The Girl in the Road Page 8

  Francis saw her coming and jumped up to greet her. She answered in a language I didn’t know. The words had fluid slants and sharp edges, like the curves of dunes. She seemed to be asking questions.

  Francis answered, gesturing to the flatbed. I could see he was flustered.

  The woman nodded and reached into one of her bags, and pulled out a sheaf of papers.

  Francis took them and paged through them. The woman kept asking questions. She was demanding. He was tripping over himself trying to focus on her papers and answer her at the same time.

  Then she noticed me. She stopped, whipped off her sunglasses. Oh, her eyes. They were huge. Black blooms on white leaves.

  She called out to me in the dune language.

  I looked at Francis, ashamed and scared.

  He said something about me to the woman, who laughed in surprise. Then she called to me again and her words were clear.

  Child, you speak Hassaniyya? she said. What’s your name?

  Mariama! I said it so quickly that it sped ahead of me, a little goat that got away, no hope of return.

  Where are you from?

  I twisted up and pointed the way I think we came.

  Francis said, We found her in the market in Nouakchott and she climbed onto our flatbed. A little stowaway. We didn’t discover her until we were almost in Rosso.

  The woman lifted an eyebrow. She’s probably better off with you, she said.

  Yes, that’s what we thought, said Francis. Besides, even if she has a family, she doesn’t want to go back. Something bad happened to her.

  What happened to you? the woman asked me.

  I looked down.

  Maybe it’ll be a while before she’s ready, said Francis.

  The woman nodded, eyes on me. She said, I’m going to be joining you, little girl. You’re going to have to make room.

  I was thrilled. I can make room, I said.

  Good, said the woman. You don’t have a choice!

  You can have my bed, I said further. Or we can share it.

  That’s the plan, said Francis. Since she can’t sleep with me.

  The woman gave Francis a warning look. He giggled and then slapped his hand over his mouth.

  But I, too, was struck dumb by the beauty of this woman. How she was clothed in sunset colors, blue and tangerine. I was afraid of her, and very shy at first.

  I am sure you remember this, Yemaya, because of course, this woman was you.

  Map-reading

  That first time I met you, the kreen got very quiet, like a baby that sees its mother. Instead of shrieking, it started cooing.

  Do you remember when we departed from Dakar the next morning? The very air felt warm and electric. I’d been too excited to sleep, and you’d been too agitated. You just paced the length of the truck as if you could make it go by force of will. When we finally started moving, you went to sit up with Samson in the cab, and I wanted to be near you and look at your beauty, so I just sat on my pallet and watched the back of your head. Your earrings dangled and danced.

  On the way to Mbour, Francis and I hung over the side of the railing, calling to each woman we passed. Francis taught me to greet them in the dune language, which I later learned was French. I learned to say, Bonjour, madame! Bonjour!

  You make me legitimate, said Francis. The women see you, and then they like me.

  I smiled. I thought I must be good luck.

  I like Senegalese women, he said. They’re more free. Ethiopian women are harder. They’re like bronze, tough to crack.

  What am I? I said.

  You’re a little girl, he said.

  But what kind?

  Haratine, he said. But I think it’s up to you now to decide what kind you are.

  What about the lady who—

  I pointed to the back of your head, as you were still up in the cab and I didn’t yet know your name.

  Oh, Yemaya? he said.

  Yemaya, I repeated. It was the most beautiful word I’d ever heard!

  Yemaya is Senegalese, he said.

  So she is “more free”?

  I don’t know, said Francis. I tried to find out, though! I said, You look so beautiful this morning, Mademoiselle Yemaya. But she gave me a mean look.

  He made a sad face in a bid for my pity, but I was distracted and said, What is Yemaya doing with us?

  I don’t know. I think she comes from a wealthy family. I can smell her perfume and it’s not the cheap stuff. But she’s running like she’s being chased.

  Maybe she’s running away.

  Maybe. She wouldn’t tell me anything except that she’d pay us in cash for passage to Ethiopia.

  Tell me again where it is, I said.

  Francis got up and slid the door open on the cab. For one thrilling second I thought he was going to ask you to join us, but instead he asked Samson for a map. He brought it over, unfolded it, and turned it around.

  On the map there was a shape like a steak, and across the steak there were colored lines crossing up and down and left and right like marbles of fat. He pointed to the red line. This is the road we’re on, he said, Dakar to Bamako. Right now we’re on this tiny part of it, just from Dakar to Mbour, which is the last time we’ll see the ocean. Then we’ll keep following the red line to Ouagadougou (Yemaya, I made him repeat that one five times and it is still my favorite word in the world after your name), then to Niamey, where my friend Hussein lives. He has good pistachio ice cream. Why I’m obsessed with it, I don’t know. I like creamy green foods. Then we’ll leave for Kano in Nigeria, and then on to N’Djamena, in Chad, where this road called the Trans-Sahelian Highway ends. Then we’ll follow this yellow line through Chad and Sudan until we hit this purple line, the Cairo-Gaborone Trans-African Highway, and follow it into Ethiopia, and make a detour to Lalibela, and then we’ll make it to Addis Ababa. That’s where we all part ways for the season. Muhammed will go to his family in Hawassa and I’ll go back to my job as a tour guide. I do that half the year and then I do this the other half of the year.

  I pointed to one of the dots on the map. What’s this one, again? I asked.

  Niamey.

  What’s—I pressed my finger and made the lamination crackle—this one, again?

  Lalibela.

  What’s—

  You can’t read, can you?

  I shook my head.

  You need to learn to read. Then you can sound out all these names for yourself.

  I didn’t go to school, I said.

  It’s not your fault, he said. But now that you’re with us we have to start making improvements.

  At that moment, you slid open the cab window and out came your legs like some beautiful spider unfolding its body. You were still unsteady on your feet. Both Francis and I were transfixed at watching you move. You said, What are you looking at?

  Nothing! cried both Francis and me.

  You saw the map in Francis’s hands.

  Long way to go, you said.

  It should be about three months, said Francis with much officiousness.

  You said it would be six, I said to Francis.

  Francis gave me a warning look.

  Three on official time, six on African time, you said. So it goes.

  I sensed that Francis was a little hurt, but he made the best of it, as he always did. He said, Mariama doesn’t know how to read. I think three to six months is an excellent amount of time to learn to read, don’t you?

  You asked, What schooling have you had, Mariama?

  None, I said. But I can cook and milk goats.

  Francis said, She was probably a slave. Slaves don’t go to school.

  Some do, you said, but you were talking to yourself.

  Then you looked out across the land as the sun rose. I was tentative at first, but then I shuffled over on my knees and joined you, just far enough so as not to crowd you. You, and me, and Francis—we were all quiet, all watching. The land was changing. The trees were thinning out, spindly and exquisite, and the ear
th was colored bronze and sage. I felt solemn, like we were passing into a more ancient country, whose history covered the ground like a fine gold dust.

  Golden women gathered at wells with golden buckets to be filled with liquid gold. I tried to slow down each instant to an hour and commit each woman to memory. I made it a game of high stakes, telling myself that if I didn’t remember them, no one would. One woman was wearing a dress with frills at the shoulder. One woman had skinny arms and teeth like those in a goat skull. One woman was tiny, her hair in plaits.

  I memorized each one. I anticipated each one before I even saw her and then I thought, I know you. I’ve always known you. I knew you the moment before I saw you.

  One woman waved, and so did the baby strapped to her back.

  One woman was as beautiful as the sun and moon combined.

  One woman slipped backward and I didn’t see her rise.

  I began to feel sleepy. I wanted to stay up so that I could keep seeing everything there was to see. But instead I crawled onto the pallet and my eyelids began to slide up and down of their own accord. I fell asleep.

  I was woken up by your voice, saying, Child, child, as if you were disappointed in me. You told me to get up for a minute. In the bright daylight I saw you pull out a big green cloth, like a scarf but thicker, like a blanket, and laid it down on the pallet. You patted it down until the surface was even, like a mattress. Then you laid down on your side with your elbow cocked underneath your head, and said, Now it’s better.

  I said, Thank you, mademoiselle.

  Something in my voice must have charmed you because you broke into a smile, a sort of smirk like you were trying not to laugh, and said, The pleasure is all mine. Now let’s take a nap.

  Alphabet

  Yemaya, I wish I’d marked the moment we last saw the ocean, but I didn’t remember to until after we’d left Mbour to turn east.

  The farther we drove, the more dry it got. Francis told me there was bad drought in this area—the dry season was starting earlier and ending later, just like the Sahara itself was starting nearer and ending farther. I watched my skin turn red from the dust. I even fingered out pools of dust from the corners of the truck and smeared them on my arms because I wanted to be warmer-colored.

  But this little game backfired. I got sick. That night I woke up with a hacking cough and my throat felt like it was barbed with spikes. When we stopped, Francis got Muhammed, who examined me. He made me drink five whole cups of water right in front of him. I had to get up to pee a lot all that night, but every time I woke up, I was surprised to see you were there, Yemaya, helping with even more water. After two days the barbs softened and faded into a gentle tickle that made me want to scratch my throat on the outside.

  We stopped to refuel at a border crossing. I remembered the term from before and wanted to be sure I marked the event this time. I flopped into the front seat and asked Samson, Where are we crossing into? Samson didn’t understand me very well, so it took many gestures and repeated words, but eventually he said the word Mali enough times that I assumed it was the name of the place we were going.

  I stayed on the truck. When you came back from the market, you were carrying a blue plastic bag. You pulled out a notebook and on the front was a picture of an albino woman in a pink dress with a big red dot on her forehead.

  You like it? you asked me.

  I nodded. I hugged it to my chest. Thank you, I said.

  Well, don’t just hold it, you said. This is for learning your letters. Here, use this to write.

  You handed me a sparkle pen. It was like receiving treasure.

  You sat down across from me and opened the book for me. There was the same cartoon character on the margin of each page, but the rest of the page was blank.

  Francis swung up to join us as the engines started rumbling.

  So lessons have begun? he said. Which language will you teach her?

  Wolof won’t do her any good in Ethiopia. Neither will French or Arabic.

  She speaks Arabic, though. So it might be a good place to start sounding things out.

  Maybe. The most useful language for Ethiopia proper would be Amharic, but I don’t know Amharic.

  I could teach her Amharic.

  I wish you could teach her Mandarin or Hindi. I don’t know either. Mariama, would you like to learn English instead?

  I nodded, not knowing the difference between any of these languages.

  All right, Francis, I’ll teach her English and you teach her Amharic.

  Francis bowed and flourished his hand in a way that made you roll your eyes.

  Ae.

  Bee.

  See.

  Dee.

  Eee.

  I pranced from one end of the truck to the other, reciting my English alphabet, until you told me to stop and recite it quietly to myself in a corner.

  Ha.

  Hu.

  He.

  Ha.

  Hey.

  Amharic was much harder because there were ten times as many letters to memorize! Francis showed me that all the symbols followed a pattern, and that made it a little easier, but still, it was overwhelming at first.

  You told me that when I could recite each alphabet without making a mistake, you would have a surprise for me. You lent me a slender metal bar that clipped onto my dress, and it came with little plastic pearls to put in my ears, and when I pushed a button I heard a woman’s voice reciting either alphabet I chose. Of course later I knew what all these things were, Yemaya—a sirius and ear buds—but at the time, it was so new to me. You had amazing treasures in every pocket of your bag. I was sorely tempted to go rooting through it when you weren’t looking, just to see what else was in there.

  It took me one day to recite the English alphabet without making a mistake. But it took me three days to recite the Amharic alphabet. We had plenty of time because in addition to our loadins and load-offs, the trucks kept having things wrong with them. There were many breakdowns and necessary repairs. Sometimes we were stuck in the desert for hours while Muhammed or one of his other helpers flagged down a utility vehicle headed for the nearest town to bring back a mechanic in case we couldn’t fix something ourselves. And then there was the bureaucracy! Once we stopped at a checkpoint and some men came to tally our cargo, and they looked so strange I screamed. You told me to be quiet, but one of the men indicated it was all right. He said something to you, and you translated to me: He’s asking if you’ve ever seen a Chinese man before. I said no, I hadn’t. He smiled and waved at me. He pointed to himself and said, Soon. I pointed to myself and said, Mariama. He was trying to be friendly and I was friendly back. But secretly I felt terrible for him, having to go around looking like that.

  Francis told me not to worry about all the stopping, but I could see he was frustrated. That made me frustrated too, and the kreen stirred in my chest. I asked Francis why the police kept stopping us, and he told me that Malians were always scared about attacks from Azawad, to the north.

  Why do they attack?

  Because they’re angry.

  Why are they angry?

  Mali’s not letting them go.

  Why don’t they let them go?

  I don’t know. I say cut the bastards loose and let them have their own country, but what do I know? Ethiopia let Eritrea go thirty years ago and we still hate each other.

  Then you spoke, Yemaya. You said, It’s because of energy.

  What’s because of energy? said Francis.

  Why they won’t let them go. The Malian government knows about the oil fields in the north, but they can’t tell anyone about it because the Chinese won’t let them.

  Francis looked hard at you. How do you know that? he asked.

  You looked down at your lap and said, I have connections, over-articulating the word as if making a mockery of it.

  Well, said Francis, making light again after the silence, You can sell that information to the Indian government when you get to Ethiopia! No doubt they’l
l be very glad to have it and you’ll be a rich woman.

  I don’t want to be rich, you said.

  I thought of Dr. Moctar Brahim’s gold teeth and jumped in and said, Me neither. Rich people have to get chips, and I didn’t get one, and that’s how I got away.

  You said, Lucky you.

  But I couldn’t tell whether you were joking or not.

  At the next town we reached, you told me to stay on the truck and you’d come back with my surprise. I sat in the exact same place you left me in with my hands folded in my lap. You came back a half hour later, this time holding a pink plastic bag.

  Indian sweets, you said. I didn’t know whether they’d have them or not, but they did. Would you like to try one?

  I nodded.

  You handed me something that looked like a ball of desert sand.

  What is this?

  A ladoo, you said. They’re best when they’re fresh, but these are the prepackaged kind you find in the Sahel.

  I took a tiny bite. The dusty-honey taste was overpowering.

  Too much, huh? you said. Keep it. You’ll get used to it and I bet you’ll be wanting more in about five minutes.

  You were right. I ate the whole rest of it and then wanted more. You gave me another one, and watched me eat it.

  So. You’re from Nouakchott? you asked.

  I nodded.

  What do you know about Ethiopia?

  That they speak Amharic there. That it’s on the other side of the country.

  The continent, Mariama, not the country. It’s on the other side of the continent of Africa.

  I nodded.

  Where is your mother?

  I don’t have one.

  And I’m a warthog, you said.

  I giggled.