fall on me. The land needs it but I don't, and I hurry past wheat fields and over hills to beat it. Halfway to Sousse I know it's going to get me (it's a personal thing between the rain and me) and I stop to pull on the waterproofs. The land is very quiet, just a bunch of horses about a mile away. I wish I shared that calm.
As I ride along I'm thinking about Kabaria. Why did it end like that? It would have been prudent to leave the day before.
Yes, well it would have been prudent to stay at home. You have to let things go their own way, or why be here at all.
Still, I am uneasy. I have to find a way to be with people in a less spectacular fashion. I didn't see why Mohamad thirsted for prestige. He got drunk on it, and how can I blame him? It's all very well for me to go around feeling humble, but I must also be aware of the effect I am having on others. It could be potent.
Sousse is a big town of eighty-four thousand people. Hassan the engine driver lives here, but his directions are hopelessly inadequate. Maybe he never meant me to find him. Anyway, I have spent too long now looking for him, and it's too late to ride on. I come across a beautiful old part of town, and a hotel of mosaic, tiles, lofty arches and cool interiors. A room for a dinar. Behind the hotel is a tiny lean-to shelter crammed with rags and boxes where I can put the bike. A man in a torn and dirty kaftan watches me struggle to manoeuvre the bike in through a narrow gate, ten minutes of hard work, and then says: 'One dinar.'
I am furious at him. 'You should have told me before,' I yelp.
That's right, you tell him. Let's have some English justice and fair play around here. God, Simon, you are a prick.
I argue the price down to something reasonable. In the morning, where I thought there was only room for the bike, I see there are people sleeping too. The information hits me like a custard pie in the face.
There's a lot of water everywhere. The roads near the sea front are under two feet of it. Do they mention this in the brochures? I see a package of Nordic tourists washed up in a hotel lobby. The hotel looks as though it has absorbed its own weight of water.
Crossing overland to Sfax I see another antediluvian wonder rear up ahead of me, a vast wall shot through with rows of ragged windows bars my way like a small mountain range. At the last minute it veers off sharply to the right and becomes the remains of a colosseum.
El Djem is flooded. Sfax also. The watery greyness keeps me going. Along the coast now, more life, more traffic, mud-brick houses, market gardens, date palms, donkeys, camels, all the things you read about, see in pictures. When you get there you know none of it was right.
Riding cautiously in the wet I have only gone one hundred and sixty-five miles by mid-afternoon. I decide to stop at Gabes, very aware of the Libyan frontier coming close. I want to prepare for it somehow. Tunisia is not part of the war. It is a Western-orientated, tourist-conscious, bilingual country. Libya is belligerent, fanatical, oil-rich and runs according to the laws of the Prophet Mohammed, or so I am told. I decide to post all my exposed film off now, and at the last minute remember a document I'm carrying that has an Israeli stamp on it and send that away as well. Images of search and interrogation flash across my mind. They make me both shiver and laugh at myself. Extreme situations always seem absurd until they happen.
When does the 'B' movie become a documentary? Back at the factory in Meriden we laughed about my untried, unprepared motorcycle. 'Chances are,' said one mechanic, 'if you don't worry about it, it'll go all the way with no bother.' I chose to worry. I took all the tools and spare parts I could carry, and half an hour later the oil fell out. Because I was prepared?
Does it rain because you carry your umbrella, or because you don't? It's a personal matter depending on how you remember it. The way I write my own history it's low on
As I ride along I'm thinking about Kabaria. Why did it end like that? It would have been prudent to leave the day before.
Yes, well it would have been prudent to stay at home. You have to let things go their own way, or why be here at all.
Still, I am uneasy. I have to find a way to be with people in a less spectacular fashion. I didn't see why Mohamad thirsted for prestige. He got drunk on it, and how can I blame him? It's all very well for me to go around feeling humble, but I must also be aware of the effect I am having on others. It could be potent.
Sousse is a big town of eighty-four thousand people. Hassan the engine driver lives here, but his directions are hopelessly inadequate. Maybe he never meant me to find him. Anyway, I have spent too long now looking for him, and it's too late to ride on. I come across a beautiful old part of town, and a hotel of mosaic, tiles, lofty arches and cool interiors. A room for a dinar. Behind the hotel is a tiny lean-to shelter crammed with rags and boxes where I can put the bike. A man in a torn and dirty kaftan watches me struggle to manoeuvre the bike in through a narrow gate, ten minutes of hard work, and then says: 'One dinar.'
I am furious at him. 'You should have told me before,' I yelp.
That's right, you tell him. Let's have some English justice and fair play around here. God, Simon, you are a prick.
I argue the price down to something reasonable. In the morning, where I thought there was only room for the bike, I see there are people sleeping too. The information hits me like a custard pie in the face.
There's a lot of water everywhere. The roads near the sea front are under two feet of it. Do they mention this in the brochures? I see a package of Nordic tourists washed up in a hotel lobby. The hotel looks as though it has absorbed its own weight of water.
Crossing overland to Sfax I see another antediluvian wonder rear up ahead of me, a vast wall shot through with rows of ragged windows bars my way like a small mountain range. At the last minute it veers off sharply to the right and becomes the remains of a colosseum.
El Djem is flooded. Sfax also. The watery greyness keeps me going. Along the coast now, more life, more traffic, mud-brick houses, market gardens, date palms, donkeys, camels, all the things you read about, see in pictures. When you get there you know none of it was right.
Riding cautiously in the wet I have only gone one hundred and sixty-five miles by mid-afternoon. I decide to stop at Gabes, very aware of the Libyan frontier coming close. I want to prepare for it somehow. Tunisia is not part of the war. It is a Western-orientated, tourist-conscious, bilingual country. Libya is belligerent, fanatical, oil-rich and runs according to the laws of the Prophet Mohammed, or so I am told. I decide to post all my exposed film off now, and at the last minute remember a document I'm carrying that has an Israeli stamp on it and send that away as well. Images of search and interrogation flash across my mind. They make me both shiver and laugh at myself. Extreme situations always seem absurd until they happen.
When does the 'B' movie become a documentary? Back at the factory in Meriden we laughed about my untried, unprepared motorcycle. 'Chances are,' said one mechanic, 'if you don't worry about it, it'll go all the way with no bother.' I chose to worry. I took all the tools and spare parts I could carry, and half an hour later the oil fell out. Because I was prepared?
Does it rain because you carry your umbrella, or because you don't? It's a personal matter depending on how you remember it. The way I write my own history it's low on
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