Yasmina Khadra - The African Equation

‘We’re in Africa, Monsieur Krausmann. How do we know the pirates who kidnapped us aren’t in league with the government? Have our embassies been in touch with us? Like hell they have! Nobody’s contacted us. Don’t you find that strange? Just out of politeness, an official should have phoned to reassure us and ask if we were being well treated. But there seems to be a complete blackout.’

Bruno was getting carried away. I guess he was really disturbed by the possibility of being taken to the border and sent back to France. At about three the following afternoon, a small propeller plane landed without incident on a stretch of wasteland not far from the camp. On board were the first secretaries of our respective embassies, a German secret service man, a correspondent from a major television channel and his cameraman, two newspaper reporters and three Sudanese army officers. A technical problem, we were told, had forced the pilot to return to base and the delegation had had to charter a second plane to accomplish its mission, which allayed Bruno’s mad suspicions. Pfer let us use his office, the narrowness of which obliged the cameraman to twist in all directions in order to film the event. After the handshakes and the introductions, the German first secretary, Gerd Bechter, informed me that arrangements had been made for my repatriation and that I could go home whenever it suited me. I asked him if there was any news of Hans Makkenroth. He told me, much to my dismay, that the search had so far yielded no results.

‘How can that be?’ Bruno cried. ‘They were holding him to ransom.’

‘We’ve never received any ransom demand,’ Gerd Bechter said. ‘We know the boat was hijacked between Djibouti and Somalia. But after that, we lost all trace of you, Herr Makkenroth and your Filipino companion.’

‘Tao was thrown overboard by the pirates,’ I said.

The journalists nervously scribbled that information in their notebooks.

‘Who reported the attack on the boat?’ Bruno asked suspiciously.

‘Herr Makkenroth’s Cyprus office. Herr Makkenroth had been calling them twice a day, at nine in the morning and ten at night, to report his position and the weather conditions. Then they lost radio contact. No faxes or emails either. They kept trying to get in touch with the boat, but without success. Forty-eight hours after contact was lost, Herr Makkenroth’s family in Frankfurt alerted the embassy and we immediately launched a search. The boat was spotted in a creek on the northern coast of Somalia and recovered by French special units dispatched from Djibouti. No arrests have been made, and we’re still in the dark, without any leads or witnesses.’

‘I’m not going back to Germany without Hans Makkenroth,’ I said.

‘Dr Krausmann, you’re expected in Khartoum today.’

‘It’s out of the question. My friend is somewhere in the region, and I refuse to abandon him to his fate.’

‘The search is ongoing.’

‘Then I’ll wait for it to lead somewhere.’

‘Your presence here will be of no help to us. Let’s go back to Khartoum and then we can see where we are.’

‘Please don’t insist. I’m not moving from this camp until I know what happened to my friend.’

Bechter asked the others to leave us alone. Everyone left the office. The French first secretary took advantage of the situation to talk in private with Bruno.

Bechter’s awkwardness annoyed me. He walked up and down the room, went and stood by the window to get a grip on himself, then came back towards me and implored me to follow him to Khartoum. Nothing he said would make me change my mind. In desperation, he took out his mobile phone and called the ambassador. When he had him on the line, he held the phone out to me, but I categorically refused to take it.

‘You can’t stay here, doctor,’ he said, after apologising to the ambassador.

‘Is there something I don’t know?’

‘We have no proof that Herr Makkenroth is still alive,’ he said bitterly.

It was a blow, and my forehead and back suddenly broke out in a sweat.

‘Could you be more explicit?’

He went to fetch one of the Sudanese officers, a colonel with greying temples, and asked him to explain the situation to me. The colonel told me that the information he had suggested that Hans Makkenroth was probably dead. One night, about four weeks earlier, an isolated shepherd had received a visit from a group of armed men in flight. They had a number of wounded men with them, including a bearded European whose description corresponded to that of Hans. He was in a critical state.

‘There’s nothing to prove it’s him,’ I said. ‘Hostages with a beard are two a penny. I had one myself when I arrived in this camp. We weren’t in a health spa, colonel.’

‘When the armed men pointed at their prisoner, they mentioned he was German,’ Bechter said. ‘There are no other German nationals reported missing in this region.’

‘Hans got a sabre blow in the back during the attack on the boat. He recovered from it before he was transferred.’

‘This wasn’t a sabre blow, doctor,’ said the colonel. ‘The hostage had been hit in the head and chest and had lost a lot of blood. The shepherd was sure about that. They were gunshot wounds.’

I felt as if the ceiling were collapsing on my head. Shaking all over, I made an effort to steady my breathing. I was in a state of weightlessness, unable to preserve even a semblance of self-assurance. The colonel tried to put his hand on my shoulder, but I recoiled. I hate to be touched when things get too much for me.

‘No,’ I stammered after a long silence, ‘there must be some mistake. Hans was sold to a criminal group for money. The reason they haven’t asked for a ransom yet is because my friend is being auctioned. His last buyer will soon put in an appearance. This shepherd’s talking nonsense. Or maybe he’s an accomplice of the kidnappers and is lying to divert suspicion from himself and allow his associates to gain time. They’re hoping you’ll call off the search.’

‘Doctor—’

‘I won’t allow you to manipulate me, colonel. I refuse to listen to you and I refuse to go with you to Khartoum. I’m not moving from here until I get an answer to my question: where is Hans Makkenroth?’

‘I understand how you feel,’ Bechter said, ‘but I can’t approve your decision. I assure you you’d be more useful to us elsewhere.’

‘We have to go back today,’ the colonel said to me. ‘We chartered the plane for the day, and it’ll be dark soon.’

‘I’m sorry, colonel. Your priorities are not the same as mine.’

As far as I was concerned, it was inconceivable that I should go back to Germany without Hans. I wanted to get out of Africa without leaving anything behind and without taking anything away with me. I wanted to dismiss anything that might mar my return to a normal life. It would be hard, very hard, but I intended to succeed because it was the only way for a survivor to learn to live again. I would be able to turn my back on the hateful memories that were dogging my heels and shake off the invective-laden voices and terrible gunshots that still echoed in my head. I would manage to convince myself that my stay in Africa had been nothing but a bad dream, and every morning that the world still had in store for me I would wake up to the sounds that were dear to me.

The delegation failed to persuade me to leave the camp. Bruno was on my side. He refused to abandon me, convinced that Hans was still alive and was being moved from one buyer to another somewhere in the desert. As the sun was going down, the two first secretaries resigned themselves and granted us a few days to think it over, on condition that we cooperate with an officer who would remain in the camp and keep in close contact with the African Union forces deployed in the sector.