deliver to a certain man. (I have packages I’m supposed to deliver—what was in the packages, Maimuna?) I don’t know. That isn’t my business. Monsieur Moussa convinced me to go on this journey. At a party I told his wife, Ndeye, about my dream, and apparently Ndeye told her husband, because one day Moussa came to talk to me: “You’re beautiful, Maimuna. You could have opportunities there.” He promised me enough money for a plane ticket if I did one big favor for him. (Mr. Moussa, my father’s cousin, asked me to do him a favor and promised me money for an airplane ticket in return.) “I can’t get away from my work right now,” he said, “but this is a very important matter, and I’ll lose a great deal of money if this isn’t settled soon.” “And what about Moustafa or Issa,” his grown sons, I asked, “or Mamadou,” my brother. But Monsieur Moussa needed his sons at the construction site. And he didn’t trust Mamadou, unlike me. “Maimuna, you’ve never disappointed us,” he said. So I agreed. Monsieur Moussa gave me five buckskin belts with flat, oblong packages sewn into them, which I was supposed to put on under my dress. “You can’t take your dress off until you meet Mister Mecanico and give the belts to him,” Moussa said, “and if something happens, you keep your mouth shut. You don’t talk to anyone. Understand?” “How do I wash?” I asked. “You’ll come up with a way,” he said. I couldn’t tell anyone I was leaving. “Not even mother?” I asked. “Not even her,” Moussa said. (You received packages from your father’s cousin that you were supposed to deliver to a man, and you couldn’t talk to anyone about it, but you still went! Maimuna, are you crazy?) No! Our family has many secrets! My father has four wives, and the youngest one, Fatoumata, disappeared. She probably ran away. “Fatoumata was no good,” they said, but that wasn’t quite true. So I can have secrets too, can’t I? And besides, my father doesn’t support my dream. He wants me to get married, but I don’t want to. At least not to the man my father chose for me. He’s rich but he’s ancient. His breath smells bad. And he doesn’t even know how to read. Monsieur Moussa promised me a plane ticket to Paris if I helped him. Moussa is a good man. Why would he cheat me? We have a shared secret: I don’t talk about Timbuktu, and he doesn’t talk about Paris. I promised to pay the price of the plane ticket back as soon as I could support myself, and why wouldn’t I be able to support myself? Everyone says that I’m much more beautiful than Penda Ly. I’m thinner, I’m more graceful, and I’m taller than her. My face is noble, one family friend said. But Penda Ly looks more like a dolphin than an international star. She may be Miss Senegal, but Penda Ly lacks style. And the competition organizers don’t have any money. I’d rather go straight to the source: Europe. Monsieur Moussa said he can arrange a contact for me there. He has connections. He knows the press secretary for Dakar Fashion Week. Believe me, these things will happen! Femme Africaine magazine just had a long article about this. Alek Wek, who’s from Sudan, got into music videos for Tina Turner and Janet Jackson, and made it to the top. Liya Kebede from Ethiopia was discovered outside a high school. She made it to Paris and the cover of Vogue, and they put her story in the magazine. Waris Dirie fled Somalia as a teenager and had a great career as a model. And as a defender of women’s rights. And then there’s Iman. Glorious Somali Iman. I admire her so much too! An American photographer found her in Kenya, at the University of Nairobi, and after that she achieved everything a black woman can get in the world. And she has done so much good for Africa. Especially for African children. She’s fought against AIDS. She made a big noise about those diamonds . . . she . . . (Wait, hold on, Maimuna! I’m trying to translate this: Mr. Moussa promised me a trip to Paris if I take the package to Timbuktu. In Paris I intend to find work as a model and earn money—is that what you mean, Maimuna?) Yes. (I wanted to leave Senegal because I didn’t want to marry the man my father chose.) Say that he doesn’t even know how to read! (He doesn’t even know how to read.) And that his breath smells bad! (Maimuna, is this really relevant?) Yes! He’s disgusting, gap-toothed, and impotent. I hate him! (He’s disgusting and impotent—so what happened in Timbuktu, Maimuna?)
A CERTAIN JOURNEY BEGINS
Maimuna, Mikael, Marcel, and Bonaventure departed Bamako for Timbuktu the next day. As arranged, Samballa drove up to the Mission Catholique Hotel in his red Mitsubishi Galant sedan at eight in the morning. Bonaventure took the passenger seat, and Marcel, Mikael, and Maimuna squeezed in the back, with Maimuna in the middle, even though Marcel was significantly smaller than her and had shorter legs. It was clear to everyone that Maimuna had to be in the center. Maimuna was a woman, so Maimuna was in the middle. She was Jeanne Moreau and they were Jules and Jim. Which was which Marcel didn’t know, and he didn’t intend to find out. Simply put, Maimuna was a fetching girl, and it was only right that they both have a small piece of her, if only the touch of a thigh, an arm, or her thick Afro. After this brief, gentle contact, their journey would continue on a flight from Timbuktu to Casablanca by way of Bamako.
Maimuna sat between the men and smiled. She was more exhausted than happy, but the nice cameras made her smile. The men snapped extremely beautiful pictures, especially Mikael,
