So you’re just going to wait it out, are you?
You got a better idea?
Well, you might want to consider making a move.
Really? What about the cavalry?
Yeah, well, they might come. But in the meantime, this is no picnic site, is it?
True. Still, I can put up with the stench. It’s not going to kill me.
Maybe not, though it’s what it might attract that’s more the problem.
What’re you talking about?
Dead bodies. Carrion. Hyenas, lion. Think about it.
Here? You sure? He looks around doubtfully. He’s suddenly aware that most of the day has gone, that it’s only a few hours until sunset. The thought of spending the night here alone is terrifying.
Chin up. Someone might turn up at any moment. Still, just to be on the safe side, it wouldn’t do any harm to have another look around, see what you can find that might be useful if you do have to leave. Pack a proper bag. Better safe than sorry, eh?
And with that, he’s up on his feet, sets about emptying out a backpack he’d noticed wedged between a section of wing flap and a thorny shrub close to the section of storage fuselage.
He slings it over his shoulder, sets off on yet another scavenging mission.
It takes him an hour to fill his bag. At one point, when he finds someone’s first aid kit, he stops to take some aspirin, swabs the bloodied side of his face with cotton wool doused in disinfectant, washes off the worst of the grime and gore from his various cuts and scratches. Soon after that he strikes gold. Away near what may once have been the cockpit, he finds a green plastic box marked
Emergency Survival Kit, cracked but still intact. He extracts a compass, a heliograph, a safety whistle, a folding knife, first aid dressings and some waterproof matches. He adds his mobile phone to the bag, more for talismanic reasons than from hope of making contact, and a handsome pair of binoculars that he recovers from a leather holdall. He’s also packed the supply of food including a packet of dried fruit, some biltong and a tube of boiled sweets. The backpack’s still only half full, and he fills the remaining space with more bottled water. By the time he’s finished looting, his battered body is utterly exhausted.
Back in the shade, he checks on the woman, then makes a pillow from a rolled up blanket, lies down on a second blanket next to the tent and closes his eyes. He knows he must rest before attempting further physical activity.
Later, he stirs. His clothes feel soiled and he suddenly wonders whether he can find his own bag in the storage. He’d travelled light – it’d been a last-minute decision to travel to the funeral – and he’d taken only a small canvas holdall. Back amongst the wreckage, he climbs onto the pile of bags, begins to sort his way through it.
The large metallic case is lying next to his holdall, so when he first sees it he ignores it, focuses solely on retrieving his own possessions. It’s only when he’s picked out a pair of khaki trousers, an olive, long-sleeved shirt, some clean socks and a pair of trainers, stripped off his filthy gear and re-dressed, that his attention returns to the case. It’s oblong, stainless steel, heavy, over a metre in length and protected by two elaborate-looking combination locks. His eye is caught by the fire-red PROHIBITED ITEM stickers plastered on the front of the case, the yellow SPECIAL ITEM tape wound around the handle.
He hauls the case out, drags it back to the tree and tries to force the locks with the penknife. Sweat runs down his forehead, stinging his eyes. The buzzing of the flies, the stabbing pain in his head, the obstinacy of the locks all combine to turn his curiosity into fixation, his exhaustion into rage. He gets up, hunts the ground for a suitable rock, carries it back to the shade. He begins to pound at the locks with all his strength.
For a full five minutes he attacks the locking mechanisms. The casing becomes scratched, dented, loses its smart shine, but the locks remain firm. Blisters are forming on his hand. He stops, looks up, notices the first streaks of dusky orange on the horizon as the sun sinks gradually behind the faraway hills, feels a squeeze of panic in his bowels at the prospect of the approaching night. In the distance, off where the furthest debris has landed, he watches something large and dark swoop down from the sky, land next to a body and approach it in great hopping movements. It takes him a few seconds to recognise the vulture.
He channels the panic into fury, redoubles his efforts and, when he least expects it, the casing opens and the first mechanism surrenders. Encouraged, he begins work on the second lock. By the time it, too, yields, the blisters have been rubbed raw and his hands are slippery with blood. He opens the case.
He’s unprepared for what he sees, but feels a sense of satisfaction that the contents justify the effort put in to reveal them. He finds himself looking down at a sleek, elegant hunting rifle encased in rich black velvet. There are two slots sunk into the velvet for the small, trim magazines, a flap revealing an empty pocket for ammunition. He takes out the rifle, runs his hand along the flat wooden stock, the cold black barrel, the smooth curve of the telescopic sights.
He recalls a visit to Ireland to visit Nuala’s relatives, her farmer cousin taking him out shooting with a shotgun, another episode of target practice with a small .22 rifle used for lamping rabbits. He senses that the weapon he now holds in his hands is vastly more powerful, and he feels a surge of adrenalin as he weighs it in his hands.
He picks up the magazine, sees with disappointment that it is empty, reasons that gun and ammunition have perhaps been kept apart for safety reasons. Maybe somewhere among the cargo there is a separate package of rounds.
And then he recalls a small steel case he’d spotted earlier near the food preparation section, another box covered in the SPECIAL ITEM tape. His first instinct had been to investigate, and he’d bent to remove the bundle that lay across it, recoiled in horror as he recognised it as part of a severed leg. Revulsion had replaced curiosity and he’d moved on.
Now, though, he backtracks, locates the silver case quickly, forces himself to nudge aside the half-clothed limb, brings the case over to his tree and sets to work on the lock with his rock. He feels driven, works to a rhythm, his efforts more efficient. Within ten minutes the lid buckles, the hinges snap open and the top and bottom separate to reveal two boxes of ammunition.
Next he attempts to load one of the magazines. There’s a sense of urgency in his actions, a need to protect his charges against scavengers, but it is this impatience that slows his progress, causes him to fumble with the shells, to misunderstand the system of loading the magazine, to attempt to fix it back-to-front to the underside of the rifle. In the war films it all looks so straightforward, he thinks. The soldier slots home the magazine with an expert fluency, the magazine itself is always fully loaded, seems to have an inexhaustible supply of bullets and rarely needs changing.
He begins to panic and this clouds his judgement, muddles his systematic approach to mastering the weapon. Sweat’s running down his forehead, burning his eyes and turning his grip slippery. Take a deep breath, he tells himself. Calm down.
He works through trial and error, a process of elimination. It takes him over twenty minutes, several false starts, before he gets the magazine loaded and fitted into the underside of the rifle. When he looks up he sees the original vulture he’d spotted has been joined by ten or so others, that more are looming out of the sky, spreading out, working away on several of the furthest corpses. He raises his rifle, aims and pulls the trigger.
Nothing. The trigger is jammed and at first he fears he’s made another mistake with the magazine. He closes his eyes and tries to visualise footage he’s seen of gun fire. He pictures a cocking action, a bolt being slid back, something to direct the first bullet to the chamber. He examines the rifle and sees a likely-looking lever. He twists it upwards, draws it back and forward, returns it to the position. He aims again, his finger finds the trigger and he squeezes.
A
second failure. Then a flash of déjà vu, and he remembers about safety catches, turns the gun over in his hands until he locates it and slides it to the off setting. He raises the gun a third time, taking aim again. The trigger feels stiff under his finger and for a second, as he squeezes, he thinks there’s still something wrong.
The blast is deafening in the stillness of his seclusion. The kick of the weapon is shocking, far more vicious than he’d expected. His shoulder feels battered, pummelled, he knows there’ll be bruising, another injury to his poor broken body.
And the blast, too. How can something so sublimely elegant make such a thunderous, hellish noise? His ears are ringing, he’s deafened. He looks down at the rifle and marvels at its potency. A painful experience, yes, but heady, too. The rifle’s strength and the sense of protection it offers are intoxicating.
He looks up and sees that he’s missed the vulture, but that they have all panicked, taken to the air, circling. Even as he takes this in, the first one, emboldened by hunger, swoops back down to resume his feasting. For a few minutes, consumed by a compulsion to shoot that he justifies as a need to test out the firearm, he fires at the birds, reloads the magazine, fires again. His eardrums feel shattered, his shoulder begs for relief. Gradually, the firing mechanism becomes familiar, though his shooting is no more accurate, and for every vulture he hits, five more seem to appear. He realises that he’s fighting a losing battle, that he’s become the sole spectator of a ghastly, gruesome picnic. He cannot see in any detail what the vultures are doing, but pictures the pecking and ripping and tearing. He feels his stomach heave in revulsion.
I can’t stay here. I’ve got to move.
What about your rescue? What about the woman?
He stands up and for the first time looks away from the debris, the sloping plain and up the other way. The kopje stretches ahead, steep and rocky. It’s difficult to gauge how high it is, he can’t see the summit from his position at its foot, but it now feels like a place of safety, a vantage point away from the carnage, the stink, the gory horror that is unfolding.
I can’t do any more for the woman. I’m not even sure she’s still alive. At least in the tent she’s safe from scavengers. Her only hope’s a rescue team. Her fate’s in their hands, not mine. Anyway, I’m not going far, just up the kopje. I can keep an eye on her from there.
He picks up his backpack, adds the box of bullets to a side pocket and hauls it up onto his shoulders. Finally he grasps the rifle in both hands. He takes a few steps up the slope, then changes his mind. There’s something in his canvass holdall, something he had forgotten that he knows he must take, so he puts down the bag and rifle and scrambles back to the fuselage wreckage. He finds his bag, throws out his clothing, shoes, a soapstone statue given to him as a farewell gift less than twenty-four hours ago, extricates the sketch pad at the bottom, returns to his backpack and slides it inside. Now he’s ready.
He pauses only once more before he begins his ascent. There, at the foot of the hill, his eye is caught by a brightly coloured object, a small plastic keg. He picks it up, notes that according to the front label it’s supposed to contain two white handheld flares for night-time distress signalling and two orange smoke signals for day-time emergencies. But the canister feels too light and he sees at once that the top has come loose and the contents have gone astray. He scans the vicinity for the missing flares, reasons that they could be anywhere or nowhere, winces with irritation. He’s aware how crucial the distress signals could be but feels too exhausted to start a new search. He tosses the keg behind him.
Ten minutes of steep climbing brings him to a level section of granite and shrub. The air here is fresher, less polluted. He turns and looks down at the crash site. The first body to be attacked is now enveloped in a churning, squabbling sea of vultures. It is a sickening sight and the urge to press on, to put more distance between himself and the vampire banquet below is irresistible. He thinks again of the Breugel painting.
A further ten minutes and he’s back on a steep stretch, clambering between boulders. He’s weary, his muscles crying out for respite, when he finds himself on a flat bed of rock concealed behind thick bushes. He takes off his pack, about to sink to the ground when he notices that behind him the rock stretches into what looks like the mouth of a cave. Clutching his rifle, he takes a step or two towards it cautiously, automatically equating caves with wild animals, but it is shallow, no more than a couple of metres deep, and empty.
Perfect. This’ll do for the moment. I’m away from the bloodbath, but if anyone does come to the rescue, I’ll be able to spot them easily.
Yeah, and if any animal wants to mess with you, they’ll have to get past my friend here. He grips his rifle with grim determination. He takes the blanket out of his bag and spreads it out in the floor of the cave. He’s about to reward himself with a rest when he’s struck by an idea.
Not thinking of putting your feet up, are you?
Well, actually...
You’ve got work to do. It’ll be dark in an hour or so. How are you going to signal your position if they send a plane over? And what about wild animals? What’s the one thing they’re scared of in the bush?
Fire?
Right. Now get off your backside and fetch some firewood.
OK, OK. Give me a second. I’m feeling pretty ropey, you know.
He’s collected three or four good dry sticks, a handful of kindling, when he sees it. He’s bent down too quickly, feels a wave of dizzy nausea and lifts his head to let it pass. He glances down the hill to the crash site, then raises his line of vision beyond, to the plain stretching off into the sunset. And there it is, still a mile or two away but approaching fast, the clouds of dust left in its wake. A vehicle, a landcruiser or pickup – it’s still too far away to distinguish clearly – is heading towards the wreckage.
Towards him.
Aman 1
Beginning a journal seems a timely idea now that I have arrived here in the United Kingdom. It is not that I fancy myself as a literary animal or foresee its publication leading to fame and fortune. It is more to do with the family I abandoned, my dear sweet wife and my precious children. Of course I pray that we will be together again one day, and together we can read my words, follow my adventures, laugh and joke and cry together. But if I do not see you again, if God forbid we are never reunited, I know you will have questions. The journal, then, will be the answer to your wheres and hows and whens and whys.
Mind you, if this journal were to be valued by some literary agent as a work of genius, translated into English and French and Russian, published by some esteemed New York firm, I would not complain. I can picture a fabulous screenplay turned into Hollywood blockbuster. Or perhaps Bollywood. Yes, that is more like it, a Bollywood saga complete with dance routines and rousing song. I see myself played by Salman Khan, your role given to Rani Mukerji. It will be an instant success, a tale of good over evil, a passionate testament to the power of love.
There is a second justification for writing this diary: it looks likely that I will have plenty of time to kill while I enjoy Her Majesty’s hospitality and my case is processed. It will be a form of therapy, a way of fleeing the locked doors and barred windows, an escape from a confined present to a freer past. Because, of course, I cannot write about my daily existence without explaining how I came to be here.
Where to begin? Not that fateful Eid evening three years ago. I must dig deeper. Our wedding? No, still further. A hastily sketched background is called for, a swift hop, skip and jump over my infancy, adolescence and bachelorhood, just to provide some context.
Yes, the more I think about it, the more I am aware of how little I have told you about my life before we met. You, my darling, were always the talker, the divulger of your thoughts, your inner life, your past. I have never been much of a communicator, never great at putting feelings into words. So you only know the basics of my past, the superficia
lities of what makes me tick. I pray I gave enough away to reassure you always of my love for you. But beyond that, I fear I have told you little. Well now is my chance to make amends.
So, a brief perambulation through my early years, a leisurely stroll just like my family’s regular six o’clock passeggiata along Harnet Avenue, central thoroughfare of Asmara, the heat of the day relenting as my father would nod and greet acquaintances, occasionally stopping to shake hands and exchange a word or two with a few of his more favoured friends as they too accompanied their families on this early evening ritual.
Some families would indulge themselves, stopping to buy macchiatos and pastries at one of the numerous cafés, beautiful examples of art deco colonial architecture that I only learned to appreciate after I had left the city. This was needless frivolity in my father’s eyes, particularly when we had such delicious home cooking waiting for us on our return. So we would amble along with the crowds of families, past the Catholic cathedral, turn around at Sematat Avenue, then head back towards Fenkil Street. Once home, my mother would hurry off to the kitchen to supervise the final stages of the evening meal, leaving us children – my elder brother, two younger sisters and myself – to kick off our shoes and settle down in the dust of the back yard to continue our games and jokes and squabbles.
Our mother’s shout, some twenty minutes later, was our signal to call a truce and head for the communal room. We would sit round the table while Fatuma the maid, her face shining from kitchen efforts, passed around a bowl of water and hand towel. Father washed his hands first, then my brother and I. My mother would go last, of course, too anxious to ensure that her family’s needs were met to contemplate her own physical requirements.
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