The Caliphate, André Gallo [best books to read ever .TXT] 📗

farther down the Niger and to the east of Timbuktu. Izem met him at the airport.

     As they walked outside to catch a taxi, Izem said, “The hotel was named after a story of our people. Do you know Atlantis? It was a big city on an island a thousand years ago. Then the desert came, the water went away. The island is now the Hoggar Mountains, over there.” He pointed to the northeast. “In the Sahara.”

     As they got into a taxi and Steve said, “You mean in Algeria? So you could be from the old civilization of Atlantis?”

     Izem smiled with pride.

     “We are an ancient people.”

     They stopped in front of the hotel, a one-storey building behind a low decorative barrier on which sat several young Malians. The roof was surrounded by a white balustrade. They walked past the young men who stopped talking and looked at him with what Steve thought were barely repressed urges to assault him with once-in-a-life-time proposals. He guessed Izem’s presence was keeping them from trying their luck. In the lobby the overhead fans turned noisily but too slowly to interfere with the squadrons of flies patrolling the super-heated air of their domain.

     “How about waiting for me here while I go check out the room?” Steve said. “Then I’ll see about renting a car and you can show me around.”

     By the time he got the car it was mid-afternoon. Nevertheless, they had time to go see Gao’s main and only tourist attraction, the Tomb of Askia, identified for preservation by the UNESCO World Heritage organization, an imposing, seventeen-meter-high pyramidal structure dating from the fifteenth century. It was the last resting place of Askia Muhammad, a Songhai emperor who had made Islam the official religion of his empire. Steve also couldn’t resist taking photographs of a mosque whose only claim to fame that his photos could bequeath was a minaret in the unmistakable profile of an aroused penis.

     Izem snickered when Steve took photos of the phallic symbol.

     “Are they like that in America?”

     “They’re much bigger, especially in Texas.”

     Steve motioned how big with his arms, causing Izem to do a three-sixty on one foot and laugh while touching his crotch.

     Through his camera’s lens, Steve noticed the shadows were lengthening and he became concerned about that the light.

     “Izem, did you talk to your friends? Can I go visit with them and take pictures?”

     “Yes, we can go now if you want.”

***

The Tuareg camp resembled the one near Lake Faguibine: tents of black leather, tops and sides on sticks and branches planted in the ground, goats and camels off to one side. The young children ran and played games among the tents and the women and the older children gathered firewood, carried water from the well, or cooked dinner over an open fire.

     The chief, the amenokal, welcomed Steve, as Izem pointed to him and said, “He is my patron, my boss, Monsieur Christophe.”

     The amenokal was a couple of inches taller than Steve. His robe hinted at a rather bony body. What Steve could see of his face was all angles and planes when he loosened his tagoulmoust—the blue veil and turban that enveloped his head and neck—to eat or drink.

     With Izem as translator, Steve said to the chief, “Those are very stylish sunglasses.” The amenokal took them off and proudly said, “Yes, Italian.” Steve could only guess as to their provenance but they undoubtedly added to the amenokal’s aura of leadership.

     Steve spent the rest of the day with Izem’s friends, taking pictures and eating the evening meal with them. He was impressed by the Tuaregs’ appearance. Their comportment conveyed pride. Since they stayed veiled most of the time, Steve found it difficult to read their expressions. Their eyes were cautious. He found them less forbidding when they lowered the blue cloth that hid the lower part of their face to eat and drink. Their unusual height was accentuated by their tagoulmousts. The seven-foot lances and the rest of their medieval weapons, swords, knives, that they still occasionally carried as they did this day, probably at Izem’s request, Steve thought, magnified their physical presence.

     To show off his knowledge, Izem said, “Christophe, show them the pictures on your computer.”

     To the delight of audience, Steve then put on a slide show for the amenokal and his men from the shots he had taken that afternoon.

     Then he gave the amenokal a bag and said, “Here are some things that I thought would be useful to you, tubes of antibiotic ointment to treat basic cuts and wounds from infection, and special eye ointment.”

     He had learned that many of the Tuaregs, especially the children, suffered from conjunctivitis and other eye ailments.

     He handed the chief a box and said, “You might also find these walkie-talkie radios useful for communication in the desert.”

     As the chief opened the gifts, he handed them out. Their examination was a communal experience. Steve asked, “Izem, what are they saying?”

     “They say that America should invade Mali,” and they laughed.

     Steve had another bag for the kids—hard candy and a few inexpensive compasses. On their way to the camp, Izem had told Steve to give the compasses to the kids, not to the chief, because he might be offended.

     “He doesn’t think he needs a compass, I’m sure of that,” he had said. “But somehow the compasses will in the end belong to the adults.”

     As Steve started to leave, the amenokal asked him to wait and in a few minutes someone came to hand him a package wrapped with string.

     “You have won many friends today,” the chief said. “Izem was kind to bring you. Think of us as your family in the Sahel.”

     Steve left in