Zanzibar

by Giles Foden

  The word meant, literally, ‘cover’ – hiding from truth – and sometimes Queller thought it appropriate that his nation had come to be its prime example in the Muslim mind: since the triumph of the Second World War at least, there had been something like a mass self-willed illusion that American destiny proceeded by way of a special providence. Shifting ‘reasons of state’, underwritten by an assumption of being God’s own country, had been used as an excuse for all sorts of evil abroad, often with a total disregard for local considerations.

  The mistake the Reagan administration made, back in the eighties, was to see the anti-Soviet jihad as an expedient geopolitical strategy, an expression of the Cold War, oblivious that to others involved it was the direct expression of the will of Allah. The crisis point came on Queller’s final visit to Afghanistan in 1989, between the Soviet retreat and the fall of the Berlin Wall at the end of the year. The mission had been implemented by the CIA’s commercial directorate after consultation with a number of leading American oil companies.

  The aim was to persuade bin Laden to use his influence on America’s behalf with whoever emerged to fill the power vacuum in Afghanistan following the Russian withdrawal. At the time everything was up in the air as factions fought to take control. Back then it seemed viable, even logical, that an American client state could be established in the Hindu Kush. The irony was, communism was beginning to collapse even as the mission got under way, and soon America would have client states right across the east. It still amazed Queller that the intelligence agencies had not predicted this. Then again, he’d been no wiser. If he had, he might not have gone to Afghanistan hunting oil contracts that October.

  Queller remembered the visit like no other. Shrugging off time, all the life that had flown in between, it would creep smokily into his head. Even to think of the episode made his stump ache, as if the nerves beneath its web of scar were alive to the memory of their own severance.

  In a cold mountain dawn, a convoy of about ten Landcruisers had wound its way through the rocky slopes above Khost, to where Queller was waiting with four Green Berets as a token escort. The convoy stopped a little way off. Bin Laden came forward at the head of a group of heavily armed Arabs wearing a mixture of discarded Russian camouflage and traditional dress.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he had asked, narrowing his fierce brown eyes. He was holding a nine-millimetre-calibre automatic pistol and had a Kalashnikov strapped across his back.

  ‘I’ve come to talk,’ Queller had said, eyeing the pistol and aware that the other Arabs had their rifles out. ‘We need to establish what our relations will be now the Russians have gone.’

  Bin Laden laughed, his long beard shaking. ‘There will be no relations now. We do not want you here. We do not want you in any Muslim country. Your presence in any such place is a disgrace.’

  ‘Look,’ Queller had said. ‘I’ve come here to confirm our friendship, to ensure we remain on the same side.’

  ‘Listen to me. You are not welcome here. In alliance with Israel the Jews in your government have come to take command of our holy places. Because of this emotions are raised in me, and in many Muslim people. We know now that when we buy American arms or allow Americans to dig for oil in our territories, we are accomplices of evil. That is why, with Allah’s help, I have decided to establish a front to carry out jihad against Jews and American Crusaders. You are a Crusader, Mr Queller. That is why you must leave, now. If I see you again, I will kill you.’

  ‘You’re kidding me,’ Queller had said, smiling, desperate to defuse the situation.

  The morning sun, rising above the hooded, grim mountains, glinted on bin Laden’s face.

  ‘I will show you how serious I am.’

  He shot Queller in the elbow. The Green Berets raised their weapons but, seeing they were hopelessly outnumbered, had lowered them again immediately.

  ‘Now understand that I aim to turn your country’s presence in the holy lands into a myth, just as I did with the Russians here in Afghanistan. In the religion of the Prophet – Allah’s blessing and salutations upon him – as I think you know well, Queller, there is something called jihad. A special place reserved in the Hereafter for those who participate in it. And the enemy of jihad?’

  He spat at the rocky ground, where the Green Berets were squatting in a circle round Queller and his shattered arm, forty AKs trained upon them. Even through the disruptive patterns of the camouflage cream on their faces, and the net of his own pain, the dismay and fear of the American soldiers had been clear to behold, Queller remembered.

  More of bin Laden’s words came back to him. ‘The enemy is the Zionist–Crusader alliance under the banner of the USA. The enemy is the iniquitous United Nations. The enemy is you.’

  Swallowing the last of his whisky, Queller stood up. He glanced at the television. Now William Cohen, the Defense Secretary, was saying his piece.

  ‘We can never allow terrorists to diminish our determination to press on with the inspiring work of those who have been taken from us. Their sudden loss must only strengthen our sense of purpose.’

  Then the anchorwoman switched to coverage of independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s investigation into the question of whether President Clinton had committed perjury or obstructed justice in trying to hide his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, and the possibility of impeachment proceedings in Congress. All that stuff, it seemed to Queller, was hotting up at a hell of a lick.

  He went back up to his room on the top floor of the Kili. Whatever he thought of the government’s past role in the sponsorship of bin Laden, including his own part, his conscience prompted him – like divine authority speaking in his head – that he had to pursue this matter to the best of his ability.

  The antagonisms had to be faced as they stood. History was history. It had to be amputated: what was past was prologue, nothing more. The important thing now was that those who’d been bereaved, Americans and Kenyans and Tanzanians alike, had a chance of justice.

  As soon as he could, Queller resolved, he would fly over to Zanzibar and join Miranda. It would be strange to go back, after so many years. He looked over at the minibar, wondering if it was wise to have another drink. I mustn’t, he said to himself, and lay on the bed, realising he was exhausted. But temptation had already begun, by insensible gradations, to make its way into his soul.

  Later, around three-thirty, he was still sitting on the bed drinking from the bottle, wondering if he would have peace before the rising dawn. Or ever, until he saw – his thoughts were blurry now – the Lote Tree of the Uttermost Limit, at the zenith of the seventh heaven: the edge of Being where the Prophet on his Night Journey received God’s instructions before returning to earth.

  The edge of Being, beyond which his Lucy was. He swigged the care-drowning, grief-dispelling Scotch till he gasped.

  27

  Nick Karolides awoke, cried out and lurched forward in surprise. Seized with panic, he clutched at the sides of the boat, making the little craft tilt precariously. He was parched. There were no oars. Nothing but himself and the ocean.

  He tried to work out what had happened. Half-conscious then as now, he had barely understood that someone was pulling him into the lighthouse. He remembered being dragged down to the beach in the dark, strange hands pushing off the dinghy in which he and Leggatt had made their landing. There was something else – a thin man in the boat moving quietly, corpses crushed next to him, the man hauling the bodies over the side, along with the oars …

  Around him the sea lay still and mysterious. Patches of brown sargasso weed and bright red jellyfish floated past, like little islands. But he could see no land. He listened to the water as it lapped at the side. Lap, lap. No land. Just the ocean rolling on and on. He moaned and lay back down in the bottom of the dinghy, curled like a foetus under the glaring sun. It must be some kind of nightmare. He remembered that the man had climbed over the edge of the boat, swimming. Why had he left him?

  Hours went by. Whe
n he awoke, it was cooler. A light rain was falling, pattering on the fibreglass of the dinghy. He opened his mouth. The thirst was awful. There was a thick line of blood on his temple where the bullet had grazed him. His limbs ached, too, and were covered with rope burns. His knees, where the big Arab had hit them, were especially painful. There was a cut in one – the salt made it sting viciously – and heavy bruising on both. He wasn’t quite sure which was worse, to be stuck on Lyly with those men or out here on the sea. He remembered more now, remembered being flung out of the lighthouse, dangling …

  He felt helpless, but knew he had to make an effort to save himself. His tongue was swollen. He made a cup with his hands to try to catch the rainwater. But it was fruitless, and he ended up licking his palms. Then, just as he was wondering if he would die of thirst, the rain intensified and he was able to take a few worthwhile mouthfuls.

  But the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. As the clouds opened, and the sky darkened, the waves increased in size. The dinghy slithered up and down, slapping loudly as it dropped into the troughs. As the rising wind gusted in his face, Nick began to worry about water coming in. For with each wave that swept towards him, a mass of spray was cast into the boat. He tried to bale it out with his hands, but it was no use.

  No use! The sea began to surge around him. The waves grew ever larger in size, each one bearing down menacingly on the little boat. There was always another, and another, and another. He was powerless to prevent them. As the waves sent the dinghy bounding down, he gathered himself each time. It was always the same. There was nothing to be done. The dinghy lifted – was briefly in space. Then the hull banged. The fibreglass shuddered.

  A wave swept right across, nearly knocking him over. He gripped the gunwale, and a fearful thought came to him. At Nantucket, he’d read, the cliffs were receding six feet a year as the waves battered them. What hope had the dinghy, such a puny thing by comparison to those great walls of rock? An oyster in its shell had more chance than him.

  But after some time the immediate peril ceased. The wind declined, the fighting sea called a truce with itself, and the sun went down. Glowing crimson on the dark blue ocean, it took his heart with it as it declined. As the darkness gathered, Nick – a hunched, lonely figure – began to accept that this might be the end. Drifting for forty hours in an open boat had finally cured Nick Karolides of pursuing the phantoms of hope.

  During the night he became very cold. He couldn’t sleep. His teeth chattered. The boat rolled along in the darkness. He thought of Miranda. But all that did was increase his sense of being abandoned, totally alone.

  The dawn broke red. That must be east, he realised, squinting through salt-inflamed eyes. He looked around. The sea was calm again. But no land. His bones hurt. He seemed to be cold in his very heart.

  He thought: if that was east, then he was drifting in the wrong direction. For the island must be west. Frantic, he stumbled aft and began paddling with his hands to try to turn the dinghy around.

  Exhausted, he gave up this effort to control his own destiny and allowed himself to be taken wherever the current went. He sat motionless for an hour – was it? – watching the sea slide by. He tried not to think of Leggatt. He tried not to think of death. He remembered the old man prodding him with his pipe stem, to emphasise a point.

  The sun grew hot again, tightening his skin painfully. Blisters had begun to rise on his back and arms. Once, the water roiled nearby and he thought of sharks. The tigers and hammerheads that he knew cruised here. That gave him an idea. He rallied a little, summoning the energy of despair. He was more thirsty than hungry, but if he could catch something there would be fluid in it. He took off his shirt and tore off lengths of cotton, tying them together. Then he removed his belt and, nearly breaking a tooth in the process, prised off the spike of the buckle and bent it. Tied to the end of the cotton it would, he reasoned, serve as a lure. He dropped it in the water.

  Waiting, Nick found himself imagining fish down below, intrigued by the fragment of metal as it glittered behind the boat. Surely one would bite soon? It occurred to him that the things most easy to imagine are more often than not those impossible to achieve. He pulled up the links of cotton. Nothing. But he mustn’t give up hope. He mustn’t.

  He watched cormorants diving, flying up high then dashing their bodies down on the sea, like something trying to find a way to die. But they came up with fish; he was the one more likely to die.

  Maybe he would have more luck trying to distill seawater. He devised a contraption, made from a funnel of the same shirt fabric – tied between the rowlocks – that he hoped would drip fresh condensation into one of his shoes. But the material sagged, and the water ran straight through. The sum consequence of his efforts at survival was, through the removal and employment of his shirt in such a way, to reduce what little protection he had from the sun and spray. His skin blistered even more. The accumulation of his hours at sea etched itself on his body.

  And on his mind. He had given up hope of being sighted. Now there was a wicked stillness on the water, which moved past the hull in large sheets of oily liquid. He began to think about his death. The biggest adventure of all, he reflected miserably. Yet maybe – he was delirious now – maybe it was not so bad to be summoned away like this? How different, after all, was being cast adrift in an open boat from man’s average experience of life on earth? His head lolled forward. The dinghy wallowed, and was still again. Or did it edge forward? He no longer knew.

  He woke again, raising his eyes in expectation of further futile progress, another little indefinable scratch on the sea’s forbidding totality, its grey, luminous slate of horror. What he saw was something else. Something that disturbed the tilting horizon of sky and ocean.

  A ship! He stood up unsteadily, his arms stretched upwards. He tried to shout, but at first all that came from his throat was a dry croak. He tried again, and this time some noise came, but hardly enough to carry across. He shouted more, and started leaping up and down. He nearly fell into the water. Eventually his voice gave out and he stopped shouting.

  They had spotted him long ago, in any case. He saw ropes flutter. A boat was coming off the davits, cranking down on heavy pulleys. Exhausted, swaying, he watched men climb into the boat. They began to row towards him. He felt faint, light-headed. They were coming towards him, weren’t they? He toppled over and fell into the bottom of the dinghy. There was a thud as the other boat came alongside. They pulled him over the gunwale into it, then tied a lanyard to his dinghy to tow it behind them.

  Of the journey back to the big ship he knew nothing, returning to consciousness only as he collapsed on its iron deck.

  They took him below. There was a smell of unwashed men, rough tobacco, bad cooking. A stove spluttered in a corner. He could see eyes peering at him in the yellow light. His ears were filled with voices speaking a language he understood but rarely spoke himself these days. Get some water here. What happened to him?

  Someone pulled off his ragged clothes. Somebody else held a tin cup to his mouth. Water. Sip sip. He clutched for the cup, but they held it back. Sip sip. Then a bucket was brought and a sponge and they were washing the salt from his face and neck. After that he fell asleep.

  On waking, Nick was given more water, hot this time and mixed with rum. The man in front of him was a big guy with jet-black hair and a steady gaze. Taking the cup in his hand, Nick slowly came to his senses. The sailor studied him curiously for a second, then climbed back up, his boots clanging on the spiral stairway.

  Nick took in his surroundings. He was in a kind of hole, wrapped in blankets smelling of catsup. He could feel bolt-tops through the blankets. Opposite him were other holes, compartments of sorts, cubbyholes of iron sheeting sticking out from the sides of the boat. Seamen’s berths, he realised, seeing yellow oilskins and other items of clothing hung on lines above the divisions. In the berth directly in front of his own a poster of a half-naked young woman had been pasted above the bedhead. He stared at
her dyed blonde hair, her insecure smile and pneumatic breasts. He could hear the rumble of a diesel engine. The motor’s tremble, and the sea’s swell, they came home to him bodily – from iron through blanket to flesh and bone.

  A tall, moustachioed man in a captain’s hat and a tight-fitting jacket came down. He put a can of Heinz spaghetti hoops on the stove and started questioning Nick in faltering English as he warmed it.

  ‘What happened to you? Why were you adrift?’

  To the man’s great surprise, Nick answered him in Greek.

  ‘By God!’ the man said, stirring the spaghetti hoops with a tea spoon. ‘I didn’t expect to find one of my own countrymen floating in the middle of the Indian Ocean. What a story!’

  ‘Where are we, exactly?’

  ‘Off northern Tanzania. Tanga way.’

  He brought over the tin, guarding his hand against the heat by wrapping an old sock around the bottom.

  ‘Pepper?’

  Over the next half-hour Nick learned that the vessel which had rescued him was a small cargo ship called the Pearl of the Ocean. It was on its way from Suez to Beira, where it was due to exchange its cargo of Egyptian potatoes for one of Mozambican sugar. The man talking to him was Captain Phillipos and nothing gave him greater pleasure than Nick’s Greek ancestry.

  But when Nick mentioned taking him back to Zanzibar, the captain grimaced, his moustache folding.

  ‘We’ll be going by the island, very soon,’ he said. ‘But if we put in, they’ll have us for port fees, which is fair enough, plus a host of bribes for false customs discoveries, which isn’t. I’m sorry – you’ll have to come to Beira unless you are able to put up two thousand US.’

  ‘I don’t have anything,’ said Nick. ‘You saw how I was.’