Impossible Journey

by Michael Asher

  ‘Nonsense,’ he replied. ‘These are good people. Arabs. They won’t let us down.’

  We made camp on a dune near the Arab tents. Sid’Amer and some servants took our camels off to graze farther down the dunes. Once, we were separated from our animals, the manner of the Arabs changed. They crowded round us, staring coldly instead of smiling. They began to ask pointed questions of Sidi Mohammed. Who were we? What did we want here? Then came the clincher. Sid’ Amer let slip that the authorities in Tillia had asked him to stop any strangers or travellers who passed that way. They don’t like “thieves of the route”,’ he said, staring hard at Marinetta and me. ‘You have to report to the gendarmerie in Tillia tomorrow morning.’

  ‘And if we decide not to?’ I asked.

  ‘I will have to tell them that you were here.’

  ‘I thought so.’

  ‘Life is hard here,’ Sid’ Amer whined guiltily. ‘The government gives whites like us a hard time.’ This sounded extremely comical from Sid’ Amer, whose skin was charcoal-black. The Arabs left us sitting there.

  Sidi Mohammed had almost begun to quake when he heard the words ‘thieves of the route’, and now he looked miserable. He made tea and sat staring into the fire, saying, ‘At least we won’t eat sardines tonight. They are Arabs, and Arabs will bring us meat.’ A boy appeared with a tray and set it down in front of us. A savoury smell rose from beneath a wickerwork cover. Sidi Mohammed sat up and licked his lips. He lifted the cover reverently. Then his face dropped. Inside was a sticky, half-raw mass of porridge sprinkled with dust.

  ‘Ha!’ scoffed Marinetta. ‘So much for your meat!’

  ‘Rubbish!’ said Sidi Mohammed, gulping hard and smiling weakly. This porridge is just as good. This porridge is my favourite dish!’

  The gendarmerie was a clean, well-kept building, recently painted and with the tricolour of Niger fluttering on a pole outside. We couched the camels in some mesquite trees nearby. A green-bereted trooper came out to greet us and asked for our passports. Sidi Mohammed handed over his identity card tremulously, saying, ‘I’ll stay here,’ as we were shown inside.

  The adjutant was a studious-looking man with spectacles and a brand-new combat suit. He put down a book on African history as we entered and told us to sit down. Just then the treacherous Sid’ Amer of the previous night came in and began whining obsequiously in Hausa. The officer listened for a moment, then sent him out with a gesture. I wasn’t sorry to see him go. The adjutant looked at us silently. Then he said, ‘I have seen tourists come in vehicles. I have seen them come in planes. I have even seen a tourist who came on a bicycle. But I have never seen tourists who have come all the way from Mauritania by camel!’ I almost thought he was about to congratulate us, but instead he said, ‘What will you Westerners think of next?’

  He relapsed into silence and scrutinised our documents. He examined Sidi Mohammed’s ID card with extra vigilance, even removing several prescriptions for pills that were folded up inside. ‘And where is this person, this Mali person?’ he asked. I told him that our guide was outside. He frowned. ‘Employing a foreign guide in Niger is very irregular,’ he said. ‘So is entering the country by camel. I will have to send a radio message to our préfet in Tahoua. There won’t be a message back until at least tomorrow.’ When he noticed our expressions he added that we were welcome to use one of the empty houses in the village until a reply came through. Then he sighed and said, ‘Ah, tourism! It is good for the country, but it is so tiring.’

  After we had unloaded the camels at the mud house, Sidi Mohammed took them off to graze outside the village. When he returned, he asked us anxiously, ‘You didn’t tell them I worked in Libya, did you? They don’t like the Libyans. Never mention them here.’ I said that there had been some doubt about our employing a foreign guide, and his face dropped again into a mask of misery. I’m forty-eight years old and I’ve had forty years of fatigue.’ he said. ‘That’s all my life is, by God! Nothing but fatigue.’

  In the afternoon, Marinetta and I explored the place. There were sixty or so oblong houses of mud brick laid like boxes on the sloping, golden sand that rose up from the wadi. The wadi was filled with Sodom’s Apples and giant acacias, each of them hanging in the azure sky like a nimbus of green smoke. Beyond them, the land rose again to the foot of a cliff with the colour and texture of a crusty loaf. There was a well in the basin of the wadi, where a crush of longhorn and shorthorn cattle stamped and bellowed. Wedges of white camels mixed in with them and ranks of goats and sheep. The well rope was being lifted by a bony she-donkey, which staggered forward, driven on by the sticks of some narrow-faced Arabs. They carried swords like Tuareg, and their faces were ghastly blue.

  When we returned to the house, we found Sidi Mohammed serving tea to half a dozen Arabs, one of whom was Sid’ Amer, who had compounded his disgrace by inviting us to eat at his town house and conveniently ‘forgetting’ about it. After they had gone, I told Sidi Mohammed, ‘Don’t make tea for anyone and especially not for Sid’Amer. He’s done us no favours.’ Our tea and sugar were already short, and I had no more than £20 to last us to Agadez. Here in the village, we had to pay for everything, even water and firewood. The longer we were obliged to stay here, the more of that small sum would be eaten away.

  When I examined our supplies later, the sugar seemed surprisingly short. I found myself wondering how much tea Sidi Mohammed could have made while we were away. ‘Have you seen his sack?’ Marinetta asked. ‘It looks fatter than it was.’

  I looked at the sack as it stood in the corner of the room. It did seem fatter. ‘You really think he’d steal the sugar?’ I inquired.

  ‘Why not? What happened to that meat?’

  We both looked at the sack. He was out checking the camels. ‘Why don’t you look inside?’ Marinetta suggested. It was very tempting. The sack and its contents had nagged at us for so long. But I couldn’t bring myself to open it. Instead, I squeezed it from the outside. I could feel a packet of powdery stuff, which might well have been sugar. But it could have been there from the beginning, I thought. Just then, Marinetta hissed, ‘He’s coming!’ and a moment later, Sidi Mohammed walked into the room.

  We hardly slept that night, disturbed by the barking of dogs and the unfamiliar sound of strident voices. The following morning, there was no word from Tahoua. We were told that the préfet was away at a meeting and couldn’t be contacted. Only he could grant us permission to go on. It was gloomy news. We walked around the Village restlessly, practising some simple Hausa on the traders in the market and taking photos. There were many skin tents pitched on the slopes and even inside the mud-walled yards. They were the homes of both Arabs and Tuareg.

  Already, the village seemed like a prison. I began to have serious doubts that we would be allowed to continue. There was little alternative to crossing Niger unless we went through Libya, a route that seemed impossible given the present political circumstances. ‘It doesn’t look as if we’ll get our medal after all,’ Marinetta said. Then she laughed.

  There was no one about. I put both my arms around her. Do you still think that getting married was a mistake?’ I asked her.

  ‘I can’t believe I ever said it,’ she answered. ‘I think we’re made for each other. When did I say otherwise?’

  I thought of those dreadful scenes in Chinguetti. It was a staggering six months since the day we had landed in Nouakchott. It was three months since we had left Chinguetti with Mafoudh. I no longer had any doubts about Marinetta’s ability to reach the Nile. She had already made a unique journey. Moreover, something had happened in those six months that I couldn’t quite describe. It was almost as if we had started as two people and slowly melted into each other. ‘I think I’ve sort of got attached to you,’ Marinetta said.

  There was still no news from Tahoua the next day. The tedium began to obscure all other feelings. Sidi Mohammed made things worse by complaining: ‘No other guide would have to put up with this. I never thought I’d run into these pr
oblems again.’ I was worried that our food would be finished before we even got out of the place. We were down to a few kilos of rice and one of macaroni, some lumps of dried meat, and some tins of sardines. ‘I can’t eat those sardines any more,’ Sidi Mohammed groaned at dinner. ‘I can’t even force them down.’

  ‘We can’t afford meat,’ I told him.

  ‘They give me a pain in the heart,’ he said.

  ‘And he gives me a pain somewhere else!’ said Marinetta. ‘Talk about hardy desert nomads!’

  We had been in Tillia six days and still no message had arrived from Tahoua. Then, one afternoon, a very solemn gendarme arrived to escort us to the gendarmerie. The adjutant was sitting on a chair outside, and he was smiling. He told us that authorisation had been granted both for us and for Sidi Mohammed and handed me a stamped laissez-passer with our names on.

  I could hardly wait to saddle the camels, but Sidi Mohammed seemed reluctant to leave. ‘Can’t we go tomorrow?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘We’ve wasted enough time. From now on, we’ll travel ten hours a day at least.’

  ‘The camels won’t do ten hours a day.’

  ‘Yes, they will,’ I said. Then I noticed that he was no longer wearing his gandourah. He was clad in his shorter undershirt and sirwel. I asked where it was. ‘I agreed to sell it to a soldier,’ he said, sheepishly, ‘and he can’t pay me till tomorrow. I wanted to get some meat.’

  I was adamant and sent him off to retrieve the garment and to fetch the camels. Meanwhile, I filled six waterskins at the local pump, and Marinetta went to the market to buy provisions. She returned with twenty-four tins of Italian sardines.

  We camped for the night on a dune not far from the village. To please Sidi Mohammed, now complete with gandourah, we dined on rice and meat. It was to be our last taste of meat before we reached Agadez. In the morning, I awoke to find that a dog had carried off our meat supply. The well-gnawed sack was lying a few yards away, empty. When I showed it to Sidi Mohammed, he shook his head in misery.

  The days were the longest we had experienced. We were travelling for almost the entire day, with only a brief halt for lunch. Our food was running out. Gone were the handy supplies of peanuts, biscuits, and dates that had taken the edge off our hunger previously. Soon, the macaroni was finished and all that remained was the rice and sardines. Sidi Mohammed would mutter and grumble about the food all day. ‘By God, those sardines make my ears whistle!’ he complained. ‘There are people with hot stomachs and people with cold ones. My stomach is hot. Sardines are only good in a cold climate, by the Prophet’s life!’

  He muttered too about the fishy smell and how it was always with us, grouching that he had no toothpaste to remove the odour from his mouth. ‘You’re supposed to be a nomad,’ Marinetta told him. ‘I never heard of a nomad using toothpaste!’ But even Marinetta and I were fed up with sardines. As the days passed, our portions grew smaller, and we were constantly hungry. A hollow feeling gnawed at my stomach acidly all day. Marinetta lapsed into food fantasies. ‘Just a piece of fresh bread and cheese!’ she would say. ‘Or some fruit grapes, red apples, or mandarins!’ She told me about the rich Milanese cake that would be in the shops in Rome and the thick nougat made in Sardinia at Christmas.

  Once, just before we ate, I joked with Sidi Mohammed. ‘After we get to Agadez, none of us will have to eat sardines ever again.’

  ‘And I will never go with a tourist who makes me eat them,’ he said, nastily. ‘It’s not right, by God! I will protest!’ He had often told me stories about his trips with other tourists, usually by motorcar. ‘I never ate with any of them!’ he claimed proudly. ‘You are the only nsara I’ve eaten with. But the car is the only way to travel now. The camel is nothing but fatigue. That’s all my life is, all fatigue, God knows! I’m like a beast with a rope round my neck, slaving away for money.’

  ‘Money’s not everything,’ I suggested.

  ‘There’s nothing that can’t be bought for money,’ he insisted. ‘The man who has money is king, by God!’

  ‘Money doesn’t buy courage.’

  ‘It buys you people who have it,’ he said. ‘Money is everything. I pray God every day to bring me plenty of it. Money is power, Omar, and if you don’t believe that, you’re a fool.’

  The days were as hot as those of summer. Ribs of cirrus cloud formed in arches across the sky, giving the illusion that we were travelling inside the body of an enormous animal. We were exhausted, and each instalment of loading tired us more. At midday, Sidi Mohammed would complain that his head was spinning from the heat. Marinetta and I no longer thought about sex. The idea of it had long since passed behind us as our bodies weakened. Marinetta walked less and rode more. She no longer looked attractive. Her body was skeletal, her face an overdone reddish-purple from the sun. Her spectacles were broken and she wore a pad of cotton wool on the bridge of her’nose. Her features had taken on the savage look of constant ill temper. Insects still bothered her at nights, and in the mornings, she would slap calamine lotion on her skin, which dried in pink pats. She would search the baggage obsessively for scorpions. She looked a pitiful figure now. I imagine I did, too. She would wish she was in Rome or Sardinia, somewhere far away from the desert. ‘It’s all blank,’ she told me once. ‘It’s all depression.’ I sensed that she had begun to lose touch with her identity. She could no longer recognise herself as that desirable jet-set girl, the frequenter of fashion shops, the diplomatic passport holder, the flier first-class. Instead, here was a savage, primitive, ragged woman, able only to snarl and fight to survive.

  On 1st November, we left the sandy country behind us and entered a desert of grey and black rag. Black knolls of rock appeared to the north, and cracked slabs of granite stretched for mile upon mile. The camels winced as their worn-down soles touched the sharp stones, and Sidi Mohammed pulled a wry face. ‘I hate those rocks,’ he said. ‘They hurt the camels’ feet, and anything the camels feel, I feel myself.’ He was stopping frequently now to urinate and told me there was blood in his urine. I gave him some rehydration salts and a handful of antibiotics. The new infirmity robbed him of his strength and energy. In spite of his complaints, he had always been an indefatigable worker. Now, I had to collect the camels alone each morning, fumbling with their nose rings in the dark. I had to saddle almost alone, and often, the loads were badly balanced and had to be adjusted later. At nights, there was the added effort of finding firewood, which sometimes took up to an hour on this naked plain. As soon as we had eaten, one of us would have to go off to make sure that the camels hadn’t wandered too far and bring them to graze near the camp. We would let them off their hobbles at four in the morning, which gave them an hour of grazing before we started at five.

  One evening, we camped in a place where there were the tracks of many jerboas. The Arabs ate these fluffy desert rats, roasting them, fur and all, on an open fire. Sidi Mohammed said that he would bag some of them with his stick. He was away an hour but came back empty-handed. ‘You didn’t get one?’ I asked.

  ‘I got one, Omar,’ he replied mournfully. ‘I hit it with my stick. But when I went to slit its throat, it was already dead. It wasn’t hillal, so we couldn’t eat it.’

  We crossed a vast plain of powder-grey with the bronze chunks of a hill in the background. There were seams of golden grass like trickles of liquid across the dark wilderness. I wondered if the hill was the edge of the Tiguidit fault in which Agadez was situated. We camped on the plain for a night, and in the morning, Sidi Mohammed announced that he felt better. We hitched our camels up wearily and shuffled across the void in darkness. As we moved, the night’s black shell split open in cracks, which formed the giant letters of a strange alphabet. The cracks widened into fissures, and the fissures filled with sea-blue liquid. Yellow gashes appeared in the sky, and the dark nighf clouds peeled away to reveal a fiery undercoat of crimson. The yellow furrows melted back to smoky-grey, and the sun sneaked up under a bulge in the veil of cloud, puncturing it
with two thick rays, which spread out like the arms of a starfish. Day. The desert appeared supreme, primitive, beautiful, and naked, nothing but featureless rag and rugged rock stretching to the base of the hills.

  By midmorning, we had come to an island of green where some Tuareg were camping. They were friendly and begged us to stop. They brought us a bowl of salty camel’s milk and told us that the wells we were searching for, Ighazer Meqqoren, were nearby.

  Two Tuareg boys rode with us to the wells. One rode a russet gelding and the other a white bull-camel, but both the animals looked thin and underfed. The boys rode on the odd-looking Tuareg saddles, no more than an L-shaped seat with a long backrest and an extended front home, which terminated in a three-pronged metal claw. The saddles looked flashy, but I knew that they would be useless for carrying heavy baggage like ours. Both the Tuareg carried swords, slung over the back of their saddles. ‘You’re going to Egypt!’ one of them exclaimed. ‘But from Agadez, you are going by plane, no?’ They didn’t seem to believe that we had come by camel from Mauritania. Tombouctou was far enough away for them. Soon, a procession of donkeys was following us. Little boys and girls rode them, and they carried waterbags made out of the rubber inner tubes of motor tyres, slung beneath the belly in the peculiar manner of Tuareg here.

  We arrived at the wells at midday, and Sidi Mohammed went off to fill our waterskins alone. ‘You can’t say he’s bad at his job,’ Marinetta commented after he had gone. This was true. As a guide and as a worker, Sidi Mohammed was the best we’d had. When he returned, he told us that he had tried to exchange his gandourah for a goat with some Tuareg at the well. No one had been interested. ‘Can’t you just be patient?’ Marinetta asked him, pityingly.

  ‘I need meat so much,’ he groaned. ‘All the tourists I’ve been with have eaten out of tins like you. But I never expected to eat sardines every day!’

  The following day, we met a cocky Tuareg youth on a pure-white camel. He was dressed in spotless white and wore dark glasses. On his camel was slung a transistor radio in a decorated cloth bag. As he came near, I noticed the smell of perfume. ‘Mon patron,’ he began, ‘give me some tea and sugar.’ When I refused, he asked me rudely, ‘Why not?’ and added, ‘There is plenty in the market ahead.’