“Dakar?” said Deaken again, not offering an opinion this time. He was given another smiling, acquiescent nod.
“Which…?” started Deaken and then stopped, realizing the hopelessness. “Shit!” he repeated. Another nod.
He got in, slamming the door. It was movement, whatever the direction. At the first township or hamlet he would inquire again, get it right. Maybe find a taxi. Ten fifteen, he noted. The driver ground the gears into mesh with a shudder of cogs, snagging up through the gate in a ritual flourish which Deaken realized he was supposed to appreciate. When the speedometer needle registered seventy-five kilometres, the man hunched forward over the wheel, arms encompassing the rim.
Surely this hadn’t been the speed at which he had approached, horn blaring, fast enough to burn the tread off the tyres when he braked? Deaken stared at him and the Senegalese answered the look, smirking at what he believed to be admiration. There was nothing he could do, Deaken accepted. At least he was moving, he tried again to reassure himself, not stuck in some wasteland, being gradually dried in the sun.
The oblong of the rust-framed window gaped behind him; dust drifted in, fashioned in weaving snakes. Beyond he saw the load, a haphazard pile of vegetables and fruit. Deaken groped for an orange. It was green and unripened, hard under his hands. He gestured for permission to the driver, who shrugged and nodded. The fruit was as hard as its outer skin. Deaken bit into it, face twisting at the sourness, his mouth stung by it. He gulped at the orange, devouring the flesh almost without awareness, snatching back through the hole for another orange as soon as the first went. The rear window was not the only entry point for the dust. It seeped in wedges through the floor and ill-fitting doors and Deaken became aware of the vehicle’s age. The cab, he realized, was more than the driver’s workplace, it was his home, as well. Two jackets jostled from a peg immediately behind the man and, level with the back of his head, there was a shelf containing two shirts and a pair of shoes. Deaken looked down and saw that the driver was barefoot, skeletal legs jutting from the frayed ends of greased trousers. The plastic bench seat upon which he was sitting was covered with a plaid blanket which Deaken assumed was the man’s nighttime sleeping protection. Deaken eased forward uncomfortably.
Deaken followed the driver’s example, and wound down the side window to get some air. He tried resting his arm on the sill but hurriedly pulled back, the underside of his elbow burned by the heat of the metal. The plain stretched unbroken and unending, proof that the world was flat. They passed more gazelle and then a group of stunted piglike animals, which gazed back without fear but with ear-cocked curiosity. Around a distant anthill black birds wheeled in maypolelike flight; crows, Deaken thought, and maybe vultures. He wondered what the unseen carrion was. It could easily have been him.
Anxious to please, the driver groped beneath his feet with one hand for a small battered portable radio. One dial was missing and the plastic frame was supported by strips of tape and sticking plaster. The man extended an aerial and looked carelessly from the road while he selected a station. There was a blurred fuzz of interference from the unsuppressed engine, beneath which it was just possible to detect the monotonous ululating of what Deaken presumed was some local pop song.
The man said something in identification, nodding to the radio, and it was Deaken’s turn to smile and nod with a complete lack of understanding. The dashboard clock was smashed, robbed of its hour hand, and Deaken travelled with his left arm twisted across his lap so he could count away the time. It was exactly thirty minutes from the moment of his pickup to their arrival at the top of an incline above a small township huddled in a protective valley not more than a mile away. Deaken sat forward eagerly as they descended, taking note of the outlying fields and the irrigation stream and the needle spires of more than one church.
The French influence remained, with the place-name visible despite the chipped paint, secure on its rusting pole.
“Kaolack!” shouted Deaken in despair.
The driver smiled and nodded.
Carre had gone ashore from the Bellicose, ostensibly to pick up Deaken from the Royale, but really to limit the time with the captain, prolonging his absence as long as possible before returning. When he made his way onto the ship from the quayside, he saw the bowser cables being lifted away on their umbilical lines. Erlander was on the bridge wing.
“Where the hell’s our passenger?” he said.
“I sent a car,” said Carr6. “He wasn’t there.”
“We’re refuelled and revictualled,” said the captain.
“Should I check with Athens?” Carre welcomed the opportunity of getting away from the ship again.
Erlander shook his head. “I’ve already done so by radio. I’ve been told to make it an on-the-spot decision.”
There was a shout from the deck signalling the final freeing of the fuel lines, and Erlander led the way into his day cabin. He poured two glasses of gin, topping both lightly with water. Carre picked up the jug, adding another inch.
“What are you going to do?” said Carre”. He had never before earned as much on the side as he had from Makimber. He was unsure whether to hoard the dollars, in the expectation of the conversion rate going up, or change them at once. It was a lot of money to move at one time and risk alerting the currency controllers. And if that happened he would have to bribe his way out of trouble. He would shift just a little at first, he decided. It was a warm feeling, to be rich. It justified the present unease.
Erlander walked to the starboard side of his cabin, looking out over the quay. The early morning activity was slowing in the full heat of the day, the shore cranes bowed with inactivity, stevedores and harbour workers grouped in the warehouse shade or trailed to the liquor stalls. “Did this fellow tell you what he had to do?” he asked.
“Just sail with you.”
The captain turned back into the room. “What authorization did you see?”
“I told you.”
Erlander was a man who knew he sailed on the shaded side of every route, never properly believing the manifest listing on any voyage. It was a risk he took consciously, for the money which Levcos paid. Despite which, he was a careful man, running a clean, efficient ship with a reliable professional crew, never exposing himself to unnecessary danger. The preposterous sailing instructions and the presence of a man who had constantly to be duped with false positions and speeds constituted precisely the sort of conditions which Erlander had until now succeeded in avoiding. Which was why he was pleased the man had not turned up. And why he had lied to the agent about making contact with Athens. There would be contact, but not yet.
“We sail at noon,” said Erlander. “I’ll wait until then. But no longer.”
One hundred and twenty miles away Deaken was agreeing to double the price if the taxi driver could get him from Kaolack to Dakar in time.
Greening and Leiberwitz stood watching Levy and Karen walking in the garden and Leiberwitz said, “Look at them! Mooning like youngsters.”
Greening looked sympathetically at the bearded man. “It must be difficult for you, involved in the family,” he said.
“That’s not my first consideration.”
“What then?”
“I don’t think Levy is capable of leading us anymore.”
“He’s not let his relationship with the woman interfere so far,” said Greening.
“I don’t think he can be trusted anymore to make dispassionate decisions,” said Leiberwitz. “What are you saying?” “That it’s time someone else took over.”
23
Deaken chose a Peugeot with the best bodywork and least tattered upholstery, hoping that the engine would be in matching condition. The taxi driver was a mulatto, so there was a bridge with French. Fighting against the impatience and despair that swept through him when the man told him how far they were from Dakar, Deaken still insisted the car be checked at a service station for oil and water, and to fill the petrol tanks. Having escaped once from the wilderness, he didn’t want to be trapped there again.