Oaxaca ~ Part III

Many years before…

English mixed with German among the crush of voices Ben could hear in the great room of the Munich beer hall. Two tables away a group of American soldiers were having a ‘short-timers’ party for their friend, a G.I. who was about to receive his military discharge. Through the din the exuberant soldier kept shouting, “I’m going to Baghdad!” 

‘That’s strange’, thought Ben. Only the day before he was at a local library paging through a world atlas when he discovered a map, which revealed that Baghdad was an actual modern city in the Middle East. He had always assumed that it only existed in old fables. This was a time long before the city was constantly in the world news. Gazing at that map Ben was seized with the idea of traveling on to Baghdad himself. 

He turned in his chair and shouted out, “Who’s going to Baghdad?” 

An affable looking fellow who was obviously among friends looked over at him and said, “I am.” 

Ben shot back, “I’m going to Baghdad too!”  

Without skipping a beat the stranger declared, “Well let’s go together!” 

With their first encounter at the Munich beer hall Ben Gentry and Arnold Stone threw in together to make the long journey to Baghdad. The two strangers were well suited to travel in each others company. Both in their early twenties they came from well-to-do American families. Arnold was from Louisiana and was just finishing his service with the US Army in Augsburg, Germany. Ben was from Arizona and had spent the previous summer hitch-hiking around Europe. When he came through Augsburg late in the summer he happened to find a civilian job on the local U.S. Army base. The two young men were each well educated and each possessed a robust sense of humor. This occurred in the last months of 1966. 

As the journey progressed they had made their way from Germany through southern Europe and crossed the Strait of Gibraltar from Spain onto the North African continent. Then from Casablanca, Morocco they set out east on a rugged passage over the Atlas Mountains, across the Sahara Desert, three thousand miles of bad roads, or no roads at all, towards Cairo, Egypt. 

The plan was to reach the ancient city of Baghdad and the ruins of Babylon by way of the Egyptian pyramids. For transportation they traveled in an old broken- down Volkswagen, which they purchased in Germany for sixty-five dollars. The car had deficits but it ran. They agreed to travel in the VW until if and when it gave up the ghost. In that case they would push the car off the road, take out the backpacks and continue on their journey by any means possible. So far the car chugged along with no sign of falling to pieces. 

Along the way the two men developed a routine that consisted of moving on until they were both too tired to drive. Then they would pull off the road and camp for the night. Camping was simple. They threw their sleeping bags on the ground and climbed into them. Most days they would drive slowly, taking breaks along the way to spend time in the villages most of which resembled scenes from the Bible. Sometimes they would stop for a day or two, especially when they came across the architectural remains of ancient empires. 

They were three days out of Algiers heading east along the remnants of a narrow weathered road. The rocky summits of the Atlas Mountains were giving way to the western reaches of the Sahara Desert. 

Night had fallen and Ben was driving the car when the engine sputtered and quit. “Oh no.” said Ben. 

“What?” said Arnold.

“I’ve lost power. The engine stopped.” 

“Are we out of gas?”

“Oh. Maybe.” 

The ‘50s vintage VWs didn’t have gas gauges. However, there was a lever next to the gas pedal, which the driver could kick over to provide one more gallon of gas to the engine. This would get thirty more miles of driving. Ben kicked it over and the engine sputtered back on. 

Arnold and Ben had both lost track of their gasoline reserves. It’d been well over fifty miles since they passed through the last town. They agreed to continue on until the reserve gallon was exhausted. This in hopes of reaching a settlement. 

The road was in poor condition and kept the VW at a slow rate of speed. Nearly an hour had passed when they first saw a bluish glow of light in the distance. 

“What’s that light?” said Ben. 

“No idea,” Arnold replied. 

“Oh, maybe we’ll get lucky. Get some gas. 

“Maybe.” 

“This is hard on the nerves.” 

“I know.” 

Just then the engine quit. As the VW coasted to a stop, Ben steered it off the road onto hard packed sand. 

“Now what?” said Ben. 

“Let’s just camp for the night. Sort things out in the morning.” 

“How about we get out and walk to that glowing light?” 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Arnold. “I don’t want to leave the car unattended. Not out here.” 

“Yah, that makes sense,” said Ben. “How about you stay with the car and I walk to the light.” 

“How far do you think it is?” 

“Can’t be more than a mile or two.” 

“I don’t know. It’s a risk.” 

“We could be up and running within the hour.”

“Maybe.”

 I’m going to do it.” 

“I’ll wait here.” 

“Do we have anything that I can use for a weapon? Y’now, just in case?” 

Arnold opened the glove compartment in front of him and rifled through it. “Here.” He handed a butter knife over to Ben. 

“Oh… deadly.”

“It’s all we have.”

“Better than nothing I suppose.” 

Ben put the butterknife in his coat pocket and exited the vehicle. Immediately he realized how pitch black everything was. There was no moon out, only star light and the distant glow to guide his way. He took each step, blinking his eyes to make the most of the starlight and tapping his toes to be sure he was still on the tarmac. He waved his arms in front of him in case there were obstructions on the road. By this method he kept moving toward the glowing light. 

Progress was slow and clumsy. Ben was about a half-mile from the VW when he heard the hyenas. This stopped him in his tracks. Knowing how sound carries in the desert, he figured they were a fair distance away from him. He put his right hand in his coat pocket and felt the butter knife. Not reassuring. 

Winter nights in the Sahara are cold, often sub-freezing. The sounds of the hyenas got Ben’s heart pounding. He realized he was shivering. He stood still, cold and frightened and not sure what to do next. He wondered if he could get back to the car or if he should keep going toward the light? The sounds of the hyenas grew faintly louder. Or was that his imagination? For a moment Ben wondered if this was a bad dream. But he knew he wasn’t dreaming. “You don’t shiver in your dreams“, he thought. For the longest time he stood still in the black of night, fighting off panic and trying to form an idea of what to do next. 

As he puzzled over his dilemma Ben perceived a new glow of light coming from the direction of the VW. After a few moments he realized it was an automobile coming in his direction. He stepped off the road onto the sandy shoulder. His only thought was ‘I don’t want to be hit by this car.’ 

An elegant Citroen sedan came to a stop directly in front of Ben as the right side windows rolled down. In the ambiance of the interior lights, he could see three Arab men, clean-shaven and dressed in suits and ties. They stared silently at him. Silently, he stared back. After a few moments the Arab man in the back seat said,“Do you speak English?” 

“Yes I do,” said Ben. He had assumed that in this part of Algeria people only spoke Arabic and French, neither of which he spoke. But he was careful not to show his amazement at this stroke of luck. 

“Is that your car behind us, pulled off the road?” the Arab asked.

“Yes, we ran out of gas.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m trying to find some gasoline,” 

The three men spoke softly to each other in Arabic. Then the man in the back seat said, “Get in car. We take you to get petrol.” 

When Ben sat down in the back seat of the Citroen, the warmth of the car’s heater made him realize how cold he had become. The graceful French sedan glided through the desert night like a magic carpet. He thought about the old VW, how roughly it rode and without a working heater. When they left Germany it was snowing and Arnold had jokingly named it The Black Oven. Oddly enough, the name stuck and ever after they referred to the car as “The Oven”. 

During the drive everyone remained quiet. When they finally approached the glowing light Ben realized it had been nearly ten miles from where the VW ran out of gas. As it turned out the light was simply for security at a closed and fenced warehouse. 

The man next to Ben asked, “Did you think you would find petrol here?” 

“Yes,” he replied. The silence continued. 

When they were a few more miles down the road the driver turned to the right onto a dirt road. The car proceeded to wind it’s way up into a mountainous region. Ben felt some alarm at this development but knew to keep his mouth shut. He understood if these men meant him harm there wasn’t much he could do about it. Not at that point. Surrounded by steep mountainous terrain, it was hard to see where the car was going. Then they rounded a sharp bend, revealing the destination. 

It looked like a scene from an old western movie. The wide dirt street ran through a small town. It was only six blocks long. One-story buildings were on either side of the street, fronted by raised wooden sidewalks. At the center of the town on both sides of the street there were two bright incandescent floodlights placed high on steel poles. Many of the buildings had light in their front windows. The Citroen pulled up in front of a large brick building. 

One of the Arabs said to Ben “come with us” as they all exited the car. He followed them up wooden steps and through a door into the brick building. 

Passing through the door, Gentry stepped into another world. It was a traditional Arab coffee house, smoke filled and dimly lit. It was roughly thirty feet by forty feet in size with a high ceiling. The great hall contained a dozen old rectangular tables, each with old wooden benches. On most of the tables there were hookahs, Arab smoking pipes. Each table was occupied by four to six Arab men. They were mostly clad in traditional burnouses – the long hooded robes of the region. A few wore casual Western work clothes. Many of the men were playing backgammon. 

Three waiters circulated the room, delivering cups of tea and coffee. They also refilled the hookahs with fresh smoking materials. It was a festive scene with a boomtown sensibility. Ben stood by the front door, waiting for a cue as to what he should do next. 

At the far end of the room the three Arab men from the Citroen had a conversation with a man who appeared to be the proprietor of the place. Then the English speaking Arab came over to Ben and said, “You wait here. I send someone to fetch you. He bring petrol in can and drive you back to your car.” No sooner had Gentry said “Thank You”, than the well-dressed Arab joined his companions as they left the building. 

Standing alone in a room full of strangers Ben suddenly felt exhausted. He looked for a place to sit. In the dim, smoky light he could see a long bench placed against the wall next to the front entrance. He walked over and sat down on it. The warmth of the room and the mood of the occupants brought him a sense of relief. At this point Gentry felt no urgency. He was content to sit and wait. 

Sitting there Ben observed two men and a child sitting on a bench at a table about six feet away, directly in front of him. With their backs to him they all wore loose fitting hooded garments. The men were highly animated and engaged in a backgammon game with other men across the table. The child who Ben figured to be eight or nine years old sat to their right. Through the loose fitting cloak, he observed the skeletal outline of the child’s hips, shoulders and back. The child was squirming on the bench and in the play of light and shadows it slowly became apparent to him that this was the anatomy of a female and not that of a male. Something like this had never occurred to him. 

From all he had just gone through Ben was delirious with exhaustion. And as he sat quietly in the dim and smoky light of this coffee house he gazed at the slow kinetic motions of the girl on the bench. He was astonished by what he was witnessing. In a wholesome way, it would remain the starkest vision of the feminine figure that he would ever experience in his life. 

A teenage Arab boy came into the coffee house to fetch Ben. He knew maybe ten words of English but that was enough. Ben observed that one of the young fellow’s eyes had gone milky. The two of them walked outside onto the street where a small delivery van was parked. The vehicle gave the appearance of a rusty corrugated chicken coup on wheels. They got in the van and the young fellow started it up. He put it in gear and with a lurch they were on their way.

Riding down the mountain Ben wondered just how roadworthy this van might be. It shook and rattled and with no muffler sounded like a tank. As they approached the main road the driver had picked up considerable speed. He apparently didn’t see the gully at the intersection and they hit it with such force Ben thought the whole contraption would fly apart. 

The van slid to a stop and the engine stalled. Then when the driver turned the ignition the engine wouldn’t start. It felt like an eternity to Ben as the kid kept cranking over the engine. Finally it started up again.

It seemed a long distance to Ben as they drove the main road back to the VW. At one point he wondered if Arnold and the car would still be where he left them. Then in the distance the dim headlights of the van revealed the ‘Oven’.

As they approached the VW Ben could see Arnold sitting calmly in the passenger seat. They pulled up and Ben got out of the van. Arnold also got out and did a little victory dance. Ben joined him.

“Man, you did it,” said Arnold. “You got the gas.”

“Around here,” said Ben, “the Arabs call it ‘benzena’.” 

After that night Arnold referred to Ben as “The Great Benzena” and in time contracted it to “Benzo”. The name stuck.

The young Arab proceeded to take the metal ‘gerry can’ and poured gasoline into the VW tank. While the two vehicles caravanned back to the mountain town, Ben told Arnold the story of what he’d just experienced.

They returned to the coffee house where Arnold got himself into a backgammon game with three Arab men. These fellows were all dressed in western clothes and two of them spoke English. Arnold would learn that everyone in the town worked at a nearby mining operation, which explained the boomtown atmosphere.  

As was his habit, Ben set out exploring the town. After awhile he observed a crowd gathering in front of a shuttered window on the main street. They were mostly women who for some reason weren’t wearing burqas. They were modestly dressed in pastoral clothing. 

A light went on over the shuttered window and then someone opened the shutters to begin selling freshly baked rolls and loaves of Arab flatbread. The aromas drifted to where Ben was standing. When the crowd had dwindled he went over to see if he could buy some bread. He purchased one roll to see how it would taste. Bread had never tasted so good to him. He purchased a bagful of rolls and stashed them in the VW. 

That night Gentry and Stone made camp at the edge of the town. In the morning they continued on their eastward journey, deep into the Sahara Desert. 

To be continued…