The travel there had gone smoothly, barring a layover in Amsterdam that an unexplained mechanical failure had turned into hours of delay. During the wait, the loud, crowded lounge thinned to a ghostly quiet of only a few passengers, waiting for the flight to Dakar and the one other outbound plane.
In halting but clear English, he apologized as he checked me in at a table by the side of the pool, in a courtyard lined with arabesque tiling. The short date palm tree in the middle of it, strung with light bulbs, reminded me of a riad in Marrakech where I stayed years ago. The light also caught his dark, handsome face, which was round, with a kind expression.
He said his name was Souleymane. The likelihood that any restaurants would be open at three in the morning seemed slim to nil, and Souleymane seemed doubtful. He said I should follow that wall. My optimism floundered as soon as I got to it. Not one but several dusty lanes adjoined the wall, each heavily marked with footsteps. The dust rose two or three inches off the ground with each step and was higher still where it was banked against the bottom of the wall.
The wall itself, my measure of hope, curved out of sight. Did Souleymane say I should go north? Nord, oui? And I must follow the second lane on the right; no, the third lane by the wall, yes? Or the fourth. No, two. The many-forking paths stood empty in all directions. I could hear only occasional distant traffic and the bark of dogs. I picked a lane and started walking. Most were set behind high iron-trellis gates, bursting over with bougainvillea. Concrete walls were fortified with the shards of broken bottle tops.
In the moonlight and under the bright streetlamps, I noticed many brand-name SUVs and sedans, some parked in commercial lots but most on the sidewalks. Some teetered on the edge of open drains. In half an hour of walking, I saw no one on the street. The clean night air was cool as if it were about to rain. Then suddenly a scent filled the air with nothing else but itself. It stopped me in my tracks with a jolt. My mind reeled: Where was it coming from? I started down one dusty lane, then I crossed right over to another.
