Harmattan (36 page)

‘Nor will they ever materialise under Mainassara!’ Akotey said. He stared hard at my brother, but some of the menace seemed to have gone from his face. He slid his pistol back into its holster and folded his arms. ‘If you and your kind are waiting for that to happen, you’ll wait a long time.’ He nodded. ‘I like you, Boureima. You should join us, my friend. You know, there is only one language that that bastard will understand!’ He touched the end of his shiny nose. ‘There are many of us ready to take action.’

‘How do you mean,
Chef
? You think Tandja will restore democracy, perhaps?’

Abdelkrim’s voice sounded more assured. ‘Another bloodless coup? My dream is to serve under a truly democratically elected government.’

Akotey took his glasses from his pocket and put them back on his face. ‘My uncle served under Kountche,’ he said. ‘Believe me, there’s no such thing as a bloodless coup!’

While this discussion had continued, the other mutineers were plundering the Mercedes and our few possessions. One of them, a big, ugly fellow, now offered his findings to his leader. He emptied Abdelkrim’s belt pouch onto the ground and stooped down to pick up the little radio which had been a gift from Katie and Hope. He held it out to Akotey now, a stupid grin spread across his broad face.

‘Hey! That’s my radio!’ Abdelkrim put his hand out to retrieve it, but another mutineer’s rifle butt caught him on the wrist.

‘Get your hand down, you dog!’ the soldier snarled.

Akotey stepped forward, one hand up, to pacify the situation. He took the radio from the ugly soldier and looked at it closely, before inserting one of the earpieces into an ear and switching the device on. A great grin came over his face then. ‘
Ca,
c’est pour moi
!’ he said, with a look that seemed to dare contradiction. ‘
Ça va
?’

My brother shuffled where he stood. He stared hard at the soldier who had struck him and then nodded at the renegade leader. ‘
D’accord
.’

The ugly soldier stepped forward and grabbed Archie’s wrist. He lifted his hand up and flicked a fingernail against the face of his watch.

Akotey nodded his approval and the watch was removed, roughly, from Archie’s wrist.

The men who had been rummaging through the trunk appeared beside us, carrying a toolbox and a spare battery. They set their finds at Akotey’s feet and stepped back.

‘Not my battery! You can’t leave us without a spare battery, man! I’ve only just replaced it after the last time!’ Archie said, appealing directly to the leader. ‘And I need those tools! They’re my
tools
, for Christ’s sake! I help your own people learn how to create things they can sell.’ He took a step forward in protest and was struck instantly in the face by the butt of a rifle, the dulled crack of flesh-cushioned bone connecting with timber causing me to jolt and making my blood run cold with fear. Archie stumbled back, cradling his chin, and leaned on the fender of the Land Cruiser. Abdelkrim took his arm from my shoulder and steadied his friend.

They are going to kill us!
I thought.

Akotey shook his head again. ‘Don’t question my decisions, my friends.’

‘This is your idea of a new democracy, is it?’ Archie said, spitting bloodied saliva on to the sand.

The leader did not hesitate. In a flash he had grabbed Archie by the neck. He brought the flat of his hand hard across Archie’s cheek, then he slammed his head down on the hood of the Land Cruiser and held it there. His face hovered just a few centimetres above Archie’s ear. ‘You’d do well to keep your mouth shut,
anasara
,’ he whispered. He stood up and straightened his jerkin and beret. He stared hard at Abdelkrim and for a moment I thought that he was going to strike him too. Instead, he resumed his position between his henchmen.

I had shuffled in behind my brother and was clutching my bundle, fearful that they would take it from me. Now, as I emerged and Archie stood upright, I saw the imprint of Akotey’s hand, like some giant spider on Archie’s reddened face.

‘Let us go, please,
Chef
,’ Abdelkrim said. ‘We are not a threat to you. We only want to bury my mother. You’ve got what you want from us.’

There was a long silence before Akotey spoke. ‘You have money?’

Abdelkrim shook his head.

‘I have some,’ Archie said, croakily. He pulled a fold of notes from his shirt pocket and held it out.

‘But you’ll have to give us some fuel in return,’ Abdelkrim said. ‘We’ve made a temporary repair to the fuel pipe, but we’ve lost at least half a tank.’

One of the mutineers snatched the cash from Archie’s hand and presented it to Akotey. He counted it slowly and then slid it into his pocket. Sunlight glinted off his mirrored lenses. ‘I don’t
have to
give you anything,’ he said. ‘But I’m feeling generous today. Here’s what I’m prepared to do for you, Boureima: we’ll get this piece of junk back on to the road for you. We’ll tow you,
en piste
, to within a few kilometres of the river. Then you’re on your own.
Ça va?’

‘And the fuel?’

‘Your problem. Get some at the
camion
post. Whatever. We’re saving you fuel by towing you.’

There was a flurry of activity, during which I sat on a rock, some distance away from the vehicles, just glad that the mutineers had, it seemed, decided to spare us.

Archie’s car was manhandled back on to the road and jacked up so that the spare wheel could be fitted. Two of the mutineers attached a metal cable to the Mercedes and then shackled it to the tow bar of one of the Land Cruisers. The coffin was tacked back together and lashed on to the roof of the Mercedes once more.

Akotey’s men gathered up their plunder, stowed it in the Land Cruisers and then ordered us back into the car.

It was obvious that Archie was still in some discomfort, so Abdelkrim had opted for the driver’s seat again.

‘Just select
neutral
and release the handbrake,’ the ugly soldier said, leaning in towards Abdelkrim.

‘I know.’

Another soldier set a plastic bucket, half filled with dried dates, beside me on the back seat. ‘That’s your breakfast!’ he grinned, and then joined his companions on one of the Land Cruisers.

With the sun still rising, our convoy set off. Akotey saluted us from the first of the Land Cruisers as it pulled away in a flurry of dust and grit.

Then it was our turn; the Mercedes creaked and then moved off behind the second vehicle, eerily silent but for the strain of metal, the scuff of a rubbing tyre and the squeak of the axles. I looked out of the back window and saw the third of the trucks take up the rear, sandwiching us in this dangerous cavalcade.

A few kilometres north, the lead truck drew almost to a halt and then edged off the road, slowly. The other vehicles followed it closely, the underside of Archie’s car scraping over the loose rubble as we were dragged down the slope and onto the heat-softened piste. Gathering speed quickly, we headed northwest across a vast, flat, barren plain.

‘Where are they taking us?’ I said.

‘They’re trying to avoid contact with authorised patrols,’ Abdelkrim said.

‘Don’t worry.’

The fat tyres of the Land Cruisers churned up a great wake of sand, which ricocheted off the Mercedes’ windshield and spilled in through the open roof and windows, quickly coating us in a thick layer of reddish dust. We tried closing the roof over, but the trapped air became stiflingly hot. Not only had the mutineers taken Abdelkrim’s tea, but they had left only two bottles of water – now hot – lying on the back seat beside me.

‘Fuckers!’ Archie said, as he reached back for one of the bottles. He splashed a little of the water on to his palm and then flicked it into his face, a series of rivulets cutting through his dusty mask like threads of gossamer.

I offered him the bucket of dates but he shook his head. ‘No, thank you. I think I’ve got a cracked tooth! It hurts like hell! I’m going to need to get to a dentist as soon as we get back to the capital.’

‘
Merde
!’ Abdelkrim said.

‘Our marabout in Wadata can pull teeth,’ I said, eager to help.

‘I think I’ll check out one of the French guys in town, thanks, Haoua.’

‘These are pretty tough,’ Abdelkrim said, chomping down on one of the dates.

‘Like stones,’ I agreed, clattering one of the fruits around in my mouth.

‘They took all of your money, I suppose?’ Abdelkrim said.

Archie shook his head and winced. ‘No. I keep some inside the lining of my boot – for emergencies, you know. I’m more annoyed about my tools.’

Abdelkrim checked the rear view mirror. ‘Hmm. And my radio!’ He sucked air in through his teeth. ‘At least we can buy some more fuel later.’

‘You can borrow my radio, if you want to, Abdel,’ I said.

We travelled in this manner for the best part of two hours. About thirty kilometres from the river crossing, we drew to a halt. The mutineers jumped down from their Land Cruisers and unhitched the Mercedes. We watched Akoteye step out of the cab of the lead truck and pad his way across the sand to the driver’s window of Archie’s car, flanked, as always, by two of his followers.

‘What now?’ I said.

‘Just say nothing,’ my brother warned.

Akoteye leaned on the door and peered over his sunglasses to address Abdelkrim. ‘Just keep heading west now,’ he said. ‘You’ll find the river easily enough.’

‘Thank you. I know where we are,’ Abdelkrim said.

‘Toh
. I think we’ll meet again, my friend,’ Akoteye said. Then he turned and walked back towards his Land Cruiser.

‘I’m no friend of yours, you bastard!’ Abdelkrim said, under his breath, as he turned the ignition key of the Mercedes.

We pulled away from the mutineers, bedraggled, perplexed, but glad to have come away from the situation alive.

‘What will happen to those men if the authorities catch them?’ I said.

‘They’ll be court-martialled,’ Abdelkrim said. ‘Imprisoned. Possibly executed. But they don’t intend to be taken alive.’ He shrugged. ‘The thing is I agree with a lot of what they stand for. But violence is not the right path to democracy.’ He looked over his shoulder towards me. ‘It could have been a lot worse, you know, Little One.’

I knew what he meant.

Archie leaned out of his window and cleared his nose. Then he yanked the plastic leprechaun from the stem of the rear view mirror. ‘So much for fucking talismans!’ he said, lobbing it out of the window.

Without Akoteye’s Land Cruiser to pull us along, the Mercedes struggled on the soft sand. We were already tired and uncomfortable, and both Abdelkrim and Archie were in pain. The constant stopping and starting – climbing out through the car’s windows, digging enough sand away to allow the tyres a purchase on the metal sand tracks and then climbing back in – ensured that our spirits remained low. After a while we even stopped talking and the whole tiresome process was repeated mechanically, in near silence.

When we finally reached Bac Farie we were exhausted and filthy. I lay back on the rear seat, breathless in the heat, engulfed in an aura of sweat and stale piss. I longed to bathe but, even as the car pulled up by the shore, Monsieur Bonanza Junior’s ferry was churning towards us, its engines belching out black smoke and drowning the noise of angry crakes circling overhead.

Date palms and raggedy green ribbons of tussock grass hugged the river banks, an uplifting sight after the seemingly endless, stripped landscape through which we had previously passed.

This was only the second time that I had travelled on the ferry, but all of my life I had heard stories about its pilot, Monsieur Evarist Bonanza Junior and his aristocratic family. Monsieur Bonanza Junior’s late mother had hailed from Agadez.

His father was Togolese. Monsieur Bonanza Senior had served in the French military and, later, the Togolese navy before meeting Madame Bonanza and moving to Niger, where he’d worked as ferry pilot at Bac Farie for many years, finally handing over the position to his son. It was said that Monsieur Bonanza Senior was now one hundred and twenty years old, and that he still rode horses with the Touaregs and hunted wild animals with his rifle. It had been dark when I had made my first ferry crossing with Moussa and I had only caught a brief glimpse of the famous pilot in the dimly lit wheel house, but now we were able to watch Monsieur Bonanza Junior’s stout silhouette moving about the bridge of the vessel as he guided it towards the shore.

‘He must be very rich, to be so fat!’ I said.

Abdelkrim turned the car’s engine off. ‘They say his family have always had money.’

‘Bonanza?’
Archie said. ‘That doesn’t sound like your typical Nigerien name.’‘It isn’t,’ Abdelkrim said. ‘The pilot’s father was from Togo originally, but they say the old man took it from an American television show that he used to love to watch.’

Archie laughed. ‘God! I remember that show! Western. Cowboys. That sort of thing…’

‘Indeed.’

‘It was awful!’

The shoreline was fairly busy that morning. Two or three skiffs were already heading up river, away from the wash of the ferry, and a handful of other fishermen were repairing nets nearby. Further downstream splashes of brightly coloured fabric lay stretched out to dry on the rocks and a group of women hopped over the flattening wake, their
pagnes
tucked up around their shiny thighs. Once again I thought of my mother and had to fight back tears.

Only one other vehicle was waiting to cross to the western shore of the river: a C.A.R.E. truck, loaded with strange-looking digging equipment, driven by a Nigerien.

A group of people, mostly women and children, had gathered around the vehicle and were imploring the driver to take them to their various destinations. The driver sat quietly, staring through his windshield at the lazy, majestic river, one elbow jutting over the top of his door, a chew stick clamped between his teeth. Occasionally he shook his head or swatted away a fly, but it was clear that he was not going to be swayed. A few of the travellers glanced over at Archie’s car and looked as though they were about to try us instead but, just then, the ferry docked under the expert control of Monsieur Evarist Bonanza Junior.