Devil’s Harvest (14 page)

‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain. Please ensure that your seatbelts are fastened as we commence our passage into Juba International Airport. We may experience some upwelling on the descent, but we will endeavour to avoid the turbulence. Thank you.’

With that comforting statement, the pilot started to bank and then dip sharply. His calm announcement was followed by some of the most extreme flying that Gabriel had ever experienced. Despite the pilot’s efforts, the small Embraer aircraft bucked and sank, the passengers whooping as if they were on some roller coaster at the fair. When they had boarded Gabriel had chuckled at the dotted line on the side of the aircraft, cheerfully headed by the words ‘Cut here in case of emergency’. Now he failed to see the humour in it.

Finally, with a heart-wrenching thump, they dropped below the cloud line, and the vast landscape of South Sudan opened below them. Juba appeared as a sprawling expanse of red and green roofs lining the twisting banks of the glinting White Nile. The city expanded haphazardly from its banks, and then terminated abruptly, to be replaced, with an almost linear border, by a stretch of extraordinary green. Gabriel had observed such a green in the cultivated pastures of England in the spring, but never had he seen natural bush attain such a colour. The botanist in him awoke; he could almost feel the solar radiation emanating off the lush undergrowth. The landscape was latticed with rivers, interspersed with broad swamplands that gleamed in the sunlight. There was little sign of habitation beyond the city outskirts, save for an occasional spider-legged scar of brown denoting a homestead of three or four huts.

Gabriel thought back to the train ride to Heathrow on the express line. A lifetime ago already. The bright fields that had seemed so thick at the time were neatly divided up by hedgerows into manageable plots – so British – the brooks thick with elders, elms and oaks. The horses still wore their protective blankets, their bodies steaming in the cold morning air. He had noticed the growing trend in small towns to allocate a field to townsfolk for growing vegetables. Each had a postage-sized plot of tilled earth, demarcated with neat borders of stones, and a small shed for tools and the like. In a way, it reminded him of his life, neatly contained. What he saw below could not have been more contrasting. He felt a surge of fear as he peered past the wing towards the Nile. He worried, for the first time, that his arrangements would fall through, that there would be nobody to collect him at the airport, that he would be left to fend for himself.

Even if he got no further than this, he thought, at least he could say that he’d come this far and tried. He could write something at the end of the research paper, suggesting that the security situation had precluded him from proceeding beyond Juba, hinting at bravery in the attempt.

The plane banked one last time and headed directly for the city. Only now did Gabriel see the dark landing strip running exactly along the urban border. They were to land within a hundred metres of the residential edge. It was like landing on Spike Island in Bristol, stepping off the plane directly into Harbourside. Except that Gabriel could see no fountains, no elegant shops, in fact no buildings of any noteworthy design, just a sprawl of flat-topped residences with pink and grey walls. The dwellings spilt out below like a city before its birth, the first semblance of infrastructure developing as expansion organically continued on the edges. It was as if there had been an explosion, and the urban scatter had been flung outwards, squashing along the barrier of the river, but otherwise moving in concentric circles like the big bang. The closer to the centre, the denser the dwellings, slowly opening up into a scattering of huts and lean-tos on the fringes.

The plane flew just above the runway, seemingly reluctant to touch ground, roaring past a parking terrain of white UN helicopters, their massive rotor blades drooped over like strange headgear. A clutch of anti-aircraft guns surrounded by brown sandbags rushed by, then a collection of UN transport planes, propellers tied fast, and smaller jets and parked vehicles. An entire base had been created for the United Nations food aid, complete with warehouses, loading vehicles and turning areas for planes. A transport plane with the blue UNHCR logo on the tail squatted alongside a storage area, its rear end opened to expose its bowels. As their wheels finally touched down, Gabriel looked across the aisle through the opposite window to see the wreckage of a large Boeing lying flat on its fuselage, dismembered in the grass. The horizon stretched to eternity, the boiling clouds above and the smooth, smoke-filled landscape below. It was an intimidating and exhilarating arrival.

When the doors opened, a sticky heat rushed in, immediately replacing the pleasantly controlled air of the cabin. He almost gasped out loud as the humidity slapped into him, his respiration rate picking up to compensate. The effort of collecting his hand luggage from the overhead locker and then making his way down the stairs was enough to have him wheezing. He shuffled onto the hot tarmac, his trousers sticking to the inside of his thighs. He was starting to chafe by the time he had made the short walk to the makeshift arrivals building.

The airport terminal was a single-storey building, a brick construction with some prefabricated add-ons. The name ‘Juba’ stood in large yellow letters on the roof while the official signage announced ‘Juba International Airport’, followed by Arabic writing. A banner hung limply in the heat, strung between two windows on the prefabricated side of the building: ‘Welcome to South Sudan, the 54th Independent State of Africa.’ Someone had written in thick marker pen on the side: ‘Bye bye Khartoum, separation oyee!’

As Gabriel was engulfed by the crowd of passengers congregated at the entrance, he caught sight of movement above him. Massive birds, wingspans extended, circled in the dirty haze above the city. Then he stumbled out of the sunlight into the murky arrivals area. A line of men dressed in camouflage uniforms and toting machine guns stood behind a counter, dark glasses hiding their expressions. There was much shouting and gesticulating, everyone moving about the restricted space, but none breaching the line of security. A rough hole had been chopped through one wall, the brickwork sticking out like broken teeth. A number of passengers were pushing up against each other, apparently in anticipation of their luggage arriving through the gap. The European passengers from the flight were on the other side of the room, sweating patiently in a queue before two windowed counters. A man wearing a beret and olive-green uniform, also carrying a machine gun, gestured to Gabriel with the barrel of the gun that he should join the queue. Gabriel obeyed, shuffling behind a middle-aged woman from his flight.

‘Chaotic airport, hey?’ she said cheerfully as they waited in the cloistered warmth, as if chaos was something to be sought out with relish. Gabriel did not share her good humour, the combination of heat and Kalashnikovs putting him on edge. She was from the Netherlands, working for Amnesty International; her T-shirt proudly declaring that the organisation had been ‘chasing the bad guys for over fifty years’.

‘Just meeting with our partners to see at what level we should get involved here,’ she explained.

Gabriel nodded his head sagely, not having a clue what ‘getting involved’ might mean or who her partners could be. As if sensing that he was about to ask, she continued: ‘I don’t know if you’re new to Sudan, so maybe I’m saying the obvious. But you must be careful. There’s a lot of paranoia in this country, from the new government and from Bashir up North. His ICC warrant is still outstanding, and he thinks every white visitor to the South is here to do him in. He’s not entirely wrong, of course. But be careful.’

‘What ICC warrant?’ Gabriel asked, wishing he’d paid more attention to current affairs before planning his trip. Jane had been right. This was madness.

‘You don’t know about the International Criminal Court warrant? Dear me!’ she said.

‘I thought that independence, peace, secession … isn’t it getting better?’

‘The important people don’t want it to.’ She looked around her as if she was sharing something secretive and important.

‘I see. Thank you. That’s probably very good advice then,’ he replied.

It was her turn at the counter and she stepped up, bringing the conversation to an end. Gabriel was taken aback at the intensity of the stranger’s statements. Her attitude exacerbated his mood; he felt even more jumpy, the sweat trickling down into the small of his back. Her passport was swiftly stamped and she stepped away in search of her baggage, forgetting him for the moment. Gabriel approached the counter, and an official, wearing a suit and tie despite the blistering heat, took his passport and scanned it.

‘Purpose of travel … tourism …’ The official looked up at Gabriel, his blank expression bordering on aggressive. Gabriel smiled back in what he hoped was an innocent and winning-looking way. There was a long pause while the official clicked on something on his computer screen, then slowly paged through the passport, inspecting the previous stamps.

‘Where are your papers?’

Gabriel looked at him, perplexed. ‘Ah, those are my papers. My passport, my visa. Yes?’

‘What is your organisation?’

‘I’m a scientist, I’m here to study a plant.’ The words sounded, even to Gabriel’s ears, ridiculous.

‘What is your organisation?’ The official looked most unimpressed by his answer, raising his voice. ‘Where are your organisation papers? UN, MSF, Comite? Your papers?’

Gabriel shook his head, still confused. The man clambered off his stool and pursed his fingers together, holding them upright like a pyramid for Gabriel to see, before disappearing into a small room on the side. Gabriel was affronted by the gesture: it was reminiscent of something he had seen Jane’s thirteen-year-old nephew display to his father in a moment of adolescent defiance – an oblique reference to something anal, Gabriel thought.

‘Problem?’ The Dutch woman had returned with her duffel bag.

‘No, no, I’m sure it’s fine. You know, just the usual bureaucracy.’

She looked at him with an expression of pity, but didn’t respond, wandering off instead towards the line of waiting soldiers.

Gabriel’s armpits prickled and everything stuck to his skin. The smell of humanity in the room seemed to be getting even stronger, a pungent mix of sweat, smoke and something baser. He started to feel faint, as if he’d dehydrated in the twenty minutes he’d been waiting in the room. Finally, the immigration official returned, opened the passport and carefully placed a stamp on a new page. He smiled warmly and handed Gabriel the document.

‘Welcome to the Republic of South Sudan.’

‘Thank you, thank you so much. It’s a pleasure …’ Gabriel heard himself burble on, grateful for the man’s changed demeanour.

There was no change in the mood of the man with the Kalashnikov, however. Once again he used the point of the gun to direct Gabriel towards the luggage-collection point. Two bare-chested men, their skin gleaming, were throwing bags from a trolley outside through the hole onto the floor. Waiting passengers grabbed their bags and heaved their way through the throng. He was relieved to see his battered roller suitcase arrive, incongruous in the array of colourful packages and cloths, tossed through the hole but landing unscathed on top of other bags. It took him some time to manoeuvre through the crowd with his case, but eventually he arrived at the row of overly armed guards. Here, everyone’s bag was partly unpacked, rifled through and then marked with a series of chalked letters.

To his consternation, one of the soldiers made the same rude sign, pursing his fingers together and then gesturing Gabriel to step back while he searched the person in front of him. Then it was Gabriel’s turn and, after a perfunctory rummaging through his case, he was free to leave, his luggage surprisingly intact. The whole process had taken only forty minutes, though it had seemed interminable.

He lugged his case out of the building, scanning the area for his promised lift. There were no signs bearing his name and his heart sank. He was going to have to negotiate with unscrupulous touts and taxi drivers to make his way to the hotel. Before he could arrange a taxi, the woman from Amnesty International appeared at his side.

‘So you got through, that’s a good start. Welcome to Juba.’ She handed him a cold bottle of water. ‘Forty-five degrees every day and you can’t drink the water. It’s God’s idea of a cruel joke.’

Gabriel took the bottle without questioning where she had located such a blessing. He emptied more than half the bottle in one long drink.

The woman watched him with some amusement. ‘They say that you’re guaranteed to leave here with two special memories: one called malaria, the other typhoid. You look after yourself now.’

She gave him a powerful handshake and eased into the maelstrom once more. Gabriel pursed his fingers and shouted after her: ‘Wait. What does this mean? Why do they keep making this gesture at me?’

‘They’re being polite.’ The woman laughed through the closing crowd at his puzzlement. ‘It means “please wait a moment”.’ And with that she was gone.

To his relief, a man with short braids and brightly coloured beads stepped forward, pushing out a placard: ‘White Nile Lodge welcomes Mr Profesor Kobern.’

‘I think that’s meant for me,’ Gabriel said, too relieved to be affronted by the mangling of his name.

‘
Dowuye parik
– you are welcome. My name is Rasta. Follow me.’ The man took Gabriel’s suitcase, his body bent to one side as he struggled to carry it. Gabriel thought to point out the roller wheels, but the moment they stepped into the searing sunlight, he could see that the terrain was hardly suited to in-built coasters.

The car park merged with the road, an array of randomly parked off-road vehicles, most bearing NGO signage, cluttering the area. Two nuns sat chatting with the windows down in a Volkswagen bus, apparently unaware of the oven-like temperature. Rasta led Gabriel to a dilapidated Land Cruiser with tattered seat covers and dusty windows. Gabriel opened the left-hand door, only to find a steering wheel in place. Once he had clambered into his seat on the other side, Rasta directed the vehicle across a treacherous ditch and patch of rough rock before taking to the gravel road. They were driving on the right-hand side of the road, Gabriel noted, wondering what had happened to the influence of the mighty Empire. Though in truth the side of the road was a nominal choice, as motorbikes poured around either side of them like ants. Gabriel squinted up at the sky. The birds – the size of pelicans – continued to circle lazily overhead.