Better Than Fiction

by Lonely Planet

  . . . . . . . . . . .

  The view out the window was endless savannah, grasslands speckled with the occasional tree and patches of muddy water. There was much more to watch inside the carriage. This being the military car, there were indeed soldiers, half a dozen grim-faced troops in dark-green uniforms, clutching banana-clip machine guns or old British .303 rifles.

  But most of the passengers seemed to be people like us who had somehow talked, begged or paid their way into the special compartment. A short Arab man in a white galabieh, another with a white fez and prayer beads. A dark woman with a turquoise thoub that she wore down around her chin, so that you could see the tribal scars that marked her face. There was a crippled man with an ebony and ivory cane, and next to him a mother with an infant suckling at her breast. A couple of kids had a live chicken tied to a leg of their bench, and there was a pair of Dinka warriors with spears and dark-blue balaclavas rolled up to their foreheads.

  Two hours into the journey came the first of many stops: a thatched-hut station with no sign to indicate its name and a dirt platform thronging with the wildest-looking people I had seen in all of Africa. The men were barefoot and completely naked but for loin cloths. They carried wooden maces and spears, and around their necks hung square lockets that appeared to be made from animal hide. Their women were spangled with metal: nose studs; ornaments hanging from chains suspended through their lower lips; beaded chin straps, head bands and necklaces that fell across their naked breasts. But the crowning glory was their tribal scars: geometrical patterns carved deep into the ink-black skin of their chests, stomachs, faces and upper arms.

  Who were these people? Nobody on the train seemed to know. At first I thought they were going to climb onto the train with us. But they were only trying to sell us peanuts and fruit through the open windows.

  That night, Major Hassan invited Philippa and me to his private compartment in the first-class section. It was a marvel of convenience with running water, electricity, a ceiling fan and room service, and it was difficult to disguise our envy. The major told us he was the head of the police post in Wau – the one with all the vultures – and that he was traveling to Aweil to quell a mutiny by local administrators who had gone over to the rebels.

  ‘And how will you deal with these men when you find them?’ asked Philippa.

  Hassan’s reply was cut and dry: ‘I will kill them.’

  ‘I thought there was a policy of national reconciliation,’ she retorted.

  ‘They would do the same to me. I must travel with plainclothes policeman on this train because the rebels have many spies and they might try to kill me if they learn about my mission.’

  A room boy delivered mint tea and the three of us launched into a long and spirited conversation on the Sudanese civil war, the differences between north and south, between Muslims and Christians, and how to unify a nation as large and diverse as Sudan. At the end of the evening, Major Hassan told us he would be departing the train early the following morning when we arrived in Aweil. But he assured us we could keep our spots in the military carriage.

  By the time we got back to our carriage, everyone was asleep, sprawled in the aisles and across the wooden seats. Philippa curled up in a small space beside a window. But there wasn’t enough room for my larger frame. Looking around, I noticed one of the seven-foot Dinka warriors asleep on the overhead luggage rack. I thought: What an awesome solution. And crawled up into the rack above our own seats – for the best night’s sleep I’d had in days.

  Aweil came and went early the next morning and around noon the sergeant who was now in charge of the train came stomping into our carriage. I’d seen him before, back on the platform in Wau, hard to miss the H-shaped tribal scar on each cheek. He was a tall, husky Arab with dark skin and a pistol holstered on his hip and a leather strap in one hand. Not the sort of person you would mess with, no matter what the situation. The sergeant slowly worked his way down the length of our carriage, confronting each of the passengers in turn, growling at them in Arabic. Philippa translated: Scarface was threatening to toss them off the train if they didn’t pay an extra ‘transit fee.’ In other words, a bribe.

  When one of the Dinka refused, the sergeant whacked him with the leather strap. And when that had little effect, the sergeant snatched a rifle from one of his men and rapped the man across the head. Blood trickling down his skull, the man fled from the cabin. As did several other passengers who didn’t want to face the sergeant’s wrath. The message was obvious: Pony up or face consequences.

  We had enough Sudanese currency between the five of us to cover the fees he was asking from the others. But when Scarface came to our seats, he looked us up and down disdainfully and asked for ten times as much as he was extorting from the local passengers.

  ‘Major Hassan told us we could ride for free,’ Philippa informed him.

  Scarface smirked. ‘I am now in charge of this train. You do as I say.’

  Philippa argued our case as best she could, but without the protection of Major Hassan, we stood little chance of defending our ground.

  ‘Look around you,’ said Scarface. ‘All of these people. How do you think they come to sit here? Do you think it’s my charity? You pay what I ask … or I throw you off.’

  I looked around, out the window. We were slowly rumbling through the middle of nowhere. Nothing but uninhabited grassland as far as I could see. Getting tossed off the train here amounted to a virtual death sentence. But it never got that far. A soldier came scrambling in from another carriage, whispered something to Scarface that made his eyes bulge. There must have been a problem elsewhere in the train, because they rushed off. But not without a final warning. ‘I’ll be back for the money,’ the sergeant snarled.

  The problem was, we didn’t have enough cash. Not the vast amount he was asking. And we wouldn’t until we reached a bank willing to change traveler’s checks. Most likely Khartoum, which was at least three days away. How were we going to fend off Scarface until then?

  But we had other concerns, too. The food that we’d brought from Wau – mostly canned goods and biscuits – was almost gone. And while there was plenty for sale at whistle stops along the route, not much of it (in particular the barbecued ‘bush meat’) looked enticing or palatable. By the time we rolled into the big railroad junction at Babanusa, the weather had also turned mean. A habob was blowing in from the north, a combination of dust and rain storm with high winds. Outside people were dashing for cover, scrambling beneath the train or heading for the nearby mud-brick buildings. A horse was trying to buck away from its wooden cart, and in the distance I could see men on camels dashing away as fast as they could.

  With no glass in the windows, the dust flew into the carriage unopposed, quickly covering our hunched-over bodies in a thick layer of grit. The heavens opened, a trickle at first but then a wind-blown deluge that poured in through the open windows, soaking everything inside the cabin. Darkness fell but the rain endured and the train just sat in Babanusa station, seemingly paralyzed by the tempest. Long after dark, a rumor came whipping through the train: There was a derailment up ahead. Our train wouldn’t budge until the wreck was cleared.

  We figured that must be the reason why Scarface rushed away in such a state. And why he was in no hurry to collect his bribes from us. He knew we weren’t going anywhere. Not for the time being.

  . . . . . . . . . . .

  By morning the storm had fled and warm rays of sun poured into the carriage. But the train was in an awful state. Puddles of water covered the floor, mixing with the rubbish and residue; the roof was leaking and a cold air blew in through the windows. What was left of the derailed train rumbled into the station around eight o’clock and our train jerked forward. After 16 hours in Babanusa we were finally on the move again, but too tired and dirty to celebrate. There was silence as the five of us ate a breakfast of grapefruit, bananas and pita bread purchased at Babanusa Station. But I knew we were all thinking the same thing: How much longer
would we have to suffer this train? And when would Scarface return for his money?

  With the storm gone and our bellies full for the first time in days, we discussed how to deal with Scarface. A number of ideas were kicked around. But the one we settled on was this: We’d be honest. Tell him we didn’t have enough cash to pay him until we reached Khartoum and could visit a bank. But at some point before Khartoum, we would clandestinely leave the train. Studying our guidebooks and maps, we determined there was only one obvious place to make our escape – the city of Kosti on the western bank of the Nile. From Kosti, we could take a bus to Khartoum and arrive before the train. Once we arrived in the capital, Scarface would never find us. And even if he did, we could take refuge in our respective embassies.

  Later that day, Scarface began summoning the passengers from our carriage into his private compartment to pay their ‘special fee’ for the privilege of riding in the military car.

  When it was our turn, Philippa walked into his cabin with a handful of traveler’s checks. ‘How much did you say?’ she asked casually, peeling off a couple of checks.

  Scarface eyed the checks. ‘I want real money.’

  ‘This is real money,’ Philippa retorted.

  ‘Do I look like a bank?’

  ‘It’s all we have!’

  Scarface yelled through the open door for one of his men. A corporal appeared in the doorway. ‘Tell them to stop the train.’

  ‘Wait!’ said Philippa. ‘We can make a deal.’

  Scarface motioned for the corporal to stop. ‘I’m listening.’

  And that’s when Philippa put our plan in motion. She hooked him right away, played on his greed with an offer to pay him even more than his original asking price if he would just wait until we reached Khartoum and could change our traveler’s checks at a bank. In his felonious mind it must have seemed a slam dunk, because he eagerly agreed. What Scarface didn’t count on was us having the balls to bail out early.

  . . . . . . . . . . .

  It was half past one in the morning when the train rumbled into Kosti, creeping and creaking into a station beside the Nile. Insects buzzed around the platform lights and a naked bulb illuminating the inside of the all-night teahouse beside the station. I scoped up and down the tracks. The coast was clear. No sign of Scarface or his minions. We scrambled into action, tossing our backpacks and duffel bags out the carriage windows. Stumbling over chickens and sleeping passengers on our way to the exit, we hopped down onto the platform, retrieved our stuff and turned towards the station thinking we had made a clean escape.

  But coming out of the teahouse was the young corporal from the train platoon, ripping open a new packet of cigarettes with his teeth. ‘This isn’t Khartoum,’ he said in Arabic, figuring that we’d made an innocent mistake.

  But Philippa quickly set him straight. ‘We know. We’re getting off here.’

  ‘You can’t! You haven’t paid the sergeant!’ he screeched.

  ‘Tell him to go to hell,’ I blurted in English, the tone of my voice enough to get the message across.

  The corporal tried to block our path. But he’d made a rookie mistake. In his rush to buy smokes, he’d left his gun on the train. Unarmed, there was no way he could stop even one of us, let alone five people determined to flee.

  But he still had his voice. ‘Sergeant! Sergeant!’ he screamed down the platform.

  I looked around long enough to see Scarface charging from the back of the train, followed closely by his well-armed posse.

  Clearing the station, we broke into a sprint, running down the middle of a street that was supposed to lead to the bus station – and hopefully a coach leaving at any moment now. Twenty minutes later, out of breath and options, we were crouched behind the upturned tables in the outdoor café. Scarface and his thugs were spreading out to search the area, one of them slowly moving our way.

  That’s when fate intervened. From a distance came a whistle, a signal that the train was about to depart. Scarface and the soldiers gathered in the middle of the street for a hectic confab. I didn’t need a translator to tell me they were discussing whether to return to the train or continue their pursuit. But in the end, the prospect of missing their ride to Khartoum overruled their greed. They turned up the street, jogging back towards the river and the train station. At daybreak we boarded a bus for Khartoum. We never saw Scarface again.

  Chasing Missionaries

  BY SUZANNE JOINSON

  Suzanne Joinson’s debut novel, A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar, was published by Bloomsbury in 2012. She works part-time in the literature department of the British Council, and travels regularly to the Middle East, China and Europe. In 2007 she won the New Writing Ventures award for her short story ‘Laila Ahmed’. She is working on a PhD in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London.

  Urumqi airport is awash with soldiers sitting on the tarmac in the full blaze of the sun. They scratch heads and smoke as yet more emerge from military-style aeroplanes. There isn’t a single other European-looking person on the concourse and suddenly I feel rather hot.

  I’m partway through a 28-hour journey: London–Beijing– Urumqi–Kashgar, with the added frisson that it’s the first time I have left my baby. Not that he’s even a baby. He’s a cheerful one-year-old protected by doting relatives, but leaving him feels like I’ve dug out a kidney, balanced it on an unsafe window ledge in the cold night air and beckoned several hungry dogs to pace the street below.

  Thanks to a prestigious grant for a research trip, I’m on the trail of English missionary Mildred Cable and her two companions. I am also deep into writing a novel about them and ruminating on the foolishness of my choice of Kashgar as the setting for most of the story. Kashgar: possibly as distant and remote from London as it’s possible to get.

  My missionary ladies were restless adventurers and their reasons for travelling (1900–1940) were so much more complicated than straightforward religious zeal. They hoped to carve a freedom for themselves in the Takla Makan desert. Refugees from dreary England, they were avoiding the marriage plot, and I can certainly relate to that. I’ve always been a committed leaver – of houses, cities, countries, husbands – but now, for the first time, leaving means leaving someone behind. My recently acquired new persona of ‘mother’ is still a fragile identity. If I carelessly lose it, I’m not sure what is left underneath.

  Crowds of Chinese passengers photograph the soldiers through the windows and this leads me to believe that something unusual is happening. I’ve looked: There isn’t a ticket desk in sight, even if I did want to turn round and go home now.

  I sip my green tea.

  . . . . . . . . . . .

  In no mood for slumming, I’ve opted for Kashgar’s upmarket hotel, and so it is a shock to be greeted, after arriving at midnight, by an empty mini-bar. No room service. No food or bottled water. The young man on the reception is telling me something. I am telling him something. We both talk louder and shake our heads sadly but we can’t understand. Finally, he gives me an Englishlanguage newspaper from the previous day:

  Several hundred people rioted in Urumqi’s People’s Square, and then moved southward into Uighur areas, including the Grand Bazaar. Police opened fire; random people were clubbed and stoned to death. There are fears that similar outbursts will occur in Kashgar. The Chinese Government has responded to what they called ‘terrorist activity’ by closing down the internet and international phone lines between Xinjiang Province and the rest of the world.

  Hotel rooms have often been my undoing, but this one is particularly difficult. The blinds are thick, the pillow hard and the rumbling of the AC erratic and curmudgeonly. My useless mobile lies on the bed; its international dialling tone is dead. I sit up all night until I deem it the beginning of office hours and telephone through to the British Consulate in Beijing.

  ‘I am safe; can you let my husband know? I can’t call out from here but I guess he might be able to call me?’

  The lady
at the consulate calls me back: ‘We recommend that all foreign nationals leave Xinjiang Province. You need to go as soon as possible.’

  Fifteen minutes later she calls again: ‘Correction, the government has issued an order that all foreigners must leave the province immediately. They will assume you are a journalist and are trying to stay to cover the riots that are expected outside the mosque on Friday.’

  After breakfast, of which I eat very little, the person in the travel bureau in the corner of the hotel foyer tells me that there is no flight out of Kashgar for another four days.

  ‘But the authorities have ordered me to leave.’ He shrugs. The next flight is Saturday morning. I pay $700 that has not been budgeted for.

  . . . . . . . . . . .

  In the main square Mao Zedong points away from Kashgar’s Old Town. A police van cruises, its loudspeakers pronouncing instructions that I can’t understand. The streets are very quiet.

  I stand in front of the hotel and blink into the sun. I would lose my mind if I stayed in that room and so there is nothing for it but to go out. I have straw hat, camera and notebook: the full regalia of a hapless, idiotic Western tourist.

  Immediately a couple of taxi drivers approach me and I present them with my prepared piece of paper. It has the names of things I want to see neatly typed out in Mandarin and English. They can’t read it, though, because of course they are Uighur. Another man comes; he is Uighur too. The discussion grows louder as they snatch the paper back and forth between them. It appears to have become an argument.

  As an English, female, red-haired and fair-skinned traveller, on the (surprisingly many) occasions when men stand in a group around me arguing, I have discovered that the best thing to do is to say nothing. To wait. Or, as Mildred Cable wrote, in situations like these remain as indifferent as the Buddha himself. It works. Another man is coming towards us, younger, smarter, Uighur-looking and thankfully he has some English.