Into Thick Air (37 page)

“I am the English teacher of Tadjoura. You can stay right here—many
people sleep on the beach every night. You can leave your bicycle in one of the stores.”

And can you recommend a place to eat?

“Why don't you just come with me?” He checks his digital watch. “Three to six. It is almost time to eat. Every day it is two or three minutes later.” He shows me the contents of the sack—
samboussas
, crepes, and
khat
—then brings me home.

 

HATKE LIVES fifty yards from the sea. He shoos the goats out of an alley, opens a narrow steel door, climbs a dim flight of stairs to his apartment, and flicks on a fluorescent ceiling light. The flat is mostly empty. The walls are the color of cactus.

“I have just moved into this place. Very big, but my wife and baby are coming this weekend, from France.”

Hatke, unlike his wife, is Afar. He spreads dinner out on a floor tray between big foam cushions. Through the tall windows opening onto the balcony comes the Arabic mantra that means the fast is over. Hatke fishes a Coke out of a “Nice Day” ice bucket and presents it with a flourish.

“To help you return to your environment.”

We dig in. My manners belie my appearance as a simple bicycle brute, and Hatke invites me to spend the night. He's thirty-two, about the same age as the woman who walks in without a knock. “Hemeda, my housemate.”

She sits with legs crossed, revealing beaded ankle bracelets on skin like polished walnut. Without a word she sets to assembling a water pipe.

Hatke says, “Ninety percent—no, 95 percent—of the ladies in Djibouti smoke the
sheesha
. It's how we keep them off the street.”

I admit that I'd had no idea.

“Yes, Djibouti is anonymous.” He rises to put on a Waylon Jennings cassette, then rifles through some magazines. “But look, here is a picture of a bride from Tadjoura.”

It's a
National Geographic
photo of a woman behind a veil of gold bangles. Hemeda looks up while packing the
sheesha
bowl with Two Apples Tobacco. She ignites the coals that sit atop the bowl, and hands me
the four-foot-long embroidered tube. The water in the glass vase bubbles and cools the sweet smoke. Hatke pulls out a bundle of
khat
wrapped in cellophane.

‘How much would you like? It is for us. The women usually do not chew—they have to work! To look after the house, the children.”

Hemeda doesn't know English, yet chooses this moment to look after the
khat
, covering it with a damp towel—after I'd pinched off some leaves and stuffed a fair wad in my mouth. As with espresso, it takes only a few minutes to feel the warm electric jingle. After a half hour, it seems that pedaling out of a lava pit wasn't so hard after all.

A man in a skirt limps in, a crumpled gentleman with a spot of gray in his hair.

“This is Kamil. He works at the hospital, with the microscope.”

Kamil puts down his cane and makes himself comfortable on the cushions before pulling out his own
khat
. The last Coke is poured, and Hatke heads to the balcony and lowers a bucket on a rope while yelling to someone. For thirty seconds there is nothing but the sounds of Tadjoura—the
oomp!
of a kicked soccer ball, the yowl of cats, the lick of waves—then Hatke pulls up a bucket of refreshments, courtesy of a tiny store on the street below that keeps a running tab of his thirst.

Kamil offers me an especially leafy branch, and I wonder: Will
khat
keep me up at night? Hatke says, “If you believe it will, it probably will. If not, it will not.”

You can't beat a drug whose effects are largely up to you. On top of that,
khat
allows me to hold two simultaneous conversations. Kamil is describing how to stain
cocci
bacteria for tuberculosis, while Hatke fills me in on
khat
delivery.

“It comes to Djibouti Town at half past eleven by plane, and reaches Tadjoura by speedboat at half past three.”

Every day?

“The day there is no
khat
will be the day there is a revolution in Djibouti.”

What does the Koran say about
khat
?

Hatke contemplates a response while gazing up at a ceiling papered with
a psychedelic motif like a TV test pattern. “I wouldn't say the Koran
encourages khat
, but it
does
encourage spirituality, which is an effect of
khat
.”

I feel the spirit—tingling, behind my ears. Hemeda demurely nibbles a modest clipping. Her thick wavy hair is uncovered. Between her bare feet and smooth ankles is a
National Geographic
opened to the ravenous jaws of a great white shark.

“In general,” says Hatke, “men buy
khat
and ladies sell it. A typical day's chew runs about nine hundred francs. That's more than many people have, so the ladies sell it on credit. You must pay at the end of the month. People fall behind, but in Djibouti we always run behind. For my teaching I am only paid up to July!”

Another friend enters—in a skirt, with
khat
in hand. Nobody knocks. You simply walk in with a
Peace be with you
.

“This is Ali. I think he might be able to find you a diving mask and arrange a boat to Sables Blancs tomorrow. Unless you want to go to Dittalou. This is a very nice place. At Dittalou you will see trees. It's cold.”

Dittalou is a village in the Forêt du Day, perched on the cloud mountain I'd passed this afternoon. It sounds wonderful, I say—but how are the people?

“In all the Afar region you will be welcome.”

They certainly were welcoming at Lac Assal, I say—but what of the old stories of the Afar who kill any stranger?

“Yes, in the past the people were very reluctant to come under colonial power. They thought that the people coming from the outside were going to destroy their way of life. After all, they came with their armies.”

With this news I understand Nesbitt's dilemma as a man who failed to see that the Afar were brutal in response to his own brutality. He could not have imagined an evening like this, when Hemeda begins singing a beautiful ditty, with eyes closed and head rocking. Kamil keeps time, slapping a box of Royals cigarettes. Meanwhile, we destroy an entire bush. The floor is littered with naked stems. Hemeda finishes her song and Hatke inserts another cassette. The tape deck wails,
Something's burning. . . . And I think it's love.

It's the
sheesha
and the Royals. When the smokes run out the bucket goes over the side. Hatke orders the exact number of cigarettes he
desires, seven. They arrive at the window in a clever origami folded from a Singapore newspaper. Another call to prayer wafts in through the same window.

More visitors: a woman, also named Hemeda, with the two-year-old nephew of Hatke, also named Hatke. The young dumpling finds and organizes a checker game into piles of red and black pieces.

“A problem in Djibouti,” says Hatke, “is our failure to recognize the intelligence of small children and to help develop it.” A minute later, while nobody's looking, mini-Hatke tries a suck on the
sheesha
. Although my glasses are streaked with sweat, nice-ankle Hemeda dramatically shivers and turns off the fan. Out of the blue, Kamil says, “I want a Harley-Davidson. How much do they cost?”

I say, I don't know—maybe $5,000?

“No chance.” He pulls out his special bundle. “Try this. It's the bourbon of
khat
. The best. Look: you can tell by the color of the leaves.”

We chew and mentally ruminate until somebody pops in and steals Kamil away. Hatke explains, “They need him at the hospital, for a blood glucose test. No matter where he is, they find him.”

Nice-ankle Hemeda and I share a cushion as an armrest. She flips through a
National Geographic
—Romania, Greenland, Mummies—then stops at an advertisement and pantomimes to me, What is this?

It's a woman with her arm around her bashful yet beaming husband. The copy reads, “I'm proud of him because he asked about Viagra.”

Hemeda smiles. I helplessly smile back and notice for the first time she has a lazy eye askew. It's attractive in its suggestion that parts of Hemeda are beyond her control, but a distraction, too, when I need to explain an erection drug with my Afar vocabulary of
water, please,
and
thank you.
I consider using my bicycle tire pump as a visual aid, but instead seek the help of Hatke. He explains. Hemeda titters and flips the page and tries another picture on me. “Amphibian Frenzy,” it says. “Sex in the Mud.”

I divert her attention to the toddler, who's disassembling the fan with a screwdriver. She alerts Hatke, who gently disarms the boy.

An hour passes. Maybe two.

Perhaps, says Hatke, it's time for a stroll.

It's 1 AM, and every door and shutter in Tadjoura is open to the gulf breeze. The men are slapping dominoes at coffee shops and the women are still at their
khat
tables. Ramadan is not the ritual suffering I'd imagined.

 

HEAVYWEIGHT CLOUDS subdue the morning sun. In the distance, a mist washes over the mountains; in the apartment, Hemeda washes my pants in a basin. I won't venture out wearing shorts, so Hatke gives me a skirt. The
futah
is breezy, better than pants, but I still feel like a Chinese in a cowboy hat when I slink out for a coffee.

I shouldn't have worried. Although it's 10 AM, the beach is littered with dozens of people still curled in sleep, under blankets and blessed by the overcast morning. Along the waterfront, every door and shutter is closed. The empty lanes are etched with hopscotch lines. No coffee.

Back at Hatke's, Ali is waiting to take me diving, but first we visit Kamil at the hospital. It's a clinic, really, just three small white buildings around a planter of periwinkle. Kamil's delighted to show off his centrifuge, refrigerator, microscope, and illustrated volume of unpleasant microbes.

“In Tadjoura,” he says with understandable if misplaced enthusiasm, “we have everything!” By way of proof, he puts a stained slide on his scope.

“Look at this—woo! The red is cocci bacteria. Tuberculosis. Two people died in the last year. It is problem in Tadjoura.”

That's not the only problem—there's equipment for other diseases, like the brucellosis of unpasteurized goat's milk, “but we have not the chemicals to run the machine.” It sits under a dusty shroud, waiting for what may or may not come.

But Djibouti is a country of waiting. A fiberglass fishing skiff takes us to Sables Blancs, smack-smack on the waves and into a wind that has blown away most of the clouds. Lacking a diving mask, Ali plans to sit under a palm and wait for somebody better equipped to come by. I've packed a lunch, but cannot bear to eat it while Ali fasts. I silently decide that I, too, will fast. Together we wait while the sea rocks over the shadow of the reef I may or may not see. The quick clouds are very white. Nearly three hours later, a French family shows up and loans me a mask. Under the waves, big-lipped polka-dotted sea bass are waiting for me.

Shortly after our return to Tadjoura, a boat faster than ours skims into the harbor. It's 5:30 PM, and the citizens are not merely awake but surging toward the pier. They're women trotting out to take delivery of the
khat
, which apparently arrives later during Ramadan. The sedate ladies begin baying like a pack of hounds as the thirty sacks are tossed one at a time. No money is exchanged; they know who and how much. The women hustle back to their street corners, divide it among their sellers, and the rest takes care of itself.

No
khat
for me. Yet. I wander in my
futah
and made-in-China flip-flops I bought to complete my unconvincing metamorphosis. Near a waterfront mosque, a circle of men young and old sit around a blanket heaped with
samboussas
, flatbread, and empty cups. They're yakking like woodpeckers, waiting for the chant that will break their fast. For once I share their hunger, their waiting, which really isn't so different from pedaling all day with the promise of a heavenly camp in the evening.

It comes:
God is great
. The men immediately offer me a place at their sidewalk feast with a sweep of the arm that means, “What is ours, is yours.” I'm dealt a sizable mound of food and served an orange drink that only later will I see is poured from an old oil jug.

The meal is a quickie, to be resumed after prayers. They rise and invite me to join them. As soon as I'm through the door my awkwardness reveals me as a non-Muslim, but instead of booting me they assign me a helper. With sign language he says: Shoes off here. Spigots for washing here. He holds up a single finger:
First
, wash the hands. Then the face. The arms. Ears, neck, mouth. While finishing up with my feet and calves, my
futah
slips up and is gently tugged back down with a finger-wag meaning: no bare knees, please.

The mosque is little more than fluorescent bulbs and ceiling fans, a wall niche indicating the direction of Mecca, and floor tiles that show where your feet go. I stand and mimic my neighbors. Arms crossed, then arms out with palms up. Drop to the knees. Then the ultimate submission: forehead to the floor. Three repetitions of this, and I give clumsy thanks not to God but to the Afar. For their kindness. With equal sincerity I pray that my
futah
doesn't fall off.

Out on the beach, the long night begins. Goats scratch their flanks against the moonlit palms. While the cats fight over the fish skeletons overflowing a dumpster, the ladies briskly bring in the cash and the men just as quickly spend it on teeny coffees and
khat
.

Back at Hatke's, I'm startled that he already knows of my visit to the mosque.