She followed the shore along the edge of the lake, shifting Naji from one hip to the other every few minutes. Now that the heat of the day was over, people were working again: fishermen mending nets and sharpening knives, children herding goats and sheep, women fetching water in traditional jars and big plastic demijohns.
Like everyone else Kiah kept an eye on the lake, for there was no knowing when the jihadis might get hungry and come to steal meat and flour and salt. They sometimes even kidnapped girls, especially Christian girls. Kiah touched the little silver cross on a chain that she wore under her dress.
After an hour she came to a village like her own except that it had a row of six concrete houses, built in better times and now crumbling but still inhabited.
Yusuf’s house was like hers, made of mud bricks and palm leaves. She paused at the door and called: ‘Anybody home?’
Yusuf recognized her voice and replied: ‘Come in, Kiah.’
He was sitting cross-legged, mending a puncture in a bicycle tyre, gluing a patch over a hole in the inner tube. He was a small man with a cheerful face, not as domineering as some husbands. He smiled broadly: he was always pleased to see Kiah.
His wife, Azra, was breastfeeding their baby. Her smile was not quite so welcoming. She had a thin face with a pinched look, but that was not the only reason she looked forbidding. The truth was that Yusuf was a little too fond of his cousin Kiah. Since the death of Salim, Yusuf had assumed a protective air that involved him touching her hand and putting his arm around her more often than was necessary. Kiah suspected that he would like to be married to her as well as Azra, and Azra probably shared that suspicion. Polygamy was legal in Chad, and millions of Christian and Muslim women were in polygamous marriages.
Kiah had done nothing to encourage this behaviour by Yusuf, but nor had she rejected him, for she really did need protection and he was her only male relative in Chad. Now she worried that this triangular tension could threaten her plans.
Yusuf offered her a drink from a stone jar of sheep’s milk. He poured some into a bowl and she shared it with Naji.
‘I talked to a foreigner last week,’ she said while Naji slurped from the bowl. ‘A white American woman who came asking about the shrinking of the lake. I questioned her about Europe.’
‘That was smart,’ said Yusuf. ‘What did she tell you?’
‘She said the people smugglers are criminals and they might rob us.’
Yusuf shrugged. ‘We could be robbed right here by the jihadis.’
Azra put in: ‘But it’s easier to rob people out there in the desert. You can just leave them to die.’
‘You’re right,’ Yusuf said to his wife. ‘I’m just saying there’s danger everywhere. We’ll die here if we don’t leave.’
Yusuf was being dismissive, which suited Kiah’s purpose. She reinforced his words by saying: ‘We’d be safer together, the five of us.’
‘Of course,’ said Yusuf. ‘I will take care of everybody.’
That was not what Kiah had meant, but she did not contradict him. ‘Exactly,’ she said.
He said: ‘I have heard that in Three Palms there is a man called Hakim.’ Three Palms was a small town ten miles away. ‘They say Hakim can take people all the way to Italy.’
Kiah’s pulse quickened. She had not known about Hakim. This news meant that escape could be closer than she had imagined. The prospect suddenly became more real – and more frightening. She said: ‘The white woman I met told me you can easily go from Italy to France.’
Azra’s baby, Danna, had drunk enough. Azra wiped the child’s chin with her sleeve and set her on her feet. Danna toddled to Naji and the two began to play side by side. Azra picked up a small jar of oil and rubbed a little on her nipples, then adjusted the bodice of her dress. She said: ‘How much money does this Hakim want?’
Yusuf said: ‘The usual price is two thousand American dollars.’
‘Per person, or per family?’ Azra asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘And do you have to pay for babies?’
‘It probably depends on whether they’re big enough to need a seat.’
Kiah scorned arguments without facts. ‘I will go to Three Palms and ask him,’ she said impatiently. In any case, she wanted to see Hakim with her own eyes, speak to him, and get a sense of what kind of man he was. She could walk ten miles there and ten miles back in a day.
Azra said: ‘Leave Naji with me. You can’t carry him all that way.’
Kiah thought she probably could, if she had to, but she said: ‘Thank you. That would be a great help.’ She and Azra often babysat one another’s children. Naji loved coming here. He liked to watch what Danna did and to imitate her.
Yusuf said brightly: ‘Now that you’ve walked this far, you might as well spend the night with us, and get an early start.’
It was a sensible idea, but Yusuf was a little too keen on sleeping in the same room as Kiah, and she saw a frown briefly cross Azra’s face. ‘No, thank you, I need to go home,’ she said tactfully. ‘But I’ll bring Naji first thing in the morning.’ She got up and lifted her son. ‘Thank you for the milk,’ she said. ‘God be with you until tomorrow.’
*
Filling-station stops took longer in Chad than in the States. People were not in such a hurry to get in and out and back on the road. They checked their tyres, put oil in their engines, and topped up their radiators. They needed to be cautious: you could wait days for roadside recovery. A gas station was also a social place. Drivers talked to the proprietor and to one another, exchanging news about roadblocks, military convoys, jihadi bandits and sandstorms.
Abdul and Tamara had agreed a rendezvous on the road between N’Djamena and Lake Chad. Abdul wanted to talk to her a second time before he headed into the desert and he preferred not to use phones or messaging if he could avoid it.
He reached the gas station ahead of her, and sold a whole box of Cleopatras to the owner. He had the hood of his car up, and was putting water into the windscreen-washer reservoir, when another car pulled in. A local man was driving it but Tamara was the passenger. In this country embassy staff never travelled alone, especially if they were women.
At first sight she might have been taken for a local woman, Abdul thought as she got out of the car. She had dark hair and eyes, and she wore a long-sleeved dress over trousers plus a headscarf. However, a careful observer would know she was American by the confident way she walked, the level gaze she directed at him, and the way she addressed him as an equal.
Abdul smiled. She was attractive and charming. His interest in her was not romantic – he had been soured on romance a couple of years ago and he had not yet got over it – but he liked her joie de vivre.
He looked around. The office was a mud-brick hut where the proprietor sold food and water. A pickup truck was just leaving. There was no one else.
All the same, he and Tamara played safe and pretended not to know each other. She stood with her back to him as her driver filled his tank. She said quietly: ‘Yesterday we raided the encampment you discovered in Niger. The military men are triumphant: they destroyed the camp, captured tons of weaponry, and took prisoners for interrogation.’
‘But did they capture al-Farabi?’
‘No.’
‘So the camp wasn’t Hufra.’
‘The prisoners call it al-Bustan.’
‘The Garden,’ Abdul translated.
‘It’s still a great prize, and you’re the hero of the hour.’
Abdul had no interest in being a hero. He was looking ahead. ‘I need to change my tactics,’ he said.
‘Okay . . .’ she said dubiously.
‘It’s going to become difficult for me to stay out of sight. The route now will be north across the Sahara to Tripoli, and from there over the Mediterranean to the nightclubs of Europe. Between here and the coast it’s pretty much all naked desert, with little traffic.’
Tamara nodded. ‘So the driver is more likely to notice you.’
‘You know what it’s like out here: no smoke, no mist, no pollution – on a clear day you can see for miles. On top of that I’ll have to stop overnight at the same oases as the vehicle with the consignment – there’s never a choice in the desert. And most of those places are small, too small for me to hide. I’m bound to be spotted.’