Sophie and the Locust Curse Read online

Chapter 3

  ‘BAHAAT-UGH!’ cried Sophie, camel-language for stop.

  Chobbal skidded to a halt and Gidaado sprang off the hump backwards. He landed in a heap on the ground, got up, brushed himself down and ran over to the musicians’ mat where his three-stringed guitar was waiting for him. Sophie dismounted more carefully and went to join the spectators.

  ‘Amidou my brother, same father, same mother, flesh of my own flesh,’ sang the lead musician. Sophie recognized him as Gidaado’s Uncle Ibrahiim, the leader of the Giriiji Griots. He was flanked by Gidaado’s cousins Hassan and Hussein, who were bashing away happily on a pair of calabashes. Gidaado sat down behind them and began to pluck his hoddu.

  ‘Amidou, husband of Bintu the Beautiful, brother of Alu the Fearless,’ sang Uncle Ibrahiim. ‘Alu the Fearless who wrestled a lion and did lots of other brave and brainless things.’

  ‘That’s right!’ shouted Gidaado.

  Sophie noticed Gidaado’s grandmother sitting on one of the women’s mats. She had great long earlobes and her skin was as wrinkly as a walnut. Her eyes were half-closed and she nodded to the calabash beat.

  ‘Amidou and Alu, sons of Hamadou, son of Yero the son of Tijani,’ sang Ibrahiim.

  ‘That’s right!’ shouted Gidaado.

  ‘Tijani, whose camel Mad Mariama ran faster than the harmattan wind.’

  ‘That’s right!’

  It seemed to Sophie that Gidaado’s role in the tarik was slightly less glamorous than he had made out. Perhaps the best was yet to come.

  ‘Tijani son of Haroun.’

  ‘That’s right!’

  ‘Husband of Halimatu the Horrible, who could make music with her armpits.’

  ‘That’s right!’

  ‘Son of Salif, son of Ali, son of Gorko Bobo.’

  ‘That’s ri- ‘

  ‘STOP!’ shouted the chief.

  Uncle Ibrahiim stopped singing and blinked rapidly as if waking from a trance. The twins’ calabashes ceased their clicking and clacking. Gidaado laid down his hoddu and stared at the chief in amazement. A woman emerged from the nearest mud-brick hut, holding a tiny baby at her breast. She quivered with rage and pointed a long thin forefinger at the chief.

  ‘How dare you interrupt the tarik, you son of a skink!’ she cried.

  The villagers gasped. A skink was a large lizard and not a nice thing to call anybody, let alone a village chief.

  ‘Bintu,’ hissed a nervous-looking man in the front row of the audience. ‘Bintu, don’t talk like that.’

  ‘How am I supposed to talk? He has shattered the tarik and brought shame on the memory of all our ancestors.’

  The villagers gasped again. This was a serious accusation. All eyes now were on Al Hajji Diallo, chief of Giriiji.

  Slowly the chief raised his eyes to heaven. ‘Look!’ he cried.

  Everyone looked. Far away in the west, a pink cloud was gathering in the sky, thickening and getting closer, like a dust cloud. Here in the desert a dust cloud was usually good news, indicating the arrival of rain.

  ‘Zorki,’ said Uncle Ibrahiim.

  This was no dust cloud. As it approached, Sophie could see that the cloud was made up of millions of tiny dots, pink and flickering and strangely beautiful.

  ‘Zorki,’ said the woman with the baby.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Gidaado’s grandmother loudly. ‘Why has the tarik stopped? What is going on?’

  ‘The pink death,’ said the chief. ‘The pink death is coming!’

  ‘Zorki!’ shrieked Gidaado’s grandmother.

  The dots swarmed towards the fields and began to dive. They fell like rain, no longer dots but living creatures now. The air was thick with legs and wings and mandibles. So these are the sauterelles, thought Sophie. Locusts.

  *

  In no time at all Sophie found herself sprinting through the millet plants alongside Gidaado. She glanced down guiltily at the long curved scythe in her hand. Never mess with knives, her dad was always saying. If he could see her now his glasses would steam up and he would no doubt give her that lecture about Hibata Zan running to school holding a pair of scissors. She wore an eye-patch to this day, poor girl.

  ‘Gidaado,’ said Sophie as they ran. ‘Why do they call it “pink death”?’

  ‘Well,’ said Gidaado. ‘The locusts are pink. And by eating the harvest they bring - you know.’

  ‘I see.’

  Arriving at Gidaado’s field, Sophie handed Gidaado one of the scythes and he quickly showed her how to harvest the millet. Stalk in your left hand, scythe in your right hand and slice. ‘Now you try,’ he said.

  Slice, slice, slice, went the two scythes, and the millet stalks fell this way and that. On every side Sophie heard the slice and crunch of other harvesters. All the people of Giriiji, young and old, were working together to save the millet. After all, this was their food for the coming year.

  A locust landed on a stalk right in front of Sophie, hugged the millet with its jointed legs and started munching. Another flew in Sophie’s face; she screamed and batted it away. She sliced the stalk with her scythe but immediately two more locusts landed on it. Sophie dropped the stalk and stamped on them. Crunch. Crunch.

  The insects were all around her now, chomping and chattering. They were on her clothes and in her hair. There was not a single head of millet that did not have two, three, four locusts clinging to it, even the harvested millet lying on the ground. Sophie watched the locusts devour Giriiji’s millet crop and she blinked hard to stop herself bursting into tears.

  Chapter 4

  The shadows of day were lengthening and fading and the sun gradually turned the colour of blood. Underneath the acacia tree, the people of Giriiji took their places on the same straw mats that they had abandoned in such a hurry that morning. All around them the millet plants stood like a conquered army, a million headless stalks bearing witness to the day’s disastrous battle.

  The villagers had done their best to save the harvest and they had lost. The locusts had gobbled every last grain of millet in the fields and launched smugly into the sky, heading south to wreak more devastation.

  The people of Giriiji now sat dazed and exhausted, gazing at the setting sun. Seated cross-legged on the children’s mat, Sophie watched the red orb kiss the horizon and dip out of sight.

  Al Hajji Diallo sat in his wicker chair surrounded by the village elders, and in the gathering dusk he looked old and frail. He cleared his throat and began to speak in a low even voice.

  ‘The Lord gives,’ he said, ‘and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.’

  There was a long silence. A red-necked lizard scuttled up to Sophie, bobbed up and down as if it was doing press-ups, then scuttled off again. No one spoke.

  ‘Blessed be the name of the Lord,’ repeated the chief. ‘He knows why these things happen.’

  There was a quiet ‘amen’ from one of the elders.

  ‘Today,’ continued the chief, ‘we are celebrating the birth of Mariama, daughter to Amidou and Bintu. Now that the sun has set, let the dancing begin.’

  Sophie could not believe that they intended to go ahead with the dancing after what had happened. Never in her life had she felt less like dancing.

  Uncle Ibrahiim walked forward slowly, took off his sandals and stepped onto the musicians’ mat. He knelt down, positioned his hoddu and began to play.

  Ibrahiim’s music was melodious and mystical and it was a tune that Sophie knew well. Gidaado had played this song for her once before and she had been unable to get it out of her head ever since.

  ‘The desert rejoices and I with it,

  Praise to the Creator.’

  The villagers sat motionless on the straw mats and listened. Sophie thought of how happy she had been when she had got up this morning. She had been so excited about the prospect of spending the day at Gidaado’s village and attending the naming ceremony. She had been singing this very song while she brushed her teeth, and had inadvertently sprayed toothpaste
all over the mirror.

  ‘The desert rejoices and I with it,

  Praise to the Creator.’

  The moon was rising now and cast a faint glow over the landscape. Without a word Gidaado’s grandmother got up off her mat, hobbled to the front and began to dance. She shuffled from side to side, swinging her arms gently to the music and humming to herself. Another elderly woman went up and joined her. Ignoring their audience, they shuffled and swayed, smiling as if at some private joke.

  ‘The desert dances and I with it,

  Praise to the Creator.’

  One by one the villagers got up and began to dance among their ravaged crops. Sophie desperately wanted to join in but she felt heavy with the pain and disappointment of the day. Maybe tomorrow or the next day she would dance, but not tonight.

  Gidaado came out of nowhere and sat down beside her and in silence they watched the men and women of Giriiji moving in the moonlight. Finally, Gidaado spoke:

  ‘Sophie, you know how it is when you are sitting close to the fire at night and tiny sparks jump out and make little scorch-marks on your feet and legs?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sophie.

  ‘We griots say that those sparks are like Suffering.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘And you know how it is when you are milking a cow and tiny droplets of milk splash up out of the calabash and wet your face and arms?’

  ‘No,’ said Sophie.

  ‘Well they do. We say that those droplets are like Joy.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So nothing,’ said Gidaado. ‘Life is a mixture of the two, that’s all. Sparks and droplets. Suffering and Joy.’

  ‘You go and dance if you like,’ said Sophie. ‘I want to be on my own.’

  *

  It was gone nine o’clock when Sophie’s dad arrived on the Yamaha to pick her up. His eyes behind his motorbike goggles were large and troubled.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, darling,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m okay,’ said Sophie, taking her place behind him on the motorbike. ‘But the millet isn’t.’

  ‘They arrived in Gorom-Gorom, too. I had sauterelles splatting on my goggles all the way here.’

  ‘You know what the villagers call it?’ said Sophie. ‘The pink death.’

  Her dad nodded and held up a small screw-topped jar. Inside the jar stood a single locust, tapping its front legs feebly against the glass as if pleading to be let out. ‘I’m going to feed him to my desert flytrap,’ said her dad, ‘and see how long she takes to digest him.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Sophie.

  Her dad kicked down savagely on the starter and the motorbike roared into life. Sophie put her arms around his waist as he opened up the throttle and sped off into the night. On the dashboard a tiny GPS blinked at them, pointing the way home to Gorom-Gorom.

  As they rode, the Yamaha’s headlamp shone along the white sand and across occasional acacia bushes, and Sophie noticed that the passing swarm had stripped even the acacias of their leaves. She could not help thinking of Gidaado and his grandmother. They would have no millet in their grain-store this year. How on earth would they survive?

  Chapter 5

  Sophie did not see Gidaado again for several days. She tried to concentrate on her schoolwork but none of it seemed important any more. The pink death had destroyed all the fields around Gorom-Gorom and an atmosphere of quiet despair hung over the town. The price of a sack of millet in the market had more than doubled since the locust invasion and everyone was finding it hard to buy food. Everyone except Sophie and her Dad.

  Early on market day, Sophie was just finishing her maize-flakes when she heard a loud ‘Bahaat-ugh!’ outside. She looked out the window and there in the front yard knelt Chobbal. Gidaado slid off the camel’s back and patted it fondly. ‘I know you’re hungry,’ he said, ‘but please don’t eat Mr Brown’s sunflowers.’ Sophie went to the door to meet him.

  ‘Salam alaykum, Gidaado!’

  ‘Alaykum asalam, Sophie. Did you wake in peace?’

  ‘Peace only, thank you. How is your village?’

  ‘Peace only. There are no problems.’

  Sophie knew this was not true - after all, there was a famine brewing in Giriiji. But when you greeted someone in Fulfulde it was important to pretend that everything was all right.

  ‘How is your grandmother?’

  ‘Peace only. How is your father?’

  ‘Peace only. He is in the study, fiddling with his flytrap.’

  ‘May God give peace.’

  ‘Amen. Come on through to my room.’

  Gidaado followed Sophie into her bedroom and they sat down. The room was rather bare compared to her bedroom back home, but it was comfortable. There was a mosquito net hanging over her bed, a wooden desk, and a shelf for her schoolbooks.

  ‘How are you, Gidaado?’

  ‘Peace only. I have lost my job.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘My uncle has thrown me out of his music group. He says he needs me to get a different job so that we can earn enough to live on.’

  Sophie considered this. Uncle Ibrahiim was probably right. If he and Gidaado worked separately rather than together then they could earn twice as much.

  ‘Who will replace you in your uncle’s music group?’

  ‘Hassan, probably. And Hussein will play calabash on his own.’

  ‘It won’t be as good without you in it,’ said Sophie.

  ‘You haven’t heard the worst bit,’ said Gidaado. ‘Guess what my uncle wants me to do for a job.’

  ‘Sell fish?’

  ‘Worse.’

  ‘Wrestle lions?’

  ‘Worse.’

  ‘I give up.’

  ‘He wants me to work as a crier.’

  ‘That’s not so bad, is it?’ said Sophie. ‘I think you’d make a good crier.’

  Gidaado snorted. ‘Sophie, you still seem to think that a griot and a crier are more or less the same thing. Well, they aren’t. They’re as different as stallion and skink.’

  Not this again, thought Sophie.

  ‘A griot is an artist,’ said Gidaado, standing up. ‘A griot crafts words that grab you by the intestines and swing you around. He soars in song above the desert eagle and straddles in speech vast oceans of wisdom. If a griot sings “The Ballad of Safietu and Pullori”, the weeping in his village lasts for seven days. If he recites the conquests of Ousmana Dan Fodio, the cows are woken from their sleep by the sound of infidel knees a-knocking. If he tells the stories of the Ten Plagues of Egypt or the Omniscient Twins of Timbuktu, princes clutch his robes and beg for more.’

  ‘And a crier?’ said Sophie.

  ‘A crier just stomps around town shouting his head off.’

  Sophie shook her head. ‘I think being a crier is a nice job,’ she said.

  ‘Right,’ said Gidaado. ‘I expect you think cleaning out the camel-pen at the market is a nice job, too. But that’s because all you have ever done in your life is go to school and sit at a desk and-’

  Gidaado broke off, staring wide-eyed at Sophie’s bookshelf.

  ‘What are they?’ he asked, pointing.

  On the bookshelf, next to Sophie’s schoolbooks stood three plastic flowers, yellow, orange and red. They all wore dark glasses and had big cheesy grins.

  ‘They aren’t real,’ said Sophie. ‘They are dancing flowers.’

  ‘You’re joking,’ said Gidaado.

  Sophie reached for her cassette box, and picked out ‘Greatest Hits of Ali Farka Touré’. He was a singer from Mali who Gidaado had recommended to her, and his songs were a combination of traditional griot music and American blues. Sophie loved this album and always put it on when she felt down.

  Sophie switched on her cassette player and inserted the cassette. She had asked her father for an ipod last Christmas, but he had refused. ‘Where will you go to download songs?’ Dad had said. ‘You won’t find mp3s in the desert,’ he had said. ‘Don’t look a
t me like that,’ he had said, ‘there’s nothing wrong with cassettes.’

  Sophie jabbed PLAY and a lone African voice broke the silence with one long drawn-out note. It was the voice of Ali Farka Touré. The plastic flowers began to sway from side to side. Then came the familiar clickety-clack of ringed fingers on a calabash and a chorus of female voices; the flowers nodded and swayed in response. Gidaado watched them, his cheeks slack with wonder.

  ‘How do they—?’

  ‘Batteries,’ said Sophie.

  ‘The world is bitter,’ sang the male voice in Fulfulde.

  ‘The world is sweet,’ sang the female chorus. Fading in underneath the singers was the patter of conga drums and the hauntingly beautiful moan of the slide guitar.

  ‘That’s Ali’s brother Omar Farka Touré on the conga drums,’ said Gidaado. ‘And that’s his cousin on the guitar.’

  ‘I know,’ said Sophie.

  ‘I bet Ali Farka Touré never chucked his family out of his music group,’ said Gidaado. ‘I bet he never told Omar to go and get a job as a crier.’

  ‘Be quiet,’ said Sophie. ‘We’re coming to the good bit.’

  The singers stopped abruptly and the calabash and conga drums grew faster and louder, beating out a joyful and infectious rhythm. The dancing flowers danced. What with their sunglasses and cheesy grins, the overall effect was hilarious. Gidaado let out a sudden snort of laughter and Sophie fell backwards on the bed giggling helplessly.

  ‘Guess what I call them,’ said Sophie through tears of laughter.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Salif, Ali and Gorko Bobo.’

  ‘By giving them those names you have brought shame on all my ancestors,’ said Gidaado in a shrill voice.

  ‘I guess so,’ said Sophie.

  Gidaado scowled at her in mock fury and they burst out laughing again.

  ‘I need to get going,’ said Gidaado, wiping his eyes. ‘Idrissa Gorel has lost his cow and he asked me to announce it in the animal market today.’

  ‘All right.’ Sophie pressed STOP and the dancing flowers slumped.

  ‘Wish me luck,’ said Gidaado as he left the room. ‘If this doesn’t work, me and my grandmother are dead.’