SS Glasgow Castle

In my hurry to get out, I stumbled while leaving the plane. I didn"t regard it as an omen of any sort - I always have a look around upon venturing outdoors, an activity that"s best performed while standing still. But the way things turned out later, it was an omen, this time.

I didn"t fall down, but I was forced to run down a couple of stairs very fast, and came to a stop against the broad and fleshy back of a suited, bespectacled, respectable African gentleman. He handled it very well - he hardly swayed at all - he looked over his shoulder, unsmiling, and said something in French. Kross instantly responded with something that clearly cla.s.sified me as an idiot, and the African gentleman broke into a delighted toothy grin.

"Bienvenu a Abidjan," he told me.

"Yes, very much. Thank you," I said.

I walked down the remaining steps with the focus of an Olympic gymnast. Therefore it was a while before I noticed that it was warm, so warm I felt as if wrapped in an invisible, air-light blanket. Then it was time to wait again while everyone climbed aboard the bus that would take us to the terminal entrance; my jeans and shirt became moist and clingy. By the time I got off the bus and into the air-conditioned terminal interior, I could feel rivulets of sweat running down my neck. I had been to the tropics before - to be exact, twice - for a week of drunken debauch that is later referred to as a holiday. But this was something else. This was different. There was this smell, under an overlay of Lysol or some other disinfectant: a faint but persistent tang of rotting vegetation.

We collected the luggage first, then joined a line slowly snaking through a series of booths and desks. These were manned by officials that seemed to include a representative from the police, secret police (suit and sungla.s.ses), and every branch of the armed forces, plus the token civilian in flowing white African robes. Each and every one of these gentlemen examined our pa.s.sports. Kross always went first, and the procedure was always the same: a few words from him to the frowning official, and the pa.s.sport would be slapped back into his hand with a delighted grin, mine would get a cursory glance, and we were through. It was impressive. It inspired confidence in our venture.

My partner"s performance reached new heights of excellence when we collected the luggage and hit the customs. While exchanging banter with our customs officer, he casually set down his duty free bag on the inspection counter. The customs officer asked us to open all luggage - my conditioning took over and I helpfully flipped back the zippered lid of my travel bag, but then Kross said a few obviously well-chosen words in French, and the customs officer didn"t even bother to look inside. He picked up the duty-free bag and put it down beside his leg while chalking green crosses on our luggage. And that was it; we were through.

Kross pointed a finger at the winking neon sign that said Banque d"Ivoire. He said:

"Cash a traveler"s check for a hundred bucks, no more. We just need enough for the cab and tips. We"ll get a better rate in town."

I did as I was told, and got many thousands of Central African francs, floppy banknotes big enough to serve as bed sheets for millionaire dwarves.

In the meantime, Kross had secured the services of a taxi driver - a very respectable looking type with a razor-cut side parting in his hair, and a gold-capped pen clipped to the white shirt pocket. He had a big gold watch on a bracelet that could have served as a choker for a dachshund. He was short and thin, but he carried our luggage with an ease that suggested he was really strong.

The air outside the terminal was so heavy it felt like a soft blow; it carried a salty tang from the nearby ocean. Our cab turned out to be a white Peugeot 504 with red plush upholstery and a little lace curtain adorning the rear window. The interior smelled faintly of incense. It was air-conditioned, and the plush felt pleasantly dry and cool.

We motored out of the airport and onto a wide highway leading towards a patch of night sky bleached almost white by thousands of lights. I spent the first few minutes of the journey looking out of the window in an attempt to see something exotic and African. Unfortunately, the Africa on display consisted of vague shadows beyond the orange, cosmopolitan glow of the fizzy sodium lights lining the four-lane road.

There wasn"t much traffic, and all the cars seemed to be either French or j.a.panese; I noticed one old-fashioned Volkswagen station wagon. There was a lot of small j.a.panese minibuses, adorned with inscriptions in flowing, shadowed script, with loose canvas or plastic flapping around the bundles strapped down to the roof. From time to time we pa.s.sed an island of light belonging to a gas station. The gas stations looked like the ones in North America or Europe, and many logos were familiar - Sh.e.l.l, Mobil, Total, Agip. It quickly became boring.

The bilingual Kross was engaged in a conversation with the driver. I fidgeted, sat still, fidgeted, sat still. Eventually I opened the window, stuck my face into the rushing moist air, and breathed deeply. I immediately pulled back and cranked the window shut.

"You okay?" asked Kross, eyeing me warily over his shoulder.

""I"m fine. I just discovered it stinks out there. A cheesy smell, like old socks," I explained.

"It"s probably raw cocoa beans," Kross said. "I daresay the port"s not far away."

"Cocoa beans?"

"Main local export. Silos and silos full of the stuff. That"s how it smells."

He turned away and resumed his fascinating conversation with the driver while I tried to reconcile the stink I"d felt with the rich, dark aroma of ready-to-eat chocolate. There was a lesson hidden within, I was sure. I couldn"t nail it - it was like the dark vegetation we rushed past, a blurred form just beyond the reach of the motorway lights.

Slowly, the city crept out of the darkness. We pa.s.sed a couple of solitary lights winking among ghost-like trees and bushes; then determined clumps of three or four buildings at a time began to appear; here and there, I saw a hand-painted store sign overlit by a flickering fluorescent tube surrounded by a haze of insects.

The traffic was thickening. Our driver swerved from lane to lane for a while, then got stuck behind a big truck whose tarp was flapping like a loose sail. I saw an immense woman cooking something over an open fire next to the road. Three or four men waited patiently on a bench nearby, while the whippet-like dog at their feet snapped its jaws at invisible insects. We pa.s.sed by the first multi-level building since the airport - a three-story cube of concrete with iron reinforcing rods still sticking out, the window openings covered by sheet plastic. Kross stopped talking with the driver and I seized this chance.

"So this is Abidjan," I said. He took this seriously. He said:

"Don"t worry, that"s not our hotel. These are just the suburbs on the rough side of the town."

"The rough side of the town?"

"You"ll see."

Soon enough, I did. Most houses were variations on the concrete cube concept; many had pastel-colored stucco in front, but the sides, and probably the back, were raw concrete. Numerous fires flickered along the sidewalks, and it took me a while to work out these were the kitchens of outdoor restaurants: they often featured a group of benches and tables nearby complete with a gaggle of hungry-looking characters. The high-speed motorway ceased to be a high-speed motorway and became a wide, clogged city street.

We slowed down to a crawl just in front of the entrance onto a bridge. I didn"t mind the traffic being slow because of the view. The bridge ran for at least half a mile above a lagoon that sparkled with hundreds of reflected lights. It led to a a different Abidjan: the skyline of the opposite bank featured a magnificent glittering palace transplanted from Las Vegas; a mult.i.tude of lit office towers formed the backdrop.

I tapped Kross on the shoulder, pointed at the palace and said:

"I take it that"s our hotel."
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He grinned at me over his shoulder and said:

"That"s correct."