by Vi Grim
Zula pointed out the constellations, ‘There’s Amanar, the mighty warrior of the desert.’
‘It’s Orion,’ said Emily.
‘Shet Ahad, the seven sisters,’ said Zula, pointing to a group of little stars hanging out together. ‘Can you see them all?’
Emily could only see six. Then there was Talemt, the she camel, Awara the baby camel, and Polaris, steady in its position over the North Pole.
Emily found herself crying.
‘What?’ asked Zula. ‘You really must get over it, it’s not like your family are dead or anything.’
‘It’s not them. It’s you, and Ijju and the rest of the Scorpions, the Tuareg, and the caravan. I’m a slave. I’ll be sold, I’ll have to go!’
‘That’s a long way off yet, a desert away. Don’t worry, don’t think about it, enjoy being here. I have a feeling about you, good things happen around you. You make them happen.’
‘The fortune teller said I will die. Soon!’
‘We all die so don’t worry about it. Dying might just be the beginning. Look at what happened to Dad, he died last year!’
‘But...’
Seeing the conversation was going nowhere, Zula tickled Emily and they rolled down the sand dune fighting.
As they approached Agadez, Ijju grew sad. She wouldn’t say anything and seemed shut up in her own little world, door locked and bolted.
‘Zula, what’s up with Ijju?’ asked Emily.
Zula looked sad, ‘The soldiers came into her house with machetes and tortured and killed her family; her father, her mother and her sisters. She was hiding then threw petrol at the men, like her dad told her to. She escaped by diving out the window of the burning house. Have you seen the scars down her side?’
Emily shook her head.
‘She says they are there to remind her of her family, so she never forgets. She wants children, lots of them, as soon as she’s old enough, so she can replace the lost lives.’
Emily’s problems with the bullies seemed like nothing, a bit of taunting and a couple of cigarette burns. Ijju had lost everything. She never complained, she never said nothing. Neither would Emily, never again.
They passed south of the Agadez trying to keep out of sight as much as possible. Saleem sent a few men into the town to bring back supplies and news. There was fighting in Azawagh, where they used to live. Bad things were happening. The usual joking and singing stopped and everyone was serious, worried about the people they knew who still lived here.
‘If this trip is a success, they can come and live on our land,’ Zula said quietly.
The 21st of January arrived and passed. Emily didn’t tell anyone, not even Zula that it was her birthday. It made her cry a bit and she had to bite her lip not to say anything but it just didn’t seem right to have a me, me, me day when the everyone was so sad.
23.
When the computer was working Emily had clicked her way across the desert on Google Earth, zooming in to see the towns and all the photos people had posted. She sketched a map in her diary and marked the places that looked interesting, drawing tiny pictures of what was there. Ijju wrote the place names in flowing script and Emily wrote them underneath in English.
When they saw the peak of Mt. Bagnoze standing proudly above the desert, Emily said to Saleem, ‘I found a place called Jardin d’Ignalabelabene in the valley at the foot of the mountain. We must visit; you’ll get some great photos.’
‘I will,’ replied Saleem. ‘On the return trip! It’s a place I’ve always wanted to visit.’
The Sahara is not just one desert but a vast area of barren rock and sand made up of many different landscapes. There is one true desert in the middle of the Sahara, the Ténéré, and it was into the Ténéré that they headed as Mt. Bagnoze slowly faded into the haze behind them. The midday siesta was dropped and they walked from dawn to after dark.
Months ago at the start of the trip with the caravan Emily walked for only a few hours a day and rode on camels the rest. Now that she was fit and strong, she preferred to walk alongside the camels like the Tuareg did. It was less work for the camels and made picking up poo a whole lot easier.
Zam had been playing with the football since they’d left Timbuktu. He fancied himself as Zinedine Zidane and juggled the ball as he went along; heading it, kneeing it, bouncing it off his chest and tapping it with his heel until, inevitably it flew in the wrong direction, hitting the camels and disrupting the caravan. Saleem had had enough. Holding his dagger to the ball he said, ‘Either you or the ball, or both of you, have to go!’
‘Can I play at the back?’ pleaded Zam.
‘Okay, but no more disruption.’
Zam moved his camels to the back where Emily was, and kicked the ball along behind, where it couldn’t cause any problems. Emily was delighted to have him at the back because sometimes he kicked the ball to her. She loved football and was good at it. She was the only girl in the school team at home. Zam and Emily kicked the ball happily around, head, foot, knee, chest, then kicked it off into the desert and chased after it, scoring imaginary goals.
Zula spent his time with Ijju and Yuba at the front. Emily was having so much fun with Zam that she didn’t notice that Zula had stopped talking to her.
They stopped for the night at a funny place in the middle of nowhere. There was an old well and a metal pole with arms sticking out, looking like a dead tree. Visibility had dropped to next to nothing, like when the fog rolled in a home.
Emily kicked the ball at the well and, much to her surprise; it sailed straight in.
‘Goal!’ cried Zam, running around like his team had just scored the winning goal in the World Cup. He jumped on Emily, knocking her to the ground then hugged her and gave her a big sloppy kiss.
‘I’ll get the ball back,’ he said, and had a couple of the men lower him down into the well on the end of a rope.
Zula appeared next to Emily and spat down into the gloom. ‘Pratt!’ he said and flicking open his knife, cut the rope.
‘Aaaagh....’
Splash!
Emily hit Zula. The Tuareg laughed.
Splash, Splash!
‘Get me out!’ came an echoing cry from down the well.
‘Stay there!’ called Zula, and flung down a handful of sand and gravel.
Splash, splash, splutter!
‘Help! Help!’
A rope was lowered down and Zam hauled out. He was red with rage and as soon as he got to the top he dived on Zula and they fought. Being older and taller than Zula, Zam soon had the upper hand and, after landing a few good punches, knocked Zula to the ground. He kicked him a few times then picked him up and threw him down the well.
Splash!
Then silence.
One of the men was lowered down and fished out the half drowned Zula. He was laid on the sand next to the well, looking very sorry for himself. Emily knelt down beside him and washed the blood and sand from his face.
‘Go away!’ he shouted.
Emily run away in tears and sat crying on the dusty ground.
Saleem came and sat next to her and offered her a cup of mint tea. He pointed to the funny tree like thing that they could just see through the dust. ‘L’Arbre du Ténéré,’ he said. ‘The most famous tree in the world!’
‘It doesn’t look much like a tree to me,’ said Emily, wiping tears away with her sleeve.
‘The loneliest tree in the world, the tree of Ténéré used to stand on that spot. My father watered it from the well when he passed. In 1973 a drunken truck driver crashed into it, knocking it over. Not a tree for two hundred kilometres and he crashes straight into it, that’s Libyans for you. The tree is now in the national museum and that,’ he said, pointing to the post with bits sticking out, ‘is now the tree of Ténéré.’
He put his arm around Emily, ‘Azulay really likes you. He’s just a little jealous because you are having fun with Agerzam.’
She smiled at him and nodded her head.
She thought for a minute then asked, ‘What type of tree was it?’
‘An arcadia.’
‘Shall we plant another one?’
‘Great idea, but I don’t have one with me. Not even a seed! I will plant one on the way back and every time I pass, I’ll water it and think of you, little Tsul.’
He was really sweet sometimes.
24.
Boys, what are they on? thought Emily.
She decided to stay away from them for a while and have some girl time. What little free time she had, she spent with Ijju. Ijju had bought a music player in Timbuktu and let Emily use it. Her music was a mixture of Abba, Tinariwen, a Tuareg rock band that made it big in America, and Osabisa, all jumbled up. As Emily bopped along at the back of the caravan, scooping down occasionally to pick up a piece of poo Zula looked around now and then and smiled. Toying with the dung balls in her pocket, Emily smiled back and waved. He was just out of throwing range!
Ijju and Emily had been trying to guess Gamel’s secret mission. What would a big fat hippo cross the desert for? Was he going to steal Saleem’s elephant? That didn’t make sense because he could have just stolen it at the beginning and saved a lot of messing around. What was in the desert that he could possibly want? Buried uranium? They just couldn’t think of anything. Maybe his mission was so secret that even he didn’t know.
Emily asked Ijju, “What do you think will happen to me. What happens to slave girls?’
Ijju either didn’t know or didn’t want to say, because she said, ‘You’ll become a geisha girl in Japan and have fine manners and make cups of tea for the Emperor. Then you’ll rub rose oil on his back and sing him to sleep.’
‘He won’t get much sleep with my singing, that’s for sure!’ laughed Emily
The dunes they were passing through were huge. Mostly they travelled along the valleys but occasionally the caravan needed to climb up and cross a ridge to stay on track.
Ijju said that the Ténéré desert was once the bed of Lake Chad. The dunes moved with the wind like giant swells on an ocean, travelling westward then piling up on the eastern flanks of the Air Mountains. The dunes were perfect for surfing. The boys had overcome their spat and were friends again. They had a new longboard, ‘Jardins d’Ignalabelabene 82km,’ which they took turns on, or all rode together.
There were no oases across this stretch of desert and not much food for the camels, so it was with relief that the caravan reached the salines near Bilma. The salt mining there was very different to in Taoudenni. Pits were dug in the rocky ground using picks and shovels. These magically filled up with salt water, which the hot sun evaporated, causing a thick crust of salt crystals to form on the surface. This was picked off and the crystals dried in the sun and moulded into round disks. The camels loved the salt, licking at it with their long pink tongues.
It was a brief stop at the salines and as soon as the salt was loaded and provisions obtained, the caravan was ready to go again. There was just one little hold up in getting away, Emily again! She fell into one of the ponds - more like pushed! She was craning her neck over the edge looking at the colours and patterns of the salt, when something large, heavy and soft, like a charging hippo belly hit her from behind. She face planted the thin layer of salt leaving an Emily-shaped hole, then got stuck under the salt like in one of those movies where the good guy falls through the ice and gets trapped underneath. Emily had to feel her way back to the hole. It was tricky because she was super-floaty and was pushed up against the crust. When she tried to get out, the crust kept breaking away. The salt miners threw a rope to her and hauled her out.
Emily’s face had all little cuts like she’d been through a car windscreen but they healed up really quickly and didn’t scar. Ijju said that it was because of the salt; more likely, it was the herbs and cactus juice she gently massaged onto Emily’s face morning and night.
Getting underway again, they kept to the same punishing schedule; packed up and away before sunrise in the morning, the first stars were out and smiling down on them by the time they stopped in the evening.
For the first time during the trip, Emily got bored. The football being still down the well, Zam had taken his camels back up forward; Ijju’s music player had flat batteries; and Zula was still keeping his distance from her. He gave her the occasional smile but was definitely not talking. She had Abba stuck on her brain and strode along at the back singing, ‘Wa, wa, wa, Waterloo,’ until the heat of the day, or pleading for mercy from in front, shut her up.
After weeks of silence, Zula came to the back of the caravan and walked with her. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t even complain about her singing. Sometimes he caught her eye and smiled. Emily couldn’t think of anything to say, so smiled back.
‘Stop!’ he said suddenly. ‘Close your eyes and put out your hand’
Emily stopped and put out her hand expecting fox poo or a scorpion. Instead he put something hard and angular in her hand.
‘Okay, you can open your eyes.’
In her hand was a piece of light green glass.
‘Thanks, it’s beautiful!’ she said, looking up and catching everyone in the caravan looking around to see. Zula followed her eyes and they all looked away. He turned pink with embarrassment, well as pink as his brown skin would go!
‘It’s desert glass,’ he said. ‘It’s the toughest and most beautiful glass in the world. It was formed when a comet exploded above the desert, turning the sand into glass. They say it changes colour if you take it to a different part of the world.’
Emily wondered what colour it would be in England, probably grey!
They walked silently for a while then pointing into the nothingness ahead, Zula said, ‘When we arrive at the Guella d’Archei, I’ll show you my special spot, if you like.’
‘I would like,’ said Emily, looking him in the eye and edging close. She slipped a bit of camel poo down his back and ran.
25.
The caravan headed eastward, day after hot day towards the east. The sun was in their eyes in the morning then set behind them in the evening, their shadows growing ahead until they stretched to the horizon as the sun dipped behind the dunes.
Eventually dark blobs appeared floating above the horizon.
‘The Massive de Baména,’ said Ijju, pointing to the mirage. ‘It’s the most beautiful place in the world.’
The whole of the caravan, even the camels, were excited to reach the rocky flat-topped hills, which rose vertically from grassy valley floors. There were rock pillars and massive red arches more beautiful than anything Emily had seen before. They set up camp in a dramatic gorge with vertical red walls. There was plenty of shade, and water for the camels.
‘The Guelta d’Archei,’ said Zula. ‘We’ll stay here for a few days to let the camels replenish.’
Emily was busy arranging her poo into neat little piles, like cannonballs on the deck of a man of war when Zula said, ‘Stop that!’ He took her by the hand and added, ‘Come and see my special spot.’
They splashed their way up through the muddy water of the gorge, then climbed through an arch and entered a cave, its walls illuminated different shades of yellow, orange and red by reflected light. There were drawings made in white, dark red and charcoal black covering the walls: people, camels, elephants and giraffes, and some random designs. Emily sat on a rock and copied some of the drawings into her diary.
‘Some of these are a thousand years old,’ said Zula. ‘I’ll show you my favourite.’
Emily followed him further up the gorge to where there was a long overhang, the evening sun painting the rock a luminous orange. ‘Now copy that!’ he said.
Emily laughed. There were camels, camels and more camels, hundreds of them, thousands of them.
‘Guess how many?’
‘Twenty thousand, six hundred and eighteen,’ said Emily, trying to sound convincing.
‘More.’
‘Forty four thousand
.’
‘Close, thirty eight thousand, six hundred and twenty seven, it’s the biggest camel train ever to cross the Ténéré. Five hundred years ago camel trains were massive; six million slaves crossed the desert.’
‘Six million and one,’ added Emily with a smile.
‘Let’s do some drawing.’
‘But it’s historic, it must be protected.’
‘We won’t damage the ones that are there; we’ll find a new spot. Our ones will be historic one day.’
They drew on the walls with different shades of ochre rock that Zula had picked up on their way up the gorge. Emily drew giant dunes with the Scorpions surfing down on road signs. Zula drew a Desert Rider on a mighty black horse sporting his rifle, and Emily picking poo, her hair flowing ochre yellow, musical notes drifting up from the music player.
‘I’ll draw another picture on the way back,’ said Zula.
‘What?’
‘Not telling. We have to succeed first.’
Emily gave him a poke in his boney ribs and they ran down and swam in the cool waters of the gorge.
‘There’s crocs!’ said Zula.
‘If you get eaten, I’ll draw it on the walls in blood red,’ said Emily, splashing him.
The gorge was a popular place. The locals who visited were good-looking people with dark skin, fine features and bright, cheerful clothes. Emily kept her scarf wrapped tight around her head. There was a price on her head and she didn’t want to miss out on the rest of the adventure.
26.
On the third day at the gorge a beat up truck came bouncing down to the campsite in a cloud of black smoke. Provisions and fodder were off-loaded in exchange for all the salt the caravan was carrying. Emily saw Saleem and the hippo sitting drinking tea in the shade of an arcadia tree and snuck around behind them to see what was going on.
Gamel pulled an envelope out of his pocket and gave it to Saleem. ‘These instructions are the wishes of my sponsor who has paid you so generously to have me along. Should you succeed the amount paid will be doubled. Should you refuse, she wants her money back and you’ll never get your land, she’ll make sure of that!’