To Timbuktu for a Haircut

by Rick Antonson

  The occasional flickering light from a shop or candles in streetside homes lit my way back to the hotel. Periodically, a vehicle drove by, a dog barked. People scuttled along. The sand at my ankles slowed a walk that was already unhurried. Then it was quiet.

  I found the barber’s tiny shack at the roadside, marked by a hand-lettered sign that leaned against the outside wall and displayed the word coiffeur. When I poked my head in the open doorway, the barber was midway through a child’s haircut. At the sight of me, he jettisoned the local and cleared the chair below an electric bulb. I waved my willingness to wait, but three other kids had gathered behind me as I walked in. I was not an inconvenience; I was the evening’s entertainment.

  At the British Library, I had browsed through Zigzag to Timbuktu, a 1963 travel story by Nicholas Bennett, who said, “I had always thought of Timbuktu as the most remote place in the world; that’s why I wanted to go there.” Another of his observations came to mind as I sat in the barbershop beneath the barber’s sharp clippers. “The children, and this was a thing I had noticed in Timbuktu, had a strange kind of haircut. Half the head is shaved at one time, and it’s not until the shaven half has grown again that they have the other half shaved off.” I’d watched for this “Timbuktu hairstyle” and wondered if that was the origin of my dad’s saying. Nothing I saw validated that, and I was not concerned about a strange trimming of my locks.

  Too late, I realized that all the five faces looking at me in the barber’s chair were below closely trimmed pates. This awareness was confirmed by the mirror. I couldn’t remember my dad ever coming home with this hairstyle until he went bald.

  In the deep dark, I overshot the lane that led off the road to my hotel and instead walked on for a kilometre in increasingly unfamiliar territory. Occasionally I passed the huts of street merchants. At one, I was flirtatiously asked by a young woman for un cadeau and she touched my pack. Then there were three, and to each I presented my country’s flag on a pin. Their giggles were genuine, and in trade they offered me meat they had cooked for the evening meal. It tasted of grit and grease and reminded me that I was hungry. Their men joined us, and in French I asked about the way to a nearby hotel. They said there was none. They sent me away from the light and companionable warmth of their fire and into the night, alone. I was barely able to see. Then three goats suddenly jumped across the road, startling me with the reminder of my vulnerability. I passed large mounds of dark dirt that were actually mud homes, and finally found the narrow road that led into incredible darkness. At its end I stopped and stood at the edge of the Sahara, where the hotel Hendrina Khan was tucked into the sand.

  I had spent a day rummaging through history to find some simple truths. Timbuktu is not an imaginary place, it is an embellished one. Its legends neither sought nor needed my sanction. Timbuktu is more a passage than a destination; more a pilgrimage than a journey. I thought, let the Timbuktu myth be.

  Timbuktu does not long to be loved; it shrugged at my arrival. It did not judge my entry; it would as soon have let me pass. My coming meant nothing; it never would. Timbuktu is of consequence to me, not me to it.

  No one is drawn to Timbuktu by today’s realities. All come with knowing illusions. Timbuktu’s aura will not crumble like its buildings. I felt, with René Caillié, “Still, though I cannot account for the impressions, there was something imposing in the aspect of a great city raised in the midst of sands.”

  The spell of Timbuktu would remain on the Niger’s shore when I left Korioumé the next morning, it would not follow me on the river. If there was a sadness in my discovery, it was this: there is no quest for Timbuktu.

  SEVEN

  The Strong Brown God

  I AWOKE, CONSCIOUS OF THE FACT THAT THIS was my last morning in Timbuktu, my once unattainable goal. We would drive along Route de Kabara back to the River Niger’s port at Korioumé.

  The disorganization that accompanied any Mohammedinstigated movement had become commonplace and no longer seemed worth noting. Zak had been emphatic the previous evening that we must leave at seven the next morning. I saw him through the steam of my coffee mug in the breakfast room at the hotel. I spread jam on a French roll as my knife grazed grains of sand.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “It’s seven,” I reminded him.

  “I must find the Netherlands.”

  “North of the France,” I offered. He didn’t respond to my humour.

  “They were in Essakane. Man and woman. They’re on boat with you.”

  “Are they here?”

  “No.”

  René Caillié’s tardiness nearly caused him to be left behind when it came time for him to leave Timbuktu: “To regain the caravan, which had already proceeded to a considerable distance, I was obliged, as well as three slaves who had also remained behind, to run a whole mile through the sand. This effort fatigued me so much that, on reaching the caravan, I fell down in a state of insensibility.”

  My sunrise wandering took me away from the small hotel to a place where a young Malian couple held hands as they watched their five-year-old pig-tailed daughter walk away from them unwillingly. She rounded plaintively to Mom and Dad. They stoically watched her shuffle down the lonely dirt road and smiled at one another when she turned her back to them. She shouldered a tiny pack in a journey shared by fortunate children everywhere: the journey to school.

  When the girl veered into the schoolyard, the road I was walking on ended. I walked out of Timbuktu and into the desert. I walked past time, away from pleas for gifts or Bic pens, left behind the laughing women, ignored an angry dog — the first I’d feared — and past homes tattered and secure. I wanted to be alone. Almost immediately, though, a small clatter of children appeared with that monotonous request: “Un petit cadeau, un petit cadeau, un petit cadeau …” Like the cawing of a crow.

  The near distance was strewn with wind-blown trash. The dunes seemed hard and unwelcoming; the desert’s breezes will one day cover parts of this mess with forgiving sand, leaving only plastic protrusions flapping in the wind as evidence of the hidden garbage.

  There are many ways to leave Timbuktu. Heinrich Barth’s words echoed in my mind: “It seems not quite impossible, after all, that I shall finally leave this town, of which I am greatly tired. May the Merciful God grant me a safe return; my way is a long and difficult one.”

  A couple from Belgium, leaving later that day and travelling south on the northern route I’d taken overland to Timbuktu, encountered the feared roadside bandits. Their four-by-four was halted, and a gun was placed muzzle-tight to each of their heads. They were forced to the ground, where a boot firmly pressed their shoulders into the sand. Money was taken, lives were spared, the four-by-four was disabled, and they, their guide, and driver were left stranded. They were more fortunate than those whose vehicles are stolen; at least they had shelter until they were rescued by a Land Cruiser following the same tracks a few hours later.

  Gordon Laing, upon leaving Timbuktu, travelled as selfassured as we did; or so he wished to be perceived. “I have little time at present to say more than that my prospects are bright and expectations sanguine. I do not calculate upon the most trifling future difficulties between me and my return.” Two days later he was strangled by Tuaregs using his own turban-styled cheches.

  Timbuktu is on the Great Bend of the River Niger, where it arcs and then flows southeast. We planned to motor against its current, heading west. I would travel on West Africa’s majestic artery of life for three days.

  I recognized the “Netherlands” from the festival and, with their arrival, began the loading, unloading, and reloading of luggage atop the four-by-four. We retraced the Route de Kabara in the early morning light, our vehicle crowded with others hitching a ride.

  Robert was lean, browned from a trip to Cuba not long before. He had tousled black hair longer than the heat agreed with, and much of it hung over his forehead. His face sported honest eyes and a ready smile. He was
fifty-three, though he looked younger, and owned a record shop in Holland. He had the weight of a vegetarian without any beer-aided plump; not fit, but travel-thin. I liked this man; he could fix things like sand-stuck cameras and zipper-snagged sleeping bags.

  Anke had a long face that smiled, eyes and mouth as one, whenever she made eye contact or spoke, even when the conversation was about a problem. Her teeth had a charming and determined stance. Her hair, auburn in morning’s light, was long and hung from an ever-wrapped bandana, an abbreviated turban. She was maybe in her mid-thirties, with a very pretty body, and without a trace of such self-knowledge. Confident. Jewellery dangled from both of Anke’s wrists. Half a dozen pieces of Tuareg silver wrapped around one wrist; leather with spots of silver encircled the other. Four rings over two hands. A silver bauble hung around her neck, which was entwined with an ebony-and-bone necklace, and she wore dangly earrings.

  Korioumé was a constant market, as boats arrived a day late or half a day early, only to pack up and leave half a day before travellers expected. All docking was informal: a beachhead here, a sloped bank over there. Three pinasse floated offshore, one departed with black people, black bags, and black boxes as its motor puffed black smoke. It was a commercial vessel first, and, when loaded with its trade cargo of sacks and crates, people were allowed to wedge themselves where there was an angled opening. Another pinasse was almost loaded, and the few white travellers would pile on soon, taking the best spots; the locals would follow. At the foot of the embankment where the Land Cruiser had dropped us was a clean pinasse, fifteen metres long, canopied with woven reeds and bobbing in the wake of a departing boat. It had a motor, a young captain, and a younger deckhand. It was ours.

  The port of Korioumé used to be closer to Timbuktu, and the river’s tributaries, size, and impact have been subjects of dispute. The River Niger swells during the rains, confusing its chroniclers. Robert Adams, the disputed storyteller, told of the river being wide, without a current. In his recollection it flowed near Timbuktu. In justification of his apparent error (or as evidence against those who charged him with distortion), it is said that the river may indeed have been unusually wide during a period of that year. René Caillié, when in Timbuktu, wrote: “I am inclined to think that formerly the river flowed close to Timbuctoo.” This observation would have been based on the dry markings of a riverbed, perhaps. The river was unusually low during Caillié’s visit, as it had been unusually high during Adam’s stay.

  The most common transport on the River Niger: this idle pinassewill soon be overloaded with gear, goods, passengers, and animals.

  One could spend a lifetime on the River Niger, and many people do, but not in travelling its length of 4,200 kilometres. People live near the river’s inlets and bays, many of them within the Great Niger Delta, through which we would travel. The river’s source is in Guinea; its mouth is in Nigeria, at the Gulf of Guinea. Mali is one of four host countries for this life-giving river, a path of commerce and communication, and a source of food and nurturing.

  A bush taxi arrived carrying its clustered passengers — Malians and other travellers already aching from the short ride. They made last-minute arrangements for river travel. The journey downstream to Gao was said to be beautiful, and several cargo pinasse would head there throughout the day. The provisioning was basic – hand over some seffe, find a spot, inhale the unfiltered smells, and perch among the packed crates, straw bags, and locals. Food of indeterminable origin was passed from the back to the front of the boat. Take what you need, spill the rest back into the container. Pass it along.

  On the COMANAV (Compagnie Malienne de Navigation) steamers, food travelled vertically, from the top deck to lower decks, its variety, warmth, and cleanliness diminishing at each level. So did the cost of the travel quarters and the price of food.

  Two travellers approached our captain to see if the boat had room for more passengers. Zak, who had got us this far, asked if I minded these riverboat travellers. I was playing open-air baby foot, a twisty game of stickmen on metal bars in an arena box placed atop a table. I’d just beaten one dockworker on his coffee break and was plunging to defeat at the hands of an eleven-year-old as I listened to Zak’s question.

  “Zak, it’s not for me to say. It is the river.” Later, as he pushed our pinasse into the river, Zak explained: “They offered too little. They’re on cargo pinasse.” Yet we had others, two women, hardy Netherlanders, as well, who were willing to pay. My River Niger would reverberate Dutch for three days.

  Jose neared my age. Earrings hung from both her lobes and a stud adorned the left flank of her nose, and she seemed to amble when she talked. She was without pretense to style, had a warmly harsh voice, wore a black dress, and wrapped a cloth around her head. The turban changed colour daily. Her energy was in her talk. Her cheeks were generous in their smile and flesh. There was much infectious goodwill in this woman.

  Ona completed the European contingent. Once a striking woman with an open-mouthed grin that must have been irresistible; a one-time great beauty, she was now in that period’s afterglow. She was the quiet one, tinkering with her camera and pack of lenses, the last to speak in Dutch or around the fire, content in the steadiness of a non-frivolous life. The sun had not browned her skin. Her hair was dark and wound within a green turban that she would wear during the whole journey. No loose ends.

  Open-air baby foot is a twisty game of stickmen on metal bars in an arena box placed on a table atop the sand.

  “Eric. Eric.” I rounded. Jose looked at me. The name she gave me stuck for the rest of the river journey. “Eric, tell us about you.”

  Me? I was the khaki-shirted, scruffy-booted guy with thin beige pants hosed into socks, comfortably dated and irrelevant. I had the paunch common among my generation; my body had surrendered to gravity and the calendar. Atkins had tried to help me lose the pounds, but I’d raced it back into shape with wine and culinary delights. I craved earthly pleasures, cringed at the double chin, and admitted much of what I’d like to be, I was not. Would I ever be? Buoyed by successes, nothing singular had intrigued me of late. Then, this distantly inspired dream of Mali. Here I was.

  We had all, except Anke, exceeded the average life expectancy of the people through whose land we travelled. Not that fiftyyear-old men were absent, but our lives had the blessing of that age: no significant deterioration of health or mobility. What was more, we each carried a backpack, a camera, all manner of goods whose price exceeded the average annual income of our Malian hosts. Yet our arrival was not unwelcome, was not considered an intrusion. Malians didn’t envy us being there. They envied us at home. Robert observed, “Many people leave here, countries like this, and come to Amsterdam. They work very hard there, live uncomfortably, and have more material goods, but less life.”

  Our pinasse was not a common sight on these waters, and many of the villagers we passed shied away from us. But half a day out, some of them waved. Five children stood on shore as we slowed, and others in the distance stopped their play. As we beached our boat on the muddy bank, the adults stopped work, laid their tools down, and rested. Ten, fifteen, now thirty children joined us at the shore, stepping into the water to get closer, shouting “Ça va, ça va.” Anke and Jose sat on the pinasse roof next to a dozen sundrying fish, and the kids yelled mostly to them. I was close to the rail and in the shadow, while Robert continued to read. It was noisy and colourful and mostly happy, save for small children who cried at our strangeness.

  Tiny hands tentatively reached out to me. They stretched from kids who had waded into the river next to our boat. I held out my flat palm for them to press. One did, then splashed away. A girl with a handless arm watched her friends. She was unconfident. I extended one of my hands her way, but it was still out of reach. Now, three young hands boldly touched mine. I rose from the boat’s bench seat to the hull’s ledge and squatted, hunched over, beneath the canopy. All went still until I stopped this movement.

  Then the cry of “Ça va” s
ounded again, like a chorus of cicadas in the night. I threw my legs to the water’s edge and all the noise ceased. Silence. Two small children teased their hands toward me, suspended in fear. I touched each hand with mine, and they stayed. I pretended to use them to pull myself out of the boat, through the water and up to shore. They played along. I rose. Tall. White. Big. Kids scurried back behind the protection of their parents’ orange or blue skirts.

  The cicadas started singing again.

  Suddenly it was a palm-fest. My white hands to their black hands, extended from everywhere. Parents brought babies and held the child’s hand out. I touched. Kids brought their little brothers and sisters, crying for retreat, within forced reach. Everyone wanted to touch the white guy.

  On the canopy, the cameras of Anke and Ona clicked repeatedly, recording the rare event.

  It was easy for me to walk up the sandy shore to the four older men who stood there and greeted me with a handshake. All were tall, all thin. Their bright robes draped with a classical elegance, each a different colour — a red, a blue, two shades of green. We talked in pidgin French, and all knew this to be a fine day.

  The kids had now half-circled me and I was theirs again. We played the hand game. A mother shouted a phrase in Bambara and clapped. Astonishingly, thirty children joined her in unison. And clap they did, keeping at it, with no sign of stopping. They giggled and clapped. I started to clap.

  An impromptu dance lesson is provided by young Malians along the River Niger.