In Bamako, he is known by a byname, which he tells me with no hesitation. But his actual name, Gabriel, he tells me in a whisper, in confidence. When I tell him our mission overland from Lagos to Sarajevo, along the coast he says he's happy we aren't travelling through the desert. There are many burial places in the desert, he begins to aver. We find stones in the desert. We remove the stones, and see a decaying corpse. The name on the document remains legible. This is how we recognise the person. In the desert, death means nothing.
