The Complete Collection of Travel Literature

by Tahir Shah

  Half the room was curtained off. I could see the shadow of a woman breast-feeding an infant on the other side. Francis handed each of us a book of international dialing codes and pulled a handkerchief away, revealing an extremely modern telephone with digital display. It sat upon a stack of international directories. I rang my bank in London and persuaded them to wire some money from my account to a bank in Nairobi.

  Oswaldo took the telephone next. The hut in Eastleigh was miraculously connected to Oswaldo’s village in Patagonia. Oswaldo’s eyes filled with tears of joy; but after a few moments of conversation his voice trembled and he stared into space. He put down the phone and whispered:

  “My Papa dying last week. Dey burying heem tooday in mi veelage.”

  The bank cashier counted out several hundred purple notes. With a sweep of his tongue, he coated each finger in a layer of sticky saliva. The lubrication aided the counting process. Then he smiled broadly.

  My bank had successfully transferred some money to Nairobi but, on arrival, the funds had been automatically changed into Kenyan shillings. I pleaded that, since the sum had been sent in sterling, it should paid out in sterling. The manager shook his head and suggested that I hasten to a quiet, discreet foreign-owned bank in a suburb of the capital.

  It was one P.M. — on the last Friday of the month — by the time I arrived there, and this circumspect branch was being mobbed by five thousand people, all of them trying to cash their pay checks. When I jumped up and down in the middle of the crowds, the mob paid no attention, but swept over me like a wave rushing shoreward. An elderly American queuing up was creasing back page three of Robert Ruark’s Uhuru. I told him my story, weakly hoping to win his friendship and sympathy. He looked up for a moment and said, “Gard, man, ya should go to Botswana if ya think this is bad!” Having decided to use other tactics, I burrowed under the waves of legs, and threw myself on the mercy of the most senior clerk I could find. He counted out twenty forms, mumbling, “You can start by filling these in.”

  Snatching a ballpoint from the official’s hair, I wrote furiously, hardly lifting the pen from the page.

  The sheets were accepted with grave formality, and the officer himself climbed on a chair to place them atop a pile. Then he unbuttoned his shirt another notch to reveal a navel filled with sweat. After which he removed his left shoe and began to exhibit its fine stitching to his colleague at the next desk.

  When I banged my fist on the table, he looked up in annoyed shock, handed me another batch of forms, and told me to shut up. A man in a boiler suit crawled over to me from under the desk. He was groping about with a screwdriver trying to mend the electric fans. I refused to fill any more forms. The official replaced his shoe and almost showed some pity. He commended me on my own footwear, then said I was to meet him at the telephone box behind the bank at three that afternoon.

  At five-thirty P.M. I was still waiting and was beginning to wonder what exactly was going on. A group of men in long black coats were watching me, as if they had been told to do so. Was it usual policy to meet clients at the telephone box? The long black coats moved closer and I went inside the box. A moment later there was a tap on my shoulder and the bank officer addressed me: “Thank you for waiting...” he began.

  I butted in, “What are those men doing staring at me from over there?”

  “Don’t worry, they’re waiting for one of my colleagues.”

  “The gentlemen who process the forms would like you to pay them some money. It will speed the wheels of your case.”

  I reeled in surprise, at first, on learning that bank officers could be corrupt. But then, instead of condemning the system, I realized the possibilities, and asked:

  “How much?”

  “A thousand shillings.”

  “I’ll give you five hundred.”

  “They might take seven hundred.”

  “Six hundred and it’s a deal!” I shouted.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he replied, shuffling away. He returned an hour later with the necessary signatures.

  Oswaldo met me under the Thorn Tree. He looked a little happier, and said that Denzil had taken him to an astrologer who told his fortune. Then Denzil had gone off to see his elderly great-aunt who lived in Nairobi. A decrepit Indian soothsayer, with a face as creased as an elephant’s belly, had seen Oswaldo’s future. The phantoms and spirits which he had conjured up had pledged that Oswaldo’s future was to be mystical and great. I was shocked that the Patagonian would bow to magic provided it predicted good things. It all seemed very hypocritical, especially after Oswaldo had refused to feed the Babalawo’s Borfima.

  “What are the details, Oswaldo?” I couldn’t help asking.

  “Dey remain seecrets, meng, till five yeers passing. Nice man give me magica stoone to protekting me fameely and Oswaldo.”

  “What does it look like?”

  His hand fished about in the tight jeans pocket and pulled out a yellow piece of stone. A pentagram was etched into its face. He held it close to his chest and shut his eyes. Images of Rajasthan and the alchemist’s assistant were hard to suppress. Could another of Bhindu’s brothers be working from above a bicycle shop somewhere in Nairobi?

  Denzil’s great-aunt invited us all to watch Beowulf. A local boys’ school was putting it on as an opera, for a limited period only. Mich, who was helping Kennedy with his studies, apologized for not attending. At eight that evening, great-aunt Rósela, Oswaldo, Denzil and I found ourselves sitting in the front row of a drafty school hall.

  Boys dressed as witches and princesses pranced about, shouting out lines from the great Anglo-Saxon epic. Oswaldo, who was sitting next to great-aunt Rosela, was called upon to explain what was happening, as she was more than a little short-sighted. The South American was at a loss for words as he had no idea of the events, either. Irritated by the slowness of the plot, great-aunt Rosela banged her stick on the ground, croaking for a gin and tonic.

  After the play, we applauded until our hands stung; and great-aunt Rosela invited us to a cocktail party. One of her oldest friends, another widow, was returning Home: to England, to retire to a country cottage. The expatriate enclave awaited us.

  Oswaldo entertained a select group of elderly and captivated European ladies at the soirée. He filled their glasses liberally from a bottle of Gordon’s gin, gallantly escorting them about the room on his arm. All the time he spoke of Patagonia.

  Having escaped from an expert in molluscs — who had cornered me under a long portrait of an early settler riding a zebra — I sidled over to Oswaldo. Suddenly, and without warning, he dug the stiletto from his boot and threw it at the feet of one of the women. Gin glasses clinked and fake pearls clattered as all stared down in horror.

  The dagger was embedded in the parquet flooring, through the body of a large winged insect which had been killed outright. The mollusc-man strode over and picked the creature up, caressing the corpse with his fingertips.

  Aunt Rosela and the other widows swooned in disbelief at the prowess of the gallant Patagonian. Miss Lambeth-Whitley became quite wheezy and lay for a moment on a sofa. Miss Finklefirn produced a fat cigar from her handbag, and stuck it between Oswaldo’s lips. She announced that it had belonged to her departed husband, Archie, and he would definitely have liked a Patagonian to have it. Oswaldo lit it and choked on the smoke, but persisted until his face turned crimson.

  Miss Lambeth-Whitely had the sort of voice that can break glass or embarrass one at a church function. As Oswaldo topped her glass up she twitched, blushed, and shrieked:

  “Oh, you are a naughty little Latin, aren’t you?”

  Denzil and I withdrew to the kitchen. Mama Wanjiru, the maid, shuffled around us on leathery toes, giggling. We licked out the bowls she had used to make cake icing, as a string of orders in high-pitched, mispronounced Swahili emanated from the other room.

  Miss Finklefirn, who was soon to depart Africa, passed around slabs of chocolate fudge cake. The mollusc-man had interred the mu
rdered insect and returned to swallow lumps of gooey chocolate. He gave me a pernicious stare as if I had abetted the execution of helpless wildlife. I turned to Miss Finklefirn and asked politely why she was leaving Kenya after so many years. She stopped passing out cake, and looked me straight in the eye.

  “Young man,” she said, “I have been here forty-two years and quite frankly can no longer stand all those blacks!”

  * * *

  Kennedy and I became firm friends. Although he was from Nairobi, his father had a small decorating business in Marsabit which, he imparted in a whisper, was on the verge of bankruptcy. Kennedy invited me to drive north into the wilds of Samburuland and up to Marsabit itself to deliver some paints to the construction project. I had wanted to visit the northern regions of Kenya for a long time. For it was there, near a small town called Maralal, that the most formidable English explorer still resided: his name, Wilfred Thesiger. The Afghans had been proud to receive him in our country. I wanted to return the compliment to him, in his own adopted home.

  Oswaldo and Denzil were far too busy to leave Nairobi. They had become instant socialites. Great-aunt Rósela and Miss Finklefirn wined and dined them in a most unconventional manner. When they were not playing golf, they were playing bridge, and when they were not playing bridge they slurped at gin and tonics in the Muthaiga Club’s bar. The canny old dames taught Oswaldo to shuffle cards like a Las Vegas croupier, which he liked very much.

  Kennedy drove the dilapidated silver pick-up through the groves of blazing jacaranda out on the road to Thika. Stands selling fowls, pineapples and Tusker beer died away as we left the city’s outskirts. A cluster of pots containing purple paint bumped about behind as we sped northwards. All was engulfed in a bright yellow light.

  The sun beat down and I groaned about the extreme heat. I longed to gulp chilled water, or to suck at a cube of ice. Kennedy said that it was quite normal for nomadic people who graze their cattle on the plains of the Rift Valley never to have seen ice. Some drinks rattled about at the back of the pick-up in a cooler, covered with several large lumps of ice. When we next saw a Masai woman walking, from what seemed to be nowhere to nowhere, Kennedy stopped the pick-up.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Look at this,” he replied and, fishing out one of the melting pieces of ice, he presented it to the woman.

  One might have thought that she would be grateful at seeing such a wonderful thing for the first time: but her response was quite unexpected by me. She screeched and dropped the shiny block on the ground.

  “Why did she do that?” I asked Kennedy, in an almost angry tone.

  “She has never felt coldness like that,” he said; “For her cold means night and night means danger.”

  The Masai woman looked at us with intense distaste: as if we had been performing magic. She turned her back and began to walk away from us towards the distant emptiness.

  The road was little more than a dust track as it broke across into the northern hemisphere. I stared out of the window and, for a moment, thought I was seeing the whole world spread before me.

  Giant termite mounds sprang up out of the desert savannah, and birds with bright tail feathers darted about. Kennedy realized that I had been affected by the power of the place.

  Kennedy said: “Tahir, this is where life itself began. Its energy filled our bones with marrow.”

  At Isiolo we ate a roast chicken divided down the breastbone. Kennedy would not start until I was ready to have a second helping. His uncontrollable laughter revealed a set of teeth stained dark brown by the high fluoride content of Nairobi’s water. When I washed the grease from my hands, Kennedy scurried away and paid for the meal. I argued that I ought to pay. He replied: “When the river flows through your land, you may feed the fish.”

  The silver Datsun began to move once again, and we entered Samburuland. A pair of warriors flagged us down. Although they looked like members of the Masai tribe, their adornments were quite different. Kennedy said that originally the Samburu had been the same tribe as the Masai, but they split away and ventured to the northern territories. The two jumped into the back of the truck and banged the signal to start on the roof.

  Zebra and ostriches took shade under Afzelia “magic bean” trees, whose giant pods dangled down above their heads. The warriors seemed contented, as if they were surveying all that was theirs. Then there was another bang of a palm hitting the roof and Kennedy stopped. The Samburus clambered out and walked resolutely off into the desert — as if to a pressing appointment in the middle of nowhere.

  “This is the land of the Samburu,” said Kennedy. “For them, there is no middle, no beginning or end. For them it’s as you see our planet. It is round.”

  * * *

  When we arrived at Maralal, Kennedy ambled off to meet some old acquaintances, and I asked at the petrol station where I might find Wilfred Thesiger.

  “Ah, you mean MizeeJuu,” said the clerk; “Follow that track out of Maralal and continue up the hill to the big house.”

  Ten minutes later I found myself sitting beside the great explorer, invited to a rather late lunch.

  “I hate cooking and I always have,” said Thesiger as he stared into a dish of over-cooked goat stew.

  As we sat in the sun-room of his green-roofed shack I observed the great man carefully. Wrapped neatly in a fraying Gieves and Hawkes coat, Thesiger began to tell me about his most extraordinary life.

  Widely acknowleged as the last of the great explorers, his knowledge of the Middle East and Africa was encyclopaedic. Indeed, he was perhaps the only man alive to be revered as a legend in both East and West.

  “You’re the first Afghan we”ve had up here!” Thesiger panted as he led me on a tour of the shack. “This is Bush Baby, and that over there is Laputa. He came to me many years ago with the words “My name is Tommy Gun, please give me a real name.” So I did.”

  Thesiger pounced on one of the children of his adopted Samburu family, crying out, “Do you know where Afghanistan is?” The infant looked up at the towering Englishman and whispered, “I think it’s near Germany, Mizeejuu.”

  Thesiger shook his head in regret that the child should have such little geographical knowledge.

  “We are a long way from Germany, let alone Afghanistan,” I said weakly. But the old explorer was not satisfied. “I’m going to get my maps out later!” he threatened, as the child scampered away to play with his hoop.

  “This is the best house in the world!” cried Thesiger as he led me from one room to the next, “Well, it’s the best house in Maralal at least.”

  A scattered herd of zebra lingered in the valley below, languid as if scarcely able to move in the tremendous heat. The valley had once, not long before, been covered with trees that gave shade to the goats and droves of wild animals.

  “There’s a disease that attacks the juniper trees, the top first, then the affliction spreads downwards,” said Thesiger, as we looked out towards Maralal. “I see nothing stopping it killing the whole forest over there. No one has done anything about it. I don’t know if they could.”

  The old explorer swept his arm in an arc and said sadly, “As far as you can see was once forest. Now it’s all dead.”

  Change has ravished many lands to which Wilfred Thesiger had traveled in his long and distinguished life. Yet, unlike so many explorers and adventurers before him, he had borne witness to the changes in landscape and society.

  “It is a great mistake to go back to a place,” he said, staring at the fibers of his coat. “I was horrified to go back to Arabia.”

  Wilfred Thesiger was born in 1910 in Abyssinia, now Ethiopia. It was there that his father was instrumental in helping Ras Tafari, later to become Emperor Haile Selassie, to the throne. This influenced Thesiger’s whole life. His earliest years in Abyssinia cultivated a passion for the wild; a passion which Thesiger never relinquished. His remarkable books are, of course, classics.

  Although he had a flat in Chelsea, London, it
seemed as if he dreaded the prospect of returning to the industrialized world.

  “I go home on leave once a year,” he said. “The housekeeper who I had for forty-seven years is no longer with me.”

  Haile Selassie never forgot the services that Thesiger’s father had given him. Thesiger, while studying at Oxford in the late 1920s, was invited to call upon the potentate. “I said to him,” remarked Thesiger recalling the events some sixty years before, “There is one thing that I want to do more than any other... that is, to return to your country.”

  The wish was granted soon after: Thesiger was the only westerner personally invited to the Emperor’s coronation. “The most decisive thing I ever did was when I made that trip to Abyssinia. I took a rifle with me and went on to the Danakil Country. After that there was no question of settling down to a nine-to-five job.”

  “God I hate cars!” roared Thesiger suddenly. He had been stirred from his reminiscences by the sound of a Land Rover braving the dry riverbed. “The biggest misfortune in human history was the invention of the internal combustion engine!” he barked. “Cars diminish the world and rob it of its diversity!”

  Thesiger slipped back into his memories once more.

  “The years I spent with the Bedu were by far the most important years of my life,” he said. “I went to them deciding that there would be no concessions: I was going to live as a Bedu.”

  Indeed, he accomplished exactly that. His travels with the Bedouins, and two crossings of Rub” al Khali, the Empty Quarter of the Arabian Desert, made him a legend in his own lifetime. His travels brought him face to face with despondency, danger, and starvation.

  “The desert is a place of almost unbelievable hardship,” muttered Thesiger, leaning back into a tattered armchair. “There was constant anxiety that the camels would collapse. If it hadn’t been for the Bedu, the journeys would have been a meaningless penance.”