The African Equation

by Yasmina Khadra

  The captain placed a file stuffed with papers on Pfer’s desk and folded his arms across his chest, his nostrils dilated with anger. ‘We’re not talking about an interrogation, sir, but a normal procedure which is within my rights. I’m responsible for security in this area and any information that can improve living conditions in my sector of operations—’

  ‘Can we go?’ Bruno asked Pfer, deaf to the captain’s injunctions.

  Pfer was embarrassed. He took his head in both hands and stared at the calendar in front of him. Bruno ordered me to follow him. Disconcerted by Pfer’s reaction, I decided to fall in with Bruno’s plan. The captain made no attempt to stop us. He opened his arms wide and brought them down against his sides in an irritable slap.

  Bruno gave me no explanation for his refusal to cooperate with the young officer. We crossed the yard, he at a furious pace, I hobbling along behind. He had to stop to let me catch up. Elena and the others being busy with their patients, he took me to see his ‘brothers’, who occupied the tent near the infirmary. There were half a dozen of them, all convalescents: an old veteran with mocking eyes, two teenagers and three battered-looking men, including the thirty-year-old in plaster who had been telling naughty jokes in the canteen two days earlier. They were laughing like mad and our arrival didn’t put them off.

  ‘I won’t set foot in a souk again in a hurry,’ a boy with a bandaged hip was saying.

  ‘I’m sure the shopkeepers will be really upset,’ one of the wounded men said ironically.

  ‘It’s my right,’ the boy said. ‘I’m the one who chooses where to spend my money, aren’t I?’

  ‘Let him speak!’ said a man with a burnt face. ‘Otherwise he’ll lose the thread of his story.’

  The others fell silent.

  The narrator coughed into his fist, delighted to be the centre of attention. He resumed his story. ‘I’d just been paid, and with my wages and savings, I was hoping to buy some nice fashionable trainers, with a label on the tongue and wonderful white laces. All my life, I’ve only worn old flip-flops with holes in them. I wanted to get myself something awesome to show off to the girl next door, who was always cutting me dead. I went to all the bazaars, and it took me all day. Finally, by chance, I came across a street peddler who took some Nikes out of a box that really took my breath away. I tried them on and they fitted me like a glove. They cost an arm and a leg, but I didn’t haggle. When you want to treat yourself, you don’t scrimp, isn’t that right, Uncle Mambo?’

  ‘You’re absolutely right, son,’ the veteran said in a learned tone. ‘Personally, when I want to give myself a treat, I never think of the price of the soap.’

  Roars of laughter shook the tent. The boy waited for the others to calm down before continuing, not at all disturbed by the lingering guffaws around him. ‘I took the Nikes and checked them from every angle. They looked so good my mouth was watering. I could already imagine myself strutting past the girl next door’s window. But just as I was putting my hand in the back pocket of my trousers to pay, I realised that someone had robbed me of half my money.’

  ‘Damn!’ exclaimed a young boy, entranced by his comrade’s story.

  ‘I hope you managed to get your hands on the thief,’ said the thirty-year-old in plaster.

  ‘How could I find him in that crowd? There were loads of people in the market that day.’

  ‘Easy,’ the veteran said. ‘You just had to look for a oneeyed man. Only a one-eyed man would have left the job half done.’

  Laughter rang out again. Bruno laughed for form’s sake. His mind was elsewhere. Later, he would admit to me that, not having papers, he was dreading the possibility that the Sudanese authorities would send him back to France, which was why he had no desire to talk to the officer in charge of our security.

  We stayed with the convalescents until midday, long enough for me to realise how amazing these people were. Had these survivors forgotten the misfortunes that had befallen them or had they discovered an antidote? As I observed them, I wondered from what ashes they had been reborn. They had an astonishing ability to downplay adversity. Their strength lay in their mindset, a unique, ancient mindset forged in the very magma of this good old earth of men. A mindset that had come into being with the first cry of life and would survive hard times and the downward spiral of the modern world with undimmed vigour. Bruno hadn’t been completely wrong. Deep inside these people, there resided an enduring flame that brightened and revived them every time the darkness tried to overwhelm them. Evidently, they had instinctively assimilated what I would not be able to grasp without wading through endless and often pointless mathematical probabilities. These people were an education. They laughed at their disappointments as if at an unsuccessful farce. Here they were, happy to be together, in total sympathy with each other, and if they laughed at their own naivety, it was in order to underline the fragility of things so that they could handle it better. I envied them, envied the maturity they had gained from so much suffering and so many nightmarish ordeals, their philosophical distance which allowed them to rise above traumas and disasters, and their sense of humour that seemed to proudly defy an unjust and treacherous fate, the mechanism of which they had somehow deciphered.

  Midday. The plane had not yet appeared. The news of its imminent arrival had spread through the camp like wildfire. People’s necks were stiff from looking up at the sky. Whenever a bird came in sight, everyone stood up. The children came running, the women shielded their eyes with their hands and the men stopped what they were doing and stood with their hands on their hips. But no plane appeared on the horizon. The delegation was an hour late. Had it really taken off from Khartoum? The captain may have been categorical, but we were starting to fear the worst. Pfer looked at his watch every five minutes, and the lines on his forehead grew deeper. His many phone calls went unanswered. Something serious had happened. Tired of biting his nails, Bruno went back to his ‘brothers’. Elena came twice to ask about the situation then disappeared again. The captain was glued to the radio: its crackle could be heard a hundred metres away. The soldiers walked up and down beside their vehicles, puffing on cigarette ends. An anxious atmosphere pervaded the camp. At about three in the afternoon, a fax came through: the plane had gone back to Khartoum. Its arrival was postponed until the next day. Learning the news, Bruno sank into a state of paranoia. As far as he was concerned, the whole thing was a trick. The plane had never left Khartoum and the Sudanese government was trying to gain time. I didn’t see why. Bruno took me to one side and launched into a host of crazy theories that betrayed just how low he was feeling.

  ‘It could be,’ he said, ‘that the Sudanese authorities intercepted the fax announcing our arrival here and held on to it. Our embassies haven’t been informed. The presence of the soldiers doesn’t bode well. It stinks of conspiracy.’

  ‘That makes no sense.’

  ‘We’re in Africa, Monsieur Krausmann. How do we know the pirates who kidnapped us aren’t in league with the government? Have our embassies been in touch with us? Like hell they have! Nobody’s contacted us. Don’t you find that strange? Just out of politeness, an official should have phoned to reassure us and ask if we were being well treated. But there seems to be a complete blackout.’

  Bruno was getting carried away. I guess he was really disturbed by the possibility of being taken to the border and sent back to France. At about three the following afternoon, a small propeller plane landed without incident on a stretch of wasteland not far from the camp. On board were the first secretaries of our respective embassies, a German secret service man, a correspondent from a major television channel and his cameraman, two newspaper reporters and three Sudanese army officers. A technical problem, we were told, had forced the pilot to return to base and the delegation had had to charter a second plane to accomplish its mission, which allayed Bruno’s mad suspicions. Pfer let us use his office, the narrowness of which obliged the cameraman to twist in all directions in order to film the event. After the
handshakes and the introductions, the German first secretary, Gerd Bechter, informed me that arrangements had been made for my repatriation and that I could go home whenever it suited me. I asked him if there was any news of Hans Makkenroth. He told me, much to my dismay, that the search had so far yielded no results.

  ‘How can that be?’ Bruno cried. ‘They were holding him to ransom.’

  ‘We’ve never received any ransom demand,’ Gerd Bechter said. ‘We know the boat was hijacked between Djibouti and Somalia. But after that, we lost all trace of you, Herr Makkenroth and your Filipino companion.’

  ‘Tao was thrown overboard by the pirates,’ I said.

  The journalists nervously scribbled that information in their notebooks.

  ‘Who reported the attack on the boat?’ Bruno asked suspiciously.

  ‘Herr Makkenroth’s Cyprus office. Herr Makkenroth had been calling them twice a day, at nine in the morning and ten at night, to report his position and the weather conditions. Then they lost radio contact. No faxes or emails either. They kept trying to get in touch with the boat, but without success. Forty-eight hours after contact was lost, Herr Makkenroth’s family in Frankfurt alerted the embassy and we immediately launched a search. The boat was spotted in a creek on the northern coast of Somalia and recovered by French special units dispatched from Djibouti. No arrests have been made, and we’re still in the dark, without any leads or witnesses.’

  ‘I’m not going back to Germany without Hans Makkenroth,’ I said.

  ‘Dr Krausmann, you’re expected in Khartoum today.’

  ‘It’s out of the question. My friend is somewhere in the region, and I refuse to abandon him to his fate.’

  ‘The search is ongoing.’

  ‘Then I’ll wait for it to lead somewhere.’

  ‘Your presence here will be of no help to us. Let’s go back to Khartoum and then we can see where we are.’

  ‘Please don’t insist. I’m not moving from this camp until I know what happened to my friend.’

  Bechter asked the others to leave us alone. Everyone left the office. The French first secretary took advantage of the situation to talk in private with Bruno.

  Bechter’s awkwardness annoyed me. He walked up and down the room, went and stood by the window to get a grip on himself, then came back towards me and implored me to follow him to Khartoum. Nothing he said would make me change my mind. In desperation, he took out his mobile phone and called the ambassador. When he had him on the line, he held the phone out to me, but I categorically refused to take it.

  ‘You can’t stay here, doctor,’ he said, after apologising to the ambassador.

  ‘Is there something I don’t know?’

  ‘We have no proof that Herr Makkenroth is still alive,’ he said bitterly.

  It was a blow, and my forehead and back suddenly broke out in a sweat.

  ‘Could you be more explicit?’

  He went to fetch one of the Sudanese officers, a colonel with greying temples, and asked him to explain the situation to me. The colonel told me that the information he had suggested that Hans Makkenroth was probably dead. One night, about four weeks earlier, an isolated shepherd had received a visit from a group of armed men in flight. They had a number of wounded men with them, including a bearded European whose description corresponded to that of Hans. He was in a critical state.

  ‘There’s nothing to prove it’s him,’ I said. ‘Hostages with a beard are two a penny. I had one myself when I arrived in this camp. We weren’t in a health spa, colonel.’

  ‘When the armed men pointed at their prisoner, they mentioned he was German,’ Bechter said. ‘There are no other German nationals reported missing in this region.’

  ‘Hans got a sabre blow in the back during the attack on the boat. He recovered from it before he was transferred.’

  ‘This wasn’t a sabre blow, doctor,’ said the colonel. ‘The hostage had been hit in the head and chest and had lost a lot of blood. The shepherd was sure about that. They were gunshot wounds.’

  I felt as if the ceiling were collapsing on my head. Shaking all over, I made an effort to steady my breathing. I was in a state of weightlessness, unable to preserve even a semblance of self-assurance. The colonel tried to put his hand on my shoulder, but I recoiled. I hate to be touched when things get too much for me.

  ‘No,’ I stammered after a long silence, ‘there must be some mistake. Hans was sold to a criminal group for money. The reason they haven’t asked for a ransom yet is because my friend is being auctioned. His last buyer will soon put in an appearance. This shepherd’s talking nonsense. Or maybe he’s an accomplice of the kidnappers and is lying to divert suspicion from himself and allow his associates to gain time. They’re hoping you’ll call off the search.’

  ‘Doctor—’

  ‘I won’t allow you to manipulate me, colonel. I refuse to listen to you and I refuse to go with you to Khartoum. I’m not moving from here until I get an answer to my question: where is Hans Makkenroth?’

  ‘I understand how you feel,’ Bechter said, ‘but I can’t approve your decision. I assure you you’d be more useful to us elsewhere.’

  ‘We have to go back today,’ the colonel said to me. ‘We chartered the plane for the day, and it’ll be dark soon.’

  ‘I’m sorry, colonel. Your priorities are not the same as mine.’

  As far as I was concerned, it was inconceivable that I should go back to Germany without Hans. I wanted to get out of Africa without leaving anything behind and without taking anything away with me. I wanted to dismiss anything that might mar my return to a normal life. It would be hard, very hard, but I intended to succeed because it was the only way for a survivor to learn to live again. I would be able to turn my back on the hateful memories that were dogging my heels and shake off the invective-laden voices and terrible gunshots that still echoed in my head. I would manage to convince myself that my stay in Africa had been nothing but a bad dream, and every morning that the world still had in store for me I would wake up to the sounds that were dear to me.

  The delegation failed to persuade me to leave the camp. Bruno was on my side. He refused to abandon me, convinced that Hans was still alive and was being moved from one buyer to another somewhere in the desert. As the sun was going down, the two first secretaries resigned themselves and granted us a few days to think it over, on condition that we cooperate with an officer who would remain in the camp and keep in close contact with the African Union forces deployed in the sector.

  When the plane took off, I was overcome with a mixture of dread and loneliness. What if the shepherd was telling the truth? What if Hans had succumbed to his wounds? That possibility was the final blow. My knees gave way and pain gripped my body and my mind.

  In the canteen, I stared at my plate without touching it. I couldn’t even have swallowed my own saliva. The rattle of knives and forks sounded to me like hailstones, crushing my thoughts into thousands of shards. Bruno noticed how badly affected I was. He took my hand, but the gesture felt like a bite. I asked him to excuse me and went outside to get some air.

  I walked in the darkness without knowing where I was going. Images of Hans went round and round in my head. I saw him again at the controls of his boat, limping through a thalweg with his shirt clinging to his wound, not finding words to say at Jessica’s funeral, fanning himself with his hat in the sun at Sharm el-Sheikh. I had the impression that a whole chunk of my universe was missing, that the absence of Hans had created an impossible gulf between me and the world. However hard I tried to dismiss the idea he might be dead, it kept coming back, as fierce as a hornet.

  Elena found me on the other side of the fence, huddled beneath a solitary tree, wild with anxiety. She leant down and talked to me, but couldn’t reach me. Unable to get any response or reaction from me, she took me in her arms and I abandoned myself to her like a child.

  3

  I needed someone.

  And Elena was there.

  When death tri
es to suck the lifeblood from you, life has to react, or it will lose all credibility. That might be what happened to me. Hans’s probable death had reactivated my survival instinct. By loving Elena, I proved to myself that I was alive. I was surprised to wake up in her bed. Surprised but reassured. My intimacy with Elena was more than a refuge for me, it enabled me to make peace with myself. Elena was embarrassed. Did she blame herself for taking advantage of the situation? She would have been wrong to think that. I needed support, and she was my rock. How could I have rejected her lips when they gave me back my soul? Hadn’t she told me she felt lonely? In making love, we had formed a common front against all the things that had swept away our moorings.

  She had made coffee, put the tray down on the bedside table and gone into the bathroom to get dressed. When she returned, her eyes wandered several times around the room before coming to rest on me. ‘Now that you’ve decided to stay in the camp, what do you plan to do with your days?’ she asked. I told her that if she had no objections, I’d like to resume my work. She assured me that the patients would be happy to be tended by me. I promised her I would join her in the treatment room as soon as I had taken a shower.

  Elena had already examined half the patients by the time I joined her in the infirmary. I found her at the bedside of the old woman, who had miraculously survived and was still in intensive care. Her son, the young man with the cart, was in the next bed. He, too, was on a drip. He wouldn’t take his eyes off his mother … Elena introduced me to her patients. There were about thirty of them, from different backgrounds: old men, women and children, most of them survivors of raids. Orfane brought me a white coat and a stethoscope and gave me a row of beds to deal with. Within ten minutes, I had recovered all my old medical reflexes. A young boy grabbed me by the wrist. His case was clearly desperate. With his hairless skull, almost non-existent eyebrows and yellowish complexion, he was nothing more than a big head above a skeleton. The skin of his face crumpled like a sheet of paper when he smiled at me.