Our Memory Like Dust

by Gavin Chait

  When it feels as if the beating can go on no longer, from in the darkest part of the hamada they see a trail of light bursting along the surface. Phosphorous sparks pounded from the soil in answer to one who stomps and leaps in the darkness. Tiny stars splashing in the liquid dust.

  Closer, and the obsidian form of the griot emerges. He spins and leaps, his boubou spread between his outstretched arms like great black wings.

  As he dances, he sings, his voice flowing with the warmth and compassion of waters bringing life to even the most parched places.

  He dances before the seeking millions, flying in the night, pounded by their rhythm.

  He slams his arms together and the earth shakes, heaving back with all his strength. The drummers answer with even greater intensity, the rhythm rising to even more frenetic height, giving strength to the one who will open the way.

  The griot resumes his dance, gathering energy from the drumming, slamming his arms together, tearing, wrenching at the way.

  An arc, as of the light of ancient kingdoms, shears across the night sky.

  The griot sings in triumph, taken up by the drummers all along the shore. They take now their djembe, holding the leather-bound drums under one arm, as they join the dance and continue their rhythm.

  Joshua steps first into the waters, the light of the way laughing in his eyes, and his djembe singing in his arms.

  The millions begin to move, leaping, pounding, dancing, singing, into the way.

  Before them, the vast ancient Irharhar river system opens. Clear waters, trees bowed low with fruit, the sighing of a gentle breeze through the grasslands.

  For time out of time, they walk amongst the abundance of the genii, wrapped close in their embrace.

  Some believe they see Baana, high in the sky. Others see Moussa, and still more Awa. The great genii of legend, granting this moment of peace, showing them the way.

  For days they walk, singing, dancing, drumming as the griot leads them by the waters of the secret way.

  Joshua with Esther, Hannah, Rachel and Isaiah, laughing, holding hands and drinking deep of the blessings of their journey.

  And, with the laughing gurgle of the ancient waters of the genii all around them, the millions, flowing with the dancing pulse of the river, vanish from this earth.

  The way is open.

  26

  ‘They’re still alive,’ says Simon, so quietly that Shakiso is not sure she heard, but he looks lighter than she has seen him, as if unburdened. And she has that same strange feeling that the story she heard was not the one which was told.

  ‘Simon, what did you—’ she starts but, as his story ends, the crowd begins to break apart, and the cheerful, chaotic industry of the city recommences. Hundreds remain to touch the griot, to be close to him, however briefly, and then – as mysteriously as departing fog – they are alone.

  Simon hops off the wall, Shakiso landing lightly alongside him.

  ‘Ismael,’ he grins.

  The griot takes his hand, pulling him into the billows of his boubou in a welcoming embrace.

  ‘Simon, it is well,’ he says, his voice a melody.

  His eyes find Shakiso and he takes her hand, surprising her with his strength and the vast compassion with which he folds himself around her.

  ‘This is Shakiso,’ says Simon. ‘We’re heading up to the farm and then back to Saint-Louis, if we can offer you a ride?’

  ‘That would be well,’ he says, and they walk back to the Haval, the griot carrying his koubour beneath one arm. Tuft offers a welcoming lick as he takes the remaining front seat.

  ‘I’m relieved,’ says Simon.

  The griot takes his hand. ‘There are still many dangers, but the way is open,’ he says.

  ‘Your story,’ says Shakiso as the car glides back out on to the road. ‘I heard a fable about animals lost in a desert and how genii magically opened a path to a river valley, but –’ looking at Simon ‘– that isn’t what . . .’

  The griot smiles, his tawny eyes calm, ‘These are stories of Gaw Goŋ. They come from the ways of the genii. Each will hear only that which they can bear.’

  ‘What was it really about, though?’ she asks, feeling as a child must, struggling to grasp the experience of adults even as her memory of it fades like the remnants of dreams.

  ‘Many things, my child. There are those who seek a way through the desert. I have helped them in their journey.’

  ‘The seekers? They’re heading for the Med?’

  He nods. Understood, without the words for it, that what drives those who risk the journey is an unquenchable hope for more than what is available in these settler towns; that the risk of their journey is less than that from remaining in place.

  ‘How many?’ she asks, instantly responding to the unspoken comment in the griot’s smile. ‘I’m not sure the Europeans are ready for so many people arriving at once.’

  ‘We were not ready either,’ he says, warm good humour in his voice. ‘They will manage, as did we.’

  She thinks of the millions of seekers all along Senegal’s borders, of the cities coping with the arriving deluge, the millions more skirting the southern flank of the desert.

  She laughs. ‘You’re right. I only hope they realize it in time.’

  The Haval pitches off the highway at a tiny village and on to a dirt track.

  ‘Whoa,’ she says. ‘It’s ginormous!’

  The flat, rocky, dusty vastness of the hamada is clinically cut by the endless almost-uniformly black and absorptive surface of Sable de Lumière.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  The car stops outside the small engineering block. The massive thirty-metre-long bulk printer is beyond it, surrounded by activity. Security drones circle high overhead.

  ‘We’re producing the first of the line printers. They’ll start from here and head down to Dakar, then link up the rest of the country,’ says Simon.

  ‘You will follow the river as well?’ asks the griot.

  ‘Yes, we’ll go as far east as we can. I don’t want to take too many risks, but we should get as close as we can to the fighting.’ Touching Shakiso’s hand, ‘I don’t think anyone expects this to bring peace on its own, but it might give people a reason to put down roots again.’

  The engineers seem more excited to see the griot than they do Simon. The workers on the nearby farm make their way over as well.

  Later, as they’re walking amongst the solar roses, Shakiso turns to Ismael, ‘What are the griots? Are there many of you?’

  He takes her arm, smiling, as they walk. ‘We are the memory of the past and future. We remind you of what you already know.’

  Shakiso laughs. ‘Ismael, that’s completely inscrutable.’

  ‘I will tell you a story about the coming of the griots,’ he says.

  ‘Only if you promise I can hear it properly,’ she says.

  Nodding as he holds her hand, ‘Here, on the outer edge of the hamada, you will still find trees and farms. Beyond those guelbs and kedias is the reg, where there are only stones to eat. And beyond that is the great flowing erg, where sand confuses the unwary. When you travel across the desert, you are closer to yourself and to the earth than you can be anywhere alive. Many make the crossing.

  ‘Before there were buses or off-road vehicles like that Haval, we would walk, leading our beasts beside us. With the coming of Ansar Dine, even if they now flee, the roads are destroyed, and there are few who would risk a vehicle to drive across. We have returned to the ways of our ancestors, walking across the grandfather of all deserts.

  ‘The strong may reach the distant shore in two months, but many will take three. And, always, they must travel from ouahe to ouahe in search of water.

  ‘Once there were two brothers who set off from the village of what is now Djenné, to make their crossing in search of the fabled libraries of Bayt al-Hikma in ancient Baghdad. They were strong young men and were soon deep in the reg. For many weeks, they followed the
camel trains along the trade routes. During one of the great harmattans that sweep across the erg, gathering up sand and dust, they became separated from their guides and were soon lost to the desert.

  ‘After two weeks, always heading north, they were without food and low on water. The younger brother was the weaker, and he was suffering.

  ‘Seeing his struggle, the elder said, “Look, my brother, I still have my spear and my blade. I shall hunt for us and bring you meat that you may survive this journey.” He ran off over a dune, and soon there was the sound of a fight, and dust rose over the sands.

  ‘The elder soon returned, but he would not show his brother the meat he had found. He prepared it himself and fed it, piece by piece, to his brother. Overjoyed, and with his strength renewed, the two brothers continued.

  ‘After another two days, they reached the fringes of the hamada and knew that, soon, they would reach safety. But the elder brother began to flag, clutching at his side.

  ‘In helping him, the younger brother realized the truth. There had never been any animal to hunt. His brother had cut from his own flesh so that he might live.

  ‘Instead of being horrified, the younger was overwhelmed by this demonstration of fraternal love.

  ‘When they reached their destination, the younger resolved that he would commit his life to singing of his brother’s courage and nobility. And so was the younger brother the first griot.’

  As he finishes, the solar roses vibrate. A subtle oscillation across their surfaces, like the tremble on the wing of a butterfly, as they shed dust from the persistent northern winds. The harmony, a clean, clear note, travels in waves across the farm.

  ‘There is another, darker, story,’ says the griot. ‘One which is far older.

  ‘The two brothers travelled, as before, but they quarrelled and, accidentally, the elder murdered the younger.

  ‘Overcome with despair at his crime, he carried the body of his brother to the home of their parents.

  ‘“You are not welcome here,” said his family. “Go away with the body of your brother, for we do not know what should be done with it.”

  ‘Distraught, the brother went out into their land and sat beneath a tree some way from the house. At mealtimes, he shouted, and he was brought food. However, when the wind blew, then his voice was not loud enough and they did not hear him.

  ‘He found two sticks which he would beat against each other so that they might hear him. Overnight, termites ate into one of the sticks and hollowed it out. When he struck it, he discovered that it produced a louder, harmonious sound. Using this discovery, he obtained a bigger hollow log and struck it with two sticks to create melody. And so he created the first drum.

  ‘On another day, two crows flew above his head and fought. The one killed the other. He watched as the living crow scratched in the earth and buried the corpse of the other in the hole. The brother-killer imitated this act, burying the younger. And so he invented our funerary rights.

  ‘The brother took his hollow log and his sticks and returned to the family home. Many came to listen to his drumming and his stories, and his crime was forgotten, replaced by the love for his music.

  ‘There are many stories of our origins,’ says the griot, ‘but always there is blood, and the transgression that places us outside society, but also as its reflection and strength.

  ‘My family have been griots for generations, and I am but one of many,’ he says.

  ‘But they call you “the” griot,’ says Shakiso.

  He smiles at her, his eyes the depth of the erg. ‘They do me great honour,’ he says.

  A figure in the distance, on the edge of the farm around the jagged guelb, waves and cries out in greeting.

  ‘Come,’ says the griot, ‘for I see Amadou calling to us, and we have yet to taste his milk.’

  27

  ‘Child!’ shouts Moussa, reaching for the boy, who jumps away and sprints across the market.

  ‘You won’t catch him,’ laughs Tiémoko. ‘He is too fast for you.’

  ‘It is maddening,’ says Moussa, staring at his wake as he disappears amidst the stalls and bustle. Shaking his head, ‘All the other orphans take homes, but this child prefers to live on the streets. We have been trying to reach him for months.’

  ‘I have seen this boy. He calls himself “Donald”. One wonders where he found such a strange name?’

  They are standing outside the Achenia office in Aroundu. Dust and noise from trucks carrying sand to the vitrifiers are as overwhelming as always.

  ‘Come,’ says Tiémoko, ‘let us see how we connect these schools.’

  The building is crowded with engineers collecting tools and equipment, many hanging out between trips into the city or desert. Project engineers in the age of industrial printers seem to spend half their time sitting around, and the rest rushing to some remote bit of nowhere to rescue a line printer that has inexplicably decided to commit suicide by driving into a gorge.

  A group of men and women dressed in heavy boots and helmets push past. ‘– and some birds were nesting in the fuse box. One of the chicks pecked through the breaker,’ shaking their heads and laughing as they head outside.

  Tiémoko and Moussa climb the stairs and hunt for an empty office where they can talk.

  Infrastructure development is finally keeping pace with the rapidly growing border cities. Even so, Moussa sometimes feels overwhelmed by the pressure. Shakiso has changed the entire organization’s focus. Besides collaborating on civil infrastructure development, his role is to recruit teachers, build and extend schools and then hand them over to local communities as quickly as he can. There is no time to actually run them.

  ‘How are you coping?’ asks Tiémoko as he pulls up a map from his console and expands the image out and over the entire surface of the white workbench.

  Moussa rubs his ear. ‘You will see. We have the usual problems of securing building materials quickly enough, and not all our parents agree with our syllabus—’

  ‘Too much science?’

  ‘No, not enough,’ he laughs. ‘Every parent imagines their child as an engineer.’

  ‘We certainly need them,’ says Tiémoko. ‘Show me where you have decided.’

  Moussa takes a card from his pocket and waves it over the map, transferring the plans. Two enormous red skeletal structures for their new schools show up equidistant from their existing site, forming a triangle.

  Tiémoko glances up at Moussa in surprise and back at the plans.

  If you drew a network linking each of the people in the city and laid it over the map, you would notice how they cluster into dense aggregations. Not only separated by nationality, but also by tribe, language and peculiar historical entanglements obscure even to members of each group. There are few links between each cluster.

  Harare has been growing rapidly as new migrants from Zimbabwe finally complete their long journey. Jurassic Park has been shrinking after a charismatic preacher led his followers further along the river to settle in Rosso. The space remained empty for only a few days before being taken over by arrivals from Bangui.

  The relationships between the people in the city are like some mythic creature, growing, changing, adapting. Arrivals are absorbed into groups sharing their common history, or form new communities if they find none who share their values.

  There is turmoil and tension, for even as countries collapse, old enmities are carried in hearts still scarred by violence. Sporadic fighting erupts as old scores are renewed.

  Historical feuds sit uncomfortably beside parents obsessed with opportunities for their children, constrained further by economic ties in the complex economy.

  ‘I thought you were hoping to break the groups up?’ asks Tiémoko. ‘It is dangerous to have so many children from so many backgrounds in one place.’

  ‘I said you would see,’ says Moussa.

  ‘Shakiso does not share your concern?’

  Moussa shakes his head. ‘She believes that getting
the children to mix will create a “melting pot”.’

  ‘Well, I share your fears,’ says Tiémoko. ‘Anything that goes wrong at such a place –’ stabbing his finger into the map ‘– will set each of these groups against each other. It is too volatile here. Does she not realize?’

  Moussa puts up his hands, his jaw set.

  ‘Very well,’ says Tiémoko, his voice curt. ‘We will need to lay cable there in Versailles, and here in Bang Bang Town.

  ‘Let me see Rosso,’ zooming out to a wider regional view and then panning in on Rosso.

  ‘It is the same?’

  Moussa nods. ‘Would you do me a favour?’ he asks.

  ‘My friend,’ says Tiémoko, putting his hand on Moussa’s arm.

  ‘Would you prepare infrastructure anyway, at these other places?’ He transfers a new set of plans, and smaller structures appear scattered across the map. ‘Something will happen, and we must be ready to break up these schools, put them where parents most wish them to be. If we do not, other schools will open and we run the risk of them having a more –’ he hesitates ‘– selective approach to the syllabus.’

  ‘What we teach is more important than where we teach it?’ smiles Tiémoko. ‘It shall be ready for you.’

  Tiémoko turns to study the requirements for electrifying the new schools. Moussa watches for a few moments and then goes out on to the balcony overlooking the market. He spots the boy, Donald, creeping behind a stall offering fruit and vegetables. The boy looks better fed than he would expect.

  The owner of the stand glares at him and the boy shrugs, turning and walking away as if he had nothing particular on his mind. He continues around behind the vitrification printers.

  The Chinese lady – Moussa struggles to remember her name – stomps out of her office. She always carries an air of unsuppressed fury. She shouts at the boy, who grins and runs over to her.

  She puts her hand on his shoulder and almost seems to smile. They speak, and then the woman makes a gesture as if to say, wait here. She disappears into her office and returns with a bag of dumplings and a bottle of water.