Beside the road Tamara saw the skeleton of a long-dead Peugeot pickup truck, a rusting body with no wheels or windows; and soon there were other signs of human habitation: a camel tied to a bush, a mongrel dog with a rat in its mouth, and a scatter of beer cans, bald tyres and ripped polythene.
They passed a vegetable patch, plants in neat straight lines being irrigated by a man with a watering can, then they came to a village, fifty or sixty houses spread randomly, with no pattern of streets. Most of the dwellings were traditional one-room huts, with circular mud-brick walls and tall pointed roofs of palm leaves. Ali drove at walking pace, threading the car between the houses, avoiding barefoot children and horned goats and outdoor cooking fires.
He stopped the car and said: ‘Nous sommes arrivés.’ We have arrived.
Tamara said: ‘Pete, would you please put the carbine on the floor? We want to look like students of ecology.’
‘Sure thing, Ms Levit.’ He put the gun by his feet, with its stock hidden under his seat.
Tab said: ‘This used to be a prosperous fishing village, but look how far away the water is now – a mile, at least.’
The settlement was heartbreakingly poor, the poorest place Tamara had ever seen. It bordered a long, flat beach that had presumably been underwater once. Windmills that had pumped water to the fields now stood far from the lake, derelict, their sails turning pointlessly. A herd of skinny sheep grazed a patch of scrub, watched by a little girl with a stick in her hand. Tamara could see the lake glittering in the distance. Raffia palms and moshi bushes grew on the near shore. Low islets dotted the lake. Tamara knew that the larger islands served as hideouts for the terrorist gangs who plagued the inhabitants, stealing what little they had and beating any who tried to stop them. People who were already impoverished were made absolutely destitute.
Tab said: ‘What are those people doing in the lake, do you know?’
There were half a dozen women standing in the shallows, scooping the surface with bowls, and Tamara knew the answer to Tab’s question. ‘They’re skimming edible algae from the surface. We call it spirulina but their word is dihé. They filter it then dry it in the sun.’
‘Have you tried it?’
She nodded. ‘It tastes awful but apparently it’s nutritious. You can buy it in health-food shops.’
‘I’ve never heard of it. It doesn’t sound like the kind of thing that appeals to the French palate.’
‘You know it.’ Tamara opened the door and stepped out. Away from the car’s air-conditioning, the atmosphere struck her like a burn. She pulled her scarf forward on her head to shade her face. Then she took a photo of the beach with her phone.
Tab got out of the car, putting a wide-brimmed straw hat on his head, and stood beside her. The hat did not suit him – in fact, it looked a bit comical – but he did not seem to care. He was well dressed but not vain. She liked that.
They both studied the village. Among the houses were cultivated plots striped with irrigation channels. The water had to be brought a long way, Tamara realized, and she felt depressingly sure that it was the women who carried it. A man in a jalabiya seemed to be selling cigarettes, chatting amiably with the men, flirting a little with the women. Tamara recognized the white packet with the gold-coloured sphinx head: it identified an Egyptian brand called Cleopatra, the most popular in Africa. The cigarettes were probably smuggled or stolen. Several motorcycles and motor scooters were parked outside the houses, and one very old Volkswagen Beetle. In this country the motorcycle was the most popular form of personal transport. Tamara took more pictures.
Perspiration trickled down her sides under her clothes. She wiped her forehead with the end of her cotton headscarf. Tab took out a red handkerchief with white spots and mopped under the collar of his button-down.
‘Half these houses are unoccupied,’ Tab said.
Tamara looked more closely and saw that some of the buildings were decaying. There were holes in the palm-leaf roofs and some of the mud bricks were crumbling away.
‘Huge numbers of people have left the area,’ Tab said. ‘I guess everyone who has somewhere to go has gone. But there are millions left behind. This whole place is a disaster area.’
‘And it’s not just here, is it?’ said Tamara. ‘This process, desertification at the southern edge of the Sahara, is happening all across Africa, from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean.’
‘In French we call that region “le Sahel”.’
‘Same word in English, “the Sahel”.’ She glanced back at the car. Its engine was still turning over. ‘I guess Ali and Pete are going to stay in the air-conditioning.’
‘If they have any sense.’ Tab looked worried. ‘I don’t see our man.’
Tamara was worried, too. He could be dead. But she spoke calmly. ‘Our instructions are that he will find us. Meanwhile, we have to stay in character, so let’s dip and look around.’
‘What?’
‘Let’s go and look around.’
‘But what did you say before? Dip?’
‘Sorry. I guess it’s Chicago slang.’
‘Now I could be the only French person who knows that expression.’ He grinned. ‘But first we should pay a courtesy call on the village elders.’
‘Why don’t you do that? They never take any notice of a woman anyway.’
‘Sure.’
Tab went off and Tamara walked around, trying to remain unflustered, taking pictures and talking to people in Arabic. Most villagers either cultivated a small piece of arid land or had a few sheep or a cow. One woman specialized in mending nets, but there were few fishermen left; a man owned a furnace and made pots, but not many people had any money to buy them. Everyone was more or less desperate.
A ramshackle structure of four posts holding up a network of twigs served as a clothes dryer, and a young woman was pinning up laundry, watched by a boy of about two. Her clothes were the vivid shades of orange and yellow that the people of Chad loved. She hung up her last item, put the child on her hip, then spoke to Tamara in careful schoolgirl French with a strong Arabic accent and invited her into her house.
The woman’s name was Kiah, her son was Naji, and she was a widow, she said. She looked about twenty. She was strikingly beautiful, with black eyebrows and bold cheekbones and a curved nose, and the look in her dark eyes suggested determination and strength. She could be useful, Tamara thought.
She followed Kiah through the low-arched doorway, taking off her shades as she moved from the glare of the sun into deep shadow. The inside of the hut was dim and close and scented. Tamara felt a heavy rug under her feet and smelled cinnamon and turmeric. As her eyes adjusted she saw low tables, a couple of baskets for storage, and cushions on the floor, but nothing she recognized as regular furniture, no chairs or cupboards. To one side were two canvas palliasses for beds and a neat pile of thick wool blankets, brightly striped in red and blue, for the cold desert nights.
Most Americans would see this as a desperately poor home, but Tamara knew that it was not only comfortable but a touch more affluent than the average. Kiah looked proud as she offered a bottle of local beer called Gala that she had cooling in a bowl of water. Tamara thought it would be polite to accept hospitality – and anyway she was thirsty.
A picture of the Virgin Mary in a cheap frame on the wall indicated that Kiah was Christian, as were some 40 per cent of the people of Chad. Tamara said: ‘You went to a school run by nuns, I suppose. That’s how you learned French.’
‘Yes.’