Tuareg

There’s an old saying that “palm trees love to have their heads in the fire and their feet in the water,” proof of which lay before his very eyes. More than twenty thousand palm trees stretched out before him and into the distance, their plumes reaching up to the sky, impervious to the scorching heat, with their roots firmly entrenched in the fresh clear water that flowed into the earth from the hundreds of underground springs and innumerable wells in the area.

It was a truly beautiful spectacle, even though the sun beat down mercilessly, defiantly and unashamedly, because from inside his huge dark office, protected from the outside by thick windows and white net curtains, the air conditioning remained at the same temperature, day in and day out and throughout the seasons, just above freezing and just as the governor, Hassan-ben-Koufra liked to have it.

Once he was settled in his office, a glass of tea in his hand and a smouldering “DavidoffAmbassatrice” in the other, the desert seemed almost bearable. He would even go as far to say that at sunset, when the sun seemed to stop and rest for a while in the tops of the palm trees, providing the only break to El-Akab’s horizon before disappearing completely behind the mosque’s minaret, it felt surprisingly close to paradise.

The balconies of the building overlooked a secluded garden that, according to legend had been designed by Colonel Duperey himself, who had ordered the palace to be built. There, the rose and carnation beds wrestled for space and lemon and apple trees stood nestled amongst the tall cypresses from where the coos of a thousand turtledoves could be heard and where, at the end of their long migratory flights, the swifts would settle in huge groups.

El-Akab was, without doubt a beautiful place; the most beautiful oasis in the Sahara, from Marrakech to the shores of the Nile, which is why it had been chosen as the capital of a province that was, all told, much bigger than many other European countries.

And from his icy palace office, his Excellency, the governor Hassan-ben-Koufra, ruled over his empire with the absolute power of a viceroy, well known for his firm hand, restrained manner and cutting tongue.

‘You are useless, lieutenant,’ he said, turning to look at him with a smile on his face that made it look like he had just congratulated him rather than insulted him. ‘Aren’t a dozen men enough to catch a fugitive armed with an old rifle? What more did you need, an entire division?’

‘I didn’t want to risk their lives, your Excellency. I’ve told you that already. He would have shot us down one after the other with that old rifle. He is a great and legendary marksman and our men have not fired more than forty bullets in their entire lives…’

He paused.

‘We are under orders not to waste ammunition.’

‘I know,’ the governor admitted, moving away from the balcony and returning to his enormous desk. ‘I gave that order. If there’s no war in sight, I consider it a waste of money to spend time training up a bunch of recruits into first class marksmen, when they’ll only be going home after one year. As long as they know how to pull the trigger, that’ll do.’

‘But that’s not enough, your Excellency. Excuse my impertinence, but in the desert a man’s life is often entirely dependent on his marksmanship.’ He swallowed. ‘This was one of those situations.’

‘Listen lieutnenant,’ Hassan-ben-Koufra replied, without losing his composure — something it might be said that no-one had ever seen him lose. ‘And bear in mind that I can say this freely since I am not a military man. To respect the life of your soldiers does seem to be a very admirable notion, but there are times and this was one of them,’ he paused intentionally, ‘when the soldiers had to accomplish their mission above all else, because the honour of the army, to which you belong, was at stake. To have allowed a Bedouin to kill a captain and one of our guides, to strip two of our soldiers naked and make a lieutenant drive across the desert constitutes a discredit to you, the armed forces and to me as the highest authority in this province.’

Lieutenant Razman nodded silently as he tried to stop himself from shivering, his uniform being far too thin for the icy temperature of the office.

‘They asked for my help to catch a man who would be brought to trial your Excellency,’ he replied, trying to speak with a tone of calm authority. ‘Not to kill him like a dog.’ He paused. ‘If I was expected to act as a policeman, then I should have received those orders loud and clear. I wanted to help and I realise that the end result was unfortunate, but I sincerely believe that it was better than returning home with five bodies.’

The governor shook his head and leant back in his chair as if to conclude the conversation.

‘That was for me to decide and from the reports that I have received it would have been better if we’d had five corpses. We inherited the respect that the nomads held for the French and now, for the first time and thanks to that Bedouin and your ineptitude, it’s been shattered. It won’t do…’ he muttered. ‘It just won’t do.’

‘I am sorry.’

‘You will be sorry, lieutenant I can assure you. From today you are posted to Adoras where you will replace Kaleb-el-Fasi.’

Lieutenant Razman immediately broke out into a cold sweat that had nothing to do with the air conditioning and he noticed that his knees were trembling so much they were virtually knocking each other.

‘Adoras!’ he repeated incredulously. ‘That is not fair your Excellency. I may have made a mistake but I am not a criminal.’

‘Adoras is not a prison,’ the governor replied calmly. ‘It is simply a frontier post. I have the power to send anyone there that I consider good for the job.’

‘But everybody knows that only the scum of the earth are sent there…! The very dregs of the army!’ The governor Hassan-ben-Koufra shrugged his shoulders indifferently and turned to look at a report that was lying on the table with exaggerated interest. Then, without looking up he said:

‘That is only an opinion, not an officially accepted fact. You have one month to arrange your things and organise the transfer…’

Lieutenant Razman went to say something, but then realising it was pointless, saluted him stiffly and walked towards the door, praying that his legs would not give way and give the bastard the satisfaction of seeing him collapse.

When he got outside he leaned his forehead against one of the marble columns and remained there for a few seconds, trying to regain his composure and steady his legs. He certainly did not want to go flying down the majestic, marble staircase and into the flowerbeds below, in front of some twenty or so busy workers.

One of the workers slipped past his back silently, knocked three times on the office door, went in and closed it behind him.

The governor who had stopped pretending to study the report and was contemplating the mosque through the windows from his chair, leaned in towards the recent arrival, who was standing respectfully at the edge of the carpet and asked:

‘What is it Anuhar?’

‘No news of the Targui, your Excellency. He’s disappeared.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ he admitted. ‘These sons of the wind can cross a desert from one end to the other in a month. He will have gone back to his own people. Do we know who he is exactly?’

‘Gazel Sayah of the Kel-Talgimus. He wanders through a large territory near the Huaila mountains.’

The governor Hassan-ben-Koufra glanced over at the map of the region hanging on the wall and shook his head pessimistically.

‘The Huaila mountains!’ he repeated. ‘They are right on the border.’

‘The borders barely exist in that zone, sir. They have yet to be determined exactly.’

‘Nothing there is “determined exactly,”’ he said, standing up and pacing the length of his immense office. ‘To go in search of a Targui on the run in those lonely places would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.’ He turned round to face him. ‘File it Mojkri.’

Anuhar-el-Mojkri, the governor’s efficient secretary of eight years allowed himself the luxury of a deep frown:

‘The military won’t like that, your Excellency. He murdered a captain.’

‘They despised Captain Kaleb-el-Fasi,’ he reminded him. ‘He was a nasty piece of work.’ He looked for a “Davidoff” again and lit it slowly. ‘Just like ElHaideri…’

‘It’s only those kind of people who can take charge of that rabble at Adoras.’

‘Lieutenant Razman will be in charge of that from now on.’

‘Razman…?’ El Mojkri said in a tone of astonishment. ‘You’ve posted Razman to Adoras…? He won’t last three months there.’

He smiled as if something had suddenly amused him. ‘That’s why he was about to faint out there. They’ll rape him before they slit his throat.’

The governor fell back into a wide, black, leather chair in the corner of the room, exhaled a column of smoke and shook his head:

‘Maybe not,’ he said slowly. ‘Maybe he’ll actually get his act together. He’ll have to fight for his life and that’ll wake him up to the fact that he didn’t come here to read ‘Beau Geste’ or follow on from Duperey.’ He paused for a while.

‘I was entrusted with a mission to clear out the vestiges of old-fashioned, decadent romanticism and unhealthy paternalism and to get this province and its people working towards a common good. There’s petrol, iron, copper and wood here and a thousand more riches that we need to exploit if we are to become a powerful, progressive and modern nation.’

He nodded to himself, lost in his own rhetoric. ‘And it’s not with people like Razman that we’ll achieve that, but with the likes of Malik and Captain Kaleb. It’s a sad fact, but the Tuaregs don’t really belong to the twentieth century and neither do the Amazon Indians or the American Redskins. Can you imagine a bunch of Sioux Indians running around the prairies in the mid West, chasing herds of buffalos in between oil wells and nuclear power stations? There are some life forms whose historical cycle reach a natural conclusion and they are condemned to extinction and whether we like it or not, that is the case with our nomads. They have to adapt or be exterminated.’

‘That’s a tough line to take.’

‘It was also tough getting rid of the French — of the people we’d lived with for a hundred years — many of them were my friends, we’d been at school together, we knew each other’s names and hobbies. But the time had come to finish with all that, without being sentimental and so we did. Some things are above Bourgeois morals and this is one of them.’ He paused again and meditated. ‘The President was very clear when he said to me: “Hassan… The nomads are a minority on their way to a logical extinction. Turn them into useful workers or encourage their

extinction in order to avoid suffering or complications.”’

‘But what about his last speech?’ he ventured timidly.

‘Oh, come on Anuhar!’ he said, reprimanding him like a child. ‘Those aren’t things you can say in public, especially while some of those nomads are listening and the world is watching our newly independent country. The North Americans for example, became staunch advocates of human rights issues overnight, but only once they’d completely annihilated all of the Indians’ rights.’

‘They were different times.’

‘But identical circumstances. A nation that has just gained independence that needs to exploit all its riches and rid itself of the heavy weight of a people that cannot move forward. We will give them the chance to integrate with our people. We won’t annihilate them by shooting them, nor will we herd them up into “reserves”…’

‘And what about those ones who don’t want to integrate? Those who believe, just as Gazel does, that their ancient laws should still apply in the desert? What will we do with them? Hunt them down with guns like they did with the Redskins?’

‘No, of course not. We will just expel them. You said yourself that the desert’s borders remain undefined and they don’t respect them any way. Let them cross them and join up with their brothers from the other countries.’ He held his hands up in the air. ‘But if they stay, then they must adapt to our way of life or be prepared to pay the consequences.’

‘They won’t adapt,’ Anuhar-el-Mojkri replied. ‘I’ve got to know some of them recently and although a few of them might renounce their past, most of them remain quite rigidly attached to the sands and their customs.’ He pointed outside, towards the far away tower as its muezzin called the faithful to prayer.

‘Are you going to the mosque?’ The governor nodded silently, went over to the table, stubbed out his cigar in the heavy crystal ashtray and leafed through the document that he had been looking at beforehand.

‘We’ll come back here afterwards,’ he said. ‘One secretary must remain here as this has to be sent off to the capital tomorrow.’

‘Will you be eating at home?’

‘No. Please let my wife know.’

They left the room. Anuhar stayed behind to give out some instructions and then ran down the stairs to catch up with the governor, who had got into the black limousine that was waiting for him. The chauffeur, who had already put the air conditioning on to maximum strength, drove the men to the mosque in silence, where they prayed side by side, surrounded by the Bedouin, who left a clear space, respectfully around them. As they left, the governor looked around admiringly at the shadows cast by the palm trees in the grove.

He liked that time of day. It was without doubt the most beautiful time of day in the oasis, just as dawn was the most beautiful time in the desert. He liked to wander slowly through the gardens and wells, watching the hundreds of birds flying in from afar to spend the night in the treetops.

He used to say that this was the time of day when the smells would come to life, having been crushed by a suffocating sun during the heat-induced lethargy of the day. The governor, Hassanben — Koufra, was in fact quite convinced that there was no where else on earth that could match the strength of the perfume that the roses, the jasmine and the carnations, born out of that rich, warm soil, gave off at that hour of the day.

He dismissed his chauffeur with a wave of the hand and walked slowly up the path, forgetting for a minute the thousands of problems he, as governor of that desolate region and a handful of semi-savages, had to deal with.

The ever-faithful Anuhar followed him like a shadow, aware that he liked to spend those precious moments in silence and familiar with all the places he usually stopped; where he would light his cigar and from which flower bed he would pluck a rose to put on Tamat’s bedside table. This routine had become something of a daily ritual and he would only miss it if it was unusually hot, or he had a mountain of paperwork to wade through, since it constituted his only form of exercise and provided him with a brief respite from the day’s duties.

Night fell as quickly as it always did in the tropics, as if it liked to place a curfew on the amount of time that man could spend enjoying the beauty and calmness of those sunsets. But they were not bothered by the darkness that would soon descend over the gardens and the palm grove, since they knew every path and every fountain by heart, and the lights from the palace up ahead would soon light their way.

On this occasion, however, just before darkness had completely descended, a new shadow emerged from one of the palm trees or maybe it just slipped out of the very ground itself. Even before they could make it out clearly, or see for certain that it was holding a heavy revolver, they knew at once who it was and that he had been waiting for them.

Anuhar wanted to shout, but the black barrel of the canon was already pointing between his eyes.

‘Silence. I don’t want to do you any harm.’

The governor Ben-Koufra did not even bat an eyelid.

‘So, what do you want?’

‘My guest. Do you know who I am? I’d imagine you do.’ He paused.

‘But I don’t have your guest…’

Gazel Sayah looked at him for long enough to know that he was not lying.

‘Where is he?’ he asked.

‘Far away.’ He paused. ‘It’s no good. You’ll never find him.’ The Targui’s dark eyes glowered above his veil for a few seconds. He pressed down more firmly on his gun: ‘We shall see…’ he said and then he pointed to Anuhar-el-Mojkri. ‘You can go,’ he ordered. ‘If in one week’s time Abdul-el-Kebir is not healthy, free and alone in the guelta, north of the Sidi-el-Madia mountains, I’ll cut your master’s head off. Do you understand?’ Anuharel Mojkri was not able to reply, so Hassan-ben-Koufra answered for him:

‘If you’re looking for Abdulel — Kebir, you may as well shoot me now so we can avoid any further bother,’ he said confidently. ‘They will never hand him over.’

‘Why?’

‘The President would not allow it.’

‘What President?’

‘Who else, other than the President of the Republic.’

‘Not even in exchange for your life?’

‘Not even in exchange for my life.’

Gazel shrugged his shoulders and turned round slowly to face Anuhar-el-Mojkri:

‘Just deliver my message.’

He paused. ‘And tell the President, whoever he is, that if he does not return my guest, I will kill him too.’

‘You’re mad!’

‘No. I’m a Targui.’ He waved his gun at him.

‘Now go and remember: in one week in the guelta, north of the Sidi-el-Mahia mountains.’ He dug the barrel of the gun into the governor’s kidneys and pushed him in the other direction. ‘This way!’ he ordered.

Anuhar-el-Mojkri took a few steps then turned around, just in time to see them disappearing into the shadows of the palm grove.

Then he ran towards the lights of the palace.