SS Glasgow Castle 22 Chapter Twenty Two

We flew over the sea at night. It lay unseen somewhere within the black void, many miles under our brightly lit flying bus. I was hoping to see the sun rise, but fell asleep soon after the in-flight meal. When I woke up the aircraft was casting a spindly, flickering shadow onto a layer of light grey clouds, and Kross told me we were already over Europe.

We landed at half past six in the morning local time. Paris, France smelled of burnt kerosene and consisted of long concrete ramps and a single sour Frenchman who inspected our pa.s.sports and tickets and directed us to the transit lounge. We had a four-hour wait before our next flight. The lounge featured a bar which featured yet another Frenchman, a discouraged-looking character smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper; his remaining hair had been carefully a.s.sembled into a Napoleonic lock valiantly struggling for survival among the vast open steppes. Kross bought coffee and pastries from him while I seated myself on an uncomfortable stool welded to a circular table.

I looked round while sipping my coffee, and saw the lounge also featured a conspicuously quiet Middle Eastern family and a couple of suited, self-contained businessmen. There was a notable shortage of French women. I had hoped to see some. I'd gathered we'd be stuck in the lounge throughout our wait because Kross wanted to touch bases with someone he knew, someone who worked at the airport.

"Is it a woman?" I asked, after we'd dealt with the coffee and eating the greasy pastries. Kross said:

"No, it's a guy. Met him through work. We're friends."

"Good friends?"

"Fairly good," he said. "Be nice to him. He'll be flying our plane."

"I've always wanted to meet a real pilot."

"Now you will."

The advertised pilot finally showed up just half an hour before our scheduled departure - I'd already begun to consult my watch at shrinking intervals. He was wearing an impressive dark blue uniform with a number of gold stripes on the sleeve, and a white peaked cap as prescribed for those who make their living high above the clouds. He had an unpleasant, pinched mouth and hard black eyes that registered and filed away whatever they saw without any emotion. He carried an elegant flat black leather case.

"Raymond," said Kross. He p.r.o.nounced it the French way, with accent on the second syllable.

"Ca va?" said Raymond. They shook hands. Kross said:

"This is Oscar Hansen." I was registered and filed away with a nod.

"I have to hurry," Raymond said to Kross. "I'll see you again in a week on the way back, correct?"

"Correct," said Kross. Raymond f.u.c.ked off. That was it. That's how I met my first real pilot.

"Now what?" I said. Kross shrugged.

"Now we wait."

Raymond's plane turned out to be a an Air Ivoire Boeing 707 slightly older than myself. A few pale rays of sunshine filtered through the clouds as we walked to board it; they gave the rivets a gleam of competence. It felt very much like a plane inside, the fuselage defining the shape of the walls curving around the barren, businesslike pa.s.senger cabin. The African stewardesses grinned far wider and with more sincerity than the African American stewardesses I had seen in action, and that was when I felt for the first time I was about to enter a different world.

Raymond knew his stuff: the flying dinosaur seemed to leap into the air barely seconds into its takeoff run. I even fancied I detected a bit of extra dash solely for the purpose of impressing his pa.s.senger friends. He certainly didn't need to bank it so sharply the moment the wheels were up - for a brief moment the plane was standing on its wingtip just a couple of thousand feet above a busy motorway.

Once we cleared the clouds, it became very quiet inside - practically all the aircraft noise was restricted to the thick hiss of the ventilators. I had secured the window seat, but the view on display wasn't inspiring: pale, colorless sunshine dispersing on a sea of light grey fleece. I surprised Kross slightly by refusing a shot of the free booze freely dispensed along with the morning coffee. He opted for a double brandy himself.

"It's a long flight," he told me. I said:

"That's all right. I had plenty of sleep. I intend to see the sights. Just tell me a few things - what's this hotel we're staying at?"

"Hotel Ivoire. Pride of Abidjan. It's practically a mini-city. It's got a casino, a cinema, a supermarket, several swimming pools, a dozen tennis courts, and a f.u.c.king ice-skating rink specially put in for visiting Canadians."

"Must be expensive. I mean I do appreciate all the nice things in life, but maybe the travelling budget could've been a little smaller if -"

"We have a special deal," Kross interrupted. "And I'll tell you this: when you're out to do some important business, you stay at a good hotel. It buys you plenty of respect."

"Well, thanks for your wisdom," I said. "What's the special deal? And how did you get it? Another pilot in the right place?"

"That's right. I know the manager. I know quite a few people in this part of the world."

"One wonders how you got to meet all these interesting people," I said. Kross wriggled on his seat to make himself more comfortable. He said:

"Well in this case, I set up the hotel security. It's probably the safest hotel in this part of Africa, and they'll be very happy to have us as guests. You'll see."

"I don't see why we have to stay there for a whole week when the whole business will be over within three days," I said.

"Raymond's flying back in a week," he said, eyes shut. "Raymond's a fine pilot, and we stick with him. We do our stuff, then hang around and relax a little. Celebrate discreetly in the world-renowned hotel bar. Now shut up and let me sleep."

So I did. Matter of fact, I shut my eyes too and had a good think about what Kross had said. I was supposed to make the cross-border trip on the third day. That left another three days till departure date, plenty of time, a time that – according to Joe - would be particularly dangerous.

A couple of hours slid by; then the view below changed. The clouds broke to reveal a red and brown sea of rocks. It stretched as far as my eye could reach, from its vantage point six miles above: a terrible stone plain, its only landmarks being the occasional boulder or cairn large enough to throw a shadow on the ground that could be noticed from a height of eight kilometers. I decided that if h.e.l.l existed, it would look like that: a desert as dead as Mars, baked reddish brown by a sun suspended in the empty sky.

I liked it. I found the desert so beautiful that I didn't notice Kross had woken up, and was startled to suddenly feel his breath on my neck.

"That's the Sahara," he informed me in a tone implying I didn't know what I was looking at. I said:

"Really? When I was a little kiddie, I imagined it to be a sea of sand. Did you have a nice sleep?"

"Not enough," he said, and leaned back and closed his eyes. I went back to looking at the desert.

He woke up again when the duty free trolley arrived with a joyful clatter. He insisted we purchase the allowable booze and cigarettes ('They'll be useful as gifts'). He supervised me as I filled out my immigration form. He informed me that he would be doing all the talking with the immigration ('Just hand your pa.s.sport over when asked. Anyone gets curious, we're on the way to visit the Komoe national park; it's a game reserve up north.')

"How much do I owe you for the consultation?" I asked when he'd finished. He stared at me and I didn't like the look in his eye. So I winked at him just in case, and turned back to the window.

When I finally saw the sand dunes, they were already painted a burnt orange by the setting sun. The plane started losing alt.i.tude soon thereafter; by the time I spotted my first tree darkness had spread over the ground below. There seemed to be a different quality to the air hissing out of the ventilators.
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We landed in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere: Raymond showed his stuff, setting the plane down so gently I wasn't fully aware we were on the ground until the engines reversed thrust. I also wasn't aware that I had been holding my breath: now that the plane was rolling along the runway, I exhaled with a long, luxurious hiss.

We had arrived: I was in Africa, for the first time in my life.