Our Memory Like Dust

by Gavin Chait

  The blue-eyed man had grinned at him. ‘I’m building a solar generator. There will be some noise at the beginning. I wanted to apologize for any nuisance and introduce myself should you need anything from me.’

  Amadou had thought quickly. Every household bolted matt solar panels to their roofs, each providing only sufficient power to run their lights and heat water or, with care, one or two small machines. Even in Saint-Louis, electricity was only available for a few hours a day. Here on the farm, there was none at all.

  ‘To whom will you sell your electricity?’ he had asked.

  ‘We will build a transmission line to Europe and sell it there.’

  ‘Why? They have and we do not.’

  ‘They have more money,’ the man had said. ‘Once we have enough capacity, we will sell here too. We will build at least seventy of these farms all across the Sahara.’

  ‘And the Big Men, will they not take it from you?’ nodding his head in the direction of the government in Dakar.

  The blue-eyed man had smiled, his eyes narrowing. ‘It would be no different than if they took your farm. Stealing my property will leave them with nothing but sand.’

  Amadou had stared at the dust and activity: a sudden vision of his farm and what he might be able to do with bigger water pumps and refrigeration. ‘Would you sell electricity to a neighbour?’

  The blue-eyed man had looked at him and grinned. ‘For a friend,’ he had said, and put out his hand.

  ‘I am Amadou,’ and grasped the hand firmly with his.

  ‘I am Simon.’

  And so it had been agreed, but he had not been sure it would happen until five months ago. A small substation had been built at the edge of his property and a line run to the collection of barns and sheds at the base of the guelb and on up to the living quarters on the shady slope.

  Amadou had rushed back to Saint-Louis, asking his children to invest in buying electric pumps, refrigerators and tanks. He had traded five hundred of his Red Sokotos for one hundred Black Bedouin milkers.

  At his age, to take such risks with his wealth – but he had felt a prickle of excitement. Rosso was only half an hour away, and there was a ready market for fresh milk in the river town. Perhaps, with permanent electricity, he could even farm throughout the year, increase the scale of his irrigation and raise sheep again.

  Amadou had not seen Simon at the Sable de Lumière offices today, although he had seen some of the engineers walking amongst the solar collectors.

  He remembered when they started. An enormous container flew in from the sea, supported by four heavy drones, and touched down gently on the hamada. He and his men had gathered near it, astonished at its size. It was almost thirty metres long and as high as a four-storey building.

  Drones flew in equipment and piles of material, and then the container had opened at one end and out rolled a massive vehicle. Amadou had not even realized the block was a machine and that it was operating.

  Simon was happy to answer his questions, explaining that the container was a printer and would produce mobile factories that themselves would print the solar collectors. When it was finished there, the container would be flown to the next farm.

  As each machine had emerged, it was flown out on to the hamada and began work. After twelve days, the container had produced ten machines and was flown away, leaving behind only a small set of offices and a transmission station. This first farm was filled with engineers who were studying the efficiency and resilience of the collectors exposed to the persistent sand-blast of the harmattan winds. What they learned was used to improve the designs of the printing machines while they operated.

  Amadou had joined Simon walking alongside the first machine. It was slightly larger than a bus, a waist-high gap underneath, and featureless except for a series of hoppers on its roof and narrow traction wheels at its sides.

  They had watched as it prepared the ground, scraping up sand and rock from the space beneath itself, and could feel the heat from the furnace where that material was converted for use in the printer. It moved at walking speed, pausing periodically to open and embed a single solar collector in the earth.

  Drones flew out to the distant machines, topping them up with some of the rare minerals and metals they needed. Otherwise, the farm was almost silent.

  Amadou had watched the rows of collectors grow in number. If he listened carefully, he could even hear them. Somewhere between a purr and a growl as they tracked the sun.

  Every eight hours the farm sang. He could think of no other way to describe it. He understood that each panel must clean itself, oscillating at high frequency to throw off the thin coating of dust accumulating from the continual harmattan. Groups of panels oscillated in a flowing sequence so that the noise was not unbearable. A technical process became, to him and his men, as if the entire surface of the farm began to ripple and sing.

  There was a call of delight from lower down the slope from one of his men, and a man in a delicately embroidered ochre-brown boubou and matching kufi skull-cap stepped into the firelight.

  ‘Azul, ma idjani?’ said the man, and chuckled, his voice the delight of small pebbles being tumbled in a fast-flowing stream.

  ‘Azul, Griot. You are here early,’ said Amadou, standing and happily embracing the younger man. ‘Sit, please, the stew will be ready soon.’

  ‘How could I miss the start of your new herd? I hear your Black Bedouin are extremely fine.’

  Amadou drummed his fingers on his knee. ‘I feel like a young boy, Griot,’ he said. ‘My whole life has been spent surviving the heat, watching as the sand burns and forces us from our land.

  ‘It is almost too much to believe that I can revive my farm. But I have hope. With that blue-eyed man’s help, I have hope,’ he smiled. The griot reached across and squeezed his hand, holding it.

  ‘Nit ku amul jom, amul dara,’ he said.

  Amadou nodded. ‘My father used to say that. “The person who lacks honour, lacks everything.” And this man has great honour. I know this Sablière is meant for the toubab across the sea. I hope that he will see what I can do and will also sell our people some of this electricity. It will change everything for us.’

  The griot smiled gently, guarding his thoughts. ‘Sablière?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ laughed Amadou. ‘It is the name I hear the engineers calling the solar farm. The Sandpit. It is appropriate, yes?’ He laughed again. ‘Please, Griot, it is good to have you. Will you sing for us? One of the songs of our fathers?’

  The griot reached behind himself and, pulling his koubour towards him, began to pluck at the strings.

  His music rose up into the clarity of the night sky, lifting with the smoke, sprays of sparks and tears of flame.

  The men began to sing, their voices blending with the distant calling of night birds and the gentle shifting of leaves in the breeze. They sang of home, of their wives and children far away, of their hope for the season, and of the rains still to come.

  Later in the evening, after stories had been told and laughter shared, Amadou and the griot were the last two left by the fading embers.

  ‘You say you have not seen Simon today?’ asked the griot.

  ‘No. I went looking for him to give him my thanks, but the engineers said that he had gone out into the desert a few days ago. They are expecting him back either this evening or tomorrow. You have business with him?’

  ‘I have heard troubling news about Ansar Dine. I was hoping to warn him, but I fear I am too late.’

  ‘Why would the jihadis have interest in this man? Their war is to the east.’

  The griot did not respond, staring far to the north where the brighter line of the dusty road ran alongside the solar collectors.

  ‘It is best you not know, my friend,’ he said. ‘Whatever happens, stay here on your farm. Please, for your safety,’ pointing to a column of dust growing nearer on the road, glowing in the moonlight.

  They watched as an off-road vehicle dragged itself out o
f the desert, something hanging off the back, tearing at the hamada. It shuddered to a halt outside the engineering quarters. A light went on inside and, even from this distance, they could see bullet holes and blood in the glass and a crumpled shape in the cabin.

  The griot rose to his feet and started down the hillside. ‘Stay here, Amadou. I fear he is lost.’

  Amadou watched as he went, his eyes obsidian in the darkness.

  5

  ‘What are you doing to me?’ asks Samboa, his voice invisible in the darkness, his mind an already dispersing stream of images and experiences from places he has never been and people he has never met.

  The baboon ignores him, his eyes glowing in fascination at the storied threads that touch on this man’s journey, the choices and lives which led him to this cave in the bones of the earth and the dust of the harmattan.

  This blue-eyed man, where else does he go? How far back? Taking up a new strand, seeing a vast, polished building and a bulky man walking briskly, pausing only a moment before his frustration explodes.

  -

  ‘My name is Farinata Uberti,’ said the man, who was neither good-looking, nor charming, or patient. ‘Which of you mudak is here for me?’

  He glared at the chauffeurs all clustered in their shambling distaste behind a low rope barrier, a discomforting vigil for the arrivals in Heathrow Terminal 6.

  Dull eyes stared back, their gaze galled by those whose wealth and prestige allowed them to escape the degrading assembly line of semi-humiliating immigration and security checks inherent to modern travel.

  Each chauffeur bore a sign revealing a small fracture of their loathing for those they waited on: barely legible handwritten names, misspelled typescript, uncomfortably small lettering, wildly inappropriate fonts. A calligraphic rebellion.

  Each took a moment to consider the words they clasped, to decrypt them and interpret their meaning. To consider whether they held the name of the man irritably standing before them. Whether he was one of the elite who emerged through the glass sliding doors looking refreshed and invigorated, carrying nothing, their luggage following silently at their heels. Their expressions of merry meditation giving way to pleasant recognition as they deciphered their names and nodded ambiguously to the chauffeur who would ferry them onward.

  Their reflection would not be rushed even in the heat of Uberti’s impatient fury.

  A man whose black coat hung from his bony shoulders like the tattered feathers of some neglected museum exhibit expressed an anguished moan. The others shifted uneasily away from him.

  The man detached himself from behind the barrier and walked hesitantly towards Uberti.

  ‘I am Phlegyas Quinquapotti,’ he said nervously, his skin clammy and pale, stating his name as if fearful he would be forgotten, fearful he would be remembered.

  Neither offered a hand in greeting. Uberti scowled and gestured with his head towards the doors.

  As they walked, Quinquapotti unfolded his console, scrolling through his list of clients and rapidly gesturing on the surface. He led his charge out of the airport and towards a sleek, translucent black vehicle slowing at the kerb. He placed his hand over the key sensor and the single door quietly swung upwards.

  ‘The limousine will take you to the Savoy,’ he said, reading off the words from his mental script, ‘but you can ask it to stop anywhere along the way if you wish. If you leave the limousine, though, it will no longer recognize you. You’ll find refreshments for your journey inside. I wish you well on your travels, Mr Uberti.’

  Quinquapotti slouched back inside to await the next arriving guest on his list, hoping that his confusion and terror had been covered by overriding one of the reserve limousines, but he knew there would be consequences. Each vehicle was specially prepared to serve the unique needs of each guest. Uberti could scarcely fail to notice that his requirements had not been met.

  -

  Uberti swiped at his ear as the limousine left the terminal, already reaching amongst the bottles for the least appalling brand of vodka. Furious that his private label was missing.

  ‘You are back?’ he said as soon as his call was connected.

  The person on the other end nodded, the movement translated as a downward tug in Uberti’s earlobe implant.

  ‘It is done,’ said the other person. ‘But the jihadis have used the opportunity to attack elsewhere. Libya—’

  ‘You worry too much, Rinier,’ said Uberti.

  Rinier Pazanov responded in silence.

  ‘I am in London. Those mudak chauffeurs messed up. Let them know.’

  A downward tug. Uberti ended the call with a subtle shake of his head, and the limousine was absorbed into the glass and steel of Dry London.

  -

  England offered a safe haven for men like Uberti, and a few were pleased to quietly and expensively offer them custom. For most, too many eyes were watching, and services like TheShitList, which identified and tracked the movements of the world’s thugs and tyrants, made it easy to organize a financially devastating boycott.

  Men like Uberti expected their money to render such moralizing obstacles into a homeopathic reduction. They could express grievance in profound ways.

  Quinquapotti’s employer offered untraceable service and absolute discretion. Someone had arrived earlier and claimed to be Uberti. Someone took his limousine and drank of his private-label hand-bottled artisan vodka. A small inconvenience but, for men like Uberti, unforgivable. The man who had thought to rupture the serenity of Uberti’s journey needed to be found and his transgression explained to him.

  As Quinquapotti’s shrieks of outrage yielded to the persistent interrogation of more brutal men, he tried to remember what the transgressor looked like. All he could remember were the man’s eyes.

  When he was eight years old, his family had gone to Cornwall for the summer. One morning, on his own, he had crawled through a hedge into a field and stared in wonder at a dense wilderness of cornflowers.

  His sense of delight at the pungent opulence of blooms beneath blue skies nestled in that part of the vacation where school is a distant memory, there is nothing but play, and all the opportunity and anticipation for the future are ahead. All captured in the blue of the petals in his hands.

  And he had never felt it again.

  The man’s eyes were that colour.

  He dimly remembered that the man was tanned, dark sandy hair running to grey, tall and lean, and . . . that was as much as he recalled. He had stopped looking. It had hurt too much.

  The man had smiled at him, a contradiction of mischief and innocence, but he had not spoken. Quinquapotti had noticed he had no luggage and thought nothing of it.

  At the door to the limousine, the man had smiled broadly, clapped him on the shoulder and was gone.

  Uberti had arrived forty minutes later and revealed the extent of Quinquapotti’s error.

  The blue-eyed man’s limousine was empty when it arrived at the Savoy, having made one unscheduled stop outside Victoria Station. The tube drivers were on strike. The union official who could grant them access to security footage was picketing. It may not have helped anyway. The man seemed to have stepped straight from the limousine into a waiting AnoniCar, a service whose paranoia was such that their search was over before they even knew there was anyone to follow.

  ‘Was there nothing else? Nothing happened?’ asked one of the brutal men of Quinquapotti, more from duty than hope of learning anything.

  ‘There was a busker,’ said Quinquapotti, wishing only to be forgotten.

  A few minutes before the blue-eyed man had arrived, a sound, like a bow wave, disturbed the steady, rippling flow of the arrivals hall.

  A man in a delicately embroidered ochre-brown boubou and matching kufi skull-cap had walked through the airport. His feet in handmade leather sandals. His every step a drumbeat. He had sung, and children had run laughing and grinning as the tail to his comet.

  The man had seated himself against a pillar to the sid
e of the arriving passengers and pulled an obeche-wood mbira from inside his robes. He had held the instrument at his waist between his long, dark fingers and plucked at the tines, filling the hard marble halls of the terminal with warmth. His melody foreign and haunting.

  ‘They spoke,’ said Quinquapotti.

  There was no trace of the man in the ochre-brown boubou either.

  ‘What did he say?’

  Quinquapotti, dazed by violence and fear, hesitated and shook his head. ‘He didn’t say anything. But I heard the busker – only two words. He said, “They escaped.” I don’t know what that means.’

  By the time they managed to get men to Victoria Station, it was far too late. It was raining, dark and cold. No one had seen the limousine, and any who had had found it unremarkable.

  In Heathrow Terminal 6, the prologue of chauffeurs churned. Eyes were met, brows raised, greetings whispered, and wards guided to waiting limousines. Special requests were confirmed, vehicles dispatched, and chauffeurs returned to the huddle.

  The search was abandoned and soon forgotten, Quinquapotti most of all.

  -

  And in the obliterating darkness of the cave, the baboon continues following the blue-eyed man’s tracks left in the dust shed in the journeys of others.

  6

  Galkin had brought his dogs, long-limbed wolf-like creatures shepherding and hounding the other guests’ children across the garden. Yelping and delighted shrieks rose exuberantly into the settling twilight as the evening mist smothered the forest beyond the fence and crept towards the dacha.

  It was quiet here in the Novoperedelkino complex. The menace of Moscow receded almost into white noise, and one could put aside the paranoia of the men of force in that city.

  His face momentarily silhouetted as he lit a cigarette, Rinier Pazanov leaned back against the outside wall and looked up at the flickering stars, feeling old and very, very lonely. For an instant, he imagined a strange beast-like face looking down at him, and then the moment was gone.