In the Belly of the Elephant Read Free Page A

as a real competent guy. He’d be a good director.”
    Don cocked an eyebrow at me and grinned. “I’ll pass it on to home office.”
    “Do you think he has a chance?”
    “They seemed pretty interested,” Don said. “Sounds like you are, too.” He turned to face the front and chuckled.
    My cheeks grew even warmer. Fati nudged me, and I clasped my hands together, forcing myself to breathe normally. For a year, Rob and I had visited each other as often as possible, a short-distance relationship, me in my up-country village and him in various places around Liberia.
    Rob in Upper Volta! I had seen him only once since returning to the States. He had visited me in Vermont while on a short leave from CARE. But now! The right time had finally come! We would work on development projects together in Dori, then in different countries, build our careers, raise a family. Suddenly, everything out the window was brighter, the heat tolerable, my fatigue replaced with a surge of energy.
    Hamidou accelerated the truck up the side of a bank toward a baobab tree that towered 30 feet off the plain. Its trunk stretched as wide as the length of the car. Just beyond the tree, an old man sat in the shade of a thorn bush.
    Hamidou parked, and we all tumbled out, scurrying into the shade like a bunch of cockroaches. Fumes from the engine mingled with the stench of a goat carcass near the riverbed. Crouching in the shade of the baobab, I pulled my T-shirt away from my back, then breathed into my cupped hands to calm my glee. Hamidou walked over to the old man and folded his lean figure into a squat, sitting on his heels. They shook hands, and Hamidou touched his fingers to his heart in a gesture of respect.
    A breeze lifted the old man’s rags. The tails of a turban hung loose over his scrawny neck and shoulders. Hamidou and the old man talked in smooth syllables sprinkled with hard K’s and T’s, the sounds of Fulfuldé, the language of the Fulani. The old man pulled out a length of string from the folds of cloth that wrapped his hips and thighs. As he tied a series of knots, he breathed and whispered words on each one. Hamidou accepted the string, shook the man’s hand, and rose.
    The sun was at its zenith, the shadows their smallest. Hamidou, Fatima, and Nassuru took rolled mats from the truck and prepared to pray. I sat against the tree and hugged my knees. Rob in Upper Volta! A month of waiting would be an eternity. I would concentrate on my work, not get my hopes up too high until I heard for sure. With a deep breath, I focused on Fati, Hamidou, and Nassuru.
    Fatima unrolled her mat and set aside the humor that made the delicate features of her face so expressive. In her head wrap, puffed sleeve blouse, and ankle-length skirt of batik cloth, Fati was the height of fashion. The best dressed in the town of Dori, the female staff of FDC were among the few women who had paying jobs outside the home or market. Fati stood slightly apart from Hamidou and Nassuru as all three wetted their hands from a plastic bottle and rubbed the dust from their ears, faces, and heads. Cleansed, they turned east toward Mecca and Jerusalem and began their prayers. The words of the first pillar of Islam, “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet,” floated on the air like the buzz of a distant beehive.
    Hamidou had told me that Muslims faced Mecca when they prayed because it was the birthplace of Muhammad and Islam. They faced Jerusalem to symbolize Islam’s connection with Judaism and Christianity and because the Angel Gabriel had taken Muhammad there on his Night Journey. It was during this Night Journey that God gave Muhammad Salat , the second pillar of Islam. Salat required the faithful to pray five times each day: dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset, and night. At noon and five every workday, no matter where we were, the prayer mats came out.
    I sat against the tree, feeling very much the infidel. I did not share their faith, but I enjoyed