18°41'34.2"N 12°55'10.6"E - Bilma, Niger

  22.05.2024 – 12:00 UTC +01.00

  Getting around Bilma proved easier than I originally thought. Although I lacked any knowledge of Kanuri, the local dialect, most of the locals spoke Arabic quite fluently. The city’s roads were also quite busy with merchants, businessmen and women, schoolchildren, and even the occasional family strolling in the park. The busy streets provided enough cover for an unassuming traveler like me to wander around, without drawing much attention.

  I had made a mental note to keep the use of my Curses to a minimum, to a discreet degree, at least until I could figure out what the stance of the population and the authorities was. Reconnaissance would have to be a bit more traditional today, keeping any Calling at bay and simply relying on my hearing of the Nabd.

  It didn’t take long to figure out the layout of the city. The parks were quite integral to Bilma’s design; buildings were built haphazardly in randomly developed streets, to accommodate the large parks with their tall trees and small pools of water. What must have been initially a Sahara oasis had developed into a sprawling city. At least, that was the only explanation I could think of, as it was obvious that such a city so far away from any ocean could only be sustained by an extremely fortunate mass of water.

  People seemed to enjoy being part of such a natural arrangement. The city’s buildings guided vines and plants to grow around them, and at the top of the tallest buildings, solar panels shone and powered Bilma.

  Unfortunately, I was not there for tourism. In fact, I was not supposed to stay there more than a day or two, and now my stay had been extended violently by my brother’s condition.

  I sucked my teeth in anger, recalling the state in which he was when I visited him in the hospital.

  “Don’t let anyone but the doctor come near,” I had commanded our bodyguards, doubting the very reasons we were relying on them to begin with. What was the point, if my brother could simply decide to leave their protection? According to them, last night he managed to escape their supervision and go have fun in the naughtiest parts of the city. If I were not so extremely worried about his injuries, I would be screaming at him till the end of the month.

  “Absolutely childish,” I said to myself. If he wanted to visit casinos or cabarets, he could have done so with his bodyguards, and now I would not be going into all this trouble.

  I looked around at the street while I strolled, patiently waiting for the sound of the Nabd of his attacker to be detected by my Curse. Whoever they were, they were not far, as I could clearly distinguish the beating of their Nabd if I focused on it. However, they might have been anywhere within a few kilometers. So, while my Curse would inevitably lead me to them, I had to get smart.

  A bell rang as I entered a small pub, just as it started operating for its midday visitors. It was the fourth time I was trying already in the bar district of the city, where I assumed I could retrace my brother’s steps.

  I sat at a corner table. A waitress not far older than me approached me, initially asking something in her local dialect.

  “Is there something for lunch?” I asked.

  “Not much. Some palm nut soup,” she responded, quickly changing to Arabic. “You will have to wait just a bit; we only just now opened up.”

  “I have time,” I responded, and I was not lying. This was the first place I had entered in the past hour that gave me the slightest reaction with my sense of the Nabd. As she left for the kitchen, I looked around in the empty room. There was no one.

  But my sense would not lie. I closed my eyes and tried to focus. I did not hear a pulse; I was, however, close to something. Something that was not in this room, empty of people. I considered my options, opened my eyes, and walked to the restroom.

  I paused for a moment outside the two doors for the separated bathrooms. A disgusting stench hit my nostrils from there. I was about to open one of the two doors when my peripheral vision caught something odd on the wall next to me.

  Cracked and dusty glass was placed on the wall across the restrooms, serving as a makeshift mirror for anyone exiting them. But it was slightly tilting forward, leaving a small gap to the wall on its right side. It was a door.

  I slightly pulled the glass-lined wall and quickly snuck behind the door.

  It was an exit to a small inner patio. Soil and mud lined the edges, with bushes of vines crawling around and adorning the otherwise empty patio. Empty, besides the cigarette and tobacco remnants on the floor. A secret smokers’ patio.

  I looked around, unclear on what I could be looking for. Would I recognize my brother’s cigarettes? No, that made no sense.

  And then there it was. Amidst the mud and the dirty floor, there was a piece of a scarf, seemingly torn in half. I bit my lower lip.

  It was my brother’s, and it had blood stains on it, possibly what had triggered my senses. I had no intention of taking it back, so much doused in dirt that it would never recover. It had, anyway, served a purpose, a first quick lead to finding out something had happened in this pub.

  I was ready to depart the scene when something unusual caught my eye, just a momentary glimpse of what looked too delicate to be among the mud, right behind the scarf, and dropped behind the vines. A big white flower was left lying next to the scarf.

  I approached and leaned over it. Although it appeared familiar, I did not recognize what kind of flower it was. With a center rich in needle-like threads, and petals pulled back, a couple of them plucked even, it was not the standard bloomed flower you could find in a flower shop.

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  I picked the only petal that seemed not to touch the muck of the mud, and I put it carefully in my pocket.

  “That is not the women’s room,” the waitress said the moment I entered the bar through the mirror door. She must have been waiting for me. I got startled but tried not to show.

  “Oh, no wonder it is all open, of course,” I chuckled innocently. “Well, is it normal? So much tobacco, I mean.”

  She pointed to the other door next to me. I waved as if I was no longer interested in finding the restroom.

  “Not quite. I heard there was a ruckus here last night. Some foreigner smoking expensive cigars,” the waitress said. “And then some fight or commotion happened. Fortunately, I missed all the action on my night off.”

  “Oh, lucky you, must have been so wild,” I said, trying to pass as little interest in it as possible. I headed towards my table. “Is that usual, though? Fights here, I mean.”

  “Some local gang beat up a kid, who did them dirty. Or something,” the woman paused. “You’d better not be a blogger or something, I want no business in that stuff. Last time press was involved in this neighborhood, it was not fun for them either.”

  “Oh no, not at all. Just, you know, I just love the gossip. Can’t seem to resist.” I scoffed and giggled as I sat at my table. I was trying to play the role of the silly young girl, but I had a feeling I had never learned to act this way, and it showed. I was sure I was not fooling that woman. Right on cue, the woman paused and looked at me suspiciously.

  “Tell the Ngam Kúrà, again, I was not here, okay? I want no trouble.”

  I did not know how to respond to her. Ngam Kúrà? That must have meant something in her dialect.

  “We are out of soup,” she said emphatically as I delayed responding. “Maybe find another place for lunch.”

  “I understand,” I lied, “have a good day!”

  I exited the store promptly. I finally had a lead. I needed a break to think.

  I eventually managed to find a seat in a proper restaurant on a nearby street, my stomach full of a local delicacy I could not pronounce, and my hands holding the bloody handkerchief. I focused on my brother, making sure his pulse was still beating in the distance. After a moment of silence, I sighed with relief, detecting him alive and well.

  I put the handkerchief back in my bag and pulled the white petal out of my pocket. I had no idea what to make of it. But the Ngam Kúrà was not as difficult. A quick search online revealed they were a kind of local mafia, a gang of sorts that operated in most of this area. They were not often involved in violent crimes, but there were a lot of drug busts in the past years associated with their members. For better or worse, they were not infamous enough to warrant more online presence. I would have to seek them on my own.

  I picked up my phone and called my brother.

  “Still nothing,” he grunted, “I am sorry, sister. I do not recall anything.”

  “I will ask you once and only once, will I forgive your response, this first time.”

  “Ask away,” he said, audibly confused.

  “Were there drugs involved?”

  “Sis, no! What the hell?”

  “I will not ask again.”

  “Khalida, do you think I would let you run away and hunt someone if all it was, I just got high and jumped into a fight?” He asked. “Wait, why? What did you find?”

  “It was a gang. Some kind of local drug gang. I think.”

  I could hear him grunt on the other side of the call.

  “Khalida, just leave it. This reminds me of nothing, and it seems like you are ready to jump into trouble. Will anything I say change your mind?”

  “No.”

  “Be fucking careful then,” he said and cursed, “I love you”.

  “Rest well, Qadir,” I said and hung up the call.

  After my lunch, I went shopping in the city and returned to the Baobab Inn. I was planning to find the best dress fitting for the bar districts and explore the area at night. How difficult would it be to track any member of a gang?

  I was quite late by the time I returned to the hotel, and the sun was almost setting when I got next to the entrance, shopping bags in hand.

  The wind shifted my hair, and I felt my heart skip a beat. I dropped the bags on the spot and started to walk around the hotel. Once again, I was compelled by my Calling at the worst of times.

  Most times when the Calling took over me, it felt more like an invisible counsel, an unseen guide smoothing out the kinks and twists of my thoughts and casting the light forward. Other times, it was a cruel puppet master, openly disagreeing with the nature of my free will and strutting me around. This was one of those times. Even if it seemed harmless, the fact that I lost complete control over my decision-making reminded me why this was called a Curse and not a blessing.

  I was led behind the hotel, where the maid I had met yesterday was tending to the garden. I waited and observed. She was holding a watering can and pouring water on the flowers. When she was done, she turned to one of the biggest Baobab trees next to her and emptied the rest of the can of water. Once completely empty, she left it and grabbed the rake to collect fallen leaves.

  I doubted this tree needed watering. Its size laughed at the puddle formed at its roots. And yet, I could only appreciate her intention of tending to the whole garden. I approached her with slow steps, still lured by my Calling, and I noticed the branches of the Baobab tree – full of white flowers, still tightly closed and not blooming. A couple of them were lying on the ground, next to the maid who was leaving them behind when raking the rest of the leaves.

  I walked towards one of the fallen flowers and picked it up.

  “Oh, Miss, don’t do that,” she said, chuckling a bit, “everybody knows that. Never pick a flower from the Upside-Down tree, or the big cats will rip you apart.”

  I pulled the petal from inside my pocket and compared it: it was undoubtedly the same flower that was dropped next to my brother’s scarf. My Calling subsided, whatever its intentions were, now feeling somehow satisfied.

  “I am sorry, big cats?” I asked.

  “Yes. Baobabs are cursed. Big Cats. Oh no, that’s not right,” she said, visibly struggling with Arabic. “Lions. That’s the word”

  “Ngam Kúrà,” I responded. That’s what the name meant.

  She laughed. “Yes, yes, lions, big cats. Same thing.”

  “Same thing,” I said, as my skin crawled.

  Message received. This was my Calling warning me. Don’t pick the flower, or the lions will eat you. I wondered who the flower was and who the lions were in this metaphor.

  As my Calling formed a new direction in my mind, the flower opened in my hands, revealing its peculiar interior, with juice oozing from its needles.

  “I guess I have to answer the Calling,” I sighed.