Harmattan (37 page)

The in-coming ferry carried no vehicles and only a handful of foot passengers.

Abdelkrim waited until all of the passengers had disembarked and all of the westward bound passengers had gone on board, before slowly edging the Mercedes behind the C.A.R.E. vehicle and up the ferry’s groaning ramp. No sooner had he applied the handbrake than three or four of the women, who had been pleading with the C.A.R.E. driver, approached the Mercedes and began babbling and arguing as to which of them we should convey and why.

I knew that my brother was in no mood to listen to such a cackle. At first he appeared to try to adopt the C.A.R.E. driver’s stance, and ignored the barrage in his ear. Then suddenly he slammed his hand hard against the door panel, startling the women momentarily.

‘I’m not taking any of you anywhere!’ he barked and wound his window up until it snagged against the rope which held our mother’s coffin in place on the roof.

There was a lull, during which a little stooped fellow with a ticket machine attempted to shoo away my brother’s tormentors. He wound off a little strip of paper tickets for us – the colour of raw meat – and then turned to collect fares from the other passengers. But in no time the women were pushing their way back towards the Mercedes, pleading and bickering, even appealing to me through the open back window. A young woman with a child tied on to her back, sidled up to Archie’s window and called to my brother.

‘Abdelkrim. Abdelkrim Boureima.’

Abdelkrim looked up. ‘Who are you?’ he said.

‘Don’t you remember me, Abdel?’ the woman said. ‘I’m Monique Hassane from Goteye. Our parents are old friends. We heard about your poor mother and we are on our way to Wadata for her funeral. May God show us each other.’

Abdelkrim leaned forward to get a better look at her. He nodded. ‘Ah, yes 
Monique. It’s been a long time. Forgive me, please.’

Monique leaned her head in through the open window, so that her face was close to Archie’s. Her skin was beautiful. ‘My mother is travelling with me, Abdel. And my child.’ She glanced towards me in the back seat. ‘You have room to take us to Wadata in your fine car, brother,’ she said, trying to bewitch him with her large, round eyes.

Abdelkrim shrugged and looked at Archie, agitation registering on his face. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘the doors don’t open…’

Just then there was a frantic knocking at the driver’s window. One of the other women who had been haranguing us earlier had her face pressed to the glass.

‘Monsieur! Monsieur! My sister and I are going to your mother’s funeral also. You can give us a ride. Please give us a ride. My sister has a bad leg. She has river worm. She cannot walk easily. Please, won’t you give us a ride?’

Abdelkrim put his hands over his face and growled.

Monique had withdrawn her head from the car and was berating the other woman across the hood. ‘Go to hell!’ she called. ‘You and your sister are liars and freeloaders! Go to hell!’

Archie nudged my brother. ‘Let’s take Monique,’ he said, with a smirk. ‘She may have a foul mouth, but at least she has a pretty face.’

Abdelkrim glanced over his shoulder. ‘And a nice behind!’ he said.

Before anyone could say anything further, Monique was calling to her mother and passing her baby in through the rear window to me. I took the child and shuffled over behind Abdelkrim, as Monique clambered in, head first, through the window.

‘Aiee, aiee!’ Abdelkrim said. ‘You don’t take no for an answer, do you, sister?’Monique unfolded her legs awkwardly. ‘It is right that you take us, brother,’she puffed. ‘Most of these people are free-loaders, God is my witness.’ She shoved her large, rounded bottom up against me and gestured again to her mother. The older woman grabbed the handle of the door and gave it a yank. It opened partially and then sprang back against the taut rope.

‘The door will not open, Monsieur!’ she complained to Archie, throwing her hands up in the air. She pulled at the door again.

‘Leave it, Madame! Leave it!’ Archie said.

Monique leaned forward and clutched my brother’s shoulder. ‘Can’t you lift her in?’
‘Walayi!
What do you think this is?’

‘Please, Abdel. It would take my mother many hours to walk to your village.

She is old and frail!’

I considered Monique’s mother for a moment. I was unsure as to her age. Her skin was puckered and thin, but she certainly did not seem frail to me. In fact she was much the same build as her daughter – full and curvaceous. It struck me that she too must have been very beautiful once.

Archie and Abdelkrim looked at each other and shook their heads.

‘I can’t believe I’m allowing this,’ Abdelkrim said, lowering his window again. ‘All I want to do is bury my mother!’

Archie dabbed at his bloodied lip with his thumb. ‘This whole thing is hardly turning out as I envisaged it either, my friend.’

They both scrambled out of the front windows and, each taking one of Madame Hassane’s elbows, they tilted her backwards, cradled her thighs with their forearms and lugged her bulk into the car, feet first. There was a little fart sound as Madame Hassane’s large rump slapped down on to the hot upholstery of the rear seat, and Monique, her baby and I were all momentarily catapulted upwards. The baby – a beautiful little girl named Divine – had been wide-eyed with curiosity, but now she gave a little cry, as confusion, perhaps even fear, set in. By the time my brother and Archie were climbing back into the car, she had opened her lungs fully.

‘This just gets better and better!’ Archie said.

Madame Hassane straightened her
pagne
and then leaned across in front of her daughter. ‘Give the child to me,’ she said, practically snatching Divine from my arms. Behind us, the battered ramp of the ferry clanked and rattled and juddered as it was raised. The engines belched out more thick, black smoke and shook the vessel, and with a great lurch it pulled away from the shore. I had hoped to get a closer look at Monsieur Evarist Bonanza Junior but now, as I peered out at the throng of disgruntled foot passengers on the deck and considered my position, squashed against the rear door, I decided to stay put in the car for the crossing.

Abdelkrim and Archie were just settling back into their seats and Madame Hassane was babbling loudly to baby Divine when the car seemed suddenly to sag behind us. Archie stuck his head out of the window and yelled something which I could not make out, and when I looked over my shoulder I realised that the trunk lid had been sprung open and someone had climbed inside. In a flash, my brother was back out of his window, followed closely by Archie. Jammed in the back of the vehicle and with the trunk lid obscuring our view, we could only sit and listen to the yelling and bickering and watch the foot passengers as they scuttled across the deck to the hullabaloo at the rear of the Mercedes, like
Capitaine
drawn to a lure.

Abdelkrim’s voice could be heard above the commotion. Clearly he had had enough. ‘Just get out of there, you old goat!’ he bellowed. ‘My friend has already told you that the car can carry no more weight. We will get stuck in the sand with you there. Out! Now!’

The tail end of the vehicle sprung upwards again, as the stowaway either removed himself or was wrenched from the trunk. The arguing and bickering continued as Abdelkrim slammed it shut and then he and Archie climbed back inside the car.

‘Walayi!’

‘Merde!’

‘Incredible!’

‘Can you believe it?’ Archie twisted around to face me. ‘Apparently nearly all of these folk are heading to Wadata for your mother’s funeral!’

‘They’re mostly from Bankilare,’ Monique said. ‘Like I say, a bunch of scroungers!’

‘Word travels fast,’ Abdelkrim said. ‘I can’t say that I recognise one of them.’

Monique laughed. ‘But you didn’t recognise me, Abdel!’

My brother leaned his head on the steering wheel for a moment. Then, fumbling in his pocket, he leaned back in his seat heavily and lit a cigarette.

Archie patted him on the shoulder. ‘We’ll get through this, my friend.’

Across the deck, a few of the foot passengers were leaning over the handrail, discussing something excitedly that we could not see from the car. An elderly man pointed across the water and then raised his hands up in the air.

‘What are they doing?’ I said.

‘That’s the marabout from Bankilare,’ Madame Hassane said. ‘He’s probably asking the spirits for safe passage across
Egerou n-igereou
.’

‘River of rivers!’ Monique said.

The ferry continued to hurtle across the murky waters. Madame Hassane looked at her daughter and pulled a face, as Abdelkrim’s cigarette smoke snaked its way towards us, buffeted by the rush of cool air through the open windows. She clicked her tongue and then proceeded to make clucking sounds at her grandchild, who was still sobbing pitifully.

The river is wide at Bac Farie but the famous Monsieur Evarist Bonanza Junior’s ferry
La République
made the crossing swiftly and safely, despite its flaking paintwork and battered hull. We bounced down the ramp on to the western shore and slowly overtook the foot passengers, a few of whom assailed us with looks of great displeasure and a barrage of foul language.

Abdelkrim waved to them as he accelerated along the dusty track, heading at last for Wadata. ‘Ah, Monique,’ he said. ‘Your neighbours will be calling on the spirits to wrack your guts with pain!’

Monique laughed. ‘Or yours perhaps, Abdel!’

‘The spirits are already doing their damnedest to ruin me and my family!’ my brother said, without a hint of humour.

‘Azara was a good soul,’ Madame Hassane said, after a brief silence.

I could not help wondering when she had last seen or spoken to my mother.

With the extra weight in the car, a rhythmic scud developed behind me and after a few minutes Abdelkrim drew the car to a halt on the softening piste. Madame Hassane and her grandchild had already fallen asleep, but Monique – whose head had been lolling against my shoulder – now sat up with a jolt.

‘What’s wrong?’ she demanded.

‘Ça va, ça va
,’ my brother said.

‘Is it the tyre, Abdel?’ Archie said.

‘Oui
.’

They both got out of the car and began kicking and pulling and bending the guard directly behind me, against which the tyre had been rubbing.

‘It’s practically worn right through!’ I heard Abdelkrim say.

Archie groaned. ‘Like I say, this just keeps getting better and better.’

‘I’m sorry, my friend. I
will
reimburse you. I promise.’

Archie climbed back into the car, behind the steering wheel. ‘Hey, don’t worry about it. I told you I would help you,’ he said, as Abdelkrim’s knees drew level with his face. ‘It’s part of the deal.’

I expected my brother to say something, to thank his friend, but instead he leaned his head against the door pillar and closed his eyes. Perhaps it was exhaustion that made him forget his manners, I do not know. Nevertheless, I could not help but feel embarrassed, and so I took it upon myself to thank this stranger who had so quickly become a trusted family friend. ‘May God smile upon you, Monsieur,’ I said.

Archie Cargo shook his head. ‘It’s
Archie,
Haoua,
Archie!’

I had been away from Wadata for just two days: the only time in my life, in almost twelve years, that I had ever stayed away from my home. Now, as the Mercedes limped across the scorched plain towards my village, I briefly experienced the sweet pleasure of home-coming that I had read about in the stories in Monsieur Boubacar’s school books and those which Katie and Hope had sent me. The dull ache in my heart, that had remained with me ever since my friends’ letters had dried up and I had been prevented from attending school, surfaced momentarily, but was replaced with dread when I recalled the ritual that we were about to carry out.

In the distance we could see that a throng of people had gathered on the outskirts of the village. As we trundled down the gentle incline, past
Aunt
Alassane’s Big House, women covered their faces and shook their heads and men clasped their hands and nodded to show their respect. When I turned to look out of the back window of the car I watched them gather up their few belongings and then begin to follow us on the short route to my father’s house. These then were the final stages of my mother’s final journey to her home village. Before she went to join the spirits in the
Thin Place
she would make only one more short journey in this world.

Archie brought the car as close to our compound as possible. As we drew up alongside the entrance I caught sight of Adamou and Fatima, both of whom were shiny clean and dressed in their best clothes. They ran towards us as we struggled out through the car’s windows for the last time, but stopped a few metres beyond the gate. I brushed myself down and looked at them with a mixture of relief and sadness.

Truly, it seemed like years had passed since I had last set eyes on them, rather than just two days. Their lives had also altered forever, but at that moment none of us could have known quite how much things would change. I tried to smile at them but realised then that they were not looking at me but at the box lashed to the top of the car. Behind us, Archie was already attempting to untie the ropes, while Madame Hassane and her daughter sat babbling and complaining, impatient to be released.

Abdelkrim took his hand off my shoulder and opened his arms wide and Adamou and Fatima trudged sadly towards us, their eyes glazed and red. Together we stood, the four of us, huddled and sobbing, until we heard my father’s voice.

‘Why did you put your mother’s body in a coffin?’
Aunt
Alassane stood close by him, looking awkward but defiant. I could see only agitation on his face.

Before he turned to address Father, Abdelkrim rubbed our backs and shoulders and whispered, ‘We must be strong and dignified.’ He let go of us and met Father’s eyes.

‘
Foyaney
, Father,’ he said softly.

My father made no reply but stood staring, clearly waiting for an answer.

‘It made transportation easier. And I remembered Mademoiselle Sushie saying that there had been a problem with wild dogs in the area.’ He gestured towards the Mercedes, where Archie Cargo was edging the casket carefully towards the trunk.