Ivory Nation by Andy Maslen (free children's ebooks online txt) 📕

It was a mistake. Gabriel knew it. And he could see that Yusuf knew it, too. Gabriel said nothing. Sometimes it was the most effective way of getting people to talk. Some people just couldn’t bear the pressure.

‘Look,’ Yusuf said, finally. ‘I am not saying that I do know these people.’ He cleared his throat and took a sip from his glass of tea. ‘But just suppose I did, I would be taking a huge risk giving them up to you. A huge business risk. I would lose a great deal of money.’

Gabriel stared at Yusuf. Watched the way his eyes, glistening with tears at his gift a few minutes earlier, now had a greedy glint. Yusuf was just like those others. The ones for whom it all came down to this. He mentally rubbed the pads of his thumb and forefinger together.

‘I can pay you for information,’ Gabriel said. ‘If you have any.’

Yusuf shook his head.

‘You misunderstand me, Gabriel. Money can always be replaced, yes? But favours are a currency beyond value. I tell you a name and you owe me a favour. A man as well connected as you will know many powerful people.’

Gabriel didn’t even have to think.

‘No favours. Sorry.’ The last one I repaid nearly got me killed and a village full of Chinese peasants massacred.

Yusuf pooched his lips out in a moue of disappointment.

‘That is a shame. But, as I said, I was only speaking, what is that English word, hypo…?’

‘…thetically.’

‘Exactly! Hypothetically.’

Gabriel returned the smile. Time for one more roll of the dice.

‘I’m sorry, Yusuf. That was rude of me to push when you had already answered my question. Look, at least I can cross this place off my list. Thank you for your time. I don’t suppose, while I’m here, you would show me around? I am fascinated by the whole process.’

Yusuf smiled again, his moment of irritation forgotten.

‘Of course! It would be an honour. Come! Come!’

After the quiet of Yusuf’s office, the hum and rattle of fifty electric motors, boring, burring, cutting and polishing ivory was deafening. He looked at the bent heads with the blue paper masks over their noses and mouths. How do they take it without going deaf?

He followed Yusuf as he pointed out particularly intricate or large pieces of ivory. Unprocessed tusks were stacked on wooden pallets against one wall. Gabriel saw dark rust-red stains on the roots and pictured the mangled and mutilated heads of these great beasts. He felt a sudden surge of anger and reproached himself for sucking up to Yusuf. Needs must.

A cry of pain made him look up.

36

A woman working on an entire tusk, three feet from root to tip, had reared back in her chair. Her face above the mask was pale. She was clutching her left hand. Blood seeped from between her fingers.

‘Stupid woman!’ Yusuf yelled in Arabic as he rushed over. ‘Don’t get blood inside the tusk, it’ll never come out.’

The woman was rocking back and forward in her chair and Gabriel saw blood streaming now, from between her fingers and onto the concrete floor. Yusuf was shouting for a first aid kit and in the woman’s corner of the factory, work stopped while her co-workers crowded round to comfort her, or just to watch.

Gabriel looked back at the door to Yusuf’s office. It was standing open. Of Jiàntán there was no sign. He must have gone off to get something to eat or drink.

While Yusuf knelt at the woman’s side trying to get her to release her bleeding hand, Gabriel turned and strode back the way they’d come. He glanced over his shoulder then slipped inside the office.

A grey steel filing cabinet occupied one corner. He tried the top drawer. It didn’t yield. Shit! The desk held an ageing PC, black and dust-covered. Gabriel jiggled the mouse to wake it up. His reward, a dialogue box asking for his password.

He pulled open the drawer beneath the desktop. A few pencils, a calculator. Some rubber bands. A packet of breath mints.

He caught movement in the corner of his eye. A pennant, six inches by eight, fluttered in the cool breeze from the air conditioning unit. He hadn’t seen it earlier because the bookcase to its right had blocked his view.

Glancing over his shoulder, he crossed the office to get a better look.

At first he took it to be a sports trophy of some kind, the type of gift opposing team captains exchange on a football pitch. Shield-shaped, with a white fringe running along the sloping lower edges, it depicted a white sun flaming over a green hill. A quartered ground of turquoise and orange completed the design. But it was the wording running along the top that interested Gabriel. He peered at it.

Boerevryheid an Regte

He recognised the language: Afrikaans. The first part of the first word was easy enough to decipher. Boer: the descendants of German, Dutch or Huguenot settlers in the Transvaal and Orange Free State.

The rest he was less sure of, although Regte looked a lot like the German word for ‘right’: recht. He heard hurrying footsteps behind him. Yusuf’s voice, calling his name. He pulled out his phone and took a couple of pictures, willing his fingers to stay still as he focused on a close-up.

He stuffed his phone back in his pocket and moved his gaze to the ivory elephant carving beside which Yusuf had placed the jade salmon.

‘Gabriel! I thought I’d lost you.’

Gabriel turned, smiling.

‘I was in the way over there,’ he said, jerking his chin towards the door. ‘Is the lady going to be OK?’

‘She is fine. A little cut, nothing more. I tell them to be careful but they don’t listen.’

Gabriel looked over Yusuf’s shoulder, where the factory workers had all returned to their tasks. How much was he paying them? Was he paying them at all? Were they trafficked? He realised he had no time to worry about the fate of the ivory-carvers. Yusuf was eyeing him as a