The Accidental Smuggler
The Accidental Smuggler is a cautionary tale of criminal involvement. The theme set for this story was ‘crossing the border,’ and the main character does this more than once. The tale is about a young, naïve teacher, in his first job, who is inveigled into taking a parcel across an international border between two African countries. He loses his naivety, his girlfriend, and almost his freedom, but does he ever gain understanding?
To listen to this story, please click here
The train crossed the border and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. I had a job I enjoyed, I was off to see Avril, my girlfriend, and I had a commission from my friend, Sam, to complete. Sam was, in the jargon, an old Botswana hand – since arriving in the country as a ‘gauche twenty-two-year-old’ (his words), he had built up a business empire until he owned one of the biggest stores in Francistown, the best private clinic, and the only private school.
Things had changed. Mugabe took over in what is now Zimbabwe nearly a decade ago, so business interests that side of the border could be a little shaky: you had to know the right people – and today’s right person could become tomorrow’s wrong person with the stroke of a government pen. Those of us on the Botswanan side of the border took to taking extra cash whenever we went north. And not declaring it. I remember being a little shocked on learning the vicar’s wife also did this whenever she went to visit friends and family in Bulawayo, but it helped banishing any qualms I had in doing the same.
Avril was the vicar’s wife’s cousin’s daughter, back home after English boarding school and very grown-up. I was in my first teaching job and had come to Africa before settling down to a career back home. The only bit of parental advice I recall was ‘not to have anything to do with those African women.’ I was sure, despite being born and raised in Africa, Avril did not count: she was blonde-haired, blue-eyed, wonderfully slim (I could quote you her ‘vital statistics,’ but had probably better not).
This was to be my first solo trip from Francistown, Botswana to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, and I can recall being both ridiculously nervous and stupidly excited with anticipation. There was one train a day (if it was cancelled, there was always tomorrow) and only one journey – there and back. If the train pointed north, it was heading for Bulawayo; if south, it was going to Botswana’s capital ‘city,’ Gaberone (pronounced Haberoné) and then onto Johannesburg. The train arrived and we chuffed out of Francistown station within an hour or so of the official departure time.
I have no idea what it is like nowadays, never having been back to that part of the world, but in the late eighties, there were two options for ‘doing’ customs. Sometimes, the train would stop, everybody ordered to disembark, the train searched, everyone’s baggage checked, before anyone could get back on and the train continue on its way. Other times, the customs officials would be on the train, and the brief stop at the border would be for any passengers who wanted to disembark. As I remember no enforced hanging around at the border post, I can only assume it was a relaxed crossing and my undeclared ‘Pula’ could enable a very pleasant few days in and around Bulawayo.
I was sure completing my commission from Sam would be easy. He could not get to Bulawayo himself, but needed a consignment of carvings brought to his shop ‘as soon as, Andy – you don’t mind, do you?’ Of course, I didn’t mind. Truth to tell, I was a bit overawed by Sam Douglas. The story was he had arrived in Botswana, like me, as a teacher with the British Counsel, only he had been sent out to one of the new schools around the diamond-mining towns. By the time his contract finished two years later, he had already started his first business, getting luxury, as well as more basic, items reliably (‘that’s the key, Andy, you’ve got to be reliable’) into the village. He was the first in his family to get an education, and look at him now: big house, several businesses and a ‘wife’ who was a chief’s daughter.
It was the wife’s family who decided Sam could not get his package from Bulawayo. Had she not been a chief’s daughter, living with her would not have been a problem (especially given the colour of his skin), but her father was expecting grandchildren, and he expected them to be legitimate; so he demanded a meeting that very weekend. At the time, Botswana was betwixt-and-between: money was talking, but the traditional ways had not yet died out. Also, of course, AIDS was an issue, people were scared; marriage was deemed a ‘safe’ option.
There was another issue: Sam was a church warden. I should explain: a bit like 1950s Britain, on Sundays, you went to church, whether you believed or not. However, I think the new (as in new to the church, I was ‘new’ as well, so I never met his predecessor) vicar was also putting pressure on those who were ‘living in sin,’ so poor Sam was having to make a decision. Maybe he wanted heirs? Maybe too many people knew his common-law wife was his common-law wife? Anyway, I was happy to go to one of the traditional markets in Bulawayo for Sam and collect his box of carvings. It would be a good half-day out for Avril and me.
Avril did not seem so impressed with my idea. Instead, she and her parents took me on a game drive near the Matopo Hills, where I was allowed to be all touristy over seeing not one, not two, but three rhino! As I was the one with the zoom lens, I promised to send them copies of my photos. We rested up during the heat of the day at a game lodge where Avril and I spent time in the pool while her parents sat sipping cocktails under the shade of the veranda. Avril even consented, once we were out of the pool, for me to take a few snaps of her. I can still see her in my mind’s eye, laughing into the camera’s lens at something I said.
However, the next day, it was time to get these curios for Sam. Besides, I wanted to get Avril away from her parents for a while. Like the Englishman I was, I was going out in the midday sun to collect this stuff, but Sam had chosen a time when the market would be less busy. I was fascinated by the ‘fat-ball’ sellers (a sort of doughnut deep-fired in oil), the plates of meat and sadza (a sort of solid maize porridge). Avril was unhappy with how dirty and unsafe it all was, and would not even let me try the free samples. People looked at us, and went quiet, as I repeatedly asked for ‘Little Charlie’ – who turned out to be huge. As soon as I had got the trinkets, I offered to take Avril for lunch, ‘anywhere you like,’ but conversation lagged and I ‘showed myself up as a tourist’ by ordering the ostrich steak which, if I am honest, could have been beef.
Once we got back to Avril’s, it did not seem significant, or odd, that her father should be so interested in my box – nor for that interest to shut down once I said who the box was going to. My visit continued, but Avril and I were never alone; all very old-fashioned. I cannot remember what excuse was given for Avril to stay home at the end of my visit, but it was her father who drove me and my extra, well-wrapped, box to the station. He dropped me off, pleaded a meeting, and left.
The guards got on at Plumtree, just before the border. The train heaved its way towards the sunset as they made their way through the carriages. I was still young enough to be stupid, so I got hold of my camera, went into the corridor, stuck my head out of the window and took some shots of the train going round a bend with the sun sinking rapidly, as it only can do in the tropics, into the horizon. Had another train been coming in the other direction … as I said, I was young.
I just pulled myself back into the corridor as a customs official came along.
‘Evening, comrade,’ He was looking at my camera. I nodded back, all politeness, before realising he had recognised my Zenit. A Russian camera and, of course, Mugabe was, officially at least, a Marxist. However, the official was at my carriage door, it was time for me to cross back into Botswana.
‘Your box?’
‘Oh, yes! Lots of wooden carvings.’ I was smiling and nodding like a demented donkey. I pointed to myself: ‘Tourist. Presents for my family. You want me to open it?’
He just shook his head and held out his hand for my passport.
I walked the box from school to Sam’s store the next afternoon. He received me in his office, but did not appear over-impressed with my arrival.
‘Why couldn’t you just ring me?’
‘From the school office? Besides, I want to see them.’
‘Look – they’re just carvings!’
‘Yeah – might be good for my mum and dad. Christmas presents. That sort of thing.’ My focus was still, like a kid with an early birthday present, on the box.
‘All right!’ He opened up his Swiss Army knife and sliced through the layers of tape, and forced the box open. The top layer was wooden carvings. Not the best, and not what I would buy for mum and dad, but as I peered in, I could see white underneath. Without thinking, I had said, ‘what’s this?’ and, before I could be stopped, grabbed and pulled. A wooden carving came out with it, but I paid no attention.
‘This is ivory! What’s going on, Sam? I’d have been in real trouble if they’d seen this!’
Sam was not listening: he had paid attention to the toppled carving. It fell only as far as the table, but it had split in two: dirty pebbles were rolling over the table top and pinging, one by one, onto the floor, where Sam was grabbing at them as fast as they dropped.
‘Sam? They’re only pebbles. Look – there’s more ivory in the box!’
‘You leave that alone!’ Sam leapt to his feet, forced me away from the table and rammed me up against the wall.
‘You!’ his face, red and furious, was up against mine. ‘You complete prat! I knew you were naïve, but this … you didn’t come here this afternoon … and those are just wood. Say it! Those are just wood!’
Given his arm was across my throat, it was not easy saying anything, but I choked the words out. He released his grip.
‘One word. If I hear you’ve said one word – to anyone – about this – and I’ll make your life hell! You hear me?’
I nodded.
‘Now get out! And don’t let me see you in here again!’
Tears stinging my eyes, I left. I never shopped in his store again. In fact, I had as little to do with him as possible. I saw him at church, putting my weekly offering onto the plate he held every Sunday, but avoided eye-contact. I did try not going, but after two weeks, the vicar called round. It was the first time he had ever bothered to visit, but my absence had been noted, and it was being wondered if anyone had inadvertently upset me. While ‘inadvertent’ was not the word I would have used, it was easier to let the vicar think I had been out on the Saturdays drinking Chibuku, the local beer, with some friends – and woken up late on the Sundays worse for wear. The vicar prayed over me that I would resist the demon drink and I returned to being a regular worshipper.
By the time the vicar called, I had tried to see Avril again. This time the train was stopped, I was taken off, put into a hot, airless cell, and searched. Thoroughly searched.
‘Anything else? I can cut your clothes off you!’
‘There’s nothing else! Honest!’ He already had pocketed my undeclared cash. There were a couple of welts across my back where he had hit me with his sjambok. My spare clothes lay all over the dusty floor, my emptied rucksack tossed aside, its zip now useless.
He still made me take my clothes off, down to my underpants. Every pocket was turned inside out. His colleague called out something about the train. She peered in, saw me, and laughed out loud. When he left, the door remained wide open so everyone who wanted to could look into the cell to see my tearful self trying to get dressed and re-pack my bag.
The train had gone without me. Without any funds, all I could do was join the group of Africans on the side of the road, begging a lift back to Francistown.
I sent a letter, trying to explain what had happened, but I have no idea if Avril received it. All that happened was a phone call, to the school office, from her father. An international call caused much excitement, and the concept of privacy is, shall we say, different in Botswana. Secretaries, local members of staff, even one or two senior pupils, all crowded into the office. In Britain, people would at least pretend to be working. So, despite me pressing the phone as close as I could to my ear, I am sure they all heard me being accused of upsetting Avril, who was ‘years’ younger than me. Also, I needed to have better, legitimate prospects, for him to consider me any sort of suitor for his daughter, who was soon to start her university course in London anyway. Well, it was the first I had heard about that! Until that moment, I understood she was back home on a husband-hunt and I was a contender. No longer. All I could say at the time, was a series of ‘Yes, sirs,’ and hope the excited whispering in the office did not mean what I thought it did.
Eventually, the rant ended: I do recall the office being at least as crowded when I put the phone down as when I picked it up, as I had to push my way past several people to get to the door. That was rude of me – in Africa you always, always, stop to chat. As it was, I left the chatter, and any hope of having a girlfriend, behind me.
After our dispute, Sam was always friendly, but I came to regard it as the friendliness of a snake. As the whole church was invited, I attended his wedding. He had the gall to suggest I ‘made up to’ one of his wife’s younger, female cousins, who was supposedly very interested in me; but I joined the geriatric generation in making an early exit, missing the party. I saw out my contract, no longer interested in the uniqueness of Africa and its opportunities, refusing any trips requiring a border-crossing.
***
Years later, back in the UK, exhausted after yet another week’s teaching, I flicked the telly on. A documentary about the Amsterdam diamond trade, and I could not be bothered to change channel. The voice-over mentioned something about rough diamonds being ‘just like dirty grey pebbles.’ Why Sam wanted to smuggle diamonds into Botswana, which is a land-locked diamond-producing country, I did not work out, but he must have found it profitable. Presumably he was then smuggling them out again. Only then did I realise what I was thinking, and woke up: diamond smuggling, as my programme made clear, was a deadly trade. And what had I done on that journey? It would have done me no good at all to plead ignorance.
Sam was well-known. Looking back, all I can think is everyone knowing, but nobody talking, about Sam’s illicit activities. I suspect nobody held the required proof. Coldly sweating in that dusty armchair, on that grey English Friday evening, all I could think was Avril’s dad must have assumed I was part of Sam’s smuggling gang; moreover, a gang member prepared to use his daughter as cover when collecting Sam’s goods! No wonder he tuned against me and (probably – I have no proof, but it makes sense) shopped me to the Zimbabwean authorities. I suppose I should be grateful they were too slow to catch me with ‘my’ box of ivory and diamonds.
Sam retired in 1995, to a mansion in Manchester, and is now a grandad. Both sons are doing well: one is in IT and the other an eminent surgeon – there is no problem with their mixed-race heritage and they have both married well (to white women). How do I know all this? I get a Christmas card and letter every year, and he always enquires after me, though I do not reply.
As far as Africa goes, I no longer have my photos, except the one I took leaning out of that train window. There is one final coda. On my end-of-contract departure, a whole group from church came to see me off, full of ‘you must keep in touch,’ and ‘come back to see us someday!’ I checked my baggage through and, with my new rucksack on my back and a forced smile on my face, turned to say my goodbyes. Complete with crocodile grin, Sam appeared:
‘Thought I’d missed you! Just a little present – something to remind you of us.’
A package was put into my unwilling hands as my flight was called. I tried to indicate to the official he might need to check the item, but he waved me through. It was pre-9/11, when everyone was much more relaxed, so I walked out to the plane.
Mid-flight, I opened my present. No pebbles: it was a paper knife, with an exquisitely carved, ivory, handle.