Harmattan (32 page)

I nodded, padding my eyes, nose and mouth and then holding the soiled cloth out to him, my heaving body causing my hand to shake. ‘H-how do you know?’ I sobbed, the hollow words of this stranger whose shoulders I spoke to suddenly fuelling my anger further.

‘You can keep that!’ he said, glancing over his seat to pull a face and then flashing me a smile, the kindness in his eyes quelling my agitation a little. ‘Actually, I did meet your mother – once – and although I didn’t really know her, I could tell that she didn’t have a bad bone in her body.’ He shrugged. ‘You can just tell when people are good.’ He peered into his mirror again. ‘Would you like me to stop?’

I shook my head. ‘When did you meet my mother?’

He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Hmm, let’s see; ten… twelve weeks ago maybe? At Efrance’s house.’

‘Efrance?’

Archie cocked his head towards Abdelkrim. ‘Your brother’s friend. Lives in Pays-Bas, Niamey’s shanty area. She has a little daughter, Momi. Didn’t he tell you about them?’

‘No.’

‘Oh. I see. Well, probably best if he does so himself.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, your mother stayed with Efrance and Momi for a few weeks, to be relatively close to the hospital. Then of course, when her condition worsened…’ he broke off.

‘And that’s where you met her?’ I said.

‘It is.’ He leaned across and opened the little compartment in front of my sleeping brother. ‘I should have a photograph in here somewhere,’ he said, glancing up at the treacherous road every few seconds as he rummaged around. At last he handed me a brightly coloured envelope on which the word
Quikacopy
had been printed. ‘I’d dropped Abdel off there that day; Pays-Bas is some distance away from central Niamey.

Mainassara’s people like to keep its inhabitants out of sight, well away from the Presidential Palace etcetera, you know?’ He looked over his shoulder and pulled a mock smile on only one side of his face. ‘Efrance insisted I take some tea with them and I happened to have my camera with me.’

There were some twenty photographs altogether. In other circumstances I would have paid more attention to the images of
anasaras
whom I did not know and young, Nigerien men working in what I recognised as Archie Cargo’s workshop.

Now, however, I shuffled through them impatiently until I found the single picture of my mother. Seeing her face again after so long wrenched at my heart, and my eyes welled up once more. She was seated in front of a small, shabby hut, on her head a wrap which I did not recognise. Her face was thin, gaunt, tired, but her eyes were full of life and love. It was, unmistakably, my mother. To her right sat my brother, his face serious, handsome, his arm around her shoulder protectively. On her left, a young, pretty woman – Efrance I guessed – leaned in towards my mother and the child on her lap.

‘This is Momi?’ I said, shuffling forward to hold the photograph towards Archie, and then tapping it.

‘Yes.’

Momi had a pretty face too. I guessed that she was about three years old. She was seated on my mother’s lap and her tiny hands were clutching the sleeves of my mother’s
pagne
as she cradled the child. Like one of her own, I thought.

‘I couldn’t get them to smile,’ Archie said, shaking his head.

‘ Toh.’

‘And little Momi wriggled like a snake!’

I leaned back and held the photograph close to my face. Together, these four individuals looked like a family, albeit a small one. My mother could easily have been mistaken for the child’s grandmother. Here was a very real part of my mother’s life – of the last part of my mother’s life – about which I had known nothing. What had she felt for this woman and her child? Had she grown to love them? Had she put aside thoughts about me, Fatima and Adamou? Had she given up on my father? I gazed again at her face and searched for some clue. Abdelkrim would provide me with some answers, but I dared not risk waking him. Again, a wave of anger washed over me, causing a prickling sensation in my temples and a burning feeling around my ears. Could it really be that I felt anger and jealousy towards my poor, dead mother and my beloved brother, I wondered. Just as suddenly as it had seized me, my anger receded and was replaced by guilt. I sniffed and replaced the photograph in its envelope.

‘Thank you for letting me see this, Monsieur,’ I said, handing the packet across the back of the seat.

Archie shot me a stern look. ‘Archie!’ he said.

I smiled. ‘Archie.’

‘That’s better.’ He had not taken the photographs from me. ‘You can keep the one of your mother – if you’d like to.’

I took the photograph back out of the packet and examined it again. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I would like to.’ I untied the little bundle which I had knotted around my waist and added the photograph to my collection of treasures, slipping it carefully between one of Katie and Hope’s postcards and my ‘magic’ picture of Abdelkrim in uniform on the Bac Farie ferry. In front of us, Archie’s little plastic leprechaun jiggled about furiously with every bump and swerve of the road, his pale, pink face smiling, come what may. I twisted the bundle back onto my hip and left my hand resting on it. For a moment I felt reassured, calmed. A warm glow seemed to emanate from my fingertips and pulsate up my arm towards my heart, my soul. I was glad enough of Madame Kantao’s cockerel’s foot but my treasures were my true amulets.

I wanted to know more about this Efrance and Momi, but Archie Cargo’s loyalty to my brother was obvious. There and then I decided to disclose some of my secrets to him, perhaps because I felt that I too could trust this man, or perhaps because I felt that he might offer more information if I did so first. I told him all about Miriam, Fatima, Adamou, my father, Monsieur Boubacar, Richard and Sushie.

About my photographs and postcards, about the letters to and from Katie and Hope, about the joy of being able to read and write and my dreams of seeing the world and of being a school teacher or a doctor. Archie Cargo listened intently as I spoke, never once interrupting me or yawning, or shaking his head or sucking his teeth.

When I had finished my excited ramble he nodded, turning the side of his pointed face towards me as he drove. ‘It is very good to have friends all over the world,’ he said, pushing a few strands of his straggly brown hair back from his damp brow. ‘I have made lots of friends since first coming to your country eight years ago, Haoua.’ He motioned towards my still sleeping brother. ‘Abdelkrim is one of the best!’ I told him about the photograph that Abdelkrim had given to my mother and that she had then given to me on her departure from Wadata, and of the day Miriam and I had gone in search of Monsieur Longueur and his ‘magic’ camera.

‘Monsieur Longueur!’ he laughed. ‘That’s a good name for him. I know that guy. Sometimes he comes in to the Rec Centre for a swim. Ha!’

I agreed that I would show him my treasures at the earliest opportunity.

We drove on for several kilometres until finally the car struck a pothole with such force that it juddered almost to a halt, my brother’s head bouncing against the doorframe. Wrenched from his exhausted slumber, he swore and, scowling through gritty eyes, rubbed the crown of his head. ‘What’s going on?’ he said. ‘Where are we?’ ‘I’d guess about eighty kilometres from the river crossing,’ Archie said.

Abdelkrim sat up and rubbed his eyes. He stretched, the stink from under his arms suddenly wafting around the cockpit of the car. He spat out of the window and rubbed his neck. ‘Aiiee! I feel like I’ve been kicked by a camel!’

Archie laughed. ‘You smell like one, too, my friend! Do you want some water, Abdel? Where’s that bottle gone, Haoua?’

I handed it across the seat.

‘It’s warm already, I’m afraid,’ Archie said.

Abdelkrim took the bottle and removed the lid, then steadied it between his thighs. ‘I’ll show you a little trick I learned in the army,’ he said. He reached down to the floor of the car and extracted a packet of Lipton’s mint teabags from one of the
supermarché
bags. He ripped open the packaging, took out two teabags and poked them into the narrow mouth of the bottle, then he screwed the lid back on and gave the bottle a great shake before setting it on the dash of the car, in full view of the sun. ‘Better than drinking tepid water!’

‘That’s clever!’ Archie said.

Abdelkrim leaned out of the open window and scanned the sky. ‘We have a few hours of daylight yet. I’ll drive for a while, if you want?’

Archie shook his head. ‘I’m all right for now. But later thanks.’

I shuffled forward and leaned an elbow on each of the two front seats.

Although I had felt quite at ease with Archie Cargo, I was glad that my brother was now awake. ‘We saw some giraffes, Abdel,’ I said.

‘Uhuh.’

‘Quite far off,’ Archie said. ‘Four, maybe five, heading south.’

Abdelkrim nodded. ‘They’ll be trying to outrun the desert!’ He twisted around to face me. ‘You know, I read an article in
Le Sahel,
not so long ago, about some oaf – a royal from Britain, I think – who was visiting with the World Wildlife Fund
.
He was quoted as saying that there is no wildlife in Niger!’

Archie put his head down and slapped his brow. ‘Aiiee, aiiee, aiiee!’ he said.

‘I think I know who that will have been!’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes. Philip – the Queen’s husband.
Walayi!
He’s famous for his gaffs! He once told the president of Nigeria, who was dressed in his traditional robes, that he looked like he was ready for bed!’

I sat back and thought about the abundance of creatures that we encountered on a daily basis: jerboas, rats, siafu ants, termites, wild dogs, monkeys, bats, bees and hornets, scorpions, buzzards, lizards and chameleons, crocodiles, egrets, dung beetles, river horses, gazelle, yaffil, preying mantis, vultures; creatures who wore the mantel of the desert like an invisible
jellaba
, who could hide themselves on the vast, scorched desert plains and scrublands of the bush, or slip into the muddy waters of the river and wait for hours disguised as rotting logs. Creatures who had resisted the southerly push of the desert. Creatures who had not abandoned the Sahel, who waited, along with the now formerly nomadic tribes such as my own, in the hope of an easier life.

‘How can a king be so ignorant?’ I said.

Archie snorted. ‘Good question, Haoua.’

And so the conversation continued as we bumped and edged our way along the ruined road. A news bulletin came over the car radio declaring that shots had been fired at Pont Kennedy in the capital. Archie was clearly agitated by this news and fretted about the safety of his students, despite the fact that there were no reports of injuries. ‘It’s a bad situation,’ Abdelkrim said. ‘The government sends in militia and
gendarmerie
who haven’t been paid to quell troublesome civil servants and students who also haven’t been paid.’

Archie nodded. ‘Some of my guys are just about ready to spill blood. Can’t feed their families. Can’t concentrate on their work. They’re like pressure cookers!’

‘The whole thing is a mess!’

‘Mainassara should step down, don’t you think?’

Abdelkrim sighed. ‘Ask me after I’ve been paid, my friend. For now, I suppose I’m one of the lucky ones – at least the army has to feed me.’

The broken road meandered through a desolate, lonely landscape, and was now just a dusty, rock-strewn track. Fissures in its surface sent the vehicle hurtling towards the ditch at times, the wallowing tyres spinning furiously against little more than grit and red sand.

All three of us had taken on ghostly complexions, our faces coated in layer upon layer of the fine, red-grey dust that billowed through the open windows and settled on our lips and eyelids and inside our nostrils and ears. Archie had been wearing a pair of heavy plastic sunglasses for some time. He now removed them to reveal a band of pinkish, pale skin.

‘Weird, eh?’ he said, looking in the rear view mirror and frantically pushing two fingers in and out of his nostrils, so that when he looked towards us again he also had a little pink moustache.

‘Man, you are ugly!’ Abdelkrim said, and we all laughed as Archie puffed up his cheeks and crossed his eyes. For a moment he reminded me of Adamou, and I was at once filled with dread and excitement at the prospect of returning home to my village. It seemed like much longer ago than a day and a half that I had set off on foot from Wadata with cousin Moussa. In fact it seemed like a lifetime ago.

By now my
pagne
was saturated and sticking to my body. I reached up to the rope above my head and hooked my fingers around it, the warm breeze wafting around my armpits as the car bucked and vibrated its way along the empty road. The interior of the vehicle was airless, heavy with the stinking heat of the afternoon. My throat was parched. Even Abdelkrim’s mint tea did little to help. I tried laying my throbbing head on the package of water bottles again but it was too uncomfortable to sleep. I rubbed the grit out of my eyes once more and sat up. ‘Can’t we stop for a while, please?’ I whined.

‘Sure,’ Archie said with a grimace, as the car dipped into a steep incline. ‘We’ll pull over just ahead – where those other vehicles have parked.’ Half a kilometre ahead, the remnants of an array of ravaged vehicles lay scattered forlornly by the roadside. We slithered down the hill towards them, stones pinging off the underside of Archie’s car as the tyres scuffed along the rough terrain.

‘What has happened here?’ I said, as we neared the skeletal trucks and bush taxis. ‘This place is known as
Bukwa Fonda
, Death Avenue,’ Abdelkrim said. ‘It’s notoriously dangerous. Ambushes. Robbery. Probably best to keep going for a little while.’ We crawled through the disarray; overturned cars with their roofs ripped off, discarded doors with melted and distorted plastic mouldings, unrecognisable body panels, twisted fenders and fragments of shattered windscreens, twinkling like diamonds in the relentless sun.

‘I don’t remember seeing this before,’ I said. ‘Perhaps it was dark when the
camion
passed through here yesterday.’

‘Sometimes the drivers follow other
pistes
to avoid this place,’ Abdelkrim said. ‘It’s considered bad luck!’