Devil’s Harvest Page 18

  Tall men, many over seven foot, walked by with a slow, giraffe-like tread. A group of youngsters passed by dressed in ironed pink shirts, black ties and long pants, on their way to school. Their neatness was incongruous in a town dominated by strong-smelling cattle camps filled with bulls that sunk beyond their knees into the muck. The smell of fresh manure was combatted only by the smoke from the numerous charcoal fires. A few pigs, hairier and more intimidating than Gabriel knew pigs to be, lay about, their backs caked with mud. A young boy stood watching over them, naked save for some cloth tied around his waist, his skin also wiped in dry mud, giving him a pale, ghostly appearance.

  Only a large fan palm in the central area provided anything of interest. It was an unusual palm, held in some esteem by the Pharaohs, Gabriel knew. The Latin name hovered in the front of his mind and then slipped away. Even the English name evaded him in the heat.

  ‘We call it dom.’ Alek had seen him staring at the palm.

  Doum palm, that was the name. One of the only true palms to have branches.

  ‘There used to be many around here. But now not so much. They are a protected plant in South Sudan. Perhaps you should study that instead. Then you would need to go no further.’

  Gabriel ignored the jibe. He considered walking across the open square to inspect it, but rejected the idea in childish pique. His surroundings, and companions, brought out the worst in him, he realised.

  Alek directed them to a stall selling food cooked in aluminium pots on an open fire. They sat on low plastic chairs with the backs missing, their feet planted astride for balance. A young woman approached them, her cheeks and forehead patterned with the dots of hundreds of scars, whorls and circles. She handed Gabriel a plastic plate with a collection of pale cassava and plantain, fried together without any redeeming sauce and served with some green vegetable that reminded him of the sour taste of his mother’s boiled Brussels sprouts. Kudra, Alek informed him. The blandness in colour matched the flavourless starch, while the mashed texture of the vegetable was entirely unappealing. Flies descended as he pushed the food around his plate. One with a particularly luminous green rear landed in the middle of the cassava, sinking its proboscis into the soft tuber. Gabriel waved at it without enthusiasm.

  ‘You not hungry?’

  Gabriel didn’t answer. Alek grunted and turned away. Kamal looked at him and then muttered something to Alek, shaking his head.

  ‘What did he say?’ Gabriel’s question was a little sharper than he intended.

  ‘Khawadja. A foreigner,’ Alek answered. ‘A European. Someone who doesn’t belong here.’

  ‘You have lots of words for other people,’ Gabriel retorted. ‘Words for those you think don’t belong. Words to criticise people, to label them as inferior. No wonder your country is such a mess. Your whole language is about denigrating others.’

  Alek remained aloof while Kamal stuck his finger into a small plastic pot from his pocket and rubbed his gums with the goo that he had extracted. Could he really endure more days of arduous travel with these two, Gabriel wondered. He thought of the comfort of his office, the worn leather chair in Brian’s room, the ease of ordering a good meal at the Harbourside. Had his ambition overreached his judgement? Where had it driven him, he wondered darkly.

  He stood up and heard Alek say something to Kamal behind him as he walked back towards the Land Cruiser. The driver snorted through his nose like some kind of animal. Gabriel waited for them in the shade next to the car, sipping at warm water from a bottle. Kamal sauntered over after a while, only to position himself at the front of the car and urinate copiously and loudly into a ditch of stagnant water. Gabriel didn’t bother to look away as he climbed back into his position in the baking interior of the car.

  Alek said nothing to him as she pulled her bony body onto the front passenger seat. Kamal fiddled with his fly and then also took up his position. The smell of old sweat filled Gabriel’s nose. Alek stared ahead as the driver started up again. The car remained idling with the three of them looking out of the dirty windscreen.

  ‘You owe her twenty pounds for lunch,’ Alek said after a period of silence, nodding towards the young woman waiting patiently beside her tea room.

  Gabriel cursed under his breath and climbed back out into the heat, fumbling through his over-stuffed wallet for the right Sudanese notes. He gave her two ten-pound notes and thanked her. He noticed that his uneaten plate remained where he’d left it, now covered with flies.

  The road between Yirol and Rumbek was the worst so far on their journey. Within a few kilometres, the surface had turned to a gluelike ooze that sucked at the tyres as if trying to pull the vehicle into the layers beneath. The viscous mud had spread in among the trees, blurring the lines between road, drainage ditch and tilled land. The car moved from one side to the other, the wheels churning to find grip. As they rounded a particularly treacherous bend, a blockage appeared in the road ahead. A large tanker stretched across their path, tilting heavily to one side in the depth of black-brown mud. Kamal braked and the front of the Land Cruiser dipped, silt spraying up onto the windscreen and turning the world momentarily dark. It felt like they were swimming in a sewage pit.

  Once they had stopped, they could see that a taxi had been pinned down by the tipping tanker, the weight of the load resting on a crushed corner of the minibus. Neither could move without the other moving first. And both were bogged down, a seemingly permanent fixture on the road and leaving no room to pass, like two behemoths frozen in combat. On the sides of the road, the mud had been pushed up in wide waves where trucks had tried to pass, leaving half-solidified trenches and cliffs of soil. To one side a Tata truck had been abandoned, sunk up to its doors and now unmoveable. The other side of the road looked swampy and Gabriel thought he saw the surface shimmer, as if the water was gently flowing. Nothing else moved in the midday heat.

  ‘What now?’ Gabriel posed the question more to himself than anyone in the car.

  Kamal was studying the different paths in front of them. Then he said something to Alek in Arabic.

  ‘We must get out and walk to the other side,’ Alek translated. ‘To make the car lighter. He will drive through.’

  There seemed no chance of this plan working. Larger trucks had clearly tried and failed. The abandoned Tata was evidence of where such an attempt was likely to end. Gabriel nevertheless put his socks and boots back on, feeling the skin on his toes flare up in protest at being returned to their damp prison. He opened the door, resigned to his fate, and stepped out. His leg sank into the mud halfway up his calf. Small insects, like miniature crickets, swarmed across the surface of the mud and appeared to aim, alarmingly, for his exposed skin. Gabriel tried to pull his foot free but the mud sucked back and held it firm. He had a vision of being stripped to the bone by tiny insect teeth, his tibia standing naked like a flagpole in the mud. But the swarm passed by, aimless in its charge. He brought his other leg to the ground and let it gently submerge into the mud. Walking wouldn’t be easy. And falling over was to be avoided. He took his first wavering step, heaving his leg out of the ground and planting it not more than a foot in front. When he took his next step, his boot brought with it a mound of glutinous material that gave him the appearance of a club-footed cripple. Standing still, he looked like an amputee.

  He was initially consoled to see the look of disgust on Alek’s face as she surveyed the surface from the opened front door. But then she slipped her sandals off and glided out of the car, her long legs seemingly inured to the forces of the mud. She took off across the road with long strides like an antelope, her calves smeared with dirt but otherwise unaffected. Gabriel cursed again and made his way, stomping and careening, after her. The sweat was pouring off him and the flies about his mouth were incessant by the time he reached the shipwrecked tanker.

  The scene reminded him of the time, as a teenager, he had walked alongside the rusting hull of a fishing vessel stranded on a beach in Portugal. The meeting of engineered steel an
d ancient sand and the inevitable victory of nature over machinery, and its return to the elements, had filled him then with a sense of peace. Placing his hand on the shiny side of the tanker as he plodded past, Gabriel wished he was on a silky beach in Portugal rather than this wretched road.

  On the other side of the tanker, the taxi turned out to be a larger vehicle than had first appeared, pushed down into the mud up to its bodywork. It was an old Austin truck, refurbished with bright paint and decorated with stickers along its side. The iconic Microsoft logo had been painted on its bonnet, and bedraggled tassels hung from its mirrors. The windowless doors had carved wooden elbow guards, rubbed smooth and darkened by years of contact with the driver’s skin. Inside, the cab was adorned with rugs and figurines, like a snug lair. The wreckage had been abandoned by passengers and driver alike and there was no one on the road. Perhaps someone would return to try to retrieve them. He imagined the terror the passengers would have felt as the two vehicles slid into one another, the looming tanker tipping towards them and crushing them into the ground. A silver cross hung from the rear-view mirror, as if left to protect the Austin from further harm.

  Gabriel heard the Land Cruiser revving behind him, the engine roaring. He turned to see grey-blue smoke swirling out the back. Kamal’s pockmarked forehead was pushed close to the windscreen as he gripped the steering wheel with both hands, staring ahead and letting the revs climb before dropping the clutch. The four-by-four bucked up at the front, its heavy wheels kicking over the mound of mud and lurching forward. Kamal tried to cut across the ruts, seeking out the drier peaks, but the Land Cruiser started to snake, battling for traction, bouncing violently in and out of the deep sluices, spraying black diesel-stained mud in all directions. It picked up speed, but its direction remained erratic, suddenly veering directly towards the accident scene. Gabriel tried to retreat around the stranded Austin, flailing backwards as the mud held his boots. Kamal spun the wheel again and the back tyre of the Land Cruiser slid out, shooting an arc of muck at Gabriel. The drops splattered across his clothes and face, the smell a violent mix of stagnation and engine oil. He stood with his arms akimbo, drops of black oily water running down his face, his feet deep in the fetid Sudanese earth.

  He wanted to scream, to explode the gossamer division between sanity and madness. Instead, he felt tears on his face, hot and sticky as they dribbled from the corner of his eyes and mingled with the dirt on his cheeks.

  Someone was calling him. He looked up to see Kamal standing with Alek some distance away, the Land Cruiser on firmer ground, its engine purring. Alek was gesturing for him to join them, but for some reason her voice sounded small and very far away. A family had emerged from the bushes – perhaps they had been in the taxi – and was staring at him. A little boy in the group started to cry and had to be comforted by his mother. Gabriel wiped his face, feeling the grit on his skin. There could be no dignity now, he realised, as he started towards his waiting companions, lifting his feet high like some ponderous dinosaur.

  Alek eyed him as he finally climbed, wordlessly, into the car. He thought he saw some playful mirth in her expression. Kamal seemed unusually pleased with himself, his sour disposition briefly replaced by something akin to satisfaction. He patted the steering wheel as if to congratulate the Toyota for its achievement and said something to Alek in Arabic. She grunted but did not otherwise respond. Gabriel lay back against the seat and closed his eyes.

  Tonight he would tell them that the journey was over, he decided, tonight they would plan their immediate return to Juba, and then home to England. Arabidopsis cockburn would have to remain unseen in its natural habitat.

  Gabriel dozed off, despite the state of the road that bounced him about on the back seat. When he awoke, the skin on his face had drawn tight with the drying mud. He tried rubbing it, but his hands were filthy as well. The vegetation had cleared into more open savannah and the road surface had hardened. A number of villages flitted past, simple thatched structures with wooden poles and latticework in between, layered with mud and manure. Boys herded cattle along the road, the huge beasts reluctantly parting for the Land Cruiser to push through. The herders, naked for the most part and smeared with white mud, waved enthusiastically. One held out his hands in a pleading gesture. Kamal shouted something at him, his voice guttural.

  And then, abruptly, the road turned to tarmac, rutted on the edges but perfectly smooth in the middle. A lonely sign announced that Civicon Limited was contracted by the Lakes State to construct the road. Although the journey was now far more comfortable, they still couldn’t pick up much speed as increasing numbers of herders were using the road. Gabriel’s weary frustration returned.

  ‘Why can’t they just keep their cattle on the side of the road?’ he bleated.

  No one in the car responded and Gabriel was left glaring out of the window, fuming at another slow-moving bovine that refused to get out of the way. He half-wondered if he could find a plane to fly him back to Juba. The thought of a return journey by road filled him with despair.

  The number of villages increased until the roadside was continually flanked by huts and small groups of people. Smoke drifted from the home fires, and the tyres of the Land Cruiser made a slurping sound as the layer of cow excrement deepened. Flies pestered Gabriel’s face, one managing to burrow into his ear where it buzzed at an alarming pitch. He extracted it with a dirty finger and flicked it at the side of a passing cow.

  Finally, the town of Rumbek presented itself, a slow progression of thatched mud huts giving way to brick-and-cement structures. They passed a branch of the Nile Commercial Bank and the State Hospital. Gabriel’s spirits lifted when he spotted a sign to Rumbek Airport. They stopped in Freedom Square, an open patch of levelled earth with a strange memorial feature in the middle. It seemed to be a meeting place for all the youth of Rumbek, and an energetic game of football was being played at one end, a revised version of the sport, which appeared to involve no goals and no passing of the ball. A number of players wore Liverpool Football Club T-shirts, blissfully unaware of the unredeemable awfulness of that city, although he supposed even Liverpool would be a haven for them.

  A lengthy conversation occurred between Kamal and a young man, with directionless finger-pointing and head-nodding, before they drove off again and turned down a small side road. A few blocks on, they pulled into a large open area where a number of trucks had parked. Truck drivers were sitting around fires tending to pots and skewers of meat. Gabriel was relieved of more of his money before being shown to a small room with a low ceiling and concrete floor. There were three beds, each one more low-slung and battered than the next. Two were already occupied, with clothing and personal items scattered across them. Gabriel was too exhausted to object and dropped his bag onto the free bed, nearest the door. He sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands, his eyes closed, immobilised by fatigue and misery.

  Alek roused him by dropping a threadbare but clean towel on the bed next to him. ‘Showers are round the back. You need one.’

  He hated her. Her self-assurance, her lack of consideration for him, her skeletal body and lack of respect for his physical space as she slunk about. He snatched the towel and headed round the side of the dormitory. At the back he found a bathroom area and a series of shower cubicles, their doors open. He chose the first one and was pleasantly surprised by the clean tiles and subtle smell of disinfectant. The squeeze bottle of soap, attached to a bracket on the wall, was half-full and, although there was no hot water, Gabriel immediately immersed himself in the strong jets from the shower head. The water at his feet turned a rich brown, leaving a line of silt behind as it ran across the tiles and into a gutter. He slopped handfuls of liquid soap across his body and hair, letting the water pour over him until it ran in clean rivulets down his legs.

  By the time he’d finished showering and had changed into clean clothes, Alek and Kamal were sitting on upturned crates around a crackling fire. An aluminium pot was bubbling, hanging ju
st above the flames from a metal tripod. Gabriel found a broken crate around the side of the building – he noted that they hadn’t thought to organise one for him – and joined them at the fire. The shower had improved his appearance, but his mood remained morose.

  ‘I think I’ve had enough. I don’t think this trip is going to work,’ he announced as he took his seat. ‘I see there’s an airport here. Tomorrow I want to find out if there are any flights back to Juba.’

  ‘Airport’s closed,’ Alek replied.

  ‘Are you sure? How do you know?’ Gabriel’s anger quickened.

  ‘The nearest airport is at Wau. We’ll be there tomorrow. You can try there.’

  The topic seemed closed. Alek took a stick and poked at the coals at the edge of the fire. Kamal muttered something under his breath.

  ‘I’m afraid I just can’t take this country,’ Gabriel said, feeling the need to explain himself. ‘Someone tried to describe it to me. They said it’s the shadow that’s cast when the sun shines on the North. I didn’t really understand it at the time. But now I do.’

  Alek carried on stoking the coals, ignoring him.

  ‘There’s just no … capacity here. There’s no will. It’s all so … narrowly selfish. It’s hopeless. Quite hopeless, I’m afraid.’

  ‘This isn’t England, Mr Gabriel.’ Alek was staring straight into the fire, her cheeks glowing in the firelight. Or perhaps with her anger.

  ‘Quite obviously not. It’s about as far removed from the United Kingdom as one could be.’

  ‘You say it’s obvious. But in fact you behave as if you’re blind.’ Alek turned to look at him now. She was striking and intimidating, looking at him with open judgement. ‘When we see an ugly old man who’s trying to seduce a young woman with his money, we call him “miraya maafi ”. It means he’s “a man without a mirror”. He doesn’t see how ugly he is; he sees only the money in his pockets, only his hands on her body. He sees only what he wants. Miraya maafi.’