Devil’s Harvest (24 page)

The number of villages increased until the roadside was continually flanked by huts and small groups of people. Smoke drifted from the home fires, and the tyres of the Land Cruiser made a slurping sound as the layer of cow excrement deepened. Flies pestered Gabriel’s face, one managing to burrow into his ear where it buzzed at an alarming pitch. He extracted it with a dirty finger and flicked it at the side of a passing cow.

Finally, the town of Rumbek presented itself, a slow progression of thatched mud huts giving way to brick-and-cement structures. They passed a branch of the Nile Commercial Bank and the State Hospital. Gabriel’s spirits lifted when he spotted a sign to Rumbek Airport. They stopped in Freedom Square, an open patch of levelled earth with a strange memorial feature in the middle. It seemed to be a meeting place for all the youth of Rumbek, and an energetic game of football was being played at one end, a revised version of the sport, which appeared to involve no goals and no passing of the ball. A number of players wore Liverpool Football Club T-shirts, blissfully unaware of the unredeemable awfulness of that city, although he supposed even Liverpool would be a haven for them.

A lengthy conversation occurred between Kamal and a young man, with directionless finger-pointing and head-nodding, before they drove off again and turned down a small side road. A few blocks on, they pulled into a large open area where a number of trucks had parked. Truck drivers were sitting around fires tending to pots and skewers of meat. Gabriel was relieved of more of his money before being shown to a small room with a low ceiling and concrete floor. There were three beds, each one more low-slung and battered than the next. Two were already occupied, with clothing and personal items scattered across them. Gabriel was too exhausted to object and dropped his bag onto the free bed, nearest the door. He sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands, his eyes closed, immobilised by fatigue and misery.

Alek roused him by dropping a threadbare but clean towel on the bed next to him. ‘Showers are round the back. You need one.’

He hated her. Her self-assurance, her lack of consideration for him, her skeletal body and lack of respect for his physical space as she slunk about. He snatched the towel and headed round the side of the dormitory. At the back he found a bathroom area and a series of shower cubicles, their doors open. He chose the first one and was pleasantly surprised by the clean tiles and subtle smell of disinfectant. The squeeze bottle of soap, attached to a bracket on the wall, was half-full and, although there was no hot water, Gabriel immediately immersed himself in the strong jets from the shower head. The water at his feet turned a rich brown, leaving a line of silt behind as it ran across the tiles and into a gutter. He slopped handfuls of liquid soap across his body and hair, letting the water pour over him until it ran in clean rivulets down his legs.

By the time he’d finished showering and had changed into clean clothes, Alek and Kamal were sitting on upturned crates around a crackling fire. An aluminium pot was bubbling, hanging just above the flames from a metal tripod. Gabriel found a broken crate around the side of the building – he noted that they hadn’t thought to organise one for him – and joined them at the fire. The shower had improved his appearance, but his mood remained morose.

‘I think I’ve had enough. I don’t think this trip is going to work,’ he announced as he took his seat. ‘I see there’s an airport here. Tomorrow I want to find out if there are any flights back to Juba.’

‘Airport’s closed,’ Alek replied.

‘Are you sure? How do you know?’ Gabriel’s anger quickened.

‘The nearest airport is at Wau. We’ll be there tomorrow. You can try there.’

The topic seemed closed. Alek took a stick and poked at the coals at the edge of the fire. Kamal muttered something under his breath.

‘I’m afraid I just can’t take this country,’ Gabriel said, feeling the need to explain himself. ‘Someone tried to describe it to me. They said it’s the shadow that’s cast when the sun shines on the North. I didn’t really understand it at the time. But now I do.’

Alek carried on stoking the coals, ignoring him.

‘There’s just no … capacity here. There’s no will. It’s all so … narrowly selfish. It’s hopeless. Quite hopeless, I’m afraid.’

‘This isn’t England, Mr Gabriel.’ Alek was staring straight into the fire, her cheeks glowing in the firelight. Or perhaps with her anger.

‘Quite obviously not. It’s about as far removed from the United Kingdom as one could be.’

‘You say it’s obvious. But in fact you behave as if you’re blind.’ Alek turned to look at him now. She was striking and intimidating, looking at him with open judgement. ‘When we see an ugly old man who’s trying to seduce a young woman with his money, we call him “
miraya maafi
”. It means he’s “a man without a mirror”. He doesn’t see how ugly he is; he sees only the money in his pockets, only his hands on her body. He sees only what he wants.
Miraya maafi
.’

‘Is that me? An ugly old man trying to charm his way around? I have no desire to lay any hand on you.’

‘I told you before, I am no one’s
bamba
and you cannot charm your way around me. But that’s not what I mean. I mean you have no mirror. It’s a long time since you looked at yourself.’

* * *

The night was marked by incessant mosquito attacks and a droning snore from one of his roommates. The man lay on his back in his underpants and with every inhalation a long, deep moaning sound emanated from his throat, like a persistent death rattle. Eventually Gabriel drifted off, but his sleep was plagued by awful images. Just before dawn he dreamt of a field of flowering
Arabidopsis
, a yellow carpet stretching into the distance like a sunflower farm in Kansas. But Alek was in the field, walking towards him and laughing, the flesh peeling from her face to reveal bone, her teeth chattering loosely in her gums. He woke with a start, for a moment unsure whether he was still asleep as his eyes travelled around the windowless room.

He started the day with another cold shower. The water flowed over his tired face as he tried to expel the residual images of the night. He consoled himself with the prospect of a quick flight back to Juba from Wau. Now even the accommodation at the White Nile Lodge seemed inviting. He grimaced at the sight of his mangled toes and dried each digit with the ends of the towel.

His arrival at the Land Cruiser was met with unfriendly silence. Alek had put some scented oil on her body which masked the smell of Kamal for a while. She looked fresh and rested after a night in her own room, but it seemed the driver had elected not to make use of the ablution facilities on offer. The aroma of vanilla and musk was no match for the intensity of Kamal’s body odour and soon the familiar sour stench returned. Gabriel sighed to himself; after the tetchy exchange the night before it was wiser to say nothing about their driver’s abysmal hygiene.

The road from Rumbek was far better, having benefited from deep drainage ditches dug with Caterpillar diggers along either side. In places, the ditches had overflowed onto the road, but the mud was less treacherous than before. They were still slowed by herdsmen on the road, but they reached the small town of Tonj by midmorning.

A river – in places more than sixty feet wide – flowed past the town, ferrying long canoes made from single boughs of trees, fishermen steering from behind. A group of men and women, dressed in white robes, stood on the riverbank in prayer, a tall cross held in place by two of them. Gabriel watched as one of them walked into the water, in her robes, and slowly immersed herself. Huge ground hornbills, their feathers scruffy and the wattle beneath their beaks fiery red, stalked about the banks as if part of an invited audience waiting for her to re-emerge.

Kamal stopped at a tea stall for refreshments, at Gabriel’s expense again. Alek cut two mangoes into squares on a plastic plate and shared the pieces, the juice dripping to the ground at their feet. Despite his tiredness, the easier road and relative coolness of the morning lightened Gabriel’s mood. Alek, too, seemed less surly, almost as if she regretted her previous outburst. She offered him the last piece of mango, which Gabriel gratefully accepted, gripping the slippery flesh with his fingers. There was no smile, but at least a softening of her expression as she watched him battle to bring it to his mouth. Eventually, he had to gulp at it, like a fish.

Again Kamal pulled out the dirty plastic pot and smeared a finger-full of its content across his gums.

‘What is that stuff?’ Gabriel asked Alek.

Alek addressed Kamal in Arabic and the man handed the pot to Gabriel. It contained some kind of plant material, pulverised to a soupy gel that smelt a little sour but was otherwise inoffensive.

‘What’s it for? Did he say?’

‘Tooth pain. It’s a common plant; he says he can show you it.’

Kamal seemed unusually animated and once he’d retrieved his pot of medicine he gestured for Gabriel to follow him. After a brief discussion with the owner of the tea room, he escorted Gabriel around the back of the dwelling. A patch of various plants and root vegetables had been marked out, the plants growing with various degrees of success. Kamal pointed out a plant with a green speared head speckled with yellow flowers.
Justicia flava
, Gabriel observed.

‘Ah, yes, I know the plant,’ he said, pulling the plant head through a gently made fist. ‘In English we call it a “shrimp flower”. Or “yellow justice”.’

‘Yellow justice …’ Gabriel hadn’t realised that Alek was standing behind him. ‘That’s a good name for it.’ She translated the name into Arabic for Kamal, who was very excited by the revelation, nodding his head up and down.

Kamal then took Gabriel by the arm and tugged him further along into the small patches of cultivated fields. A large tree, its branches bushed out in a shaggy array of green-grey leaves like the unkempt hair of an ageing hippie, had pride of place. Furry seeds hung heavy from the ends of its branches. Its flower reminded Gabriel of passion fruit, a star of stamens with a dark-purple centre.

‘Desert date tree or Egyptian myrobalan,’ Gabriel said with some pride. Kamal seemed disappointed by this, so Gabriel tried its Latin name. ‘
Balanites aegyptiaca
.’

‘It’s called
heglig
here,’ Alek translated. ‘Or
hidjihi
. Kamal says he uses it for blood-sugar problems. My aunt used the bark and fruit to protect again the bilharzia snails in the river. When we were young, we said the fruit pods were actually … you know, the male part of the bull?’ There was an endearing flash of embarrassment. ‘Anyway, there will be a
heglig
tree in every village in this area.’

Gabriel picked up a fallen pod and rubbed off the outer layer with his thumb as they walked back to the car. The skin shone smoothly by the time he had climbed back into his seat.

They continued for another few hours before pulling off at a small village for lunch. The landscape was punctuated by strange round structures, carapaces with stick-like legs, some with cattle inside them, but many empty, the ground around them flattened by animals’ hooves. They looked to Gabriel like giant beetles, giving the environment a slightly futuristic feel.

‘
Zaraib al-hawa
,’ Alek said, unprompted. ‘Arabic for house … made of air. It’s for cattle. We call them turtles because they look like a turtle out of water. These ones have smooth legs, but the real
zaraib
you’ll see up north are made from the branches of thorn trees. Very good protection for the cattle.’

They parked under a large neem tree for shade. Kamal went off to talk to the villagers about organising some food and Gabriel walked across the road into the field to look at the
zaraib
. The workmanship was simple but sturdy, the ‘shell’ packed with grass and mud to make it watertight. The smooth legs were sunk deep into the ground and close together, save for an opening for the cattle to enter, a wire-and-wood door leaning to one side. Beyond the last enclosure Gabriel noted a sorry-looking field of sorghum, the plants wilted and browning. A telltale flush of pink flowers stained the rows.

An elderly man stood at the edge, leaning heavily on a long stick and picking at the plants disconsolately. His face was deeply wrinkled and his clothes draped on his thin body.

Gabriel held out his hand in greeting. He had not yet mastered the Arabic exchanges. The man nodded and reciprocated with a soft handshake. Gabriel pointed to the dying field of grain. The man in turn opened his palms to the heavens and shrugged. It was in the hands of the gods.

‘You have a parasite,’ Gabriel said, recognising the plant from his third-years’ curriculum. ‘
Striga hermonthica
. Witch weed.’

The man smiled back at him, only a few teeth remaining, stained and skew. ‘
Dura
,’ he said, casting his hand in the direction of his field. Gabriel leant forward to the nearest plant and pulled a parasitic striga plant out of the ground. As it wrenched from the earth, its roots pulled the sorghum out with it. It had intertwined itself with the crop below ground, infiltrating its host’s nutritional system. He showed it to the man, who nodded knowingly. ‘
Buda
,’ he said.

Gabriel gestured for the man to wait for him and he trotted back across the road to find Alek. She came, surprisingly willing.

‘Tell him the striga plant is burrowing into the root of the sorghum, stunting its growth,’ he said when they reached the field.

Alek held up her hand for him to stop and translated for the farmer. He seemed not to follow at first.

‘Sorry, he is Dinka Gok, so the dialect is different.’

Alek persevered and the man nodded, looking at the example that Gabriel had pulled up. Gabriel showed him how the roots of the parasite had embedded themselves in the main root of the sorghum plant.

‘You must explain to him, once the striga gets to this size, and gets into the root of the sorghum, it’s too late. You see, if you pull it out now it’ll pull the sorghum plant out with it. You
must
pull them out when they are still small. It’s the only way.’