BAMAKO by Aribert Raphael (smart books to read txt) 📖

French baguettes you may want to eat, lay on a table of their own in one corner.
They had worn black tuxedos last evening, but this morning the waiters were dressed with red jackets and white trousers. They reminded Talya of Grenadiers, or tin soldiers of times past.
She stood at the entrance for a moment. The freshness brought to the place overnight taking her aback. She looked around and found Johan, his nose in a cup of coffee.
This great big, burly man had the heart of a lion, and a mind as sharp as any perfectly tuned instrument. He had thinning white hair and a clean-shaven face, his complexion tanned as leather. The dimness of age showed in his light blue eyes. His smile had remained bright and happy over the years Talya had known him. He was a garrulous man, always ready to tell a joke and have a good laugh about life’s troubles. Today however, he looked strained.
“You look very pensive, Johan?”
“Talya,” the man exclaimed with a start, suddenly realizing that Talya was standing across the table from him. He had not heard or seen her come in. He stood up, went round the table and took Talya in his arms to kiss her on both cheeks.
They sat down. Talya ordered a coffee and croissants. After a big meal the night before, she didn’t need much of anything. The waiter went away and she looked at the man facing her. There was an imperceptible change in him.
“It’s darn good to see you. How have you been?” Johan glanced across, an expectant look in his eyes. What was that all about?
“I’m fine. It’s been too long, my friend.”
He had ordered eggs, bacon, pancakes—the lot. The waiter brought her breakfast and Johan’s all at once. The table looked as if they were prepared to have a feast rather than breakfast.
Once they had consumed some of what was on their plates, Talya decided it was time to tackle it. “Okay, Johan, let’s hear it. What can you tell me? What’s going on here?”
“I really don’t know where to begin. It’s been a mess from the word go.”
“Perhaps, I can ask you some questions and you can take the lead from there?”
“Okay. Fire. I’m ready.” He pushed his chair back a little and crossed his legs.
“First I’d like to know how long you have been working for Hjamal.”
“Let me see now… It all started eighteen months ago. Hjamal came to the Denver Mining Show. I was there, too, and somebody told me about this African man, who was trying to become a miner over night. Of course, I was curious. I met with the man. He introduced himself as ‘Mr. Ahmed’. It’s only much later I was told of his real name.” Talya was about to open her mouth, but thought better of it. She let him go on. “He said he was looking to buy some machinery to build a gold-processing plant on his land. Right away he invited me to visit the site here, in Senegal, and he’d have hired me on the spot…”
“And did you accept?”
“No, you know me, Talya. Unless this guy was genuine, I wasn’t going anywhere near the fellow or his mine. I tried to check on him. I called a few friends in Mali and Burkina. They told me the same story. Apparently, they’d heard of a fellow who was trying to build a mining plant near the Guinean border. The word was the man had bags of money and he was squatting on the land trying to make it happen.”
“I bet the money part tempted you?”
“That it did. But the challenge, I guess, was what got me going in the end.”
“So when did you arrive in Sabodala?”
“Not right away, but soon enough, I tell you. A couple of weeks after the show, Hjamal sent me a return ticket to Dakar. I arrived here in January of last year, but as soon as I reached the site, a few days later, I knew I couldn’t handle the job alone. I told Hjamal he had to find a partner in the industry to help him. He was having none of it.” Johan shook his head and drank some coffee.
“He wanted me to hire people, as many as were needed, to build the plant himself. Then I remembered your James Flaubert had been looking into buying some mining interests in West Africa for some time. I phoned him and told him what I was doing. He wasn’t keen on getting involved into a mining project at that stage. Anyway, I had a feeling James wouldn’t buy into anything that was supposedly owned and controlled by this character. So, we just kept in touch.”
“Hold it a minute. Did you say Hjamal ‘supposedly’ owns the mine—do you know for a fact that he does?”
“No, Talya, I don’t think Hjamal owns the mine outright. I say that because he was always reluctant to introduce himself as the owner of Sabodala. Remember, we only knew him as Mr. Ahmed. Anyway, he’d said it to me more than once: “Don’t tell anybody I own Sabodala until all the paperwork is in order”.”
“Did you raise any interest from anyone else in the industry?”
“No I didn’t. Most of the guys I know, wouldn’t go near the place either because they’re busy someplace else, or because they’d heard Hjamal couldn’t share interests in something he didn’t own. I guess what got me going in the end was that I always hoped Hjamal would get his paperwork in order, and we’d then be able to make a deal with some outfit in Europe or in the States.”
“When did you start working then?”
“Oh it must’ve been early February, when we started ordering material, equipment and engaged local manpower. You know … everything went well at first. The problems only started when Hjamal decided to buy the ball-mill he’d seen at the Denver Exhibition. I knew what he was talking about.” Johan paused long enough to move his chair back to the table and drink another gulp of coffee.
Cup still in hand, he continued, “I also knew it was near impossible to have the mill shipped and fitted without having an engineer design the plant from the ground up. Sure, I’d designed a rough draft, but nothing like what we’d needed. Again, Hjamal didn’t want to hear any of it. He seemed obsessed. He thought people were spying on him.”
Johan poured himself another cup of coffee and went on. His caffeine tolerance must be way up there. Meanwhile, Talya was playing with the breadcrumbs on her plate not looking at her friend. Something bothered her, what was it? Johan was saying…
“…As you know, Talya, I’m a trouble-shooter and maybe an expert in a few things, but I’m not an engineer. So, I told him to purchase the mill he wanted, but to ask for a fitter to accompany the equipment. I remember we had quite a row about the whole thing but he finally saw it my way.” This time Johan shifted position in his chair. He looked uncomfortable. These dining room seats were probably too stiff for him.
“A month later, Richard Gillman arrived, poor guy.” Johan shook his head and smiled. He was most likely remembering the first time he laid eyes on Richard. “He’d never been to Africa. He was sick the day he arrived on site. He could hardly stand up. After a while, though, he got used to the conditions and he was back on his feet by the time the mill reached Sabodala.” Johan stopped and looked at the food on the table. “Talking about food, do you want anything else? I see you haven’t eaten much of your breakfast.”
“No I don’t. Thanks. I had a late dinner last night and this was enough to last me until lunchtime, at least. But please go on.”
“Yes, well, we got to work and fitted the mill to the line, not without some problems mind you. Once we had the mill installed—without the door that was still missing—we went on to work on the crusher. It was about then that the living conditions went from bad to worse.” Talya lifted her head and watched him. There was something in his averting her eyes that showed avoidance, or was it fear?
“Tell me something, did Richard try to leave the site at anytime when you were working together?”
“Well yes, he did leave a couple times as a matter of fact, but Richard told me Hjamal had taken his passport and he wouldn’t get it back until the job was done. If he wanted to leave the country that would have been near impossible.”
“Did he say he wanted to go home?” Talya felt sad, reading a phrase from Richard’s letter in her mind’s eye: “With a badly injured foot possibly broken, caused by fruitless escape attempts...”
“Yes, he did, but anyone would after they’d had a taste of Sabodala.” Johan laughed. Talya couldn’t. His laughter was leaving a bitter after-taste in her mouth.
“Sorry, go on,” she said instead.
“Well, two weeks later, I had to come back to Dakar to get some parts and equipment I’d ordered months before. I also had some nitro-glycerine in one of the container that’d arrived at port, and I wanted to see to the transfer of that particular item myself. I was going to use the nitro to dig the first benches of the open pit mine to be excavated beside the plant. But, by now I’m sure you’ve been told that we ordered a little more than necessary?”
“A little more, Johan!” Talya blurted. “With what you’ve ordered, you could have carved a whole new Kimberley mine while you were at it.”
“Yes, I know, but that wasn’t entirely my doing, you know. If you tell Hjamal to buy five pounds of flour, he’ll come back with fifteen, ‘it’ll be for a rainy day’, he’d say.” Johan’s jeering and offhand attitude started to bug Talya.
She tried another tack. “Sorry to interrupt again, but did you see James when you were at the site?”
“Yes, very briefly though. Jean-Claude brought James to the mine in May of last year. They only stayed a couple of hours. I told Jean-Claude about some of the troubles we’re having. James, he tried to talk to Richard. And I say tried because the workers were always crowding any visitor that came over and they’d be reporting to Hjamal any chance they’d got.”
“Another question; did you (or Richard) mention Minorex’s name?”
“No, I don’t think either of us did. I did mention to James the man was mad, though—that, I remember.” Johan chuckled again, and Talya was getting upset.
“Come to think of it, James was more interested in Richard’s welfare than anything else.”
“Okay, please go on.” Talya wanted to get to the end of the tale. She felt uncomfortable and she doubted the chair had anything to do with it.
“Well, there isn’t much else to tell, only that one night after we’d completed most of the work on the crusher, I heard they were taking Richard