Yasmina Khadra - The African Equation

After the meal, Elena showed me around the camp. Then we walked to the other side of the fence and looked around a huge building site some hundreds of metres away. Elena told me that this was a pilot village intended for refugees who had been forced to leave their lands. A broad avenue cut the site in two. On either side, buildings were going up, some still at the foundation stage, others almost finished. Woodwork and roofs were still missing, but the work seemed to be advancing, given the dozens of workers bustling about and the profusion of wheelbarrows and hacksaws.

‘The refugees don’t only need food and medical care,’ Elena said. ‘They need to regain their dignity, too. They’re building this village themselves. Of course, architects and supervisors came from Europe to get things going, but the refugees are doing the actual construction. They’re happy to have the work and plans for the future. A little further south, we’ve built farms and laid out orchards. The farms are run by widows so that they can provide for their families. The orchards have been entrusted to shepherds who’ve turned into farmers. And they seem to like it. Soon, the first houses will be ready and this village will be born. Initially, we’ll be able to house forty-three families. By the end of the year, we’ll have room for another sixty-five. Isn’t that wonderful? When we set up the camp two years ago, there wasn’t a single hut left within a radius of a hundred kilometres. It was like the valley of shadows. And now look what we’re doing. I’m so proud.’

‘So you should be, it’s quite an achievement. Congratulations.’

‘The village will be called Hodna City. In Arabic, it means something like “reassurance”.’

‘It’s a pretty name. It sounds good.’

Elena was delighted. She was full of an almost childlike enthusiasm, and her shining eyes danced with light.

‘Over there, we have a school. Three classes of forty pupils each, and six native teachers, all survivors of atrocities. Plus a football pitch, with wooden goalposts. You’ll see, after classes all the kids rush to watch the match … We’re trying to give these people a normal life. And they’re ready for it. They’ve already forgiven.’

She paused here for a moment or two before resuming as volubly as before. She told me there was also going to be a big assembly hall, a library, perhaps a cinema, a traditional market in the square, stalls and cafés in the avenue, and lots of other facilities.

‘Do you have a barber anywhere around here?’ I asked. ‘I have to get rid of this fleece on my face.’

‘Yes, we do. A really good one.’

Twenty minutes later, I found myself sitting on a stool in the open air, a towel around my neck and foam on my face, at the mercy of Lotta Pedersen’s razor and scissors. The Scandinavian gynaecologist was magnificent in her role as an occasional hairdresser. And as she rehabilitated my image, a swarm of kids stood around us and laughed uproariously at the sight of a woman shaving a man.

A gaudy turban around his head, Bruno sat twiddling his thumbs in the doorway of the administrative block. He had washed and spruced himself up, made friends among the storekeepers — which explained the brand-new kamis and Saharan flip-flops that he was wearing — but he hadn’t touched a hair of his Rasputin-like beard. With prayer beads around his finger and kohl on his eyelids, he looked like a sheikh about to address the masses. But he wasn’t happy: he was grim-faced and his nostrils were quivering. He had tried several times to get through to Djibouti by phone, and each time he had heard ringing at the other end, the line had been cut off. Bruno suspected the switchboard operator of stopping him from contacting the outside world. It was quite likely, he said, that the director of the camp had received instructions from the government to keep our situation secret. How else to account for the fact that neither the French nor the German embassy had reacted to the fax they had been sent early that morning?

Pfer assured us that the fax had indeed reached its destination and that his supervisors in Khartoum were making the necessary arrangements with the relevant authorities.

The next day, there was still no news from Khartoum. Bruno and I spent the whole morning in Pfer’s office, waiting for the fax to screech or the phone to ring. About midday, the switchboard operator managed to make contact with Djibouti and Bruno burst into sobs on recognising his partner’s voice at the end of the line. Then his laughter burst out through his tears. I didn’t understand what he was saying in Arabic, but it was clear that the line was vibrating with the overflow of emotion. Bruno wiped himself with his turban, hiccuped, grinned, struck his forehead with the palm of his hand, jumped up and down on his seat, and every now and again let out shrill cries. His partner passed the phone, one by one, to family members, neighbours, the shopkeeper opposite, an old friend, whoever, and I imagined all these people hearing the news, stopping whatever they were doing and rushing to the phone to say how happy they were to learn that their dear Frenchman was still alive and how they couldn’t wait to see him again in the flesh. The conversations went on. Sometimes, Bruno was forced to wait while the next speaker was fetched from the other end of the street or a bedridden old acquaintance who absolutely had to talk to him was helped from his bed and dragged to the phone. Silences were followed by euphoric yells, and again tears and laughter mingled. By the time he hung up, Bruno was transformed. He was in seventh heaven, and his eyes sparkled. He gave me a big hug, then grabbed Pfer and danced like an orphan who’d been given his family back.

Pfer suggested we go to the canteen to celebrate. As we left the office, we saw two male nurses running across the yard towards the main gate of the camp. Children were standing outside their tents, pointing at something. Shielding my eyes from the sun, I saw a figure swaying in the distance, a burden on its back. Pfer, who had immediately realised what was happening, sent his secretary to alert the infirmary. We gave up on the canteen and hurried to catch up with the two nurses. The figure didn’t stop on seeing help arrive. It kept on staggering towards the camp. The two nurses tried to relieve it of its burden, but it refused and carried on its way, like an automaton. Bruno was the first to identify the figure: it was the young man with the cart who had been abandoned with his mother in the desert! There he was, before our very eyes, tottering but still upright, his mother on his back. He entered the camp, barely able to stand, empty-eyed, deaf to the words of the male nurses who tried to take the old woman from him. It was as if he wanted to see his exploit through to the end, jealously guarding his trek and rejecting any help he judged premature. The children, who had recognised him, ran towards him, incredulous. They didn’t cry out, didn’t go too close to him, simply escorted him to the infirmary, where a doctor and two of his assistants were waiting. The old woman was immediately laid on a stretcher and taken into the treatment room.

His lips white and his eyes on the verge of rolling back, the prodigal son collapsed exhausted against the wall, his arms dangling, his calves covered with cuts, his back steaming, half dead but valiant, incredibly valiant, supremely valiant.

Bruno turned to me and said, proudly and vengefully, ‘That’s Africa, Monsieur Krausmann!’

That afternoon, Pfer summoned Bruno and me and informed us that representatives of our respective embassies would be arriving the following day. There would probably be journalists in the delegation, and maybe also Sudanese military. He gave an outline of that kind of encounter, which he had witnessed before, and its emotional impact, which could be quite severe. Bruno merely nodded, but once Pfer had finished his briefing, he announced that he had no intention of going back to Bordeaux, but preferred to return to Djibouti. Pfer promised to see what he could do and let us go.