The red cinders he'd encountered on the promenade had disappeared beneath asphalt, the palm trees that had lined the way, creating the fleeting illusion of arrival in some kind of paradise, had been chopped down. But directly above the water hung the moon, a baleful full moon, more orange than white. A moist, tepid wind blew through the window of the taxi; lush gardens, modern villas and two churches with rusty iron roofs went shooting by. Closer to the center of town, apartment buildings had been thrown up willy-nilly: the city had grown quickly, too quickly for any order to be imposed. That was something else I'd read about: just before Gabon gained independence, oil was discovered off the coast. Production entered full swing in the sixties, and ten years later, while we in Europe spoke glumly of 'the oil crisis' and had to leave our cars at the curb each Sunday, the first Rolls-Royces appeared in the potholed streets of Libreville. Buildings began poking through the line of mango trees. The taxi turned left at the head offices of Elf Gabon and drove up a rather gentle slope. It all added up, I told myself: the Central had been situated halfway up a hill, around a hundred meters from the sea - too far away to feel the breeze, too close to forget the ships bound for France at the quay. A place to get homesick in, and that went for Adèle as much as it did for Timar: her one desire, as soon as she made her fortune, was to move to the Côte d'Azur and live like a real lady, something she'd never been in Libreville. The taxi stopped. © Jan Brokken The Rainbird is published in Journeys, Lonely Planet's travel literature series.