Authors: Helen Fielding
I said nothing.
“Don't you think so? Weren't you completely altered when you first came out here?”
“In some ways,” I said. “But in some ways I think people always stay the same.”
*
We could see the taillights of the departing convoy, long after we had ceased to hear the sound. Betty, Henry, Debbie and I stood watching them, not knowing quite what to do now. I was trying to imagine what life was going to be like in Safila without Muhammad. He had decided to go with them.
“Dears, I must tell you the most marvelous news,” said Betty.
There was a pause while we tried to lift ourselves out of our thoughts.
“What's that, Bets old thing?” said Henry, after slightly too long. “Don't tell me, you're going to adopt the twins as well?”
“No, silly,” said Betty coyly. “Well. Roy. You know Roy the sound engineer?”
“What, the one you were talking with behind the caravan before he left?” said Debbie.
“Charming fellow,” said Henry. “Bit of a Crispin Crashingbore at times, but by and large, absolute charmer.”
“He's asked me to marry him.”
“That's wonderful,” I said.
“Don't like to throw a dampener on the proceedings,” said Henry. “Bloody marvelous, couldn't be more delighted. But aren't you already married, old sock?”
“Oh, yes, of course I know. But when all this trouble with the famine's sorted out here, and Dr. O'Rourke takes over I'm going back to England and start divorce proceedings, and start again with Roy.”
“What's that?” said Henry. Ahead of us a white djellaba was just visible, approaching with a limp.
“Is that you, Muhammad?” I called.
“No, it is an apparition,” came his voice.
“I thought you were going to London to speak for your people.”
He swung towards us on the stick. “I decided it was better to stay with my people here,” he said, breathing heavily. “We must fight from within, we must insist that we may cultivate, we must demand that food be kept in storage in our highlands, so that when disaster strikes again we need not leave our homes.”
“Bloody hell, Muhammad,” said Henry. “Turned into a bloody saint-style person. Throw up your chance of fame and fortune to insist on the right to grow tomatoes.”
“The shallow and flippant nature of your character never ceases to appall me,” said Muhammad, joining us where we stood and leaning an arm on Henry's shoulder.
The others set off back to the camp, and I drove back to pick up O'Rourke. As I reached the end of the rocky corridor and emerged onto the plain, the moon was coming up over the mountains, throwing a white light onto the scene. On the rising ground to my left, the dead were still being carried to the burial ground, the bodies were still being laid out and the graves still being dug. I could see the lamp still lit, over in O'Rourke's clinic, where he was working. I walked over to him.
“Have you nearly finished?”
“Finished?” He could hardly keep his eyes open.
“Come on. You'd better get some sleep. You've got to start again tomorrow.”
I left him to finish off, and walked over to check on the feeding centers. When I came back he was packing up his equipment into boxes. I helped him load them into the jeep.
As we drove out of the rocky corridor and down to the main road, the lights of the convoy were just visible in the distance heading for El Daman.
“I feel like five kinds of shit driving away and leaving this,” said O'Rourke.
“At least you're coming back in the morning.”
“It worked then, did it, your broadcast?” he said, with the quick smile.
“Yes,” I said. “Bit late, but it worked.”
*
After the broadcast there were three months of hard labor for us. The population of the camp doubled and there were journalists and cameras constantly at large. There were frequent rumors that Fergie was coming out on a mercy dash to bring royal jelly and ginseng,
that Elizabeth Taylor was coming with Michael Jackson and a miniâfun fair, or that Ronnie and Nancy Reagan were planning to spend Christmas with us. Most of them proved to be false alarms, but still it was unsettling and nerve-racking for staff and refugees alike.
All the publicity, time-consuming as it was, meant that questions were asked publicly. The European and American governments and the UN came in for a lot of flack. Even we had completely underestimated the sheer magnitude of the disaster in the highlands: for two months people continued to pour down in unimaginable numbers. The scene we had witnessed at Dowit was reenacted time and time again along the length of the border.
Safila was better off than most of the camps because of the food from Charitable Acts and because we had raised our profile right from the start. The journalists always came to us first. We were in the center of the media spotlight and the big shots could not afford to let the situation get too bad for us. Elsewhere it was appalling.
Safila played host to all sorts of political dignitaries and discussions about how to stop disaster happening again. The latest plan is that there are to be grain stores positioned and kept stocked all the way along the border, and an agreement with Abouti that the aid agencies can take food into Kefti if ever the harvest is threatened again. As Muhammad put it, “If ever that comes to pass then I will both marry Kate Fortune and become her hairdresser.” Stranger things have been known, of course.
Betty stayed on for a couple of months to see us through the worst of it, then departed for a desk job in London and Roy the soundman. Parcels of candied peel and decomposing date and walnut loaf have started arriving with touching regularity. Linda asked to be sent back to Chad and left about six weeks ago. Henry became very serious and adult for about a month but is now once again preoccupied with the contents of Fenella Fridge and Sian's Boris Bra.
And O'Rourke: he's asleep now, actually, in my bed under the mosquito net. I keep glancing up from the desk, watching him, in the glow from the hurricane lamp. He snores a bit, but I'm getting used to it.