He told everybody that they were walking at their own risk. There could be no guarantee of success, only a better chance of succeeding. Yes, they said. Great that you even got it off the ground.
“I can’t promise you anything,” he told them all, “except that you won’t drown.” A great joke, it goes down well every time, he must have told it at least a hundred times by now and everyone always laughs. On a few occasions he followed it up with “and you won’t need a life vest either”, but it detracted from the joke, so he dropped it.
He also told his guys, “Don’t make any promises!” And they certainly won’t have; after all, they’re not getting kickbacks, at least none worth mentioning compared to before. All he said was that he was the one organising it all because somebody had to. But that didn’t mean he was the tour guide or mayor or whatever.
So why has he now become just that?
He never wanted to be mayor. He’s the one who came up with the idea, and maybe a couple of helpful solutions, but that’s all. The whole organisation with the lorries, for example, that wasn’t him; it was Mojo’s idea. Or the contact with the regional warlords: you pay one and he keeps the others at bay. You just need to know which of them stands by his word, but the system of regular payments is amazingly effective at keeping them in line. Everything comes from Mojo, who obviously gets his cut, but that was precisely the plan. Sometimes one person has an idea, then another, and sometimes Malaika can help out or U.N.H.C.R. or the T.V. people. He is not personally responsible, so nobody needs to thank him, he doesn’t want anyone singing his praises if things go well, but nobody should level complaints at him either. He’s just the guy leading the march.
He sees a cloud of dust on the horizon. A pick-up with mounted machine guns on patrol. There have been one or two attempted ambushes, traffickers in girls perhaps, maybe just competitors trying to show that those now acting as guards can’t guarantee protection. But they can – as soon as they came within range the pick-ups raced towards them. And that’s been the sum of it, up till now at least. It helps that there isn’t much to steal. The lorries, food, water – none of it is really worth the bother. Water, food, electricity, it’s all so well organised now that there’s just the odd tweak needed here and there. And otherwise he just walks. Fifteen kilometres per day isn’t much. In the evenings the odd shag with the angel, and dreams of the future.
But they won’t let him.
She won’t let him.
Because she’s an angel, and angels understand nothing of life.
First she pestered him to protect the little whores. It had nothing to do with protection, of course; she wanted him to see to it that they didn’t have to sell their bodies anymore. As if he – or anyone else in the world, for that matter – could put a stop to that. Besides, they have to earn money to pay for food and water and protection.
“No! I pay for they.”
A true angel. If a little unworldly. He told her what he predicted would happen then, when word got around that the angel was paying for the little whores. Very soon everyone would stop paying in the hope that the angel would come to their help. He calculated the revenues for her. In fact the angel’s arithmetic isn’t that bad. She realised that she’d never be able to stem the tide. Then he told her that after she ran out of money, she’d have to get people used to paying again. Which wouldn’t work. She wouldn’t be helping the whores, she’d be leading everyone to their deaths.
“But we must something do!”
“No. We must bring them to Germany.”
Then came the first sick people. He aimed for young people and didn’t have any difficulty finding candidates; he could take his pick. He also made it clear to his guys that they should only take young people who could nurse their own minor ailments. Children weren’t a problem, nor young families. He wanted to regulate the uptake via the circulation of the app. But because it could be copied, of course, some elderly people did come along at first. They soon realised that they weren’t up to it, so they turned and headed back to the camp. Does he care if they made it? Probably not. He isn’t the tour guide, for God’s sake.
He’s just the guy with the idea, nothing more. Just the guy with the idea.
Then she came with all the sick people.
When you’ve got one hundred and fifty thousand people, some will get ill, it’s obvious. So what? He didn’t guarantee to anyone that they’d stay healthy. Somebody catches something and can’t keep going. Which means they’ve got to find someone to carry them or drag them or whatever. And if they can’t find anyone, they have to drop out. Which doesn’t mean they’re going to be driven in a pink zebra car. Because if that happened, all of a sudden there’d be lots of very sick people. So they have to drop out. Some are lucky: being at the front they can rest for a day before rejoining at another point. But when the column of migrants has passed, that’s that. They can hope that someone will come by and help, but that might take time because the group has been avoiding the main routes. They have the water they’ve got with them and perhaps a few morsels of food, but perhaps not. Maybe they’ll die, maybe not – he’ll never know because he’s not going to drive back to check. Lots of people die in Africa.
So far, apart from the elderly, they’ve all kept up, but it’s only a matter of time before someone just can’t keep going. A broken bone. An appendix. These things happen. Then there really will be dead bodies on television. There haven’t been any so far only because it’s so difficult to film at sea.
“No! We need a doctor.”
And so they agreed on a doctor.
Or someone doctor-ish: Pakka once helped out as a hospital orderly. Malaika has made one of her zebra cars available to him. Now Pakka drives up and down the column and treats people. He gets medicines through Malaika’s connections. Painkillers, plasters, bandages. He doesn’t give anyone a ride; he tries to ensure that people can keep going on their own. When there’s nothing more he can do he says, “Sorry.” That’s it.
“That is it? But that is impossible!”
He tried a joke, “Nothing’s impossible”, like she always says when she won’t take no for an answer. But this is all about the mechanism of the column, which mustn’t be broken. Everyone must be aware of the risks, everyone must keep paying, everyone must keep walking. The procession cannot stop, because the moment it stops the locals will worry it’s here to stay. The supreme advantage of this procession is that it passes. A column that stops is a camp, and nobody wants a camp. When people stop, you can’t be sure they’ll ever get moving again.
Malaika wants a doctor. The money in her foundation, she says, will pay for a proper doctor. Alright, a doctor, another car and more equipment, her foundation will surely be able to cover all that. But no transport.
Then there were the pregnant woman.
It doesn’t stop. He specifically said at the beginning, no pregnant women. But some didn’t look pregnant. And others have become pregnant en route. So many young people, a few prostitutes. With some it’s pretty obvious now. He’s been told that walking is fine, even late in the pregnancy, but it gets difficult close to the birth. And then there are the newborns.
“You know that not! You have no childs! I have!”
She sits up on the flatbed of their pick-up. It’s the only luxury they have: a flatbed for two, with half-metre metal sides for privacy. He sits up too and puts his arms around her.
He read on the Internet that one hundred and fifty thousand young people would produce between one hundred and fifty to two hundred children a year. There’s no way they’ll be able to support them all. The tougher mothers may manage, but what else can he do? Wave a magic wand?
“Another truck. I pay. Another truck. And a sister for babies!”
She kisses him.
He’s getting used to her idiosyncratic English. She wants another lorry for newborns. And when it’s full, the oldest baby will be returned to its mother, and so on. For newborns only. No patient transport.
It doesn’t sound that bad. Better than dead children. A small bus full of babies. The pictures would be good. Babies aren’t threatening. But it won’t prevent hardship. People might still die. Children might die.
She nods.
He agrees to it, and it feels as if a heavy weight has fallen from his shoulders. There are enough heavy weights, but now there’s one fewer, and Malaika has this tireless confidence. She embraces him and gives him the sense that he doesn’t have to do everything, everything on his own.
It’s because she’s an angel, he keeps telling himself.