The nurse looked surprised. ‘His main garment is a shämma.’ After the briefest of pauses, she added: ‘And you don’t have to worry about that, Adrian – he’s very thin. You can see that from his face, his legs, his hands…’
‘Does he wear anything under that?’
‘Under his shämma? Only the sanafil, that skirt-like garment you can see. The sanafil would be his normal attire – that alone, but he’s travelling now. Hence his shämma.’ She sounded like an expat, both formal and rather out of date.
The young man stood before them, tall, straight and unmoving, a little separate from the three Westerners, anchored to the sandy soil, joined to it down the length of his body, so unlike the way the foreigners simply skittered, barely touching, across its surface, like mayflies across a pond on a summer’s evening. He towered over them, his large feet, square and bony, cracked and filthy, rooting him to the earth.
‘Please ask him to take off his shämma.’ He made little effort to hide the impatience in his voice.
‘I can’t do that, Adrian.’
‘In heaven’s name, why not?’
‘We don’t know him. He’d be insulted.’
‘But he’s practically a child.’
‘You have to take my word on this: under that shämma, he’ll be very thin.’
‘He’ll have to take it off some time. He’s no use to us like that.’
There was a heavy silence. Adrian was aware of Tim reaching into his shirt pocket and pulling out a packet of tobacco and some cigarette papers. He started to roll himself another cigarette, leaning nonchalantly against one of the uprights supporting the verandah roof, politely disengaging himself from the conversation.
It struck Adrian that the heat wouldn’t be unusual for him. No wonder he looks so comfortable, he thought. In fact he looked loose, as if he were hanging from a coat-hanger in the cool shadows of a wardrobe. Adrian, tense and awkward, tried to emulate the Australian, to relax and think cool, but it was difficult when his T-shirt was already saturated. It stuck to his body and was dark with sweat beneath his armpits and down his back.
‘How old would you say he is?’ he asked the nurse.
‘It’s hard to tell when someone’s so malnourished, but I’d guess he’s about 16 or 17, possibly younger. He could be 15. People look older when they’re starving.’ She ended their short conversation by turning away and studying those who were sitting and lying on the ground.
Adrian told himself that a 15- or 16-year-old was perfect. ‘So what have you said to him?’
She turned back towards him, regarding him calmly from beneath the shade of her hat, patiently respectful. ‘What you told me to tell him.’
‘Which was?’ Trying to coax it out of her.
‘That we will help his people with food and money if he accompanies us.’
‘And will he?’
‘It’s hard to tell. He doesn’t say much. If you push him he nods his head. But I’m certain he has agreed to help us.’
‘You don’t sound very sure, if you don’t mind my saying so, Anne. I’d hate to have come all the way from London just to have him refuse to come with us.’
‘I know these people, Adrian. His silence is acquiescence. You have to trust me on this.’
Adrian had always had a problem with delegating. If anyone ever confronted him on the issue, he’d defend himself by admitting that he wasn’t happy delegating because no one else could be trusted. He was feeling this now: he knew Anne was essential to the successful implementation of his idea, and that he had to trust her, but everything inside him was screaming at him to intervene. That would be a mistake; he knew that. The idea was important, it was sacrosanct, but he needed people around him to make it happen.
‘What language does he speak?’
‘Afar. That’s what the Afar speak.’ Said as if he should know that.
‘And do you speak Afar?’
‘I speak Amharic, the country’s official language and the main language around here. But I have an adequate understanding of Afar. In the Danakil, it’s the main language.’
Looking at the Ethiopian: ‘And does he speak Amharic?’
‘He doesn’t seem to. But I’m making myself understood in his language.’
‘Well, let’s hope so. We need to communicate with each other somehow if he’s going to come with us.’
The pilot stood watching the two of them. They were nitpicking like a married couple; the sixty-something, straight-backed, expat nurse and the slightly overweight, heavily perspiring and twitchy middle-aged executive. Each wore neatly pressed shorts that went down to the knees. She also had on a short-sleeved check shirt, buttoned almost to the chin. Her skin was brown, his shockingly white. The two of them stood facing each other: he, ill-tempered and out of his depth; she, self-possessed and quietly in control. The sun beat down, without discrimination – on Adrian and Anne, on the two bystanders, Tim and Mujtabaa, and on the gathering of refugees who seemed to have been stupefied by it.
‘You’ve told him where we’re planning to take him?’
The young man stood next to Anne, staring fixedly at his feet, as if determined to take no part in the discussion – even if he’d been able to. He looked no different from a child being forced to listen to a scene between his parents and wishing he could leave the room.
‘Yes, I’ve told him where we want to take him – of course. It’s just that I can’t be certain he understood.’
Adrian thought, why have I ended up with someone like this? Surely there must have been someone else available? A good account man, someone like Simon Twining, that’s who I need now. Someone whom I can absolutely trust, someone I barely need to give instructions to. He closed his eyes. ‘And what makes you think he may not have understood you, Anne?’
‘It’s nothing to do with interpretation difficulties. It’s to do with the fact that these people usually stay within the same locality all of their lives. Although they’re nomadic, they rarely wander great distances.’
‘But you can still explain to him that we’re taking him to another country, to the UK, can’t you?’
‘He won’t understand what I’m talking about. The UK could be on the other side of the Danakil for all he knows. I may as well tell him we’re taking him to the moon. That would probably make more sense to him; at least he can see the moon.’ She was clasping and unclasping her hands, suddenly looking agitated and ill at ease amongst the three men.
The PR consultant and the nurse scowled at each other. Then, possibly in an attempt to be more placatory, she said: ‘I told him we’re taking him to visit another tribe. I think he understood that.’
‘Another tribe?’ Adrian was incredulous.
