African Titanics

By Abu Bakr Khaal

African Titanics is the untold tale of the African boat people and their desperate exodus to the merciless shores of the Mediterranean. The novel is one of fleeting yet profound friendships, perseverance born of despair and the power of stories to overcome the difficulties of the present. Alternating between fast-paced action and meditative reflection, the novel follows the adventures of Eritrean migrant Abdar. As he journeys north, the narrative mirrors the rhythm of his travels and the tension between life and death, hope and despair.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Darf Publishers
• Release date: Dec 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9781850772835

Book preview

12

Chapter 1

Migration came flooding through Africa, a turbulent swell sweeping everything along in its wake. None of us knew when or how it would end. We simply watched, dumbfounded, as the frenzy unfolded. From all across the continent came mournful lamentations: ‘Africa will soon be no more than a hollow pipe where the wind plays melodies of loss.’

I, and many others beside me, attributed it all to the work of a dark sorcerer emerging from the mists of the unknown and sounding a magnificent bell, whose resounding tolls had stirred Africa’s youth from their long slumber. The depths of the bush began to tremble and shake, and wherever the sound of the bell reached, life would never be the same again. It was a pandemic. A plague. And not a single young soul was left untouched. Dong, dong, dong, pealed the bell, calling one and all to its promised paradise.

On and on it went, infecting our minds with the migration bug. For quite some time – perhaps five years – I managed wilfully to ignore it, relegating it to the ranks of all the other meaningless noises of my daily existence: the thunder of dynamite blasted through Eritrea’s mountains by the Italian workers from De Ponti and the milkman’s cries as he drove his donkey through the dingy alleyways. But after all those years it turned out that the bug had got me anyway and, one day, I woke up wondering how I could have ignored it for so long. From that moment, I was obsessed, tirelessly pursuing the chiming bell wherever it called me. I was plucked from Eritrea, swept across the Sudanese border and on into Libya, in the dark of night. I was lost, and almost perished in the desert, before slipping through into Tunisia. I remember feeling as though I was fated forever to continue my ceaseless roaming, and that I would never again escape the endless road.

Later I thought of the years before my departure as sheltered years, or perhaps confined years, when I was still immune to the bug, clinging earnestly to my convictions. In my youthful naïvety I even penned a play, entitled The Phantom and the Mask. The piece was staged in my town theatre, and I still have a rough copy of it for any who require further proof of my authorship! My play warns of the dangerous ideas that prey on all people alike, regardless of their class or social group. Its premise was simple: a masked demon enters a local village, his voice metallic and the smell of human flesh clinging to his frayed cap and leather shoes as he pushes a cart of dead bodies before him (the cap and shoes are, it turns out, made from human skins). The demon casts a hypnotic spell over the villagers and they are transformed into hideous beasts, submitting mindlessly to his every command. Admittedly, the premise was naïve, crude even – yet it was precisely what guaranteed my protection for so long.

All around me, I sensed the dangerous lure of migration: a photo of a young friend leaning against a gleaming car in a European city, acting as though he owned it when, in reality, he had amounted to no more than a dog-walker; a lucky soul returning from abroad in record time – and in a flashy car – with a beautiful lady on his arm; an epic letter from a man long absent, promising to return and settle for good in his beloved homeland for, in his words, he has amassed enough wealth to start up a bank. The truth of the matter was that he would probably never return, and was shamefully lying about his outrageous wealth. As for those who returned with university degrees, most of whom were penniless, no one paid them any attention. They aroused universal scorn for returning without pretty women or cars.

After much reading and researching, I also discovered the startling similarity between that seductive bell, luring us away from our quiet lives (which still counted as lives, after all) and another bell, owned by a wicked wizard who’d lived in Europe long ago. One day, the story goes, this wizard entered the gates of a European city and began to prowl through its streets, rhythmically striking his bell. At first he seemed harmless, but the ensuing events turned the tale into a tragedy. With the chimes of his bell, the magician enchanted the city’s children. No sooner did they hear it ringing than they submitted with heart and soul, trailing after it in a daze to the forest outside the city, overcome by their longing to be united with it. Even those who froze instantly on the spot, overcome with euphoria, were not spared by the chiming of the bell. The children’s mothers were filled with dread as they watched their children taken from them. But they refused to give up. They fought heroically to save their little ones, and their deeds have been recorded in the annals of history.

Unlike the children, we had no one to shield us from our sorcerer – or at least that was what I thought. But one day I relayed my musings to Malouk, a Liberian whose fate was deeply entangled with my own for quite some time, and whose departure left a deep well of sadness within me that still torments me to this day. ‘I know an African story just like that!’ he beamed. ‘Only difference is that mine is real. It happened not long ago and its heroes are still alive and well.’ He then presented me with a manuscript which he had begun in order to practise his handwriting, filling its pages with sundry anecdotes. He directed me to the story of Loulou Kajamkour – nicknamed Kaji – and his brave struggle to protect his nephew Bouwara from the migration bug.

‘Read this one,’ he instructed me, ‘I just hope my terrible writing doesn’t put you off.’

Malouk had entitled the pages The Adventures of Kaji. They were a harmless jumble of events, he wrote, passed on by those who were afflicted, like him, with a compulsive need to hunt out strange events and paste them together into an ancient, miscellaneous map which they would spread out at late-night gatherings. I began to read:

No sooner had the first ships reached the far shore with their small load of passengers than tales of them spread along the African coast and across the whole continent, travelling with the usual speed of all strange and wonderful stories. Reports of the unlucky ships that had sunk were naturally less welcome, swiftly and wilfully forgotten in favour of happier events and gossip. Friends and relatives of those lost on the boats would continue to watch the reports hopefully for some time, but any chance of learning their fate was soon abandoned. The feverish debate went on and on.

‘The reports are true, no doubt about it … ’ Bouwara, seated in a noisy tavern, insisted to his uncle.

‘Nonsense. Forget about those half-baked stories,’ Kaji interrupted him.

‘Half-baked? Who are you to say they’re half-baked? Listen here, Loulou Kajamkour, maybe it’s time you took some advice for once – but I don’t want to end up in another endless argument with you.’

Kaji had reluctantly agreed to meet his nephew in a remote tavern. In spite of