The Bedouin Wife

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

CONGO FREE STATE-1892

The man left the heavy backpack on the ground covered with grass and sat on a thick root of a large tree. He watched his men unload the packages carried on their heads and their backs and sit squatting on the floor; he marveled at the endurance of those porters who walked tens of miles with extremely heavy bundles that would exceed what a donkey could withstand. Alain hated the kind of exploitation that he had to subject these men to but to carry out his mission he had no choice. It was impossible to travel the kind of sylvan territories they were crossing with horses or donkeys. His dealings with a manyema wren had allowed him to secure the services of five porters at a reasonable cost, allowing him to carry the tents, supplies, weapons and ammunition and other elements necessary to travel through the tropical jungle and set up camps after each day journey . The men seemed submissive and obeyed the orders Alain gave them through his lieutenant. Alain watched Djamba discussing hard with the manyemas to ensure they gave the vital packages a proper treatment; the man was a native sergeant- major of the French colonial army who had been with him for five years, when fate brought them together in a patrol near Franceville, a city founded in 1875 by the Italian Count Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza in Gabon, the territory that France had obtained in the Congo basin in an international agreement between the European powers, the same one that gave the Belgian king Leopold II most of the territory that was then called Congo Free State and would later form the Belgian Congo.

The small expedition had traveled by river over most of this vast country, many times larger than Belgium, and after three months of sailing and some travel by rail in the area of the Livingstone Falls the group had left behind the Congo River and its tributaries and was now approaching Lake Tanganyika and the border with the colony named German East Africa, its true goal. Alain had mapped the details of the route they had been following and had carefully recorded them in his notebooks, but previously he had coded all relevant data in an encrypted language developed by him for the case where his notes were confiscated by any of the authorities of the sites that they were to transit. His facade was a forest technician who conducted surveys for a Belgian company looking for land suitable for planting rubber trees, that extraordinarily profitable crop originated in Brazil that King Leopold wanted to implant in the Congo State of his property. To this end Alain was carrying forged letters in three languages certifying his status as a researcher ... but Alain Garnier, a lieutenant in the colonial army of the III Third Republic, was actually a French spy.

After a short break and very reluctantly the Frenchman stood up; as soon as he saw him Djamba began to incite the manyemas to collect their packages and get on track. The small group began to walk the short distance that separated them from the great Lake Tanganyika.

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UJIJI- LAKE TANGANYIKA

They descended from the canoes with which they had crossed the majestic lake and went to town, actually a tiny and miserable village, which however was the head of a long road of caravans of Arab merchants who transported all kinds of goods, including the most infamous kinds such as slaves and ivory.

Garnier decided to camp at some distance from the village to prevent getting in contact with the odors and dirt from the native huts. As he looked around the man caught sight of an Arab camp near a tree grove and a stream that flowed into the lake. As ensuring the provision of fresh water not as contaminated as the one coming from the lake was an important task, he placed his camp on the other side of the watercourse. After a few minutes two Arab dressed in their robes and turbans approached the stream and began to observe the small contingent, no doubt in order to guess the intentions of the newcomers. Djamba approached the French explorer with a casual gesture.

“We're being inspected.” He said.

“Not only that. Those sentries are sending a message.”

“That message is that?”

“That our presence is not welcome.”

“What will you do about it?”

“Simply ignore the message. I will not let a bunch of hucksters armed with daggers and muskets drive us away.”

“But they are numerous and have many Bantu servers.”

“Even so we´ll stay.”

“At least let me talk to their servers. I'll try to explain that we are in transit and are not interested in their activities.”

“Go if you want. Nothing is lost with it.”

Djamba crossed the flow of water through the narrowest part and approached one of the black men that judging by his outfit looked like an important subordinate of the Arabs, who followed him with his eyes. Alain smiled pleased by the spirit of initiative of his follower. In fact the French officer had unlimited confidence in his deputy, a man of great resources and knowledgeable about the customs of the countries in Central Africa.

The next day Djamba clapped his hands in front of Garnier´s tent in order to wake him. When the Frenchman finally answered he said.

“Lieutenant, it's already five o'clock.”

“Well, well, I'm coming. I told you not to call me lieutenant until we get back to Franceville. Have the men rekindle the fire to prepare breakfast.”

They were working in the camp for a couple of hours rearranging the packages according to the needs of the next few days and mending the tents damaged by the prolonged use and contact with vegetation in countless previous camps. Alain proceeded to clean and condition the rifles and shotguns and preparing cartridges for the latter.

“We are running out of meat.” Djamba told him. “You should go hunting to replenish our stock.”

“All right. Tell Tswamba to be prepared. We´ll leave after noon taking advantage that today is not so hot.”

Tswamba was one of the manyemas, with a special ability as a scout and an instinct for finding hunting prey.

After an early lunch Tswamba and Garnier set off into the forest north of Ujiji, following the shore of Lake Tanganyika. To do this they had to cross the stream and get closer to the Arab camp with its white pointed tents; the Lieutenant saw the two sentries armed with muskets following their activities, particularly attentive when they saw that the approaching men were also armed. Alain decided to ignore once again the implied threats looking away from the men on guard. Involuntarily his eyes scanned the tents and suddenly focused on a slender female figure dressed entirely in white; the French knew enough of Arab garb and immediately realized that by the richness of the dress she was a lady of importance in her social environment; squinting Alain tried to observe her face but the midday sun at its zenith in the equatorial location dazzled him preventing to achieve his purpose. He felt someone touching his arm and realized that Tswamba was cautiously pulling his sleeve pointing at the two guards who were approaching in a hostile manner.

Garnier and his companion continued their course and the two Arabs returned to their control location. The Frenchman was visibly affected by the fleeting feminine appearance and his attitude showed it very clearly.

“Beautiful.”Said Tswamba.

Surprised by the comment Alain turned to his companion.

“What did you say?”

“The Arab woman. She is beautiful.”

“Could you see her well?” The question was actually rhetoric.

The manyema nodded.

Garnier smiled once again both surprised and pleased. He recalled with contempt those imbeciles in Paris who wondered seriously if blacks have soul.

Garnier and Tswamba spent almost two full days exploring the lakeshore and surroundings seeking adequate game prey to provide food to the small contingent during the subsequent days. Both men flayed and cut the slices of meat from a young antelope to make sure they would not carry unnecessary burdens to the camp and then started back. As they were approaching the stream near which their group had camped Tswamba pointed to the opposite shore.

“The Arabs. Gone!” Exclaimed with his limited vocabulary.

Alain felt a pinch in his gut. Since he had glimpsed her in passing he had made a point of looking at the face of the young Arab lady and now she had vanished into the jungle. The man already knew the customs of nomadic caravans of Arab merchants and thought that the chances to meet the woman again in the vastness of the African savannah were almost nil. It would have been only a momentary reverie.

Tswamba took him again out of his abstraction and the Frenchman followed his steps toward the place where the Arabs had once raised their tents and was now completely desolate. The manyema pointed at marks on the floor.

“There! Elephants.”

Alain looked at the place his companion was pointing and saw on the loose soil the unmistakable marks left by elephant tusks that had undoubtedly been stacked on the floor before.

“So they are ivory traffickers!” Muttered to him.

In the depths of his psyche Garnier had trouble reconciling the pure image of the woman that his eye had caught with the well known predatory activity of elephant hunters.