Caravan

 

The general manager asked me to come over one day.

"Mr. Andrzej, take a camera and take photos of our properties for the catalog.

" "But, boss, I'm not a professional. I don't know if I can do it well.

" "You shoot the whole film, something will happen. Take the Land Cruiser and leave tomorrow.

" "OK."

The next day, I charged the camera, collected the keys from the dispatcher, and set off. I photographed a few nearby properties, and then, bypassing Al Qatrun, I entered the desert, heading for the town of Madrusa. The direction was indicated by a multi-trail marked by car wheels, so I moved without any problems. After passing a group of dunes, I spotted a distinctive palm tree in the distance, its plume of leaves hanging picturesquely downwards. For those unfamiliar with the trail, this palm tree was the most important signpost, indicating that we should turn north.

I didn't notice that the sky had darkened. Only a prolonged clap of thunder, lasting perhaps ten minutes, alerted me to the approaching storm. Strange as it might seem, the storm didn't surprise me. When I first arrived in the Sahara a few months ago, night had greeted me with a powerful storm, and the rain continued almost all day long. The oldest inhabitants of the surrounding villages couldn't remember such prolonged and intense rainfall, causing their clay-built houses, covered with logs and palm fronds, to begin to dissolve. I began searching for a raised spot, hoping to avoid accidentally ending up in a wedda, as the powerful current could sweep me away with my car, and that would certainly have been unpleasant. After a while, however, I realized I was dealing with a different phenomenon. It was a sandstorm, or khamsin, also known as a giblet in Polish-Arabic slang. So I ran ahead, hoping to get to the place I was going to, and there I would wait in the building of the newly built school.

At one point, a sandstorm struck the car with all its force. Visibility dropped to a few meters, choking dust seeped into the cabin through every crevice, and my eyes began to water profusely. As a result, I had to slow down significantly. I decided not to stop, however, because the sand could bury the car—if not completely—certainly to such an extent that, despite the four-wheel drive, it would prevent me from moving. So I was practically groping my way when, suddenly, I spotted the silhouette of a camel just ahead of me. I stopped my Toyota and then noticed another, and another, and another. Finally, the entire camel caravan came into view, crossing my path. I also spotted the driver. The blue turban on his head and face told me he was from the Tibu tribe. These people possessed an extraordinary sense of navigation, and even in such extremely difficult conditions, they could traverse the desert without deviating a single step from their mentally mapped path. When he spotted me, he approached and said something in his own dialect. I knew I had no chance of communicating with him in English. They generally didn't know Arabic either—apart from a few words (like me). But I repeated the name Madrusa several times, and the driver, without a moment's hesitation, pointed in a completely different direction than the one I was heading.

"Shukran," I said. "Ahlan wa sahlan."

I drove off in the indicated direction, arriving in Madrusa in less than an hour. I spent the night in the car in the schoolyard, and the next day, around noon, the dust cloud had cleared enough for me to set off back. After a few kilometers, I encountered a search party. I gladly handed the wheel to one of the rescuers, and two hours later, with horns blaring, we drove through the camp gate.

Two days later, two police cars and another car from the baladiyat pulled up to the office building. A moment later, news flashed through the camp that a storm had uncovered a buried caravan near Madrusa. Shortly afterward, a bulldozer-excavator emerged from the gate, along with two trucks loaded with workers equipped with shovels. The boss called me in.

"Mr. Andrzej, do you still have the film?

" "I do, it's still unfinished. The one for the catalog."

"Okay, so after lunch we'll go to the excavation site together. You'll photograph everything you can."

"So it's true, about the caravan? Do you know that it was one of the drovers who showed me the way to Madrusa? If it weren't for him, you'd be digging me out now, or sometime soon."

The boss looked at me strangely, but said nothing more.

In the afternoon, we went to the site where the buried caravan had been found. We stared in horror at the bodies of five drovers and dozens of camels. Only one thing surprised me: the bodies were almost completely mummified.

I played the film until the end.

A few days later, I went to the town of Sebha, where I dropped off my film at a photo lab. While waiting for it to be developed, I wandered around jewelry stores, selecting beautiful (Italian, by the way) jewelry at very attractive prices. When I returned to the photographer, he handed me the film with a strange, if not mocking, expression on his face. I unrolled the roll. It was completely overexposed.

Upon my return, I showed it to my boss.

"Did you know, Mr. Andrzej, that this caravan disappeared almost ten years ago?"