He had a hard climb of it though, just before dawn, from the valley of Nacfa up to the high ridge the Eritrean trench line followed. The ground was in fact so steep that Moka kept on telling me to hand over my pack to him, though he avoided the same gesture toward Henry, and—frequently desperate for breath—I would say yes and hand the load over to him until breath and shame revived. Behind me I could hear Christine gasping for air. But when I made an occasional futile offer to carry her sound gear, she refused. She had taken on her father’s professional standards—the carry-your-own-gear ethic of the camera crew. I had for some reason not been surprised to discover from Moka in the small hours that the Frenchman and his daughter would be coming with us. Christine had foreshadowed this the day before at the soccer game. She had said she was or might be going through the lines. It had seemed apparent to me then: If Tessfaha wanted a journalist there, if the Eritrean Relief wanted Henry, then someone must want Masihi to film it.
