by Matt Killeen
“I won’t be able to sleep,” Sarah managed.
The pilot heard this, understood, and laughed. He began to sing in Italian, an aria about a sleepless princess and her wakeful kingdom.
Some of the Imazighen around the fire began to clap along, giggling. These desert travelers had welcomed them into their camp. They had little to fear from the Captain’s party, as they were all heavily armed. They were, the pilot explained, a long way from their usual routes and eager for news. But there was no shared language to converse in. They were reluctant to unwind the long blue tagelmust headgear that obscured their mouths in front of guests, which made reading their expressions difficult, so they settled for sharing their food.
Sarah couldn’t stomach the liwa, the millet porridge they offered, and the akh, the goat’s milk, made her retch to the amusement of their hosts, but she wolfed down the flatbread, taguella, that they made in the sand under the fire, even managing a trace of the meat paste that went with it. Her nausea had not driven away her need for food, and she was grateful to find something dry and warm to satiate and reduce the cramping sensation.
As the pilot’s voice struggled into the next section of the song, the Imazighen began chanting in accompaniment, and the clapping grew more complex, shifting with the sound of the sand.
“I just need a piano,” Sarah said with a sigh. “Our friend Hasse was in that plane?”
“Almost certainly.”
“Is he dead?”
“Doubt it. We’ve given ourselves a head start, that’s all.”
“Do you . . .” Sarah began and stopped. She tried again. “Do we have everything we need?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I don’t want us to run out of anything.”
“Alles in Butter.” The Captain smiled and held his arms out wide. He turned and walked to his tent.
The song at the fire grew ragged with much cackling and clapping.
Clementine appeared at Sarah’s side, cradling her camera in one hand and a tin canteen in the other. “I brought you water,” she said, proffering the bottle.
“I’m not thirsty.”
“When did you last have to pee?”
Sarah thought about this.
“If you’re having to think about it,” Clementine continued, “you’re dehydrated. Drink.”
Sarah took the bottle. The water was warm, unpleasant, and her throat resented it. Once swallowed, Sarah had to admit her body relented.
“Your uncle has a problem—” Clementine began.
“I know,” Sarah interrupted.
“I’m just saying—”
“Well, don’t,” Sarah snapped.
“I love being on the same side as you,” Clementine mused sarcastically. “You’re right, it makes all this more pleasant.”
The pilot was trying to persuade the campfire to accompany him on something else. The language barrier led the Libyan to switch among Italian, French, and Arabic with much arm waving. His copilot laughed at his efforts.
Sarah needed to say something to make things better. To gain absolution.
“Do you feel closer to your parents here?” she asked.
“You really are an ignorant Hure, aren’t you? Dakar is about three thousand kilometers away. We’re probably nearer to Germany.”
“You know, for just a second you could try not to be such a bitch.”
Clementine curtseyed. Something heaved inside Sarah, like she was about to be sick again. It bubbled up, and as she stooped and opened her mouth, a chuckle fell from her lips.
Clementine grinned, and they watched the singing sands slowly turn blue.
She took a step toward Sarah and spoke quietly. “I get why I’m here now, why you brought me. He’s falling apart and you need someone to help you, so you aren’t alone when he messes up.”
Sarah stared at the darkening horizon, becoming angry and relieved simultaneously, seeing the truth in Clementine’s words. “But, I’m curious why spies for German intelligence are shooting down Italian aircraft,” she asked.
“I told you. There are traitors.”
“Yes, yes, there are. And I think I’m with them.”
The campfire had fallen silent behind them, and only the singing sand and the shuffling of livestock could be heard.
She knew that Norris, for all his hesitation and weakness, would have killed Clementine, right here and now. Would the Captain? She felt the weight of the derringer in her pocket. It would be easy and over quickly, they wouldn’t even have to hide the body—
“It’s complicated,” Sarah managed. “Trust me, we’re on the right side.”
“That might be true. But one shouldn’t trust traitors.”
“What do you care? You’re a blackmailer. You’re being paid . . . to do nothing much, to be honest. I mean, what do you want, Clementine? To report us to the Gestapo? Be left in the middle of the Sahara?” Sarah paused. “A punch in the mouth?”
Clementine began to giggle. “I want the truth,” she said once she had finished laughing. “In your rather pathetic way, you are far too nice to a Rhineland Bastard like me. You might wear a BDM uniform, but it doesn’t wear you.”
“You want me to be nasty to you?”
“I want you to go piss yourself.”
Lies will tie you up. Sarah found a different lie, but a readymade one she could regurgitate, with a seam of truth she could access.
“All this racial Quatsch. It’s a sideshow. It’s all things that the Führer said to galvanize the population. He doesn’t care, we don’t care, I don’t care if you’re a gottverdammter Schornsteinfeger or a Jew or an Englishman, if Germany wins. It’s not just the SS that do pragmatism.”
“You really believe that?”
Sarah shrugged, before she continued. “I just need you to keep your gottverdammtes Maul shut and pretend you’re a maid. Maybe do some of that snooping for your country.”
“That’s better. You almost sound like a National Socialist now. Almost.” She folded her arms against the breeze. “Get some sleep.”
As Clementine walked back to the fire, leaving Sarah more confused than ever, she turned and called back, “And if you ever want me to show you how to fire that tiny thing in your pocket, just let me know.”
* * *
As the plane flew ever southward, the desert looked, at first, like a face growing stubble. Soon these dark patches joined to form ripples, like the edge of the beach as it meets the surf, and among these swirling patterns trees sprouted. Mile after mile the vegetation came, first black and then green, to consume the darkening sand.
The illusion was that Fort-Lamy, the capital of Chad on the banks of the green Chari River, marked the boundary of the untamed desert, but it was just a trick of watered gardens and irrigation. However, it was the first expression of European colonization for some two thousand kilometers.
Neat rows of white buildings fanned out like spokes on a wheel, growing ragged and brown toward the edges. It was an enticing image of civilization, how the wild and that famous darkness were being brought under control and placed in good European order.
Sarah thought of the “ordered” demolition of the synagogue in Munich, to make a parking lot. What had this white town removed?
The Storch bounced onto the airfield, and she stopped thinking about anything for a while.
* * *
Waiting by a truck so old it seemed inconceivable that it still functioned stood a large black priest. He smiled a wide, toothy grin and opened his arms as if in thanks.
“Bonjour, mes amis, and welcome to Chad.” He turned to Clementine and said, “Girl, make sure all the luggage gets onto the truck.”
Clementine looked ready to disobey but then complied with a shrug.
When she was out of earshot, the priest’s face changed, like someone had thrown a switch
. It was now distrustful, guarded, cunning.
“Jeremy. Are you collecting little girls? What the hell?”
“Good to see you again, Claude. May I introduce my niece, Ursula . . . an intelligence operative in my team.”
Claude stared at Sarah, seeing the disheveled, pale, and washed-out girl she felt she was. “If you say so. And what about the bamboula?”
“The maid cum operative. I don’t know yet. She’s been told we work for the Abwehr, but I suspect she no longer believes us.”
“Oh, well, not at all complicated. Jésus,” Claude swore.
Several gendarmes were walking over the field, eyeing the Storch’s markings suspiciously. Claude nodded to them.
“A sign of the times, Jeremy. A few weeks ago, Félix Éboué, the governor, walked into city hall and declared for de Gaulle. You are now in La France Libre,” he said.
“How did that go down?”
“Not massively popular, but no one wants to end up in jail, so they’re bending with the wind. Besides, everyone needs to trade with the British over there.” Claude pointed to the west. “And you can’t do that as Germany’s ally. Money talks. Anyway, your plane has Italian markings, so I have to make this go away, excuse me.”
The priest walked toward the policemen, calling out in a big, friendly voice.
Sarah was about to head for the truck, then remembered Clementine and turned back.
“Leave her,” warned the Captain. “She’s supposed to be the maid. You be the little girl. Little girls don’t help maids carry luggage.”
“But I’m not a little monster anymore. Aren’t we missionaries now?”
“You think that doesn’t make you a monster here, too?” the Captain said, frowning. “Being European? Believing in God?”
The pilot caught Sarah’s eye and then waved her over with two fingers. Sarah was curious, so she approached him. The Captain shrugged and headed for the truck.
“Thank you for . . .” she began in Italian, and then tried to recall the Arabic. “Al rihla? . . .” She realized to her embarrassment that she didn’t know his name.
The pilot grinned, about to correct her, then stopped. His Italian was patched and sewn together but understandable.
“You know my song? At the oasis? You know what happens next?”
“No, no I don’t, sadiqi,” Sarah replied.
“The hero is trying to win the hand of a cold Chinese princess. She wants to guess his name so she can execute him. To protect his secret, his young maid, who loves him, kills herself. You . . . watch out for yourself, little Tanit.”
THIRTEEN
“SO, MY OLD friend, what brings you to the Afrique Équatoriale Française at this most interesting of times?”
The rumbling truck trundled across the rutted track, sounding its horn to hurry Chad’s pedestrians along. The crowds of people, most wearing baggy white shirts and embroidered skullcaps, shuffled out of the way. Sarah tried to see their faces as they passed, but they went by too quickly and the motion made her feel sick again.
“Do you know anything about new diseases between here and Libreville?” the Captain asked.
“Ah, you want Le Diable Blanc, the White Devil.”
“I’m sorry?”
“It’s a story, almost a folktale, but it’s something supposedly happening now. A demon, dressed in white, visits wrath on the unholy. Where he stalks, pestilence follows. Always in the jungle, never near the towns. If you actually see him, you’re already dead. For the Christians, he’s Satan. To the natives, he’s whatever connerie angry tree-god they worship. But dressed in white, though? That’s some symbolism there.” He grinned.
“So how do I find this White Devil?” the Captain asked.
“I’ve heard of some Germans, missionaries from the Congo, who might know the truth. They’ve been following the latest plague south, trying to save each village as they come to it . . . Or offending the ancestors and causing it, depending whether you’re an ungrateful natif or not. But they’re mostly heading south because they need to stay out of Allied territory. Oubangui-Chari, Moyen-Congo, even Cameroun, are all for de Gaulle. Only Gabon left now, the coup failed there. Collaborating Vichy salopes,” he spat.
“So there is a plague?” Sarah interrupted.
The priest sounded his horn again to disperse a crowd in the road. He made a dismissive noise. “There’s always a plague. Men mucking about in the jungle where we’re not supposed to be. It wakes up the monsters.”
“You do believe in monsters, then?” she asked.
“Dégagez!” the priest screamed out of the window. The pedestrians shuffled into the mud at the side of the road. He looked around at Sarah before continuing more gently. “Real monsters, yes. This continent is a world de merde. Hiding in the trees and caves. Malaria, sleeping sickness, snail fever, and worse. It’s not some vengeful god . . .” His voice trailed off. “Except, maybe, the real God is punishing them.” He shrugged. “I mean, why would good men come here?”
“Where are you from?” Sarah asked.
“Paris, little girl,” he growled. “You think I’m one of these sauvages?” He eyed Clementine before continuing. “You think I’d have ended up working for the Abwehr if I were from here? I’m bringing civilization and the one God to this piece of France. And what are you, bamboula?” he said in French to Clementine.
“I’m German, and allez se faire foutre,” she swore passionately.
Claude looked at her like she’d spat at him. Then he grinned, the widest grin of the day.
“I like her. I like them with some spirit.”
* * *
Their first port of call was a French mission house, south of Mandjafa. The building next to the tatty church had all the bricks, stone, and white painted wood paneling of Chad’s administrative buildings, but in the way that flour and water were not bread, the various items piled on top of one another did not evoke the same gravitas.
Here on the banks of the Chari, the nights failed to bring the desert chill, and the heat was growing moist around the edges. The patio to the rear of the mission, away from the road, was the coolest place, but the insects of an entire continent gathered to feast on Sarah and the Captain as they watched the darkening sky over the scrub-like savanna. Clementine had declared herself too sensible to be dinner for the mosquitos and had retired, but Sarah thought she was missing out. The stars here were already twinkling and fizzing to life in a way Sarah had never seen at home. Millions and millions of them, so thick it painted a brushstroke across the sky.
It was the first new experience that had not made her want to vomit, sweat, pass out, or cover her eyes.
The Captain was now in a white linen suit and clerical collar with a straw hat covering his eyes. She wondered if he was still awake.
“He swears a lot for a man of God.” Sarah smirked. “Does he believe in anything at all?”
“Claude believes in right and wrong. I met him in Arabia. He saw what we did there, how our countries lied and broke our promises. He turned to God for answers. It seems God has not answered.”
“Good excuse to be an Arschloch, I suppose,” Sarah thought aloud. “But he’s not a Nazi? With an attitude like that?”
“He’s here to help the population, who are not of a mind to be helped. They are not interested in his brand of civilization as it tends to carry a chicote—”
“A what?”
“A whip, made of animal hide. This lack of cooperation enrages him. This attitude isn’t that of a Nazi, it’s a colonial, an imperialist . . . a white man.”
“Sounds the same,” Sarah said. “But he’s black . . . ?”
“Indeed. Only he’s not African, he’s French. He doesn’t identify with the population here. They’re savages, while he’s metropolitan, a Parisian. He is superior. There’s a pecking order. The governor here is black and Guianese.
The church-educated middle classes? They think they’re superior, that the rest of the black population would do better working harder and doing what they’re told faster. Claude always struggled with being a second-class citizen in the land of Liberté, égalité, fraternité. He found that égalité was dependent on having white skin, so after the war he went somewhere he didn’t have to worry about those principles at all.”
“How did you deal with what your country did?”
“Like Claude, I went somewhere and pretended to be something else. I, too, don’t belong in my country.”
“You’re not black or Jewish—where don’t you belong?” Sarah sneered.
The Captain shrugged. Shutters down.
Gottverdammte. What a terrible spy you make. Mouth always moving, ears never listening.
Sarah pulled something with wings out of her iced tea. “Tell me I don’t have to fly anymore.” She sighed.
“You don’t . . . but I don’t think you’re going to like the alternative.”
* * *
The word road had certain connotations for Sarah, raised in a Berlin suburb and a resident of two big cities. Paving came and went on the way to Moundou, but the promised highway never appeared. The truck wove through pedestrians, carts, and herded animals, with Claude leaning on the horn and turning the air blue through the open windows.
But the bumpier the ride, the faster they went, and the wind blew cool onto Sarah’s face. The Captain’s sunglasses and nose visor kept the dust out of her eyes, and a wound scarf kept her hair in place. Even this noisy and vibrating, shaking and twisting journey through the very center of Chad’s population was better than flying.
Chad was a patchwork of woody bush and gray-brown grassland, like life couldn’t quite reclaim the desert. The baobab trees had the thickest trunks of any she had seen before, yet their foliage was threadbare and comically small in comparison, like a bald man covering his pate with strings of long hair.