The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Who Got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe (17 page)

But what could he do in order to avoid death? The situation did not seem very promising. He was a prisoner in a trap that was closing
around him a little more with each passing second. Ajatashatru knelt down in the basket, which was already leaking water, and held the briefcase tight to his chest. The briefcase which was stuffed with money that would now be of no use to him whatsoever. As if to prove, for once, the truth of the saying “Money can’t buy happiness.”

Captain Aden Fik had never seen a buoy as big and blue and as far from the coast as the one he was seeing now from his pilot house. So, being an enlightened and pragmatic man, he came to the conclusion that it was not a buoy.

But what was it, then?

A weather balloon that had fallen from the sky? The mushroom from Tintin’s fantastic island? A hot-air balloon whose basket contained an Indian and a briefcase stuffed with €100,000 in cash?

Whatever it was, it was something strange and unusual, and that did not bode well. It could easily be a trap laid by pirates. He turned up the engine, propelling his freight ship forward more quickly.

Aden picked up his binoculars and examined the UFO (unidentified floating object). He realized immediately that it was a hot-air balloon.
But where the basket should have been, there was only the opaque surface of the sea. It looked as if the basket had been completely submerged, along with its occupants.

Dismissing the possibility that this was a trap laid by pirates, the captain called one of his officers and ordered him to put a lifeboat out to sea with two men, so they could take a closer look at it. He had to act fast. Aden would much rather pick up the living than the dead. You could always get something from a living person. The dead were worthless.

Twenty minutes later, the men came back in the lifeboat, accompanied by a tall Indian, thin and gnarled like a tree—a wet tree, in this case—and wearing a white turban. With one hand, he held on to the aluminum survival blanket that had been draped over his shoulders; with the other, he gripped tightly to a black briefcase that he seemed reluctant to let go of.

“I am the captain of this vessel,” Aden Fik announced proudly in English, relieved to have found a living person from whom he might be able to squeeze something. “It was lucky for you we were passing at the right time. What happened to you?”

Ajatashatru introduced himself and explained
that he had been taking part in a hot-air balloon race near Rome when an unfavorable wind had made him deviate dangerously from his course toward the sea. When his gas reserves ran out, his only solution had been to land on the water. He would have drowned if the captain’s men had not appeared.

“In that case, welcome to the
Malevil
. I imagine your most pressing desire is to return to Rome and get back to your normal life,” added the captain, ogling the survivor’s mysterious little black briefcase. “However, due to a tight schedule, it is impossible for me to go back to the Italian coast. You are therefore obliged to swim there, which might prove rather difficult with a briefcase in your hand, or to stay with us until we reach our final destination, Mr.
I-shat-a-satchel
. But in that case, you must pay. As I’m sure you’re aware, life has a price. Unlike death …”

These words made Aja shiver. Yet again, it seemed he had flown from a frying pan into the fire. Perhaps he should have drowned when he had the chance?

“And where are we heading to?” he asked, forcing himself not to show the fear he felt.

But his hand was shaking so violently against
his briefcase now that it was audible. He sounded like a Brazilian percussionist during carnival season in Rio.

The captain pointed to the red, black and green insignia sewn onto his shirt. “To Libya, of course! Now, tell me what you have in that expensive-looking briefcase …”

When the
Malevil
dropped anchor in the port of Tripoli the next day at 2 p.m., Ajatashatru walked down the pontoon that led him to solid ground, €15,000 lighter than he had been before, but relieved.

The forced crossing had proved expensive. It could have been much worse, however. On the ship, he had been at the mercy of the Libyans’ moods. After all, the captain could have taken all his money and thrown him overboard, without anyone knowing. Yes, he had definitely got off lightly.

Libya was going through a period of unprecedented unrest and everyone wanted money, even captains of freight ships. Particularly captains of freight ships, in fact. To make ends meet, they sometimes transported illegal aliens, from Africa or elsewhere, toward Italy. On occasion, when an Italian patrol was drawing close, the traffickers would throw the illegals in the water, whether they knew how to swim or not. That
way, the Italians were forced to rescue them and to take them to the coast, while the criminals could sail back to Libya, unpunished and undisturbed, to plan the next crossing.

Nine months after Colonel Gaddafi was overthrown by NATO forces, the country was still the victim of terrible violence, rape and unending human rights violations. So you have to feel some compassion for those poor people. When they were given the opportunity to save an Indian and his briefcase containing €100,000 from the middle of the sea, they weren’t going to let him go scot-free. Obviously he was going to have to make a contribution toward the welfare of Libyan citizens who were living through one of the darkest periods in their history.

But in that case, you might ask, how did our Indian manage to save himself for a mere €15,000 when he was carrying a briefcase that contained €100,000?

Well … when you know how to transform water into wine using dye capsules skillfully hidden in the palm of your hand, when you know how to twist “thermomolten” metal forks simply by looking at them and stroking them, when you know how to stab a skewer in a false tongue that you are holding between your teeth, you are in a good position to escape—with a
little intelligence—from any sticky situation or excrement-filled creek in which you might find yourself.

So when the captain, holding a pistol, had politely asked Ajatashatru to open his briefcase, the shipwrecked Indian could find nothing to reproach in the request and accordingly did as he was told.

A purple haze—the color of the €500 notes—lit up the Libyan’s face, like the face of a pirate who has discovered treasure.

“I rather doubt you fell into the sea during an innocent hot-air balloon race, Mr.
I-ingest-ash-atchoo
! In fact, I suspect you were trying to escape from someone. The police, perhaps. Did you rob a bank?”

“Don’t get too excited. These are counterfeit notes,” Ajatashatru told him persuasively. He had stopped trembling and now seemed to have the situation in hand, because he had thought of an idea.

“They look pretty genuine for counterfeit notes!” said the captain, who was not going to be outfoxed by someone who was even more of a crook than he was.

“That’s because they’re well done. All of this is equipment for a magic show. It’s worthless, I swear on my integrity as a fakir!”

With these words, Ajatashatru took a half-dollar coin from his pocket and tossed it in the air.

“Heads,” he bet.

And the coin did indeed fall into the palm of his hand, face side up.

“All right, heads again,” said the Indian, tossing the coin in the air for a second time.

Once again, he won his bet.

“I know this trick,” said the sailor confidently. “It all depends how you toss the coin.”

“Close,” said Ajatashatru, showing him the half-dollar’s two identical sides. “But no cigar! People often think magicians have great talents for manipulation when the whole secret lies in their equipment … Another demonstration?”

The Indian did not wait for the captain to reply. He dug into his trouser pocket again and pulled out his green €100 note. He turned it over several times in his hand, showing the front and the back.

“So?” said the Libyan, bored with this little magic show.

“So what do you see?”

“A one-hundred-euro note.”

“Well observed. And does it seem normal to you?”

“Yes, completely normal. Well, as far as I can
tell, anyway. You keep turning it over like an omelet.”

“Wrong again,” Ajatashatru told him, opening wide his Coca-Cola eyes.

The captain looked startled.

“Contrary to what I told you a minute ago, rigged equipment is not always enough, in itself, to create an illusion. So, the magician has to use all his talents as a conjuror.”

And, with these words, he slowly turned over the note to reveal the blank underside.

“That note is only printed on one side! But I … that’s impossible!” stuttered the captain, unable to believe his eyes.

“Just a question of training,” said the fakir/writer, turning the note over with a click of his fingers and this time revealing that the side which had been blank was now printed.

“Incredible … How do you do that?”

The magician went on without listening: “As for this briefcase, it’s rigged. It looks like it is full of notes—real ones—but that, I’m afraid, with all the respect due to a man who is pointing a pistol at me, is purely in your head.”

Ajatashatru took a purple note from one of the wads in the briefcase, held it out in front of him, his fingertips touching the upper corners, as if he wished to admire the watermark, and
began to methodically fold it in two, then in four, then in eight, and so on, until the piece of paper was no bigger than a fingernail. He blew on his two hands and the note disappeared. Then he took another note from the wad and did the same thing, three times running.

“You see, these notes do not exist,” said Ajatashatru, lifting his hands in the air so that the three folded-up notes in his sleeve could fall down inside his shirt. “They are magic notes. Which really just means fake notes.”

“I don’t understand,” admitted the man, beginning to take the bait.

“It’s very simple. These notes are made from unleavened bread, a one hundred percent organic product with no yeast and no sugar,” the fakir lied. “The same procedure as for Catholic priests’ wafers, basically. The notes melt in my hands, which are warmer than the air in the room, and they vanish without a trace.”

“Amazing!”

“So that is why, although I appear to be in possession of a vast fortune, I cannot pay for my journey, captain, because this pile of cash is just a mirage, an illusion. And a tasty one, to boot.”

Unfortunately for Ajatashatru, Captain Aden Fik was a big food lover. So, in the end, the price paid by the shipwrecked Indian for crossing the Mediterranean was three purple mille-feuilles, which were in reality three wads of €500 notes, amounting to a grand total of €15,000. It could have been worse, though: had the fakir not used his famous gift of the gab to preach the benefits of a balanced diet and to warn about the outrageously high calorie content of unleavened bread, the captain would have taken the entire briefcase.

So that was why, as soon as the
Malevil
dropped anchor in the port of Tripoli the next day at 2 p.m., Ajatashatru ran down the pontoon as quickly as possible and disappeared into the quayside crowds. He was imagining the Libyan’s face when he started chewing his money and discovered that it did not melt in his mouth, and particularly when he realized that these were
real notes, and that he had let slip a briefcase stuffed full of cash.

The Indian found himself in the middle of a mosaic of unfamiliar smells and colors that reminded him how alone he was here. For a moment, he felt homesick for his village, his loved ones, his ordinary daily life. These days spent in strange lands were beginning to weigh heavily on him.

In this part of the world, people had olive skin just as they did in his country. But they did not wear turbans or mustaches, and that made them look younger. There were also a lot of black people like Assefa, eyes full of hope, who appeared to be waiting for boats to take them to that yearned-for continent of Europe, which he had just left so easily. Around them, men—some dressed in military uniform, others in civilian clothes, but all of them carrying machine guns—walked around smoking contraband cigarettes, to remind you that you were on the wrong side of the Mediterranean.

In his expensive suit, incongruous amid the local dress code of tracksuit and sandals, Ajatashatru attempted not to draw too much attention to himself. In the last twenty-four hours, he had already been threatened with a cooler, a knife and a pistol. As the weapons wielded by
his enemies seemed to be exponentially increasing in power, he might soon, if he wasn’t careful, find himself staring down the barrel of a rusty old machine gun. So the magician became, for a little while, a small beige-colored mouse, scurrying toward what it thought was the way out of the port while carrying a briefcase containing €85,000.

When it arrived at the guard post, the little Indian mouse found itself looking on helplessly as two soldiers, armed to the teeth, took advantage of a young black man. One of the soldiers had slammed the foreigner against a wall and the other one, cigarette dangling from his mouth, was nonchalantly going through his pockets. They took the little cash that they found, as well as his passport. They would get a decent sum for that on the black market. Then the soldiers spat on the ground and went back to their sentry box, laughing loudly.

The young man, robbed of his identity and the small amount of money he’d had to pay for his crossing to Italy, slid hopelessly down the wall like a hunted animal that is so badly wounded it no longer has the strength to stand upright. When his behind touched the dusty ground, he buried his head between his knees to disappear from this hell.

A chill ran down Ajatashatru’s spine. Had he not, in his banker’s suit, been as conspicuous as the Great Wall of China on Google Earth, he would have knelt down next to the poor man and helped him to get up again. But it was better not to draw more attention to himself. Yes, he would have knelt down next to him and talked to him about Italy or France; he would have told the African that the journey was worth all the difficulties. That he, Ajatashatru, had friends in the same situation, who must, at that moment, have been jumping into a truck bound for England, their pockets stuffed with chocolate biscuits bought in France, from a supermarket where there seemed to be so many things in abundance, all within reach for the price of just a few banknotes printed on both sides. That he had to keep going, not to give up; that the promised land was there, on the other side of the sea, a few hours’ journey in a hot-air balloon. That, over there, there were people who would help him. That the “good countries” were a box of chocolates, and that the most likely scenario was not that he would be greeted by the police. And that, even if he was, the police there did not hit you with big sticks, like they did in Ajatashatru’s village. There were good guys everywhere.