Harmattan
several of them looked so frail that the effort might cause them harm.
    ‘Oui, Monsieur Longueur,’ Miriam said.
    ‘ Toh . And what do you want with Monsieur Longueur, Missies?’ the older woman asked.
    ‘We heard that he had a magic camera – one that can make pictures instantly!’ I said.
    ‘He has a camera alright,’ said another woman, scowling. ‘It’s never out of our faces. But magic? I don’t know about…’
    ‘Black magic, more like’” the first woman interrupted. ‘He’s forever stealing souls with that damn thing!’
    I guessed, from the look on her face, that she did not really believe these words.‘ Walayi! I heard it’s not the American’s camera that’s magic!’ someone else chipped in.
    A great deal of thigh slapping and sniggering followed.
    ‘You’ll find him round the back,’ said the woman who had scowled, now with a mischievous look in her eye. She gestured with her thumb. ‘He’s staying with the Peace Corps nurse…’
    A chorus of laughter erupted across the veranda as she continued to pump her thumb up and down suggestively.
    We found Monsieur Longueur sitting at a plastic table in the compound behind the dispensaire . He was writing in a notebook and did not see or hear us approach. I immediately spied the camera, lying on its back, next to a half empty bottle of Bière Niger. We stood beside his table for what seemed like a very long time before he looked up, and when he finally did so he was clearly startled by our presence.
    I had never before seen anyone who looked quite like this man. I had seen mulatto people before, of course, but this man’s features were very fine, his skin almost gold in colour – lighter even than that of the Touaregs of the far north, who occasionally passed through Wadata. His hands were large, but elegant like a woman’s, his fingernails scrupulously clean. He wore fine, metal-rimmed spectacles and a beautifully stitched khaki shirt with matching trousers. His shoes – jutting out from beneath the table, at the end of incredibly long legs – were also well made.
    Despite the fact that he was seated, it was obvious that he was, indeed, a very tall man. When he had composed himself, he set down his pen, gave a little wave, then smiled, warmly, through a tightly cropped black beard. ‘Hi,’ he said.
    We greeted him, in Djerma but realised, almost immediately, that he was not at all familiar with our language. He shrugged – his kind, clear eyes indicating that he was willing to try to communicate with us. I tried Hausa, but the result was the same.
    When he spoke again, in English, I recognised occasional words from our sessions in front of Monsieur Letouye’s television. Miriam then pointed at Monsieur Longueur’s camera, but the response was not what we had expected.
    ‘Ne pazz doo cadeaux,’ he said, abandoning his mother tongue.
    His French was not good, but I suddenly realised what he had presumed and felt disappointed and a little insulted that he should think of us as barkarko . Beggars indeed! I shook my head, vigorously, and mimed the action of looking through a camera, while Miriam pointed again.
    ‘Do you think he only speaks one language?’ I said.
    Monsieur Longueur – Ken – mumbled and reached for the camera, then held it towards us, questioningly. Still his words meant nothing to us, but we knew, nevertheless, that they formed a question.
    I tried again. ‘We want a picture,’ I said. ‘A magic picture – like the one you took of my brother.’ I racked my brain to remember some simple, English word that the stranger might usefully recognise. It was no good. ‘La photo,’ I said, giving up on English, as Miriam once more pointed at the camera and then at herself.
    Monsieur Longueur pushed his seat back and stood up. I had to stop myself from gasping out loud. Truly, he was the tallest man I had ever seen: taller than Abdelkrim, taller than Sergeant Bouleb, taller than any Touareg. He set the camera down

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