Tim looked across at Adrian. ‘Reckon this is still such a good idea?’ Because of the noise, Adrian didn’t hear the question. The pilot raised his eyes skywards, turned back to the controls and, almost with reluctance, released the brake. The engine revved louder and the aircraft started taxiing towards the end of the landing strip. The Ethiopian had closed his eyes and was now gabbling away in a panic-stricken voice. Adrian looked at Anne, questioning.
‘I believe he’s praying,’ she said. ‘To Wak.’
‘Who’s Wak?’
‘He’s their Sky God.’
Tim laughed. ‘That’s kind of appropriate. Maybe I should pray to him too.’
The aircraft bumped along the packed earth, quickly picking up speed, before lifting into the air. The young man opened his eyes. What had happened? He turned, almost as an afterthought, and looked out of the window. As the small township rapidly disappeared beneath them, he started to wail as if his death was now imminent and some evil spirit was already calling out his name. Anne spoke to him, patting his hands, trying to reassure him with smiles and words, until finally, in despair and totally spent, he sank forward in his seat, his chin on his chest and, looking as if it was all too much for him and he no longer had the strength to care what happened, he closed his eyes. He didn’t move for the rest of the flight.
The plane headed south, and for a while the only sound was the steady drone of the engine. There was a feeling of relief in the cockpit now that the young man had quietened down. Adrian twisted round in his seat and spoke to Anne: ‘Is he asleep?’
‘I think he may be.’
‘Does he need a blanket?’
She raised her eyebrows, as if surprised by his concern. ‘I think he’s all right, Adrian. Thank you.’
Turning further round, and putting an arm up on the back of his seat, he said: ‘You know I don’t expect anything of you, Anne, except to keep – what’s his name?’
‘Mujtabaa.’
‘That’s right, Mujtabaa. Just to keep him alive. That’s all.’ He stared at her for slightly longer than was necessary.
She looked small in the back of the plane next to her tall neighbour, like a schoolgirl. Adrian thought she could almost have been one of Emma’s friends if it weren’t for the white hair and the fine lines on the tanned face.
‘Yes, that’s quite clear.’
And it went through his mind that in fact no one was going to give a damn if the young man died. Two thousand deaths or two thousand and one deaths. Four thousand deaths, or four thousand and one deaths. If you were honest with yourself, if you weren’t a hypocrite, it was surely immaterial. But he had sufficient sense to keep this thought to himself.
The nurse looked away, and gazed out of the window. Her face betrayed no emotion. Adrian looked briefly at Tim, maybe hoping for support, but the pilot’s face remained determinedly expressionless.
His eyes wandered, but there was nothing on which they could settle. Nature had split its canvas in two, the desert and the sky. Each reverberated in the heat, gleaming white where they met, then changing to a cobalt blue overhead and a drab yellow at their feet. He knew that, thousands of years ago, the landscape beneath them had been covered by forests, but now, after centuries of human abuse, it had been worn out, ravaged and discarded. It had the air of a deserted campsite. A small group of refugees was heading along a deeply furrowed track in the direction of the mountains. He wondered if any of them would know Mujtabaa and what they would think if they realized he was now flying through the sky, hundreds of feet above their heads, in the company of three white people.
Seeing him look out of the window, Tim said, ‘Wouldn’t think it was the wet season, would you?’
‘Is it?’
‘From June to September, that’s when the long rains fall – the meher. It’s also called the hungry season, because everyone is waiting for the harvest to come. The short rains are in March and April – the belg – but we haven’t had those for three or four years now. That’s half the problem – the lack of rain. The other half is the civil war. There’s little or no grass left for their herds, and they say next year will be even worse.’
The pilot broke the long silence that followed. ‘So what are you going to do with this bloke in London?’
‘Keeping that to ourselves for the moment.’
‘Sure.’
Adrian relented a little. ‘He’s helping us with our fundraising efforts. We’re hoping to capitalize on the success and publicity of Live Aid.’ He didn’t want to reveal too much. He remembered Anne telling him Tim also did flights for the other charities – it would be a disaster if they found out what he was up to before it got under way. ‘Fact is, its influence is waning, and people need to be reminded of what’s happening here.’
‘So long as you’re not going to inflict another Do they know it’s Christmas? on us. If I hear that song one more time, think I’ll go barmy as a bandicoot.’
‘What we’re trying to do will make a real difference. I’m sure of it.’
Tim changed the subject. ‘We should be back in Addis in under two hours.’
Adrian nodded. Again, he glanced back to study the features of the young man. He was now leaning against the side of the cockpit, his head, with its chaotic mass of tightly curled hair, resting on the window, his skeletal frame almost enveloped in dusty robes. If he’d been holding a scythe, he’d have made a good Grim Reaper at a fancy-dress party. Adrian smelt a distinctive mixture of sweat, dirt and illness. He wondered if it was the smell of death, the young man decomposing before their eyes. Concerned, he shouted back to Anne: ‘Do you think he’ll be OK?’
She leant forward so she didn’t have to shout. ‘This would be a nasty shock to anyone’s immune system, but especially someone who isn’t well.’
Adrian suspected she was avoiding answering his question. ‘But do you think he’ll survive?’ he insisted. ‘Is he healthy?’
‘I wouldn’t have agreed to this if I didn’t think he’d survive, Adrian.’ She sounded quite frosty. ‘As to whether or not he’s healthy, I find that almost impossible to answer. Being the weight he is, he’s scarcely healthy, yet I wouldn’t necessarily describe him as unhealthy. He doesn’t look well, obviously, but then he’s young, so…’ She left her sentence unfinished, before adding: ‘So far as I can tell, he’s not ill. If he had malaria it would be obvious enough, or TB, which is the main killer amongst these people. But there are other diseases which are harder to detect in the early stages.’
Despite Adrian’s worries about the young man attracting undue attention at Addis Ababa airport, no one gave him more than a cursory glance. Since the famine had attracted worldwide attention two years earlier, the capital had been besieged by relief-agency workers, government officials, and the well-educated, well-fed, well-off and well-meaning middle classes of the Western world. Famine was a booming business. Even celebrities and Hollywood film stars, looking appropriately gloomy, earnest and sympathetic, could be spotted at regular intervals flying in or out of the country. To see an actual victim of the famine was far less interesting.
Inside the terminal, a noisy air-conditioning system was trying, unsuccessfully, to cope with the heat. The paint on the ceiling was flaking, and mould was creeping up the walls. A bored and listless throng shuffled aimlessly around the building as if they had no plans to go anywhere, but were more intent on finding a place to lie down and have a quiet doze.
Tim’s office was in a Nissan hut at the back of the terminal. The raised floor was covered in linoleum, badly worn