Rotten Gods (26 page)

Listening to the conversation around her, Marika learns a few basic words of Somali by studying the gestures attached to a word.
Ha
means yes, often emphasised with a double:
ha, ha
.
Mia
, similarly used, means no.
Ghaba
means something along the lines of bitch, and
whas
appears to translate to ‘fucking'. The latter is their favourite word, used often and with emphasis. Since the start of the journey they have called her the
whas ghaba
. The fucking bitch. The nickname gives her the first and only belly laugh of the trip.

On the outside, however, there is little to laugh about. Here Marika sees poverty more dire than any in her experience — men, women, and children with desperate, hungry eyes. Most live in dome shaped tukul huts made of acacia branches and thatch, or cast off iron sheets. Poor crops, drooping corn and wilted root vegetables stand in fields fenced with thorn to keep out goats that
have long ago been eaten. There are cattle, but few in number, as skeletal as the villagers who protect them with guns. The starving beasts stand with mournful eyes, an oxpecker bird on a flank or bony shoulder.

Marika finds it strange how men and women alike sometimes hold hands while walking together. This affectation seems at odds with the guns. Men and boys down to the ages of nine or ten carry AK47 rifles in the same way as Australian males carry surfboards or cricket bats. Marika remembers reading somewhere that Somalia has sixty thousand armed boys, who have no trade but war, fending for themselves by force of arms, living and dying in a cycle of violence that seems unstoppable.

It is hard not to make comparisons with teenagers back home — their world of hairstyles, smartphones, iPods and iPads, desperate to obtain the most recent designer electronics before their peers, and where the natural world, life, and death appear through the interpretation of writers, editors, programmers, and news directors.

Many of these young people, aware of the basic injustice of society, even of their own relative affluence, joined the ‘Occupy' protests that began with Wall Street then quickly spread to nine hundred cities world-wide. This was a grass roots reaction to injustice and inequality, and as such deserved respect, even applause. It also, in Marika's opinion, brought about a feeling of connectness between the youth of the world. A feeling that young people in Cairo have the same overall goals as those in Melbourne, or Beirut, or Paris, even if the circumstances are vastly different.

Some of the protesters, however, acted without understanding that they were part of the problem. That the smartphone in their jeans pocket or handbag, was, ultimately, purchased with
the blood and sweat of the developing world, and with money borrowed from the future.

Braver individuals from the ceaseless stream of refugees beg as they go past, falling to their knees, displaying children with rib cages like tree branches, and sunken eyes and cheeks. The local villagers, however, are afraid of Dalmar Asad's men, hurrying away at the convoy's approach, taking to the shadows and tukul huts. Even those with weapons avoid aggressive stares or postures. In this world of violence, Marika reasons, there is always someone stronger to be afraid of.

They reach the first massive refugee camp, an informal collection of fifty thousand or more souls, most without shade or shelter. Charcoal and dung fires create a miasma that hangs over the dry valley. Near the roadway, men with AK47s operate a shop of sorts, rows of trestle tables loaded with bags of rice, cigarettes, tinned food. Plastic bottles of drinking water in one, five and twenty litre sizes sit beside the tables. The scarcity of customers suggests the exorbitance of the prices. As they pass, a tall woman, dressed in a lime green kikoi, one child at her hip and another clutching her leg, haggles over what appears to be a ring in her hand. The older child turns to look at the passing vehicles, head too big for the rack thin body, eyes like brown moons seeking out Marika, who wants to tell the driver to stop the car, to give the woman what she wants. To feed them all, for God's sake — though of course there is not enough, will never be enough.

The driver of the lead vehicle slows, and Captain Wanami stands, half out the door, half in. One of the armed men at the stall comes across and talks. Marika sees that they are dressed and armed in the same manner as her guards. These too must be Dalmar Asad's men, and she does not have to guess where
the profits from this and many other such places flow — all to maintain one man in a palace while a million others starve.

The tall woman at the stall hands over her ring and takes a small cardboard box of foodstuffs and water in return. Marika clenches her fists. To take the last item of jewellery from a destitute woman in return for a meal or two infuriates her.

Again she compares this woman with those of her own suburb, many if not most preoccupied with tennis, gardens and the latest handicraft; raffia hats; decoupage; scrapbooking; stained-glass windows  — beautifully made up faces; trying on outfits at Myer, preening in a mirror while a less fortunate woman, no less intelligent or capable, carries a twenty-litre water can five kilometres from a well.

Marika tries to rise, reaching across for the door handle, but the man next to her reacts, shouting, ‘
Mia. Mia
.' To emphasise his point, he slides a Tokarev pistol from his holster and holds it to her temple, continuing to do so until she settles back into the seat. The conversation at the front vehicle concludes and the technical surges forwards, past another kilometre of the massive camp, then a cemetery, thousands of crosses among the whistling thorn. Marika feels hollow. Empathetic yet helpless.

They pass an abandoned airstrip with a single derelict building and the hulking wreck of a Russian Antonov AN-70 transport plane lying skewed beside an overgrown runway. Even from the road Marika can see the three remaining propfans, and the holes small arms fire has drilled into the fuselage. A blackened gash near the tail wing gives a clue to the aircraft's demise.

Soon, she knows, she will have to ask them to stop so she can relieve the pressure of her full bladder. In the meantime she crosses her legs, closes her eyes and dreams of other times, other places.

Day 4, 14:00

Socotra. Dvipa Sukhadhara, the Island of Bliss in Sanskrit, officially part of Yemen but in actuality something more distant, more ancient, appearing first in recorded history as Dioskouridou, in
The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea
, a seafarers' guide written back when the stone at the entrance to Jesus' tomb was still warm from repeated rollings back and forth.

An archipelago of four major islands and innumerable rocky outcrops, the landscape is more akin to that of Jupiter's moons than of earth. Trees that weep blood, giant succulents, and bizarre flowers grow in the arid earth. Grosbeak birds and reptiles found nowhere else on earth roam arid mountains and plains. The unique fauna of Socotra has seen scientists tag it the Galapagos of the Indian Ocean.

The islanders were Nestorian Christians when Marco Polo dropped by, but their religion was mingled with bizarre magic rituals that dated back to the days of the Oldawan stone age culture. The Mahra sultans conquered the islands in the sixteenth century and brought the inhabitants into Islam.

To soar with the wings of an eagle over the islands is to swoop down stone cliff faces and over vegetation that looks like nothing else on earth. To visit Socotra is to understand that the world is not all known and familiar, that there are cubby holes of strangeness and mystery beyond the ordinary. A niche tourist industry in the first decade of this century ended with the capture and ransom of eighteen foreign nationals, eleven of whom were murdered before ransom money could be delivered. Since then the islands have slipped deeper into anarchy, a haven for pirates, extremists, and criminals.

The
Sa-baah
, when it comes into view, is a toy in the heavy seas pounding against red and guano-streaked cliffs, rising three
or four hundred metres with the regularity of cut crystal from the turquoise sea. Not trusting his vision through the screen, Simon stands on the side deck, wind in his face, gripping the rail and staring. The vessel sports a single heavy stack, low to the water, waves breaking against the beam as she drifts out of control towards the rock. Simon has seen old tugs like her rusting away in ports all over England. The last coat of paint, a lusty red, has all but flaked away, victim of corrosion from within.

My girls
, Simon says to himself,
my darling girls are in that death trap. What are they thinking? How are they feeling? Have they been fed? Allowed to wash?
There are darker questions he does not dare articulate.
Is there still breath in their lungs? Are they living still?
He ducks back inside. ‘Have you raised them on the radio again?'

‘Not yet, but I am trying.'

‘Try harder, for God's sake.'

Unable to let the vessel out of his sight, as if he were keeping it off the rocks by sheer force of will, he stares out through the screen. A garbled stream of Farsi comes through the radio, and he turns. The frightened voice is as clear as if the speaker stood beside them: ‘We have no power, and are drifting out of control. The rocks are just four hundred metres off the bow. Mayday. Mayday.'

Lubayd looks at Simon. ‘I am sorry, but there is nothing we can do but ask them to abandon ship. We will then try to pick up what survivors we can. It is too rough to go alongside — too dangerous.'

Simon hesitates, aware of how difficult a rescue mission will be. ‘Ask them if they can abandon ship safely.'

Lubayd does as he is asked, and a reply comes through, even more confused than before. The truth dawns on Simon. They
have no lifeboats. No floatation devices. He grips Lubayd's arm. ‘We have to take them in tow.'

‘That is not possible. I am sorry, Simon, but we can do nothing. We do not have the power, nor even a tow cable.'

‘The anchor chain, use that … and you have done nothing but boast about the power of this vessel since I first climbed aboard.'

‘How will we pass a line across?'

‘You
must
have some cord we can use as a messenger rope. I will swim it across and then we'll use it to drag the chain.' He uses the gun as a pointer. ‘You are a sea captain. You are obliged to render assistance. You have no choice.'

Ishmael crosses his arms. ‘I say that we sail away. It is dangerous.'

Lubayd purses his lips. ‘We will give it one try, out of respect to the rules of the sea. Just one. Insha' Allah, it will be enough.'

‘Well for Christ's sake let's hurry then.' Simon looks down at the gun. ‘I'm going to have to trust you.'

‘Of course. You have my word that I will try once.'

Simon walks out onto the side deck and throws the gun underarm, like a bowling ball, out into the sea.

‘Rope,' he calls, ‘and hurry.'

 

Up close the cliffs tower over them like seaborne skyscrapers, raucous colonies of birds on the many faces — terns, petrels and gulls — some roosting, others leaving and arriving, wheeling and arguing. The ammonia smell of guano mingles with salt spray. The waves appear to sense the barrier ahead, gathering strength for the confrontation, rearing higher and curling.

The old tug wallows like an animal carcass. Even to Simon's lubberly eyes she is obviously taking water. Men scream for help from the deck as they steam closer.

Lubayd picks up the radio handset, and announces, ‘We are attempting to swim a messenger line over, please have men standing by to haul.'

As Simon strips to his underwear, the
Jameela
turns in a wide arc, bows facing the seas, presenting her stern to the tug. Ishmael appears with a long coil of rope around his neck — ten or twelve millimetre white nylon cord. Simon takes one end, passing it twice around his bare waist. ‘Just feed it out as I go,' he says, ‘and that way we should avoid tangles.' Looking into the other man's eyes he sees malevolence, but puts it from his mind.
You cannot put a gun to a man's head and expect him to like you.

This thought echoing in his mind, Simon climbs over the rail. The boat's twin propellers churn the sea to froth as Lubayd fights to keep the vessel straight. Gathering himself, coiling the muscles of his thighs and knees, Simon dives far out into the water.

The sensation is initially pleasant coolness on his skin, but as his head surfaces and he begins to strike forwards, that feeling disappears, replaced by a terrible fear that has him stroking in a mad panic for the tug, still fifty metres away. These waters are infamous for sharks. He pictures them in his mind, looming below, dark and hungry.

The rope tied to his waist catches for a moment and the shock jolts him, before it continues to stream away. Already the muscles of his arms and shoulders are tiring, and he swallows air with each stroke.

The tug looms up quickly  — the strong current helping  — but when he raises his head he sees that the island is now so close that breaking waves are a continuous thunder. Men on the side decks and cockpit mill around; arms reaching down like sea anemone tendrils to grab him as he surges along with the swell then drops down into the trough.

He makes contact with one outstretched hand, but loses grip at the last moment. Tries for another. A firm hold this time. Clambering aboard, half dragged, a dozen voices talk at once in three different tongues. Many of the crew are bare chested, brown skinned, and scarred. Some wear turbans, one a hooded thoub. Others sport wild hair matted from salt air and a paucity of bathing.

Standing there, chest heaving, leaning over to untie the line from his belly, he looks back towards the
Jameela
, Ishmael in the cockpit, chain in his hands.

‘Haul,' Simon bellows. Naked backs and arms take the strain.  With a wrap of cord around his hands he joins in, turning to see that the towering island is just a stone's throw away now, the tug surging with the waves, fragile as glass against the dangerous black rocks. The smell of shaded, drenched earth mingles with that of bird dung, kelp, and dead sea creatures.