The camera was less than brilliant on this subject. Africa does not fall within the gravitational field of democracy, full stop. It is simply implied that a gulf spanning a thousand light-years cannot be forded like a drainage ditch. The ordinary viewer might easily come away thinking that things are as they are because that is how we want them, because we love famine and war. There are other factors: government, religion, traditions, the climate and more besides. All these things are oppressive. In Algeria, the camera was more blunt, it surveyed the terrain and it named some of the cruellest and most ridiculous overlords on the planet together with one of their henchmen, a certain hajj Saïd, aka Bouzahroun, aka ‘Le Chanceux’ — ‘Lucky’.
And so our two heroes — whose names are Ahmadou and Abu-Bakr — begin their journey for Tarifa, the gateway to the promised land. It is dawn, the desolate plains are still shivering from the nightmares of the waning darkness. Pale shadows gather in the lean-to shack. There is a whispered conversation. Suddenly, a spotlight rips the darkness. The camera captures the fateful moment. What is gripping about all great adventures is that at some point, whether anticipated or unexpected, everything topples into the unknown. The women pause as they pound millet, the children shake their heads to ward off sleep, the dogs stop in their tracks, the old men choke back their nostalgia, and everyone listens. We watch the shadows as they move off and disappear beyond the blinding dazzle of the horizon. There is not a word, not a gesture, not a sigh, but from the distance, from the far distance comes the otherworldly rumble of the African continent.
The first few kilometres move quickly. The Sahel, which spans several million square kilometres beneath the sun, remains unruffled. Further along, the group clambers aboard an antediluvian boneshaker that weaves its way between the gnus and the antelopes. It is filled to bursting and falling apart.
There is a stop for something to eat in a boui-boui in the middle of nowhere. They wolf down bucketsful of dust, they talk to lubricate their throats, they do their reckoning: a hundred kilometres lie behind them, ahead, in the blazing heat there are 3,900 kilometres, maybe more since it’s impossible to know in advance how often they will lose their way. They laugh because what they are attempting is insane, because failure is unthinkable. The barman spits and goes back to his calabashes. The group sets off again. The camera pans across the horizon. In the distance, near a herd of buffalo, a sandstorm blows up. The temperature rises to melting point. People cover their faces, they avoid breathing. It is a senseless futile precaution since the sand in the Sahel is wily, it gets everywhere. In an old issue of Science et Vie, I read that it can travel as far as the Amazon, which gives you some idea. They stop to rest in the shade of a rocky outcrop bizarrely sculpted by millennia of scorching sandstorms. Here they spend the night, they have nightmares, the whole savannah is a distant cry that comes from the bowels of the earth to be taken up by millions of hungry throats. Several days later, at daybreak, a caravanserai appears on the horizon. It is beautiful! Guided only by ancient mysteries, it is heading north. Our group joins the caravan. They chat with the cheikh over glasses of mint tea. He is a Kel Ghella, a nobleman who can trace his lineage back to ancient upheavals. His face is covered by his alasho, all that is visible are his glassy eyes which look as though they are inhabited by a large sandworm.
— Are you heading north?
— Yes, to Tamanrasset, the Assihar begins there at the next moon.
— Can we travel with you?
— This is our route, but the Sahara belongs to those who know it.
— So we can come?
— If that is the will of Allah.
— What is Assihar? asks the camera.
— It is a festival that takes place once a year for all the Tuareg peoples, the Azdjer, the Ahaggar, the Aouellimiden, the Mourines, the Imohaghs, from the seven corners of the earth they come, from Mauritania and Sudan, from Algeria and Senegal, from Libya, Niger, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina-Faso, from as far away as the distant empire of Tibesti!
— It must be magnificent!
— It is tradition, we barter, we talk, we celebrate our ancestors. We come from el djanoub, from the south, from Timbuktu, and you?
— From Mali.
— And you?
— From Paris.
— What do you have to barter?
— Nothing, a little hope, a little friendship whenever possible, we are going to Bordj Badji Mokhtar to visit a dear friend.
— Are your papers in order?
— Eh… why?
— The Algerians are wary of foreigners, they do not like us, they kill us whenever they can or else they demand twenty bales of rare documents and a king’s ransom.
— So what do you do, how do you manage?
— The Sahara is our home for as far as it extends beneath the sun, we need no papers, they are the ones who should have to tell us who they are, where they are from.
The caravan is making steady progress. The camels bray just for the pleasure of hearing their voices, the Sahara has long since ceased to amaze them. Travelling alongside them, our heroes become more confident, Ahmadou and Abu-Bakr regain their strength. They make friends with young lanky Tuareg men born on the move and hence unfamiliar with the changing world. They talk to them about Europe, about the pleasures of life, the joy of love and of things that an eternal nomad can scarcely imagine: about the métro, social security, sports cars, snow, cinemas, Christmas holidays, microchips. But they are talking simply for the pleasure of talking, no one needs to understand. Question: What do they barter over there, in Europe? Curious, the camera has drawn nearer. Answer: There, there is everything, you don’t want for anything.
At the Algerian border, our friends go their separate ways.
— You have arrived, my brothers, we must travel on to Tamanrasset.
— But we are going to Bordj Badji Mokhtar. Where is it? We can’t see anything.
— It is right before your eyes.
— But there is nothing here.
— It is a mere two days’ walk towards the west.
— Thank you, noble cheikh.
— If the soldiers challenge you, tell them you are going to meet hajj Saïd le Chanceux, they will escort you and give you food and drink.
Bordj Badji Mokhtar — or BBM as we northerners call it — is a large town which grew from nothing and grew too quickly. It is rampant chaos: houses half-finished or half-demolished, streets little better than rutted dirt tracks, ramshackle trucks, camels on their last legs, roving goats, rabid dogs, corrupt cops, all covered over with thick dust imported from the north.
The meeting point is a depot belonging to the aforementioned hajj Saïd, aka Bouzahroun, aka ‘Lucky’, a man who is never seen without his night-vision goggles and his state-of-the-art mobile phone. He reminds me of sidi Saïd Bouteflika — also nicknamed ‘Lucky’ — the brother and special adviser to the president of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, a man who is never seen without his ski goggles and his walkie-talkie, but I suppose it’s not a crime to look like someone else. The camera, which has been roving around the town, quickly finds out that the mega-rich tycoon is a former terrorist who plotted with the high command and, for his exceptional services, was awarded a monopoly on human trafficking from BBM as far as Bamako and Niamey. Sidi Saïd has a fleet of a hundred trucks, a private militia numbering a thousand pistoleros, and, in case of war, has the right to mobilise the army and the customs service. When he is planning a particularly big coup, he calls one of a list of numbers in Algiers until he reaches the top. The camera did not hesitate, it was determined to discover what was really going on. It got its answer from an old man sitting lazily at the foot of a half-built wall playing an imzad — a violin with a single string stretched across a turtle shell. The camera pulled no punches.