The Fantôme of Fatma

Figure 1.

Photograph by Simon Goellner

A bell made from one piece of hammered steel hung outside the Chief's door. Inside, they sat on pillows, with a silver tea tray in front of them. The Chief wore an embroidered white tunic and black headscarf, had clear eyes and a trimmed gray beard. Miles thought him beautiful but then felt guilty that he'd objectified the Chief in a way that he wouldn't objectify a white person. Then again, so many of the Malians were beautiful. They drank tea together. Miles glanced at Wolfy as she brought the teacup up to her lips and wondered what she felt, if she was as happy as he was being here in the intimacy of the Chief's hut. Beyond Wolfy, Deon sat with legs folded under a loose skirt and fidgeted with its hem. The Chief glanced at her often, speaking in a French made more exotic by his sonorous and clipped pronunciation. Miles heard the words escarpment and attention.

Karl, leaning over his folded knees, gestured with one hand. "He says if we want to climb on the rock, we have to be respectful of the spirits that live there and the ancestors of the people who lived there from before, in villages in the cliffs, and that we should not damage or take anything we find." Karl turned back to the Chief. "Also, he says to have good experiences."

"Ask him where we can put up a new route," Rodney said.

"I don't think he knows about the climbing," Karl said.

"Ask him anyway," Rodney said, flexing his wrist back and forth, stretching his forearm muscles.

Karl asked, and the Chief responded. Karl said, "He says it is all new."

Quietly and away, Rodney said, "Well, we know that's not true."

It had been Miles's dream to come to Mali, and he'd done the research. He knew that the fingers of Fatma had been climbed before, before Europeans, before Dogons, before people who had come from elsewhere, before history. The people had used sticks braced in the cracks to negotiate difficult sections, had villages and sacred places on the peaks to worship and follow the stars, to remain safe from their predators. At that time, the flora and fauna had been more dense. The harmattan had not yet come, and more rain had fallen. But Rodney was concerned with recent history, with climbers bagging first ascents and naming their routes.

They drank more tea. Karl talked with the Chief, and Miles tried to understand. Rodney and Wolfy talked about getting on the rock, what grades they might want to start with. Wolfy was the best climber among them and a large reason Rodney had wanted Miles and Wolfy along.

Now the Chief addressed Deon. She smiled and then laughed, jutting her chin out. "What does he want?" she asked.

Karl said, "He asks why you are here."

"Why is he asking me?" she said, laughing again. "Don't I look like a rock climber? Tell him I'm just here to see."

The Chief spoke to Karl, and Karl asked Deon, "Are your people from Mali?"

The Chief smiled.

"God, no," she said. "They're from Oakland."

When they'd finished their tea, the Chief stood at the door and looked only at Deon. Miles caught the word fantôme. After addressing her, Karl interpreted, "He says there is a ghost who frequents the rock."

Driving in a bachee to the camp, they commented on the quaint and superstitious Chief of the village.

* * *

Their first night in the Spaniard's camp, Miles scanned the crags with Rodney's image-stabilizing binoculars. Le Main de Fatma turned out into the desert like four fingers and a thumb, the buttress as the open palm. The Hombori Mountains, the rising escarpment, and the spires of Le Main de Fatma pulled what little moisture there was from the air, and the villagers in Hombori pumped up the ancient waters that had leached into the aquifer...