The Eye of Ra

by Michael Asher

  The drug fizzed through my blood, breaking up my awareness into a billion particles of being, shooting them along a laser-beam into the horizon. I retained my consciousness of everything around me, yet at the same time I was floating somewhere above it all, in utter silence. I heard a heart beating fast — mine — and heard heavy breathing, felt muscles tensing and relaxing, feet pounding like pads on the flat white sand of a desert, and looked down to see that I was no longer in my human body at all, but in the frame of a spectral desert jackal — Anubis — my ancestral spirit, the embodiment of all that lay in my past and my future. There were tracks behind me, tracks that led from England to Cairo, to al-Maqs and through a ghibli to Jilf Kibir. I’d left visions in my wake, Julian’s body in the sand at Giza, Julian running away in the night at a speed that wasn’t Julian’s, Nikolai’s agonised face, a crude Eye of Ra on his mirror in blood, the explosion at his shop, myself flapping like a kite, Karlman’s fingers digging into me, Rifad’s sweating forehead, Rabjohn saying ‘you may be hiding your light under a bushel’. I strained into the distance to see where my tracks led to and glimpsed even more disturbing images — Doc’s limp body hanging by a belt from a ceiling, an old Hazmi with a tortured face, Elena unconscious in a dark cave, a tall fair-haired boy lying dead in the sand. I peered towards the desert horizon beyond these images, but I could see only a black hole into which all paths seemed to disappear, a dark nebula beyond which I could observe nothing. Something told me that space was called Zerzura, and as I looked the blackness formed into the gigantic shape of the Eye of Ra. Suddenly, though, I was distracted by a brilliant white light that seemed to enfold me, and I looked up to see a fiery sun-disc emanating rays that ended in small hands — hands that seemed to stroke my skin coaxingly. I looked up towards the sun-disc and a deep voice startled me: ‘The Chosen One,’ it said. I felt myself rising out of the trance like a bubble rising through water, and suddenly, with shocking intensity, I knew many things. I knew that Mukhtar had been right. I did have the Shining power — had had it since I was a baby, in fact, and had tried to suppress it. I laughed at the stupidity of my self-denial. The power was still there, had always been there, smouldering powerfully in my psyche. It had saved my life several times: as a child when I’d foreseen the unexploded mine, when Kolpos had tried to slice me up, when the grenade had been rolled across the floor — and it had warned me on other occasions, like when I’d known the police were waiting for us at Khan al-Anaq. The dreams I’d had while knocked out at Doc’s had been telling me that same thing — I was an illuminatus — not ‘nothing’ as Hammoudi had told me, but ‘something’ after all. And as full consciousness dawned around me, I knew that I could never, ever go back to being what I’d been before.

  When I came fully to myself, I saw Elena looking at me with pupils wide as saucers. I had no idea how much time had passed. The music had ceased, the fire burned down to its last embers, and the cave was full of smoke. Many of the Hawazim had retired to their own hearths, others had fallen asleep where they were, or were rocking gently still to some internal soundtrack. Elena took my hand, and a bolt of sheer sensuous electricity shot through me. ‘We belong,’ she said. I felt the truth of her words. Silently, we got up and, hand in hand, walked unsteadily out of the cave and into the starlit night. The moon was bright above us, and we descended the path easily. We found the soft sand-bank where we’d sat earlier and laid out the blanket and rug we’d brought with us. The night was warm and perfectly still. When I took her in my arms and kissed her, it seemed that her lips were on fire. Wild energy flowed between us. Again and again we kissed, exploring each other’s mouths with our tongues, clasping each other’s bodies. The Shining drug had somehow made my senses so acute that each touch of mouth or hands sparked off a small shock of ecstasy. Elena must have felt it too, for she moaned when I kissed her neck, and gasped as I ran my fingers through her hair. In a moment we had shredded off our clothes and lay naked on the blanket, panting with desire. I stroked her breasts and her back softly and she responded, parting her lips and brushing my inner thigh with her fingertips. When I entered her I knew this wasn’t lust, but true belonging, a moment of real communion with eternal life.

  39

  I awoke to a biting headache, and found an inquisitive early-morning camel sniffing at my hair, nibbling at me with drooling prehensile lips. A young herdsboy, a small brown figure in torn sirwal stood near by, laughing at me. ‘You’re lucky it’s only a camel,’ he said. ‘Last time we were here, one of the men woke to find a huge hyena licking the fat out of his hair. I don’t know whether he or the hyena got the bigger shock!’

  I tried to grin but my head hurt. I looked round for Elena, and the boy nodded up the hillside. ‘At Shallala,’ he said.

  Shallala was a spring half-way up the sandstone stack on the south side of the amphitheatre, easily reached in ten minutes’ scramble over a boulder scree. I guessed somebody had told her that a small pool of crystal-clear water was to be found there. It was ideal for bathing, but was hardly ever used because the Hawazim had been brought up to treasure every drop of water, and had never got into the bathing habit even when water was plentiful. I climbed up over the boulders and found the pool under a rock overhang, its walls worn smooth by the passage of water over the centuries. Elena, crouching in the water up to her neck, was the only occupant. She looked relaxed and serene. ‘How do you feel this morning?’ I asked.

  ‘I woke up with a terrible hangover,’ she said, ‘but now I feel wonderful. How do you feel?’

  ‘A lot better now I’ve seen you.’

  ‘Come on in!’

  I glanced around. There were no prying eyes, so I took off my jibba and sirwal and jumped in. The water was as cold as ice, and the shock knocked the breath out of me.

  ‘Sheeeesh!’ I said.

  ‘Forgot to tell you — it’s cold. Good cure for a hangover, though.’

  I put my arms around her waist under the water. ‘You shouldn’t bathe naked here,’ I said, smiling, ‘there’s not much privacy.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, parting her lips and slipping her arms up my back. ‘And what about you?’ I kissed her deeply and gently, then harder, and she responded passionately, caressing me. Suddenly her hands stopped moving, and I felt her fingertips tracing the ridge of scar-tissue that I knew traversed my spine diagonally from neck to the buttocks. She drew in a breath and turned me round gently. ‘Good God!’ she said. ‘It’s the Hawazim whip-mark. You were lashed when you were a kid!’

  ‘It was all voluntary,’ I said, ‘but I don’t advertise it. The kids at school in England used to call me a “savage”. I was never allowed to forget.’

  ‘Over a girl?’

  ‘No, it happened soon after my mother’s disappearance, when a boy said she’d run away with another man. I took the lash, stroke for stroke, against him. And I beat him. By Jiminy, that was the most painful thing I’ve ever taken in my life, as if you’d been struck by lightning. They say it’s worse than being stabbed. My father went spare — I was only nine years old.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, and I thought my childhood was painful!’

  I kissed her again, harder this time and held her tightly. The drug had worn off, but the magic was still there. ‘It wasn’t just the Divine Water, then?’ she said, smiling.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘We belong.’

  We climbed out of the pool later, shivering, and dried ourselves with our discarded clothes. She’d been right about the water — my hangover was completely gone. The sun was already hot, and our wet clothes dried almost immediately. As we made our way down into the wadi, I noticed a new herd of camels, packed tightly shoulder to shoulder, being driven by mounted men cracking hide whips and chanting. The camels were mostly females with bulging udders — the milch-herd of the tribe. After them came a flock of goats, drifting across the valley in a sheen of dust. ‘What’s this?’ I asked the nearest herdsboy.

  ‘The flocks and milch-herd,’ he told me. ‘Ahmad wald Mukhtar has
just brought them in from the fringe pastures.’

  ‘Ahmad!’ I said. ‘I missed him at al-Maqs.’

  ‘Another cousin?’ Elena enquired.

  ‘Yes, my favourite cousin,’ I said. ‘The one I used to go on desert forays with when we were kids. He’s built like Samson — the only man I know who can lift a full-grown she-camel. He’s younger than me, but he used to be a sort of minder to me when we were boys. I’ll never forget the day some village youths were beating me up and calling me a “Dirty Hazmi”, and Ahmad came flying round the corner like a whirlwind. A lot of the kids were bigger than him, but next thing I knew he’d floored the two biggest. Out came the old khanjar. “You touch my cousin again,” he said, “and I’ll come to your houses at night and cut your throats so silently you won’t know about it till you wake up!” You should have seen the look on their faces, I mean they actually believed him. We had a good laugh about it afterwards.’

  When we arrived in the entrance-cave, we found Ahmad sitting with Mukhtar, Mansur, and ‘Ali at the coffee-hearth. They looked like Red Indians, with their weathered brown bodies, their unkempt fat-smeared hair, and their rifles nursed in the crooks of their elbows like magic wands. All of them stood up to greet us in the formal Hawazim way. ‘Thanks to God for your safe arrival,’ I told Ahmad. He was a short, squat man — a sort of pocket Hercules — almost neckless, with a head like a boulder, a shaggy beard, and pectorals that bulged under his jibba.

  ‘Omar!’ he yelled, slapping my shoulders and squeezing my arms with massive hands. ‘Still a city pipsqueak, I see! Muscles like sparrow’s knee-caps. You ought to get back on a diet of mutton-fat and camels’ milk. Make a man of you, by God!’

  ‘You’re right,’ I said, ‘I need a holiday in the desert!’

  He shook hands with Elena and we sat down at the hearth. ‘Where were you when the real men were fighting the government?’ I asked.

  He beamed. ‘If I’d been there it wouldn’t have been a fair fight, let’s face it, cousin!’

  Everyone laughed. ‘What kept you, anyway?’ I enquired.

  ‘When you arrived at al-Maqs I was herding the flocks and the milch-herd on the fringe pastures. Mansur sent me a messenger, so I struck camp and made my way here by a longer route. I sent scouts into Kharja town to put their ears to the ground, and they caught me up on the second day. A whole regiment of police-troops has arrived at the airport in big aeroplanes, with vehicles and even armoured cars.’

  ‘Allah!’ Mukhtar said.

  ‘And there were helicopters and spotter aircraft there too, all with police insignia. One of our scouts dressed up like a peasant and got into the airport. He said he saw a giant of a man with a head like an egg.’

  ‘Hammoudi,’ I said.

  ‘That’s the man; our spy heard them call him Captain Hammoudi. He was greeting an officer in uniform who looked like his boss, and who’d just got off the plane with the police troops. Our man listened to their talk, and the giant called the boss Major Rasim.’

  ‘I’ve heard of him,’ I said. ‘Rascally-looking fellow?’

  ‘That’s him. There was an old man with him who watched everything, but didn’t say much. At first our spy thought he might have been a foreigner, but when he did speak, his Arabic was that of an Egyptian. Major Rasim seemed in awe of him, but the giant one looked at him suspiciously.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘They heard him referred to as Jibril.’

  ‘Was he a police officer?’

  ‘Might have been. Our man couldn’t tell. Said that he seemed to have authority, though. Rasim said to the giant one, “We’ve got to put a trace on Ross and the girl. I want them found as soon as possible, but don’t lay a finger on them till I give the word. As for those damned Hawazim rebels, I want them caught!”’ There were chuckles from all sides.

  ‘Anyway, the scouts passed through the fringe villages on the way back. The government have gutted al-Maqs. Houses burnt down, well damaged, feeder-canals ruined, palm-groves and gar-dens destroyed. Oh — and I’m sorry, Father — they found the secret hiding-place at Khan al-Anaq. Broke through the capstone and climbed into the well. Our scouts say the ushabtis and the book are gone.’

  ‘Bastards!’ I said.

  ‘Yes, but that’s not the worst of it. Omar, do you remember our old share-cropper?’

  ‘Yes, always looked after the place when you weren’t there —Swaylim wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. The scouts found him tied to a tree with his throat cut.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes. Feet were burned, so it looks like they were trying to get your whereabouts out of him.’

  ‘God have mercy on him!’ Mansur said, shaking his head, his good eye blazing. ‘Those pigs — Old Swaylim knew nothing but his land and his dates. Wasn’t even a Hazmi, by God!’

  ‘We’ll take his price in blood when the time comes,’ Mukhtar growled.

  ‘The scouts also passed through Kwayt village. There’s a rest-house for travellers close by, and someone stopped them and gave them saqanab — the news. The news was that there was a man staying in the rest-house, a foreigner, who’d come looking for you, Omar.’

  ‘Must be Rabjohn,’ I said, glancing at Elena. ‘What was he like, an oldish man, American?’

  ‘The scouts didn’t see him, but apparently he went to al-Maqs, found it burned out, and passed on to Kwayt. Said he had an urgent message for you.’

  ‘Might be a government spy,’ Mansur said, ‘a trap.’

  ‘No, Rabjohn’s a friend of ours. It must be him; he’s the only one apart from Doc, another friend, who knew we were going to al-Maqs. He helped us get here.’

  Everyone fell silent for a moment, weighing up the situation. It looked as if the police were determined to fight this one out. Mansur took a brass coffee-pot off the fire, and poured out the first cup for Mukhtar.

  ‘Well, what did the Divine Spirit tell you, Uncle?’ I asked him.

  The old man knocked back his coffee in a single gulp and handed the cup to his son, shaking it from side to side. ‘The Divine Spirit told me two things,’ he said. ‘One is that the source of all this trouble is Zerzura, the Lost Oasis. All the evil that has befallen us emanates from there. If we wish to know what this trouble is really about we must go there…’

  ‘Yes, that’s exactly...’ I began, but Mukhtar silenced me with a raised hand.

  ‘The Divine Spirit also reminded me that my responsibility is the strength of the tribe. We may not be safe here if the government comes after us in force. We will only be safe across the border in the Sudan. That is why I propose to take the tribe across the frontier as soon as possible.’

  ‘Uncle, if we don’t find Zerzura, we’ll never know what happened to your father,’ I said.

  ‘Zerzura killed my father and so many of my relatives. The ushabtis Wingate found there have brought death and destruction. Nothing has come from Zerzura but corruption.’

  ‘Uncle, I must go there.’

  ‘But how will you find it? Zerzura is only a legend. We know the desert better than anyone, but none of us has ever seen it.’

  I thought for a moment. ‘Look, Wingate found it. If he could, so can I. His headman, Hilmi wald Falih, is still alive. Maybe he could tell us something.’

  Mukhtar shrugged. ‘Hilmi is possessed by Jinns — that’s what he got for seeking Zerzura.’

  ‘Look, Uncle, give us a few days — maybe a week. If we can’t find Zerzura in that time, you take the tribe across the frontier.’

  ‘But who will go with you?’

  I scanned the faces of Ahmad, ‘Ali, Mansur and the other Hawazim who’d gathered around. They remained impassive and inscrutable.

  ‘I’ll go alone if I have to,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll go!’ Elena said, suddenly. ‘I’ll go with you, Jamie. I’m not afraid!’ She stared round challengingly at the men, who began to shift uncomfortably.

  ‘Surely you’d not let a woman shame you, Ahmad!’ I said, unf
airly.

  ‘Damn you to hell!’ Ahmad said, beaming. ‘All right, Omar. I’ll go.’