nurse looked away, and gazed out of the window. Her face betrayed no emotion. Adrian looked briefly at Tim, maybe hoping for support, but the pilot’s face remained determinedly expressionless.
His eyes wandered, but there was nothing on which they could settle. Nature had split its canvas in two, the desert and the sky. Each reverberated in the heat, gleaming white where they met, then changing to a cobalt blue overhead and a drab yellow at their feet. He knew that, thousands of years ago, the landscape beneath them had been covered by forests, but now, after centuries of human abuse, it had been worn out, ravaged and discarded. It had the air of a deserted campsite. A small group of refugees was heading along a deeply furrowed track in the direction of the mountains. He wondered if any of them would know Mujtabaa and what they would think if they realized he was now flying through the sky, hundreds of feet above their heads, in the company of three white people.
Seeing him look out of the window, Tim said, ‘Wouldn’t think it was the wet season, would you?’
‘Is it?’
‘From June to September, that’s when the long rains fall – the meher. It’s also called the hungry season, because everyone is waiting for the harvest to come. The short rains are in March and April – the belg – but we haven’t had those for three or four years now. That’s half the problem – the lack of rain. The other half is the civil war. There’s little or no grass left for their herds, and they say next year will be even worse.’
The pilot broke the long silence that followed. ‘So what are you going to do with this bloke in London?’
‘Keeping that to ourselves for the moment.’
‘Sure.’
Adrian relented a little. ‘He’s helping us with our fundraising efforts. We’re hoping to capitalize on the success and publicity of Live Aid.’ He didn’t want to reveal too much. He remembered Anne telling him Tim also did flights for the other charities – it would be a disaster if they found out what he was up to before it got under way. ‘Fact is, its influence is waning, and people need to be reminded of what’s happening here.’
‘So long as you’re not going to inflict another Do they know it’s Christmas? on us. If I hear that song one more time, think I’ll go barmy as a bandicoot.’
‘What we’re trying to do will make a real difference. I’m sure of it.’
Tim changed the subject. ‘We should be back in Addis in under two hours.’
Adrian nodded. Again, he glanced back to study the features of the young man. He was now leaning against the side of the cockpit, his head, with its chaotic mass of tightly curled hair, resting on the window, his skeletal frame almost enveloped in dusty robes. If he’d been holding a scythe, he’d have made a good Grim Reaper at a fancy-dress party. Adrian smelt a distinctive mixture of sweat, dirt and illness. He wondered if it was the smell of death, the young man decomposing before their eyes. Concerned, he shouted back to Anne: ‘Do you think he’ll be OK?’
She leant forward so she didn’t have to shout. ‘This would be a nasty shock to anyone’s immune system, but especially someone who isn’t well.’
Adrian suspected she was avoiding answering his question. ‘But do you think he’ll survive?’ he insisted. ‘Is he healthy?’
‘I wouldn’t have agreed to this if I didn’t think he’d survive, Adrian.’ She sounded quite frosty. ‘As to whether or not he’s healthy, I find that almost impossible to answer. Being the weight he is, he’s scarcely healthy, yet I wouldn’t necessarily describe him as unhealthy. He doesn’t look well, obviously, but then he’s young, so…’ She left her sentence unfinished, before adding: ‘So far as I can tell, he’s not ill. If he had malaria it would be obvious enough, or TB, which is the main killer amongst these people. But there are other diseases which are harder to detect in the early stages.’
Despite Adrian’s worries about the young man attracting undue attention at Addis Ababa airport, no one gave him more than a cursory glance. Since the famine had attracted worldwide attention two years earlier, the capital had been besieged by relief-agency workers, government officials, and the well-educated, well-fed, well-off and well-meaning middle classes of the Western world. Famine was a booming business. Even celebrities and Hollywood film stars, looking appropriately gloomy, earnest and sympathetic, could be spotted at regular intervals flying in or out of the country. To see an actual victim of the famine was far less interesting.
Inside the terminal, a noisy air-conditioning system was trying, unsuccessfully, to cope with the heat. The paint on the ceiling was flaking, and mould was creeping up the walls. A bored and listless throng shuffled aimlessly around the building as if they had no plans to go anywhere, but were more intent on finding a place to lie down and have a quiet doze.
Tim’s office was in a Nissan hut at the back of the terminal. The raised floor was covered in linoleum, badly worn where the traffic in the room had been heaviest. The desk, filing cabinets and chairs looked as if they’d come straight from a surplus store, and the piles of paperwork appeared to have settled permanently beneath a thin patina of dust. There was a window, which Tim now opened, and a fan, which he now switched on. Anne made Mujtabaa lie down on an old, worn sofa, its plastic covering split in several places, like a patient undergoing surgery, revealing seeping, rubbery, yellowed guts.
Tim told Adrian he could use the phone to call London – ‘though you’ll be lucky to get through’ – then showed Anne where the kitchen was. After that, he shook hands with both of them and left, saying he probably wouldn’t be back before they left for London.
Adrian made himself at home, already visualizing the small, cramped office as his command centre, a place where he could manage his small team – only four, but enough people to feed his fantasy. Rory, who worked for Africa Assist in the capital, had just arrived to help out with the ‘top secret project’. He was a tall, sinewy and unexpectedly white individual, despite his years in Africa, who offered his services in a rather laid-back and supercilious manner. As well as Anne and Mujtabaa, Adrian mentally included Tim amongst his team, even though it was unlikely they’d see him again. Numbers were important to him.
As he arranged the contents of his briefcase on the desk, he instructed Rory to confirm their tickets on the 2.15 Ethiopian Airlines flight to London.
‘What about Mujtabaa’s national ID card and visa?’
‘Already done. Anne arranged it.’
‘And Anne?’
‘She still has her British passport.’
He turned to the nurse sitting patiently on a chair between his desk and the sofa on which the young man was lying. ‘What about our friend? Does he need anything?’
‘I think he needs to eat something.’
She saw the concern on his face. ‘Since he reached the clinic, I’ve just been giving him some zinc and vitamin A mixed in with a little milk and cereal. It’s not enough for him to put on any weight, certainly not enough to be noticeable.’
‘It’s important he doesn’t. I want to keep him lean and hungry. But that doesn’t mean I want to starve him,’ he added hastily.
‘I’d remind you, Adrian, that I have the final say on what Mujtabaa does or does not eat. I won’t compromise on that. We must be clear on that from the start.’
He
