Impossible Journey

by Michael Asher

  The captain at the passport control was very apologetic. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to come back tomorrow for your stamp,’ he said, ‘because the stamp is locked in the safe, and I’ve lost the key.’ We moved on, chuckling, towards the town, past the house where I had lived and nearly died of malaria, past the school where I had taught for two years and grown to love the Sudanese. Some students were leaning on the wall near the school entrance, waiting for classes to begin. For the first time in 3,000 miles, I was treading on ground my feet had already trod. I thought of Mafoudh saying, ‘You will come to the place where the earth ends,’ and of another man, an Englishman, who wrote:

  We shall not cease from exploration,

  And the end of all our exploring

  Will be to arrive where we started

  And know the place for the first time.

  T. S. ELIOT, from ‘Little Gidding’, Four Quartets

  The district commissioner, with typical Sudanese hospitality, let us stay in the town rest-house. The only other guests were three Quaker volunteers, who had arrived that day from Khartoum. Their journey had been rough. One of the women was violently ill, and the others, a couple called Wright, looked pale and tired. Annie Wright told us that they had come to begin a forestry project in the nearby village of Assirni, where thousands of Chadian refugees had gathered. ‘We don’t know anything about forestry,’ she said, ‘but we’ll learn.’ They intended to build their own house and to learn Arabic. They were here to stay. Annie showed me a snap of the picturesque cottage in Yorkshire that she had shared with her other half, Howard. He was a big, gristly man with cropped hair who had worked in Halifax with Pakistani immigrants. Annie was soft and black-haired and might have been a nurse. She had taught at nursery school and had run a course for adult women. They had burned their boats by selling up their lovely cottage. They were here to devote their lives to Chadian refugees and trees, for which they were being paid next to nothing. I admired their grit and felt humbled by it.

  Projects like theirs were much needed in the western Sudan, where years of drought had destroyed trees, withered the millet crop, and been terrible here in Gineina. Thousand of displaced people had wandered the streets like ghosts, begging for crusts and scouring the garbage dumps for edible morsels. Many had just curled up in doorways and died. It was only the emergency EEC airlift, which had brought in ton upon ton of grain by Hercules transport, that had saved the situation. The rains had been better this year, but a great deal of money was needed to reconstruct the province.

  We restocked with food and exchanged old Shaybani for a nervous Sudanese bull camel. I would have preferred a gelding, having seen how patient and enduring they could be, but the Sudanese rode only on full-blown bulls. The security police shook their heads over our proposed journey to El Fasher. It lay 200 miles east, over some of the wildest country in this region, but since the drought and the war in Chad, banditry had reached epidemic proportions. Only a few days before, we heard, a group of bandits had attacked a herd grazing in the Kawra mountains and had shot the owner dead. They could not guarantee our safety, the police said.

  For days, we moved across rolling sand waves, avoiding settlements and hiding at night in wadis and sandy depressions concealed by trees. Each day began at first light and ended with the setting sun. The camels gave us little rest, and Abu Wirim was a constant source of worry. A gall, which had begun in Chad as a hardly noticeable nick on the withers, had expanded into a badly infected wound. He was thin and tired, the skin of his feet worn painfully frail. We never rode him now, but, despite his light load, he found it difficult to get to his feet in the mornings. I doubted that he would live long enough to reach EL Fasher. Unfairly, I blamed Marinetta for not agreeing to sell him in Gineina and for wanting to take him to to El Fasher, where he would fetch a better price. ‘He won’t fetch anything if he’s dead,’ I told her sullenly.

  We watered in a wadi near Tojuk, where there was a shallow pit lined with creepers. The water was muddy and slightly brackish. There was no one at the well when we arrived, but as we hoisted up the water in our cooking pot, some Arabs encircled us. One of them, an old man with a tufty beard, asked us, ‘Are you pilgrims going to Mecca?’ I replied that we were going to Egypt. ‘No God but God!’ he exclaimed. ‘But haven’t you got too much water?’

  ‘Perhaps they want to take a bath?’ sniggered a younger Arab mounted on a camel. ‘No, no!’ a third Arab said. ‘He who has water has the blessing of God. Always take water when you can.’

  That evening, we made camp near Wadi Barei, a great swath of giant heraz trees that divided the northern and southern parts of the province of Darfur. Abu Wirim had moved shakily all day, and near sunset, he collapsed so heavily that the nose ring ripped through the flesh of his nostril, leaving flaps of bloody, useless skin. I had been fearing this for some time. It meant that the ring couldn’t be refixed without making a new hole in the nostril. After trying several methods, we eventually tied him by the jaw. Even then, though, he refused to get up. The light had gone out of his eyes, leaving the opaque sheen that told of approaching death. We frantically tugged on the rope and kicked from behind. I knew that if we failed to get him up and into some grazing, he would certainly die a lonely death here. Nomads, I knew, will do almost anything to budge an exhausted camel, even lighting a fire under him. We cursed and shouted at the poor animal until, at last, he dragged himself, trembling, to his feet. He staggered another half mile, where we found a camping place with some sparse grazing. He did not move after we unloaded his saddle. I wondered if he would still be alive at first light.

  He seemed a little better the following day, and we moved into the village of Birka Sayra, where a friendly police corporal bought him for a ridiculously low price. ‘It’s a risk,’ the corporal said. ‘He’s only the shell of a camel. I will feed him grain and salt, little by little. But only God knows if he’ll live or die.’

  We skirted the edge of Barei, where dozens of nomad families were camping with their herds and flocks. Many of them were moving back from their winter grazing lands in the north, making for the well fields where they would spend the summer. Once, we had the luck to see an entire Arab clan migrating. First, we saw a sea of camels undulating through the dead scrub. They were being driven by little boys wearing only torn grey shirts and sliding along the backs of huge bull camels without saddles. Then we saw the goat flocks and, half an hour behind them, the procession of camels and horses that carried the families. We saw strings of seven or eight camels carrying litters like tiny cabins on their backs. We saw the dark faces of women peering out, some of them young, smooth, and beautiful, others ravaged, haggard, and brutal. We saw the bobbing, brown heads of small children clinging to their mothers. We saw camels laden with rolled-up beds of palm fibre and hide, blackened cooking pots, urns of water in wooden cages, threadbare blankets neatly layered, drinking gourds and wickerwork hampers, cauldrons and skillets, knee-high mortars carved from tree trunks, bashed-in tin coffers locked with padlocks, cowhide satchels grown shiny with age, string sacks of charcoal, curved ridges for tents, camp beds and rope beds, and spiked stakes of wood. Finally, when these rattling Christmas trees of camels had creaked by, we saw men on sprightly ponies carrying javelins and rifles and nests of spears. Then, perhaps an hour later, some dark commas on the horizon materialised into yet another branch of the clan, creaking past on an eternal trajectory: pasture to water, water to pasture, year after year, generation after generation.

  Kobkabiyya was a small town sitting on the edge of the Kawra Mountains. It happened to be market day when we arrived, and there were some camels for sale. We bought another nervous bull camel, with an angled-down snout that gave him a curiously unintelligent look. There were hordes of Arabs in the market, small, tight men in knotted headcloths. Everywhere, there were whispers about bandits in the Kawra hills, and one tribesman went so far as to tell us, ‘If you go into Kawra, you will never come out again.’

  At dawn, we marched out
of the town and saw the great peaks of the mountains rearing up out of the nebula of dust. There were many camel herds scattered across the lower slopes. As the day grew hotter, the mist evaporated and the rocks came into focus, a symphony of shape and size. There were ponderous blocks and gentle, swelling curves, fluted volcanic cones and needle-shaped pinnacles. With every step, the mountains closed in on us, claustrophobic after the endless vista of the plains. The track wound on higher, cutting through wadis shrouded in the foliage of lime and mango trees. The hillsides were edged with bushes and strange cactus-like plants with red flowers. We saw a tribe of baboons playing among the trees. On the steep clifs above us were the abandoned villages of the Fur hill people, after whom this region, Darfu, was named. We descended into a valley where a waterless river stood, decorated with blue-and-white boulders. Suddenly, Marinetta said, ‘Look there!’ Her sharp eyes had caught the figures of three men standing under a thorn tree some distance away. I brought up my binoculars. There was no doubt that the men were observing us with great interest.

  Suddenly, aware of my momentary lack of attention, the new camel bolted. I leaned back on the headrope for all I was worth and, unexpectedly, the camel began to butt me with the back of his head, growling and spitting. I had never known a camel to do this before, and for a second, I was stunned. Then I jumped out of the saddle and got the animal under control. ‘Maik!’ Marinetta shouted urgently. ‘Those men are coming!’ With a furious effort, I slapped the headrope through the camel’s teeth and pulled it tight around the jaw. I set off, almost at a run, trying frantically to distance the caravan from those steadily moving figures. Marinetta rocked behind me, gasping, ‘Jesus!’ every few seconds.

  We plunged down a rocky slope, crossed another wadi, and climbed the twisting track on the opposite side. It was midday. The heat thumped down, magnified by the rocks, lacing my body with dribbles of sweat. Soon, I knew, I would have to stop and and drink. The track opened out through some low bush, and a few minutes later, our way was blocked by a herd of twenty camels. There were females among them, and as soon as he scented them, the bull from Gineina started rumbling and arching his neck, the prelude to mating behaviour. A moment later, a gigantic, full-muscled male answered his challenge, stepping out menacingly from behind a bush. He was completely unfettered and stood directly in our path like a fire-breathing dragon, lifting his head and fixing us with malevolent black eyes. He blew out his disgusting mouthbladder like a warning flag and slobbered dropping spats of foam on the rocks. Our bull, not yet fully mature, whimpered ineffectually, and on his back, Marinetta was shaking. We knew that mature males would attack mounted camels ferociously.

  I halted for a moment and drew out of the baggage our new secret weapon. It was an eight-foot-long spear that we had bought in Gineina. I held my headrope gingerly in my left hand, keeping the spear pointed at the enemy bull. I edged out into the bush, making a careful semicircle around him, my eyes never leaving him for a second. The bull watched us suspiciously. Then, just as I thought we had escaped, two young females lurched jauntily in front of us. Our bull burbled again. ‘Oh, God! Let me down!’ Marinetta wailed, afraid, like me, that the great male would come to the rescue of his females. I whacked one of the cow-camels hard across the rump with the haft of the spear. She and her sister exploded into action, leaping away in fright and we raced off down the track. When I looked back, I saw that the bull had lost interest and had gone back to his grazing.

  An hour passed, and we stopped to drink. Marinetta climbed down to join me on foot. We were walking on silently when she suddenly cried, ‘Maik! Those men have got Pepper!’ I looked back incredulously and saw that the red camel was no longer with us. He was standing more than a hundred yards back along the track and was being held by an Arab in a red headcloth. I recognised the headcloth at once. It belonged to one of the men we had seen under the thorn tree.

  My blood went cold. I told Marinetta to hold the other camel and to follow me. I was painfully aware that we were in the midst of one of the most notorious bandit regions in the Sudan. I walked hesitatingly towards the man and the camel, glad of the spear in my hand. As I walked, two more Arabs appeared from behind the rocks driving a small herd. Steeling myself, I went right up to them. I was about to say, ‘What are you doing with my camel?’ when Red Headcloth spoke. ‘You should learn to tie your camels better,’ he said. ‘It’s lucky we were behind you. You might never have caught this one.’ The Arab had an ugly, humorous face. He wore a short, white gandourah and a sleeveless waistcoat. He grinned at me. I realised at once that Pepper’s headrope must have come loose and that he had fallen behind without our noticing. ‘Thanks!’ I heard myself saying.

  We retied the camel and travelled along together for a while. The two men with the small herd drove their animals down the track in front of us. ‘What are you doing here?’ the Arab asked. ‘You shouldn’t travel on your own in this wild country. There are people here who would say you had camels and plenty of money. They wouldn’t let you live.’

  ‘If anyone touches us, the government wouldn’t let them rest,’ I blustered, thinking that it was as well to sow a few seeds of fear.

  ‘The government!’ The Arab spat. ‘They never leave the towns. They’re afraid of the bandits. The bandits have better guns than the police and move more quickly. They won’t help you, by God!’ He said that he and his brothers were camel traders and had bought their camels in Kobkabiyya. They were taking them to El Fasher, where they would fetch a good price. ‘Almost every time we come this way, we have trouble with bandits,’ he said. ‘They live rough, sleeping in the wadis. Most of them are Chadians, by God!’ When I mentioned that we were heading for Egypt, he said, ‘Don’t go to Egypt. Take a plane to Khartoum. That’s the best way for people like you.’

  He caught up with his brothers, and just before sunset, they turned off the track towards some secret hiding place of their own. We carried on down into a sandy creek bed shadowed by thick foliage. Steep cliffs rose out of the wadi, stubbled with bush. We heard the sound of axes and saw half a dozen Fur women hacking among the bush, some of them carrying babies in sashes on their backs. The track took us up into their village of wood and grass. As we approached it, a shimmer of goats came bristling down from the high pastures. We led the caravan through the stockaded streets of beehive huts and couched them in the square. Later, we asked the headman if we could stay the night. He gave us a place on a wide, rocky shelf beneath the walls of the mountains. Some small boys brought us sheaves of yellow straw for the camels. The boys told us that the village was called Om.

  When we set off in the morning, the headman told us, ‘If you meet bandits, it’s just bad luck! There aren’t as many as people say. God protect you!’ We paced along the rocky track below a great, fluted cone of ebony black. By midday, we were passing the salty spring, also known as Om, where the nomads of Kawra watered their herds. The water spilled out silver in a shallow pool in the rocks, and hundreds of goats and camels gathered around it. We crunched through wadis where blue stones glistened and passed through gorges where the green shoots pressed themselves out like pimples. Gradually, the hills got smaller. The track descended. By late afternoon, we had come to another village of beehive huts, where we were greeted by a villager in a woolly hat. There are no bandits here,’ he assured us. ‘Not like Om. There’s plenty of grazing from here to El Fasher. Just take your time and enjoy it.’

  Two days later, we saw the belt of green tobacco fields that surrounded El Fasher. The dunes above the tobacco fields were full of huts and people. A woman sold us hay for the camels and asked where we had come from. I told her, ‘Mauritania,’ but as we started loading the hay, I heard a man comment, ‘Liars! They couldn’t have come from Mauritania. It’s too far!’

  The sharp scent of tobacco filled the air. The way through the fields was a maze of narrow lanes. We heard the churning engines of lorries from somewhere across them. Night caught us in the maze, and it was moonless. I was terrified
that a truck would trap us with blazing headlights in one of these narrow lanes and make our two nervous camels break ranks and run off. Only Pepper was placid; he had been with us all the way from Agadez and was still going strong. I remembered with nostalgia how we had nearly lost him on that first day with Udungu and how the old Targui had fallen off his back. As for the other camels, it was like walking with a box of sweating gelignite. Any noise or unexpected light would make them bolt. We went on for hours, Marinetta leading with a torch in her hand. I brought up the rear, ready to stop any truck that threatened to approach. We were lucky, none did. That night, we made camp in a tiny, clear space in a tobacco field. We had been walking for fifteen hours. I wrote in my diary: ‘El Fasher. This is where I began my first journey with desert nomads. That was 1980, seven years ago. Coming here, with the Sahara behind me, is a kind of pilgrimage. Now, I am too dog-tired to see it as any more than just another camping place. Marinetta, you’re wonderful.’

  *

  He was sitting in the same restaurant, at the same table, as when I had last seen him here, three years before. He wore a pure-white jellabiyya, white leather shoes, and a pure-white, perfectly layered headcloth. He was an Englishman but as near to being Sudanese as any Englishman was likely to get. His name was Rabi’, but I called him by the one I had first known him by, Rob Hydon.