by Peter Corris
Claude grinned and blew smoke.
Bright looked at Marsha who gave him a tight smile and grimaced as the muscles that had tightened her jaw relaxed.
Jean-Luc returned from another conference with the pilot. 'N'Daw says we were in no danger as long as we, what do you say, pissed off.'
'How does he work that out?' Bright said.
'He says both of those choppers carried guns. They could have shot us down easily. They just wanted us to leave.'
12
Extract from Walking Across the World, by Basil Craft:
I can safely say that Timbucktu is the most miserable city on earth. That is on the earth over which I have travelled and that is a good part of it. It is a thousand years old and looks older. Mud is a poor building material: when the Niger floods and in the summer rains it melts and the buildings appear to slide towards each other as if seeking support. Dried out, they look derelict and ramshackle. Most of the buildings in the city are box-like structures of no distinction and I do not exempt the mosques of Jingereber and Sankore—most unimpressive. Roman architectural skills never penetrated the desert to this extent and the want of them is displayed everywhere.
This collection of mud huts, straw cabins and tattered tents is indescribably filthy. Naked black children play with ordure in the streets and any expedition on foot ends with a prolonged scraping of muck from the boots. Rats abound and are eaten; beggars are numerous and are beaten; I never saw so many mutilated people in my life. I saw a beggar with one limb only—his right arm, and the fingers were permantly crooked in the begging position.
For all that it is a romantic place to a man of imagination. The mixture of races—from the most coal black Bela nigger to the fairest Circassian—is remarkable. Every man carries a weapon—a slung rifle, a holstered pistol, a curving blade. When a weapon is not in evidence you can be sure one is hidden.
Nothing remains of the great slave and salt trades which made Timbucktu a legendary place and attracted so many European 'African travellers'—most of whom left their bones in the desert . . .
At Basran, the river port on the western edge of Timbuktu, Jean-Luc assumed command. He assured Bright that this was the place to land and to conduct negotiations with the authorities. He booked the party into a cheap hotel and set off with a bundle of signed travellers' cheques to deal with the myriad officials who could smooth the path of a visitor or make it very rocky indeed. Bright assumed that the Algerian was rewarding himself for these services and did not object. N'Daw and Claude left together on business of their own.
The incident in the air over Wadi Djoul had left him and Marsha shaken. 'I read that a couple of hundred journalists got killed going about their business in the past year,' Bright told Marsha as they went through the ritual sweeping and airing of their hotel room. 'I wonder how many documentary filmmakers?'
Marsha crushed a slow-moving cockroach under the heel of her boot. 'Bound to be some.'
They had delayed discussing the event until they were out of the desert. The night they had spent back in the village had been tense. At any moment they expected the arrival of men and guns, questions with no answers. But nothing had happened except that the Tuareg chieftain had sensed their nervousness and demanded more money with a barely concealed threat that he would cause them trouble if they did not pay. They paid. Now it was time for the discussion.
As they unpacked, Vic argued that there was no such thing as a secret oilfield. No reason for it.
'Why the gunships then?'
'Don't exaggerate, love. They weren't gunships. N'Daw just says they were armed.'
'Little gunships. What's the difference? We intruded. I hope they don't arrest Jean-Luc for spying or something. Maybe you didn't give him enough money.'
Bright looked around the room. The walls were bare, constructed of mud with a thin layer of blistering plaster coating them. Outside was an unpaved road with murky water trickling in a rut down its centre. 'I gave him enough to buy this bloody place.'
By their enthusiastic standards, it had been a long time since they'd made love. The room was cool and the hard, narrow bed was soft and wide enough. They undressed each other slowly and moved with something like the first excitement of new lovers. The bed creaked alarmingly and plaster flaked off the wall where Marsha braced her feet, lifting herself as Vic entered her.
'Jesus, yes,' Marsha groaned. 'Yes.'
Bright's voice, ruined by desert dust and shouting over engine and rotor noise, was a harsh moan as he drove hard, held back and then flowed into her in a warm, melting rush. Marsha thrust up, pressing, grinding, and came in a long, powerful shudder.
They lay back and pulled up a sheet, dabbed at patches of sweat and laughed. 'We should smoke,' Marsha said.
'Christ, those bloody Gauloises of Claude's. He's a walking cigarette, that man. No, we should drink.'
'That'd be good. Haven't had a decent drink since leaving Marrakech.'
The helicopter didn't run to a cooler. They'd consumed no more than some warm beer, a couple of bottles of tepid Algerian wine on the trip. Some brandy in their coffee at night. Bright had been pleased to find that his dependence on alcohol wasn't as great as he'd constantly feared. They kissed and Marsha prodded Vic's waist.
'You're skinnier. Nice.'
They took a luke-warm bath together in the mouldy bathroom at the end of the passage, dressed and left the hotel. Bright, mistrustful of the flimsy lock on the door of their room, carried his computer, despite the warmth of the afternoon and its weight. The smells hit them first. They hadn't noticed earlier, possibly because their noses had been blocked by desert dust and their own bodies had carried strong odours even after the perfunctory washing. Now the refuse in the streets, the open drains and the stench from the river itself assailed them.
'Phew,' Bright said. 'I think I prefer the desert.'
'No cafes in the desert,' Marsha said. 'Let's try in here.'
They took seats under a canvas cover which stretched out across the narrow street and was lashed a few feet above head height to the building on the other side. Several tables and chairs were crammed into the patch of shade. A tall, thin man in a striped djellaba wiped their table with a scrap of tattered cloth.
'M'sieur, Madame?'
'Deux biers, s'il vous plait. Heineken?' Marsha said.
'Bien sur.'
The frosted bottles arrived with two grimy glasses. Bright and Marsha drank from the bottles.
'So, assuming Jean-Luc hasn't been thrown in the clink,' Marsha said, 'we get on with it, do we?'
'Yup. Do a bit of filming around here. See if there's anyone around who remembers the expedition, can show us where they stayed. Get the flavour. Then we piss off back to Marrakech and I try to find out what Hamil meant about Wadi Djoul and wisdom.'
'What's your guess at this point?'
Bright scratched at his half-grown beard. He hadn't decided whether to cultivate it or not. 'It looks like Basil Craft took off on his own. Probably to the wadi. We don't know why. Met up with his brother again in Timbuktu and they went to the coast by boat. Then he may or may not have gone back to Marrakech. I don't know what to make of it.'
'It has to have something to do with that industrial set-up at the wadi,' Marsha said.
'Possibly. It's a hell of a long time ago. Who knows what was there then? He might have gone to hunt or something.'
'Betcha,' Marsha said.
'We'll see. Let's have another beer. That didn't touch the sides.'
Jean-Luc returned to the hotel late in the afternoon. He entered Bright's and Marsha's room with the pockets of his bush jacket turned inside out.
Vic laughed. 'Like that, was it?'
'Yes. These people are leeches, bloodsuckers. I even had to give them some of my money.'
'But we're okay?' Marsha said.
The Algerian shrugged. His long, lean dark face looked pessimistic. 'For a time perhaps. It depends.'
Bright was now less relaxed. For the amount o
f money he'd spent he expected results. 'What does that mean?'
Jean-Luc sat on the bed. He looked tired and, unlike Bright and Marsha, he had not had time to clean up. Freshly shaven, Vic looked alert and enthusiastic. The comfortable intimacy between him and Marsha was not lost on Jean-Luc, who felt resentful. 'It means, Mr Bright, that we had better get our business here done quickly. It means that I have instructed N'Daw and Claude to guard the helicopter tonight. It means that I am going to have a bath and get drunk.'
'Jean-Luc,' Marsha said. 'Vic didn't intend to . . ."
The Algerian stood. 'It's all right. I'm tired, that's all. But you have to understand how things work here. Your money has bought us some time. Not much. A new official comes into the picture, he doesn't get his share and, poof . . . no more deal.'
'I'm sure you did a good job on them,' Bright said. 'We'll film in Timbuktu tomorrow. Will that be okay?'
'If we are discreet. You better tell me what you want and make it tight. Don't be disappointed if we can't get it all.'
'Early start?' Marsha said.
The Algerian nodded. 'First light. Don't worry, I'm not really going to get drunk. I'd rather have a woman. But here . . . Not advisable.'
Marsha said. 'Why does the helicopter need to be guarded?'
'Here, everything needs to be guarded. See you in the morning.'
They met Jean-Luc and Claude in the street outside the hotel shortly before dawn. Claude was at the wheel of an ancient Renault. There were already several fresh cigarette butts in the open ashtray. Nobody spoke as they drove the short distance into Timbuktu.
The city was grey in the early morning light. The streets were narrow, winding tracks between mud buildings, many of which looked to be crumbling. The wooden beams stuck out through the mud walls giving the structures a rickety appearance. As the light increased the colourlessness remained. The mud, compounded with dung and other refuse, which was the predominant building material, weathered to a drab grey. Everything looked old and worn except for an occasional nail-studded wooden door or wall built of hard, white stone. Sand drifted everywhere, piling up against walls, collapsing some smaller buildings and half-filling doorways.
'I'm glad we're on a tight schedule,' Marsha said. 'I couldn't take too much of this.'
'Here's the mosque of Sankore,'Jean-Luc said. 'Not very impressive, is it?'
The mosque had none of the grace and majesty of the Koutoubia in Marrakech. Its lines were clumsy and unimpressive. Sand obliterated some of the shape of its lower part and the minaret was a squat, ugly lump. The mosque was at the top of Bright's list—the Crafts had occupied a house nearby and climbed to the top of the building to take photographs of the city.
'Pity we can't go up, too,' Marsha said.
'We'll get an air shot from the copter on the way out,' Vic said. 'Come on. Let's get to it. This place gives me the creeps.'
Over the next three hours they worked frantically. The house Basil and Richard Craft had lived in still stood—an unprepossessing structure in a street which, Claude volunteered, was the centre of the red-light district. It was quiet at that hour and the camera captured a sense of desolation and the passage of time. There were two markets in the city—one, at the canal head, for livestock and the other for handicrafts and food. The livestock market was active early in the morning. The Crafts had sold their camels here and Jean-Luc got footage of transactions of the same kind, conducted in the same way, five decades later.
The market had had another function. Bela and Daga tribesmen and women, as well as children, were driven and herded like animals by the Tuareg and traded for gold. The Tuareg were still there, imperiously stalking around the squares, moving aside their veils to spit voluminously into the dust. Their black servants followed them, careful not to step onto the mat their masters stood on, attentive to their every need. Slaves still, apparently.
The more sophisticated metal and leather workers and stall holders insisted on being paid before they would allow the camera to be turned on them. Jean-Luc was careful to avoid filming the soldiers who patrolled singly and in pairs, automatic rifles slung over their shoulders. Similarly, he avoided military vehicles and municipal buildings. He carried a number of stamped documents which he presented to the policemen who continually questioned them about their activities.
The film makers quickly retreated when waved away by angry Syrian shopkeepers and black-robed mullahs. They were followed by a tribe of naked black children who begged for money and cigarettes and attempted to steal any item left unattended for a split second. It was a taxing, wearisome business keeping the children out of shot and attempting to capture the bustling sounds of the city with equipment that grew increasingly heavy as the time wore on. Claude kept up a constant stream of complaint—at the heat, the smells and the constant threat to the equipment posed by the drifting sand and gritty dust.
Bright did a last stand-up beside a crumbling wall at the edge of the city proper. Behind him the stony, sandy wasteland stretched away towards the desert. Jean-Luc zoomed in on a cluster of beehive-shaped, grass-thatched Bela huts, then panned across to the shimmering horizon.
'Wrap,' Bright said. 'Tremendous job, mate. Let's get the hell out of here.'
Marsha handed a bag of sticky sweets she had bought in the market to one of the children. 'Share,' she said. 'Pour tous.' The boy snatched the bag and ran, pursued by three others who howled and shrieked as he outdistanced them. Claude tore the top off a packet of Gauloise and shook the contents out onto the ground. The tribe fell on them, kicking and clawing, shredding some of the cigarettes in the process.
Marsha turned away. 'I can't bear this. Let's go. Jean-Luc, don't film that!'
A tall, skinny youth with one eye and his nose half-eaten away, seized two cigarettes, touched them to the ruined tissue of his nose and then held them out tauntingly to the other children. They backed away. He advanced on them, thrusting the cigarettes forward and baying triumphantly.
Jean-Luc filmed the action. 'It's life,' he said. 'There isn't enough to go around here. There never has been.'
13
Craft Project—Journal, Marrakech, Morocco, 28 September
When we got back to the hotel after filming in Timbuktu, Jean-Luc got a phone call that had him saying, 'Merde, merde, merde' and packing his bags. Half an hour later we were in the air, heading west for Mauritania as fast as the Huey would fly. Jean-Luc was the complete professional; he got some shots of the town from the air even though he was fuming. When I asked him what the trouble had been he let out a stream of words that even a monolingual drongo like me could tell were very obscene.
'I'll translate if you like,' Marsha said. 'Although I think some of the things he's suggesting are anatomically impossible.'
'Don't bother. Jean-Luc, I just want to know if it had anything to do with our flying over the oilfield.'
'Yes,' Jean-Luc said. 'We have stepped on some important toes.'
'Whose?' Marsha said.
Jean-Luc shrugged. 'I don't know. Big toes.'
We all relaxed when we were out over the desert, following the course of the Niger west. Claude lit a cigarette with one of the tiny wax Morocco matches he used. Then he flossed his widely gapped teeth with the match. He and Jean-Luc talked technicalities for a while, then Jean-Luc told me when and how the film would be delivered to Highland Productions. All satisfactory.
N'Daw shouted something from the cockpit. Claude crawled forward to listen. He came back and lit a cigarette from the stub of the last. 'He wants to know if you'd like to take another look at Wadi Djoul.'
That got a big laugh, Claude's only laugh on the trip I think. It was also the only time I heard him speak English. I didn't think he could. He was a character, Claude. We must've broken the record for crossing Mauritania in a helicopter. I know N'Daw had to kick over to the auxiliary fuel tanks. We parted company in the capital, Nouakchott. N'Daw and his flying machine went south with a stack of Highland Productions money to their home base
in Senegal; Jean-Luc and Claude headed for Tangiers, me and Marsha for Marrakech.
Back at the hotel Atlas Marsha got the good news that one of the doctors attending the conference had got sick after swimming in the pool. He'd got busy and analysed the water, located the bug and told them how to get rid of it. The result was that the pool was guaranteed bug-free. There was also a message from Abdullah Hamil via Ali. Mr Hamil was glad I had returned safely and was looking forward to meeting me. The place was his house in the old town, the time was 8 p.m. and I was to come alone.
'Why?' Marsha said.
I asked Ali, 'Why?'
Ali looked even more apologetic than usual. 'My deepest regrets, sir, madame. My uncle said, and I am using his words, "It ain't something you talk about in front of a broad".'
What could I do after an intro like that? Marsha didn't like it and I didn't like it, but I went alone. Another carriage ride, another ten dirhams, another soft, mild Marrakech night with the yellow streetlights and the thin mist of dust always in the air. The old town is behind the Medina, hard up against the ancient city wall. Everything here is on a smaller scale than in the modern sector—the streets are narrower, the houses smaller and close-packed with scarcely a square inch of bare ground. The merchants do business in the street and some of the little shops were still open. The handicraftsmen had quit, presumably because of the poor light. There were only a few widely spaced streetlights and no electric light inside the buildings.
Very Third World here—donkeys outnumbered by motor scooters, that's the real Third World. Rabbits and chooks in cages and the hallmark of the Third World marketplace in my experience—lots of places selling identical goods. How anyone choses between them, god knows. Ali sat beside me almost silently, returning only one in six of the greetings that came to him from people in the street. He snarled at the carriage driver when he made a wrong turning and had to circle a block to get back on the right track.
