Anne Chaffey stood with them on the verandah and pointed out the young man in the distance. He stood well away from the clinic, against the perimeter fence, as if he wished to separate himself from those camped in its immediate vicinity. ‘He likes to keep to himself,’ she said, placing a wide-brimmed straw hat on her head. ‘Perhaps it’s because he came here by himself. Bit of a wanderer, too,’ she added, as if they were lucky to find him still there.
‘Goes walkabout, does he?’ laughed Tim. ‘We have fellas like that in Australia; always heading off into the back of beyond.’
The lone figure stood immobile, oscillating in the harsh light, as black and insubstantial as a Giacometti ink drawing, almost transparent in the waves of rising heat, like a wisp of blackened paper dancing above the heat of a bonfire. He was so fragile, he looked to Adrian as if he might suddenly waft upwards into the sky.
‘Stay here, please,’ said Anne, and she set off towards the distant figure, picking her way carefully between those who were sitting and lying in front of the clinic, then marching with a speed that belied her age across the open ground. She spoke to the young man for a minute or two. Finally, they started to walk back towards Adrian and Tim where they waited in the shade of the building. Adrian was reminded of an old couple in an English country garden, walking side by side, taking a quiet afternoon stroll around the grounds after an extended lunch.
The nurse’s companion was soon almost close enough to be properly seen. Adrian studied him with a rising sense of excitement. He had that economy of movement characteristic of those who are starving, as if intent on saving what little energy he had left. One arm hung loosely by his side, while in his other hand he was grasping a long wooden pole, a rough walking staff. He towered over the nurse, his tightly curled black hair making him appear even taller. She barely came up to his chest.
Adrian wondered what he should do. Should he advance and greet them? Should he start talking to Tim, who was now sitting on the edge of the verandah smoking a cigarette? Should he behave as if the stranger were barely of interest to him? Should he look at him, or was it more polite to turn away? He wanted to do the right thing, but out here, in these surroundings, what was the right thing? He had no idea, so he stood there, undecided, with the air of a schoolteacher watching the approach of two naughty children.
Tim moved to his side. ‘Looks little more than a kid.’ Some cigarette smoke drifted in Adrian’s direction, and he flapped a hand irritably.
‘Sorry, mate’ – said more with amusement than apology. ‘Want one?’
Adrian grunted, and briefly shook his head. He detested being called mate, the warm, antipodean familiarity not just enveloping him in its damp embrace, but dragging him down to uncouth colonial levels, and making the heat of their surroundings even more unbearable.
The Ethiopian had his head down as he walked, as if he didn’t want to look at them. Or is it deference? Adrian asked himself. His legs were long, more than half his height. They were the legs of a leopard, almost out of proportion to the rest of his body. He loped across the ground, seemingly without effort, making Anne look slow and ponderous.
The nurse stopped in front of them, and the stranger copied her. ‘Adrian, Tim, this is Mujtabaa.’
‘G’day, mate.’
Adrian muttered something about being pleased to meet him, but realized that his words were unlikely to be understood. He considered shaking hands, but decided against it – probably too English, he told himself. The young man bowed his head three times, slowly and solemnly, and the four of them stood in silence facing each other on the very edge of the desolate crowd outside the whitewashed clinic, incongruous, thrown together by one man’s outrageous and improbable dream.
The Ethiopian was wearing a large, shroud-like, thin cotton cloth around his body like a dress. A smaller piece of the same material half-covered his head, like a hood. Round his waist was a garment like a skirt, tied at the right hip and reaching to his calves. A double-edged dagger, with a blade that must have been about 16 inches in length, hung from his waist, across the front of his body, in an ornate scabbard. He wore several amulets around his neck, and had a goatskin waterbag slung from his left shoulder. His skin and clothes were both tinged with salt, like a fine, white dust.
As if reading Adrian’s thoughts, Anne said: ‘This is how he arrived here from the Danakil. As instructed by you, I haven’t washed him and haven’t changed his clothes. All I’ve done is feed him a little food.’
He didn’t thank her. ‘How thin is he? It’s hard to tell in that thing.’
The nurse looked surprised. ‘His main garment is a shämma.’ After the briefest of pauses, she added: ‘And you don’t have to worry about that, Adrian – he’s very thin. You can see that from his face, his legs, his hands…’
‘Does he wear anything under that?’
‘Under his shämma? Only the sanafil, that skirt-like garment you can see. The sanafil would be his normal attire – that alone, but he’s travelling now. Hence his shämma.’ She sounded like an expat, both formal and rather out of date.
The young man stood before them, tall, straight and unmoving, a little separate from the three Westerners, anchored to the sandy soil, joined to it down the length of his body, so unlike the way the foreigners simply skittered, barely touching, across its surface, like mayflies across a pond on a summer’s evening. He towered over them, his large feet, square and bony, cracked and filthy, rooting him to the earth.
‘Please ask him to take off his shämma.’ He made little effort to hide the impatience in his voice.
‘I can’t do that, Adrian.’
‘In heaven’s name, why not?’
‘We don’t know him. He’d be insulted.’
‘But he’s practically a child.’
‘You have to take my word on this: under that shämma, he’ll be very thin.’
‘He’ll have to take it off some time. He’s no use to us like that.’
There was a heavy silence. Adrian was aware of Tim reaching into his shirt pocket and pulling out a packet of tobacco and some cigarette papers. He started to roll himself another cigarette, leaning nonchalantly against one of the uprights supporting the verandah roof, politely disengaging himself from the conversation.
It struck Adrian that the heat wouldn’t be unusual for him. No wonder he looks so comfortable, he thought. In fact he looked loose, as if he were hanging from a coat-hanger in the cool shadows of a wardrobe. Adrian, tense and awkward, tried to emulate the Australian, to relax and think cool, but it was difficult when his T-shirt was already saturated. It stuck to his body and was dark with sweat beneath his armpits and down his back.
‘How old would you say he is?’ he asked the nurse.
‘It’s hard to tell when someone’s so malnourished, but I’d guess he’s about 16 or 17, possibly younger. He could be 15. People look older when they’re starving.’ She ended their short conversation by turning away and studying those who were sitting and lying on the ground.
Adrian told himself that a 15- or 16-year-old was perfect. ‘So what have you said to him?’
She turned back towards him, regarding him calmly from beneath the shade of her hat, patiently respectful. ‘What you told me to tell him.’
‘Which was?’ Trying to coax it out of her.
‘That we will help his people with food and money if he accompanies us.’
‘And will he?’
‘It’s hard to tell. He doesn’t say much. If you push him he nods his head. But I’m certain he has agreed to help us.’
‘You don’t sound very sure, if you don’t mind my saying so, Anne. I’d hate to have come all the way from London just to have him refuse