problem of any real consequence with the coffin. It was clear that the impact of the accident had caused it to slip forward so that only one end remained on the roof of the vehicle while the other now rested on the car’s bonnet. But as we clambered down the ditch to take a closer look, it became obvious that the structure had partially disintegrated.

  ‘ Walayi!’ I said, as the full extent of the situation became apparent.

  Archie bent down to pick up the bottom end panel of the hastily constructed box. ‘I knew it should have been glued too!’ he said, holding the square piece of timber aloft.

  As if to transfer blame, Abdelkrim immediately addressed me. ‘I told you not to keep hanging off that rope!’

  I only glanced at him momentarily. I was transfixed by the sight of the puckered shroud and my poor mother’s withered feet, which were now protruding from the open end of the coffin and resting on the buckled bonnet of Archie Cargo’s car.

  45

  It had not even occurred to me to offer my help. I had been too upset. Instead, I had turned my back and run away from the stricken car and the burst coffin. I had climbed to the top of an escarpment and sat watching a new dawn through tired and tearful eyes.

  When I was very little, Bunchie used to tell me that each new day of life was a blessing. Much later, when death was drawing close to her, she had called for it to take her – every day for two whole weeks. As I watched the fierce new sun rent the horizon, I could not help but consider my mother’s death. I prayed that it had not been slow or painful. I could not even contemplate the fact that she had died alone.