The Complete Collection of Travel Literature

by Tahir Shah

  An hour passed and Danny came out of the office weeping.

  A conscript announced that he was to be put in prison, as he did not have the correct paperwork for his medicines. He would be taken to Monrovia under escort to face trial. My friend and I would also be arrested if we interfered. We were to leave in the next vehicle that crossed the checkpoint. I pleaded with the official in charge, but he was ready to reinforce his tyrannical orders with force. Danny was taken away.

  Oswaldo went back into the office. He stooped down on the smooth cement floor and picked up the carcass of his mouse. Then, behind the building, he dug a modest grave. The Patagonian crossed two twigs and placed them on the upturned topsoil.

  As we stood in silent prayer I heard a car approaching. Oswaldo turned and pointed with the words, “Khey meng look dare, man on yelloo roove!”

  The Peugeot 504 taxi with the dust-covered conscript still clinging dutifully on top — brandishing a Kalashnikov — moved uneasily towards us. The car stopped and the goat leapt over the reluctant mother. I gawked at the sight of the group. All the passengers were now bedecked in gold, ivory and fine clothes. The transformation was unbelievable. It seemed incredible that the travelers could have concealed such items during the strip-searches and random checks. The driver was watched suspiciously as he went into a bush to relieve himself. Oswaldo asked if we could have our old places back, as the Chevy’s owner had been imprisoned. It was agreed. Then, the soldier banged on the roof once more with the palm of his hand and we sped off towards Monrovia. Oswaldo and I were distraught at leaving Danny and his family stranded with the tyrant in civilian dress. We sat, brooding in silence, counting the minutes until we reached the war-ravaged capital.

  The contents of the yellow Peugeot 504 piled out at the Disco Hotel, in a rather rough district of Monrovia. Oswaldo took the twelve-inch stiletto from his boot and stuffed it up his sleeve. He led me away from the yellow Peugeot and its soldier, sick baby, goat — which had gone into labor — and a quantity of luggage which could have sunk a ship.

  Although weak and exhausted, we had been hardened by the experience of the last two days. Oswaldo’s stride was longer than usual, he chewed at the inside of his cheek and scowled at all he saw in a bitter and twisted manner. I had not seen this side of the Patagonian before. No longer did he laugh or fool about. The murder of his mouse and the imprisonment of an innocent man had affected the South American deeply.

  Through a series of complicated international banking transactions, Oswaldo had managed to have western hard currency sent from his village in Patagonia to a bank in Monrovia. The financial situation in Liberia was quite bizarre. United States dollar bills were the legal tender of the country. Instead of incinerating them, the United States sent worn-out dollar bills to Liberia. A shortage of notes prompted the Liberian government to mint its own dollar tender, with the same theoretical value as the American originals. But the black market value for the genuine American notes was much higher.

  Liberia’s civil war devastated the capital city and much of the countryside. The signs of combat were all around. It often happens in Africa that an unpopular president is butchered or forced to flee as his regime is toppled and replaced by another. Samuel Doe, the previous president, who had lost the battle to keep his position, had allegedly had his ears chopped off by the forces which overthrew him.

  Two men were wrestling on the stairs of Maxim’s Hotel. They seemed to have no intention of moving until one had fallen to the bottom. We clambered over them and found the manager holding out a key to the best room. Oswaldo snatched it as if it had been stolen from him in the first place. My clothes had been bonded to my skin with layers of black dirt. I peeled the filthy socks from my feet.

  Oswaldo leapt into the shower, and cackled so long and loudly with zest when hot water hit his back, that the landlord came to see what the fuss was about. I asked him to bring a couple of towels, as none had been provided. He went away. An hour passed. Oswaldo had sung many a Patagonian ballad; I was getting impatient to get clean, too. Another hour passed. I hammered at the bathroom door. Oswaldo had begun to belt out his favourite Argentine saga — “The Life of Martin Fierro.”

  Still there was no sign of the towels, so I shouted down the corridor. A faint cry radiated from some back room from which there came a distinct smell of burning.

  A fist pounded at the door: I walked over and opened it, expecting to be handed two clean towels. The manager’s head was servilely bent at right angles to my stomach. There was no sign of the towels. Instead, a plate was pushed at me: on it were the charred embers of something which had caught fire. The manager gasped, “Here’s your toast, Sir.”

  At last, I forced the Patagonian from the bathroom and I took a shower.

  Oswaldo turned his red jeans inside out and put them on. We went out into the town to eat. Our stomachs had almost forgotten the concept of digestion. The thought of mountains of food had kept us going since Freetown. Oswaldo pulled the collar of his shirt closer to his neck and we entered an elegant Lebanese restaurant. Monrovia has been dominated economically for many years by the Lebanese community.

  A menu was produced and Oswaldo waved it aside. The waiter looked displeased. I, too, was surprised.

  “Sir, are you here to eat something?”

  “Meng.”

  “Yes Sir?”

  “Breeng one of evryting!”

  The mad Patagonian looked at me for approval and I nodded.

  He laughed three times and I knew that everything was back to normal.

  Kebabs, pizza, sirloin steaks and strawberry milkshakes were shuttled to our table by a troop of waiters. The Patagonian took alternate bites of each succulent dish. Osman would have approved.

  At the next table sat a tall man with a thick black beard and Mediterranean looks, dressed in a cream gaberdine suit. He was laughing at our extravagance, Oswaldo invited him over to join us. The figure stood up and -walked over. His fingers, neck and wrists were enveloped in pieces of gold jewelry. The clasps and bracelets jingled as he sat. He spoke through a New York accent.

  “I’m Jacques,” he said.

  “It’s nice to meet you; are you just passing through like us?” I asked.

  “No, I’ve been living here a few years. If I can stand the place I’ll stay a while longer.”

  “Are you in business?” I inquired; he looked as if he was a successful man.

  “Yeah, you might say that,” he murmured, “I’m in metals.”

  “Any in particular?”

  “Yes,” said Jacques as he paused to sip a drink, “Gold.”

  He picked a Kent cigarette from a soft packet and lit it with a gold lighter which I admired:

  “It’s a Bic fifty-cent lighter. I made a cover in 18 karat gold. Passes the time, but I’m really getting fed up with it here.”

  “Where do you get the gold from?” I asked.

  “I go into the bush, three or four days’ trip. Buy it there. Then I bring it back to Monrovia and melt it into ingots. Why don’t you guys come around tomorrow? I’m melting in the morning.”

  Placing a cream business card on the table, he sauntered off.

  My stomach had surely shrunk. It felt as if food was stacked up my oesophagus, waiting to be digested. Oswaldo ploughed on. Sweat was dripping into his eyes and mixing with the tears which were pouring down his face. His greed had transcended the pain barrier. His fork was raised from the plate, his eyes spun, and he moaned, “Just one udder mouf meng!”

  Oswaldo was unable to sleep all night. His indigestion was very bad: he ran hunched to the bathroom time and again and groaned with self-pity.

  Next morning we went to meet Jacques. His office was on the third floor of a modern apartment block. Security cameras moved about like eyes on stalks when I pressed the bell-push.

  Jacques was berating a young African who stood in front of his desk, staring blankly. The young man left.

  “What’s dat problem?” Oswaldo asked.

>   “This city is driving me crazy!” yelled Jacques. “I went back to the States for one week. Just one damn week, that’s all. When I came back not only had my car been stolen, but my safe had knife marks in it and my partner had withdrawn a hundred thousand dollars from my account and fled. It’s really beginning to get on my nerves.”

  We went into a sealed-off room. Inside was a workbench and a small furnace. Jacques rotated dials and turned off the gas. What looked like a cake tin was carefully slid from the fire. When it had cooled, he tapped out a shiny brick of metal. It was solid gold. My eyes met Oswaldo’s. There was no need to speak, the dilation of our pupils must have said more than words.

  Jacques seemed to be the sort of man to whom one could talk at ease. He would listen and give encouragement if he thought it necessary. Oswaldo crouched over the gold ingot in the work room: he had evidently fallen in love with the substance. I sat with Jacques in his office and told him about the ceremony with Max’s Babalawo. Then I began to explain to him about my interest in the Gonds and Gondwanaland.

  He, too, had read about Gondwanaland and had been x enthraled. He spoke of a tribe, believed to exist in Central Africa, said to be related to the Gond people of India.

  “They are thought,” began Jacques, “to live in Zaire, on the east side of the country: in the very heart of what was once Gondwanaland.”

  “Where do they live, exactly?”

  “At the summit of the Nyiragongo volcano.”

  The idea of venturing to the very centre of Gondwanaland suddenly seemed important, as if the quest might provide information until now unknown.

  A people related to the Gonds, could that really be true? It seemed severely implausible, especially as man had not appeared until millions of years after the continents had separated, about 45 million years ago.

  But Blake had spoken of Macumba: whose magical arts had been influenced by the peoples of Africa and India... perhaps there had been an ancient affinity — impalpable and not time-bound — between all Gondwanaland’s people. Perhaps a sister tribe to the Gonds did exist: the Nyiragongo seemed a good place to look.

  Wresting the block of gold from Oswaldo’s clenched fingers, I began to lead him away. As we were leaving, I turned to thank Jacques. He lit a cigarette and inhaled.

  “Fellas,” he said, “go to Zaire, climb the Nyiragongo and breathe deeply, for you will be standing at the core of Gondwanaland.”

  Oswaldo agreed to accompany me to Zaire as long as I would promise him it lay to the east. Geography was not his strong point, Patagonia’s confines were the extent of his knowledge: the rest of the world was to be discovered on his great adventure. He also made me swear a solemn oath that I would avoid all contact with the dark arts of local magic. I gave my word. Then I went back to the hotel to take a nap, while Oswaldo went off to tell the travel agent all about the tourist trade in his native Patagonia. One of his cousins there had requested that he drum up business wherever possible. I had suggested that there might be a lack of Liberians with the will and finances to patronize his cousin’s tourist lodgings. He had looked me sternly in the eye and had said, “Are yoo crazee?! Peeple loove Patagonia!” As I lay on my bed dreaming of lost tribes and volcanoes, Oswaldo burst in and said with zest:

  “Khey chappy! I ordered us tomorroow to Zaire. Flighting ees at six afternoons.”

  Oswaldo’s first trip in an airplane had filled him with a new kind of excitement: one that he wanted to relive. He had developed a passion for flight, and insisted that all journeys that could be done by air, were done by air.

  TEN

  My Name is Zakaria

  Called their wives, and lit some torches,

  Blazing torches made of flax-stalks;

  Played their horrid game of marbles

  With the bored-out eyes of Lingo.

  Two soldiers had taken off their coats and were smashing at a man’s body and skull with the butts of their rifles. The sound of bone meeting wood mixed with the gasps of the victim. He did not cry out, but took the blows passively.

  I wondered if such sights would be commonplace in Zaire.

  Oswaldo and I were standing outside the airport at Goma, waiting for a taxi. Air Zaire was relaxed about scheduling. Timetables had not existed and we were bundled aboard the first plane leaving Kinshasa, the capital, having flown there direct from Monrovia. Oswaldo wanted nothing more of cities; we were both inspired to get out into the jungles of Zaire. I longed to walk at the heart of Gondwanaland.

  The ticket agent had seemed to think that everywhere was the same away from Kinshasa, for he handed us each blank tickets and ordered us to stand in a line.

  So we found ourselves on the eastern edge of Zaire, in Goma, a city on the border with Rwanda. It had been an enormous stroke of luck. For Goma was the nearest major town to our destination: the fabled Nyiragongo volcano.

  After an hour of hanging about a soldier moved us on. He said that in Goma there were no taxis, and if we loitered we would be arrested. Noting his unhealthy interest in my camera, I grabbed my saddle-bags and we started to walk into the town.

  We passed some children who were sitting on engine blocks, their faces devoid of all youthful animation. And, as the infants lingered glumly, the adults stared at us with tortured, transfixed expressions — as if there was nothing to look forward to. No one smiled. No one laughed — for both, like comfort, are luxuries.

  A stretch Mercedes passed us at high speed — gliding through the slums from the airport — towards the town. The vehicle seemed alien: almost like a spaceship, from some development of the future, and a world away. Gaping as if it had been a vision, we continued on the long walk into Goma.

  Oswaldo perked up when he saw the discotheque, optimistically called La Planete. Above it there were rooms for hire. Before I had a chance to object, I found that I was sharing a room with Oswaldo, and several hundred assorted beetles. Directly below the room was a throbbing box filled with sinister sounds, and with dense red revolving lights.

  We went down from our room into the red glare. There, in the vibrating disco, sat two western girls, their faces pocked with mini-craters from chafed mosquito bites. They were aid workers from Finland. Oswaldo danced with the thinner of the two. He pulled her close to his chest and she twitched with pleasure. Her friend was called Roxanne. All she was interested in, I soon learned, was fantasising about food and drink.

  After two years in the Kivu region she had almost forgotten her native diet. She edged closer to me and put her hand on my thigh. I went to the drinks’ counter and brought her a large brown bottle of Primus lager. She knocked back the beer in a couple of giant gulps. Then she remembered the conversation and began to speak enthusiastically of the taste of caterpillars and locusts.

  “What do they really taste like?” I asked.

  “Caterpillars are a bit like eating dust, but with a few wild herbs they’re not bad at all.”

  After some time, having managed to escape the clutches of Roxanne, I clambered back to the room. A woman was lying naked on the bed, her hair twisted in numerous individual short spiky plaits, which radiated from her scalp like antennae. A man was stretched out on top of her. Employing basic sign language, I tried to make it clear that my friend Oswaldo and I had hired the room for the night: and that I was now ready to go to bed. The man cursed in Lingala, as the couple stumbled downstairs towards the throbbing redness of the disco.

  Doors slammed all night and still there was no sign of Oswaldo. Franco’s music — he was the most famous Zairean musician — made the walls vibrate until half-past three. Next morning the room shook with banging. Oswaldo was taking off his jeans, but was so drunk that he had forgotten to remove his boots first.

  When the morning sun streamed into the room, the first thing I focused on was six legs. One pair were much smaller than the rest. My eyes moved up the bodies which ran in the same direction: each was topped with a groaning, moaning, very unhappy head.

  Getting to my feet, I kicked Osw
aldo, scolding him like a mother whose daughter had been out all night:

  “What the hell time did you come back, and who the hell are your new friends?”

  Oswaldo did not move. He was doubtless hoping that I would think he was dead and leave him alone.

  A huge chicken was pecking at crumbs on the floor: a long cotton string dangled from its leg. The body in the middle turned, a mop of blond beard covered its face like a Balaclava. With a pained expression, he put out a hand, and croaked:

  “Hey man, my name is Zakaria, but you can call me Zak.” With that he collapsed into a stupor once again.

  Opposite La Planete there was a Belgian delicatessen, where a deliciously fresh croissant and a cup of aromatic coffee were the breakfast placed in front of me. A photograph of Zaire’s ruler stared down from the wall. I had read about this man.

  He had made the news in the West when he had removed crucifixes from churches and replaced them with portraits of himself. His palaces were said to be spread throughout the country. It all seemed quite astonishing, particularly as he had once been an ordinary soldier, named Joseph Desiré. That was before he changed his name to Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbeandu Wa Za Banga. He had assumed control by coup d’état in 1965.

  The delicatessen’s owner was one of the last colonials to have braved the uprisings following independence and the authoritarian regime of Mobutu. He changed some dollars for me, unofficially. The local notes, all bearing Mobutu’s grin with leopard skin cap, were of several different sizes. Even bills of the same value varied in size. The Belgian said it was because of the shortage of paper recently.

  At La Planéte, the huddle of legs began to untangle themselves and their owners attempted uneasily to stand. Zak pulled up the boy — who was about nine and had a terrible hangover. His name was Marcus.

  “Well guys,” began Zak in a drawl, “thanks for the floor space, that was a rad night. D’you have plans today?”

  “Yes,” I said, “we’re off to climb the Nyiragongo volcano. It’s a very special, international scientific expedition.”