The Abrupt Physics of Dying

by Paul E. Hardisty

  Clay took stock. He had plenty of fuel, half a tank and two extra jerry cans in the back. They’d left him half a litre of water, his compass and notebook. They hadn’t touched the whisky. But Abdulkader’s Kalashnikov was gone, as was the handgun he kept in the glove box. It was nearly midday. That put him a maximum of 250 kilometres cross-country from the Kamar-1 well and the pipeline trunk road. By the look of the land, he guessed they’d taken him north, further towards Wadi Hadramawt, probably east, too. There was a second set of tyre tracks nearby that disappeared to the south-east. If he struck south, eventually he’d hit the trunk road that paralleled the escarpment and the coast. There was no question now of trying to go back for Abdulkader. Unarmed, alone, he had little chance of finding him, let alone getting him safely away. Destiny crystallised around him, inescapable, just as Al Shams had said it would.

  Clay found the medical kit under the seat, took three painkillers, swilled them down with whisky, and cleaned out the wound on the back of his head as best he could. He pushed a compress bandage down hard onto it to stop the bleeding, secured it with his headcloth, and set out overland.

  An hour later he was still heading south, not a road or track in sight. He leaned forward in the seat, let the superheated air whipping through the open window vaporise the sweat from his shirt back, and looked out across the dead-flat loneliness to the shimmering heat of the horizon. This was the hottest place on Earth, and soon it would be summer. Even the Bedouin rued these months. It should have been a good place for forgetting. That’s why he’d come.

  Now he knew that for him there would only ever be remembering.

  He reached the Kamar-2 pipeline road just over three hours later. It took what remained of the day to reach Wadi Idim and the pass down the escarpment. As if rebelling against the loss of its owner, the old Land Cruiser blew out its right front tyre shortly after. Only one spare remained and the whisky was gone by the time he emerged onto the coastal plain. Al Shams’ men had taken what little food he had stashed in the vehicle, and the last of the water was long since gone.

  He stopped by the roadside and unrolled his blanket under shuddering stars, but despite the codeine and the whisky, he could not sleep. The last moments at the canyon played themselves out again in his mind. He’d screwed up. The kid must have survived the fall – it wasn’t far, four metres at most – climbed back up to the ledge, got behind him. He’d been distracted by Al Shams, had allowed himself to be drawn in, to lose focus. Had Abdulkader tried to warn him? He hadn’t heard a thing.

  After four restless hours he continued on his way, dread marshalling within. Al Shams had made it clear: go to the villages, deliver the message to Petro-Tex, or Abdulkader would die. Bring the Army, and Abdulkader would die. That Al Shams could track his movements, verify his actions, Clay had no doubt.

  By mid-morning he was approaching the village of Um’alat along the broad flat wadi of the same name. Goats scattered as he passed, dust rising in puffs from their hooves. A lone camel, its front legs hobbled, foraged among the stunted acacia that snaked along the grey cobbles of the main channel. Here the wadi narrowed and turned north toward the escarpment. The village, a tight cluster of tall, mud-brick buildings set on the wadi bank, rose through the dust and heat like some pre-Islamic apparition. He rolled Abdulkader’s Land Cruiser to a stop just outside the main gate, turned off the engine and stepped to the ground.

  Within seconds he was surrounded by children – miniatures of the men who’d taken his friend, dark-haired, dressed in rags. They laughed and smiled, followed him as he walked toward the main gate, tugged at his sleeves. An older boy approached, dressed like a man in a thaub and a tweed jacket, sandals fashioned from car-tyres and goat leather, a Kalashnikov slung over his right shoulder. The boy raised his hand to his forehead and said in English: ‘Follow.’

  They were expecting him.

  The boy led Clay to a low, whitewashed building on high ground overlooking the village. Inside, the single room was packed with tribesmen, all standing, all talking – the Bani Matar, Sunni Muslims of the Shafa’i sect. This ancient clan had dominated this part of the Masila since the time of Persian rule and the dawn of Islam. They had endured the Caliphate, seen off the Ottoman occupation, fought the British, survived Egyptian chemical weapon attacks in the 1960s, and outlasted the Soviets. Tough didn’t even begin to describe them.

  The boy led him through the maze of bodies to a small stool at the far end of the room. Opposite, waiting, sat the mashayikh, the sheikh. The room went quiet. Clay sat, opened his notebook to a blank page, glanced up at the tribesmen packed like judge, jury and mob into every corner of the mud-brick room, and listened.

  The mashayikh reached for the Kalashnikov leaning against the wall, swung it level and balanced it across his knees. The trigger pointed out like an accusing finger, the whole of it beautiful, hateful, a work of calculated, merciless perfection. Clay stared at it, entranced, unable to break away.

  ‘Mister Straker,’ the mashayikh’s voice broke through, heavily accented, frayed.

  Clay looked up, breathing hard.

  The mashayikh fixed him with a long stare. ‘My people are worried,’ he said after a time. ‘The children are ill.’ Grumbled translations rippled out across the room. ‘It has begun in Al Urush, six months ago. A sickness. The children bring up food, their skin breaks open. Now it is worse.’

  Of course it could have been anything, despite Al Shams’ assertions: gastrointestinal infection, an outbreak of measles, flu, who knew. There were always complaints manufactured to claw money from the operators: goats run down by pipe trucks, camels poisoned by fictitious gas clouds, crops ruined by oil-tainted water that sprung mysteriously from the ground. He had heard it all before, in villages and settlements just like this all over the region, with no claim too spurious.

  And so, as the Arab spoke of the inadequate compensation, of the lack of jobs for the young men, of the corrupting influence of the oil workers, Clay Straker’s thoughts were elsewhere. He watched the mashayikh’s mouth move behind the short-cropped grey beard, heard the words arch out over the dozens of armed tribesmen, registered the murmurs of translation and the spreading echoes of agreement. He could even pick out the occasional word or phrase: khawga, foreigner; molhed, godless one; even once a hissed shatan – hard to miss, the origin of the English word of the same enunciation. Would this Al Shams, who seemed to believe so fervently in the power of God, actually murder Abdulkader, one of his own, one of the very people he purported to be fighting for? The events of the last day began to dissolve away and lose substance as fatigue and pain and hunger took hold, and he knew that no matter what he said back at the office in Aden, all that would remain would be another paragraph in a report, another message for the bosses to ignore. Naafi, as they used to say in the Battalion. No ambition and fuck-all interest. Enough for Al Shams? He doubted it.

  ‘Mister Straker?’ The mashayikh was leaning close, looking into his eyes. ‘You bleed.’

  Clay ran his hand across the back of his neck, closed his eyes a moment. His hand came away wet with blood. He looked up, wiped his hand on his trouser leg. ‘It’s nothing.’ He took a sip of tea and put the glass on the small wooden table between them. ‘Please continue, Excellency.’

  The mashayikh closed his eyes a moment, opened them. ‘We see many trucks, many men coming. What is the plan of your company, Mister Straker?’

  ‘I am a contractor, Excellency. Petro-Tex is not my company.’

  ‘But you are here. You speak for them.’ More murmurs from the crowd.

  ‘I am doing community consultation and environmental impact studies only. I listen and report back.’

  The mashayikh motioned with his head towards the notebook spread open on Clay’s knee. ‘Now you can report.’

  ‘The illness. Yes.’ He started to scribble in his notebook, but the pencil lead gritted over the silt that dusted the empty page, fracturing the words. He wiped the paper with the side of his hand and sta
rted again.

  ‘It is said that Petro-Tex is making the oil factory on the jol bigger. They do this to take more oil from our land. Is this true, Mister Straker?’

  The room erupted again, everyone speaking at once. Some were shouting now, spitting out their accusations in the harsh Arabic dialect that he was only just beginning to understand. The mashayikh raised his hand to restore a degree of calm.

  Clay wiped the sweat from his eyes. The back of his hand came away streaked with mud. ‘The oil-processing facility on the plateau is being expanded. As part of the expansion programme, the company will build a school for your children, and they will drill a new water well for you.’ The standard line. By now he could recite it without thinking.

  The mashayikh wrapped both hands around the barrel of his rifle. ‘We have no need of your well. The ghayls – our springs – have provided for our people for all time, thanks God.’ Another chorus of murmured agreement: Al hamdillulah – thanks be to Allah.

  The mashayikh smoothed out the folds of his crisply laundered thaub, pulled a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiped the dust from his polished leather brogues. ‘Your company will take no more oil until the sickness is stopped, Mister Straker.’

  ‘Respectfully, Excellency, it is not possible that our operations could cause the type of illness you have described.’

  Again the plaintive murmurs, accompanied by the sounds of feet shuffling on sand and the metallic clink of sling-strap buckles on curved magazines and folding stocks. Above the din, a voice rose from the back of the room. Heads twisted to listen; the men quietened. A young man dressed Saudi-style in a flowing white robe stood against the back wall, one hand resting on a young boy’s shoulder. He was tall, clean-shaven, light-skinned, almost European-looking. He was Clay’s age, maybe younger. He spoke slowly, his voice like wind sculpting rock, deep and resonant.

  ‘The poison that afflicts our children comes from the facility. It comes in the air, down the wadi, when the cool winds blow from the plateau. We can smell it, foul like the vapours of hell. This is done by the government and the company to push us from our land. It is intentional.’

  When the young man had finished speaking, the mashayikh inclined his head and turned towards Clay. ‘This is my son, the chief of Al-Bawazir. Are his words true, Mister Straker?’

  Clay shifted his weight on the handmade wood and woven reed stool. The thing was unsteady, too close to the ground, and he had to rest one knee on the packed earth floor just to stay upright. He wanted to stand. He wanted to straighten his aching legs and walk across the room to the door and out to the waiting vehicle. But here, he knew, convention must be honoured. He was expected to answer.

  He looked around the room at the tribesmen, their sun-worn faces as open and uncompromising as the rocky ground of their birth. They seemed to be studying him, his curious flaxen hair, his pale eyes. No one spoke. He looked down at the ground, at the clay and silt covering his boots. Something trickled down his back, along the gutter of his spine, sweat or blood or both. Someone coughed. He glanced at his watch. Time had a different meaning here. Not yet a commodity, it was reckoned still by the rhythm of the seasons, the comings of the winds and rains, the movement of planets and stars. In this place there was no fear of silence, no need to fill time and space with meaningless words.

  Moments passed. A minute? Maybe more.

  Finally Clay said: ‘This is a European company, operating to the best international standards.’ Again, what the script demanded.

  The mashayikh narrowed his eyes. ‘You insult us, Mister Straker. We know this is a lie.’ He looked down at the weapon lying across his knee, caressed the smooth walnut handguard with sinewed fingers, and then locked his gaze onto Clay’s eyes. ‘We can make things very difficult, Mister Straker, if we choose.’ Then he leaned close and whispered in Clay’s ear. ‘Also, we can cooperate. It is your choice.’ His breath reeked of qat and alcohol.

  Then the mashayikh stood and swung the Kalashnikov over his shoulder. The audience was over. Clay got to his feet and clasped the man’s right hand in his own, making sure to keep his left hand, the unclean one, behind his back. He felt the grit in the mashayikh’s skin, saw the stains of years cracked and stretched over the bones, and looked into the murky tannin eyes. ‘Shukran, Excellency. I will take the message back to my superiors in Aden.’

  ‘I will expect you soon, then,’ said the mashayikh with a flourish of his hand as he turned towards the door, the room emptying around him.

  Soon Clay was alone. He slumped onto the stool and drained the last of the sweet dark tea. Was that what this was all about? Money? Al Urush was less than an hour away. He would see for himself.

  A Melody of Spokes

  Fifteen minutes out on the deserted main road, Abdulkader’s Land Cruiser continued its rebellion. Clay pulled over onto the rough gravel shoulder, and for the second time in less than a day set about changing a tyre. He had just mounted the last spare and was tightening the lug nuts when a vehicle appeared in the distance. It was travelling at high speed, heading towards him, floating on the heat. A hundred metres away, the car slowed, a Land Rover, white, new. As it approached, Clay could make out a single occupant, thick black hair streaming from the driver’s side window. Clay stood, tyre iron in one hand, and was about to wave when the driver gunned the engine. As the Land Rover flashed past in a hurl of dust and flying pebbles, the driver turned for an instant and looked at Clay through a tornado of whirling hair. For a fraction of a second their eyes met. Then she was gone. Clay stood gaping as the vehicle’s wake disappeared in the shimmering heat haze. A woman driving alone out here was unusual enough. Even more startling was that she had been unveiled, and uncommonly beautiful.

  Clay arrived in the village at the height of day, when the sun had reached its zenith and the ground baked in the heat. At a distance, Al Urush looked like any other hamlet on the coastal plain, a cluster of earthen-brick huts nestled within a shock of green palms at the base of the cliffs. The mouth of a steep canyon yawned above the settlement as if ready to swallow it complete.

  He stared up at the escarpment, a massive wall of Palaeocene limestone that ran parallel to the coast for hundreds of kilometres in both directions and rose up to the barren tablelands of the Masila. The rock here was riven with long deep faults, veins carrying life to the ancient spring that wept from the base of the canyon walls. Aflaj, ancient hand-laid stone canals the width and depth of a man’s hand, carried the water to the fields, houses and palm groves of the village below. And somewhere up there, high on the plateau, five kilometres up-wadi, the Petro-Tex central processing facility, the CPF, gathered in the oil produced from two major fields and dozens of wells.

  The dirt track ended in a small clearing at the base of a massive dolomite boulder calved from the cliff face. Clay stopped the vehicle at the edge of the clearing. Nearby, two veiled women in black burqas and conical reed hats toiled in a stone field. Bent double at the waist, they worked the ground with medieval hands, pulling up sheaves of a meagre crop.

  He sniffed the hot dry air – burnished stone and ripening dates, a trace of wood smoke. Nothing unusual or even vaguely industrial. At the far side of the clearing a small boy sat in the shade of a trio of date palms, cradling an old bicycle wheel between his knees as if it were a harp. Head bent to the instrument, the boy flicked a short stick down across the spokes, one after the other, click, click, click, with slow deliberation until the lower clunk of the rim sent him back to the hub to begin again. The boy looked up as Clay approached but did not stop playing, only watched and clicked out the one-note melody in time with Clay’s footsteps through the dust.

  Clay greeted the boy in Arabic. He could not have been more than five or six, the same age as Abdulkader’s youngest son. The boy’s face was sullen and grey, but his eyes were bright. There were open sores on his neck and arms. His name was Mohamed. Clay asked the boy to show him the ghayl, the spring.

  The boy looked at him for a moment a
nd then frowned. ‘Why you are angry?’ he asked in high-pitched Arabic.

  Clay stood for a moment looking out across the plain, this part of the country so different from the veldt of his childhood and yet so reminiscent in its heat and unforgiving dry. He crouched down to the boy’s level and tried to smile. ‘I am not angry with you.’ It was always easier speaking with children. His Arabic was almost at a six-year-old’s level.

  The boy’s eyes widened and he smiled. His gums were red and inflamed. The boy pushed himself to his feet and stood clutching the bicycle wheel in both hands, turning it right and left, leaning into the turns, chattering in a shrill cracked boy voice.

  Clay could not make out all the words.

  ‘Toyota,’ the boy said, pointing at Abdulkader’s dust-covered vehicle.

  ‘You want a ride?’ he replied in English. The boy was making engine noises now from deep in his throat, changing gears, accelerating. Clay reached into his pocket and offered the boy a sweet. The boy took it and smiled again.

  ‘Ya’llah,’ said Clay, reaching down and swinging the boy up onto his shoulders. The boy squealed in delight, still holding his wheel. ‘Let’s take a look at the ghayl,’ said Clay. ‘Maybe we’ll find something further up.’

  Clay buckled Mohamed into the passenger’s seat and jumped behind the wheel. The boy was chattering excitedly, pulling at his sleeve.

  ‘Aysh?’ asked Clay. What?

  The boy put aside his bicycle wheel and pointed at the steering column.