The broad man clapped his half-brother Mansur on the arm. ‘Since when has the mighty One-Eyed Warrior been scared of firms!’ he said. ‘Just one glance from that dead eye of yours is enough to send them off in terror!’
‘All right,’ Mansur said, slowly, ‘count me in.’
‘And me,’ said ‘Ali. ‘Never let it be said that my half-brothers showed me up!’
‘One of you must stay,’ Mukhtar said. ‘Which is it to be?’ They stared back at him stoically, none of them wishing to give in now they’d committed themselves.
Mukhtar smiled. ‘You are sons to be proud of,’ he said, ‘you put your father to shame. But one of you must stay. All right, Omar. The tribe will remain here until Zerzura is found — or not. ‘Ali, you stay here. And I shall go with Omar, too.’
‘You’re a brave man, Uncle. No one would expect it at your age.’
‘I’m not brave, Omar. It’s just that I have nothing much to lose.’
‘The tribe has a lot to lose,’ I said.
He smiled.
‘What about Hilmi?’ Ahmad asked. ‘God knows, he might remember something.’
‘He’s in Kwayt,’ Mukhtar said.
‘Good,’ said Ahmad, ‘then we can go and find him, and while we’re there, Omar can talk to this foreigner who wants to see him so urgently.’
40
We arrived in Kwayt by night, after a two-day dash across the desert on the finest camels the tribe owned. Mukhtar had lent me Ghazal — a famous racer with a loping stride. Elena had stayed at the Jilf, but with me were Mansur, Ahmad and two other tribesmen named Nasir and Ghanim, as well as my uncle, Mukhtar. Kwayt village was larger than al-Maqs, and inhabited largely by Hawazim who’d intermarried with oasis people, given up the life of the desert, and made a living from their gardens and palm-groves. We dismounted in the dune-belt, left Ghanim in charge of the camels, and crawled up a dune to survey the approach. There was a fair moon, and the buildings were nests of acute angles, some of them illuminated from within by lamplight. A dog barked somewhere near us. ‘Damn that hound!’ Mansur said. He pointed out Hilmi’s house, standing a little apart from the others. ‘Where’s the rest-house?’ I asked.
‘It’s over there on the edge of the village,’ he said, indicating a brightly-lit building. ‘The only place with a generator...listen!’ I cocked my ear and could faintly make out the lub-dub-dub sound of a small generator across the dunes.
‘Which one first?’ I asked.
‘Hilmi,’ Mukhtar said. ‘He lives alone. Everyone’s wary of him, because he’s cracked. His niece, a widow-woman, comes to cook for him every day.’
We crept down the dune cautiously, with Mansur leading, his rifle at the ready. We had almost reached the house, when the dog barked again, this time a savage baying, very close to us. We froze. A huge wolf-dog was standing in the shadows, baring its teeth at us, about to spring. Mansur knelt down suddenly, his diverging pupils giving him an oddly puppet-like appearance in the moonlight. He began to make a high-pitched warbling in his throat, almost like birdsong, which grew steadily louder, vibrating on and on. After a moment the wolf-dog yelped, and began to back away.
The last we saw of him he was leaping off into the night.
Mukhtar crouched down next to his son and beckoned us to him. He put his finger to his lips, then raised his hands before him, thumbs and forefingers touching. It was the opening phrase of Yidshi — the ancient sign-language of the Hawazim, invented long ago for hunting and raiding when absolute silence was required. Mukhtar began to work his fingers and thumbs fluently, crossing them, crooking them, joining and separating them in a sequence of signs. I’d learned Yidshi as a child, and though I hadn’t practised for years, I immediately got the gist of my uncle’s message. ‘I’ll go in with Omar,’ he was signing. ‘Hilmi knows me. You — all of you — spread out in the shadows and keep watch.’
Ahmad, Mansur and Nasir all made the finger and thumb circle which meant ‘I will do as you ask’ and disappeared into the shadows as stealthily as if they’d been shadows themselves. Mukhtar and I approached the house, a small cube of mudbrick, with a rack of water-pots standing outside and a woven curtain across the door. Inside, it smelt of urine and vomit. We turned into a small, bare room with a bed in one corner where a dark figure lay asleep, his face transfixed by a shaft of moonlight that streamed through the window. ‘Hilmi!’ Mukhtar said. He stepped close to the bed, and shook the old man gently. Hilmi sat up fast, his ancient, ravaged features transformed into a mask of fear. ‘Devils! Devils!’ he screamed, ‘God protect me!’
Sssh,’ Mukhtar said. ‘Hilmi, don’t you know me? It’s Mukhtar.’
The old man pushed the covers away feebly, and looked round at us with wild eyes.
A large cockroach scuttled out of the blankets and shot across the floor. Hilmi grimaced at it. His face was slack and grey, the face of a man who’d long ago given up on life, and his dark eyes were vacant as if they looked permanently into another world.
‘Mukhtar?’ he moaned, trembling.
He stepped off the bed and groped for an oil-lamp on the floor. He took matches out of his pocket, lifted the mantle and tried to light the wick with a quaking hand. Mukhtar took the matches from him and lit the lamp with a single strike. Shadows raced across the walls, and Hilmi cowered back. ‘Who are these people?’ he groaned. ‘Have you finally come to kill me? What do you want here?’
‘There’s only my nephew, Omar,’ Mukhtar said, chuckling. ‘No one’s come to kill you. We want to know what happened in the Year of the Englishman. What happened to my father, Salim, and the rest of the Hawazim who went with Wingate.’ Hilmi had pressed himself into a corner of the room, with his hands over his eyes.
‘Wingate?’ he whimpered, ‘God deliver us from the Devil!’
‘You mean Wingate was the devil?’ I asked, feeling a surge of pity for the old man, whose life had been destroyed by forces beyond his control.
‘Not Wingate,’ he said, ‘Wingate was an amnir.’
‘Look, Hilmi,’ I said softly, picking a spill of wood up off the dust floor. ‘Wingate and you brought some statues back — like this...’ I drew a hasty sketch of an Akhnaton ushabti, in the dust, accentuating the features — the long chin, the predatory slitted eyes. Hilmi peered at it in the lamplight and stifled a cry with his knuckles in his mouth. ‘The Fallen One!’ he gasped, making the two-fingered sign against the evil eye.
‘Where did you get them?’ I asked him. ‘Where was Zerzura?’
The old man sighed and sat down heavily on the floor beside me. He made a visible effort to control himself, and for a moment I glimpsed a soul struggling to emerge from behind those wild eyes. ‘Zerzura?’ he said, stammering, ‘Zerzura can’t be found.’
‘But Wingate found it?’
‘It only opens at certain times. You...you may come across it by chance, but you can never find it twice.’
‘Then did Wingate find it by chance?’
‘Wingate was an amnir. He had the power. But not enough to save us!’
‘What happened out there?’ Mukhtar asked.
‘I’m an old man now.’
‘Can you remember any details of the route?’ I asked. ‘Anything at all.’ Hilmi took the twig from me with arthritic fingers whose nails were knapped to the bone, and began to draw a rough circle shakily in the dust. ‘The Jilf,’ he said. ‘You ride due north across the Desolation till you find a hill with double peaks — it’s called the Wolf’s Fangs. Then another sand-sheet, perfectly flat. Beware, there are quicksands in the sand-sheet and they can’t be seen...’ He broke off and began to sob, piteously. ‘God deliver us from the Devil!’ he said again. ‘Can’t you leave an old man alone?’
Mukhtar nodded. ‘Just this,’ he said, ‘then we’ll go.’
Hilmi sniffed and dragged a dirty sleeve across his nose. He drew a small circle in the dust. ‘You cross the flats leaving the Wolf’s Fangs behind your left shoulder until you come to a belt of low dune
s, beyond which is a well called al-Muhandis. After the well you enter the Sand Sea — you leave the well behind your right shoulder and cross huge dunes for two days’ ride. On the other side you see the iron tree...’
‘The iron tree?’ I said. ‘What’s that?’
‘That marks Zerzura.’
‘But what does the oasis looks like?’ I asked. ‘Are there palm-trees? Water?’
Hilmi had dropped the twig, and began to whimper again, ‘There’s nothing...nothing there...’ he sobbed, ‘only fear.’
His eyes had gone completely blank, and he was mumbling to himself incoherently. Mukhtar touched my arm, shaking his head sadly. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.
41
We left Hilmi’s house and gathered with the others in the shadows, looking around carefully to make sure the old man’s cries hadn’t alerted anyone. There was no sign of movement, but an old feeling was awakening in my stomach — the feeling I’d had the day Kolpos had been hit, that something just wasn’t right.
‘Shall we go for the rest-house?’ I asked Mukhtar.
He looked troubled, and I wondered if he felt the same as I did. ‘We must now we’ve come all this way,’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘Just…I don’t like it, somehow. Too quiet.’
‘Come on!’ Ahmad hissed.
We worked our way around the village, keeping well out of the light, remaining amid the sand-drifts and copses of stone pines. The Hawazim moved like trained saboteurs, halting every time there was a rustle or a movement. Once, an owl hooted, and we froze as the startled creature swept past in a shoosh of wings. The rest-house stood outside the village, and as we neared it the throb of the generator stopped abruptly. Then the lights went out. ‘Good!’ I whispered.
‘Shh!’ my uncle said, holding up his hands, palms out, fore-finger and thumbs touching. ‘Talk Yidshi!’ he signed.
A door slammed, and we threw ourselves down softly among the stone pines near the house. A couple of men — Hawazim by their accents — hurried towards the village down a well-worn track.
They paused to light cigarettes and for an instant we saw two strained, Arab faces in a circlet of light. We scanned the shadows opposite, about three hundred yards away, where there was a dense palm-grove. The uneasy feeling stirred itself again. There were no vehicles in the driveway, I noticed, so if it was Rabjohn where was his car? It might not be Rabjohn at all — the whole set-up might be a trap. I had to go in cautiously — the feeling that something was amiss had grown even more powerful as we approached. I signalled to the others to gather round me and poised my hands in the opening phrase of Yidshi. When I had their attention I began to work ponderously through the signs — it was a travesty of Mukhtar’s fluency, but at least I got my meaning through: ‘I’ll go alone,’ I signed. ‘You cover me. If it’s a trap, we’ll all have a chance.’
‘We’ll do as you ask,’ Mukhtar answered forming thumb and forefinger into an ‘o’. Then he fanned out his fingers, meaning ‘We’ll spread out here.’ He felt inside his robe and brought out a revolver. ‘Take this,’ he signed. I took it reluctantly. It was a Smith & Wesson .380 and its weight brought back memories. Before my eyesight went, I’d been a crack shot. Now, without my glasses, I couldn’t have hit a barn door at twenty paces. I still had my glasses, though. ‘Be careful, Omar,’ Mukhtar signed, crossing forefinger and second finger. ‘Go in the safe-keeping of the Divine Spirit.’
The rest-house was much larger than Hilmi’s house — an ugly modern structure built hastily of cement and breeze-blocks. As I worked my way round to the back door, it seemed as silent as the grave. I pressed myself up against the wall near the door and tried the handle. It was open. I took a last glance around outside — the Hawazim were invisible in the shadows. I stepped into a spartan kitchen, beyond which another door opened into a long corridor — the bedrooms, I assumed. The corridor lay in complete darkness, but for a single slit of light under one of the doors. I crept along the corridor, cupping the revolver in my hands. I pressed the door softly with my sandal. It gave. I peered through the crack and saw a young man sitting reading a book at a table, in the light of an oil lamp. So it wasn’t Rabjohn, after all. Then who the hell was it? Suddenly the door creaked. The man looked up and saw me, and in almost the same instant I kicked the wood hard and leapt into the room thrusting the muzzle of my pistol towards him with both hands. He fell backwards out of his wooden chair with a crash, picked himself up and raised trembling hands. ‘It’s cool. Don’t shoot!’ he said breathlessly. ‘It’s cool, man!’
He was tall and slim, about twenty-five, with a sensuous face, bright blue eyes and pursed lips. He wore his blondish hair in a pony-tail and a gold stud on his ear. His clothes were loose-fitting, cotton chinos, a white cotton shirt and an embroidered waistcoat. He wore chunky Jesus sandals and a leather pouch hung on a string round his neck. There was something distinctly familiar about him.
‘Who are you?’ I demanded.
‘My name’s David Barrington,’ he said, his voice quavering.
‘What?’ I said, stupidly, almost dropping my weapon in surprise.
‘Barrington...’ he said again.
I realised I’d heard right, and as I struggled to take it in, I saw suddenly that the face was a younger version of Doc’s. I knew I’d seen it before often — minus pony-tail and earring, and a good deal younger — in the photo at Doc’s flat. I held on to the pistol, though. I had to be sure. ‘Passport!’ I said.
‘Are you the police or something?’ he asked.
‘Just show me your passport.’
‘OK. OK,’ he said. ‘It’s cool.’ He fumbled with the leather pouch, brought out a creased British passport and handed it to me with trembling fingers.
‘All right,’ I said, ‘now sit down and put your hands on the table where I can see them.’ He sat. I lowered the revolver and examined the passport with one hand. It seemed genuine enough. I handed it back to him. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Tell me where your mother was born?’
‘Is all this necessary?’
‘Just answer the question.’
He looked at me resignedly. ‘OK. Mum was born in Kampala, Uganda.’
‘And your father?’
‘My father was born in London.’
‘How and when did he die?’
‘In a car accident in Cairo, 1989.’
I stuffed the Smith & Wesson into my belt. He looked relieved. ‘Why weren’t you at the funeral?’ I asked.
‘How do you know about that?’
‘Answer the question.’
‘I’d been in the States since I was eighteen, and I’d sort of, you know, like dropped out of college. The usual trip — sex, drugs — I just wasn’t in a state to face Mum. I mean, Mum and Dad were always wrapped up in this like, cloak and dagger shit. It was the only thing in the world that turned them on, and I didn’t want any part of it. Look, shit, it’s cool and everything, but why are you giving me the Gestapo treatment?’
‘I’m Omar James Ross.’
‘No shit! Hey, why didn’t you say so? You’re the guy I’ve come to see. I’ve got a message for you from Mum.’
‘Why didn’t Doc come herself? Where is she?’
The young man’s face seemed to collapse. Buds of tears flecked the corners of his eyes. ‘You didn’t know?’ he said. ‘Mum’s dead. Suicide. Found strung up from the ceiling of her flat.’
‘No!’ I said, I feeling the blood rushing to my head. I staggered slightly as if I’d been dealt a massive blow. My heart began pumping iron, and I had to lean for support on the edge of the table. I whipped my glasses off, rubbed them on my sleeve, forced myself to take five very slow, retained breaths and replaced them. For a moment reality swept away from me in a whoosh and I remembered the vision I’d had at the Shining, of Doc hanging from the ceiling. I remembered the feeling of foreboding I’d experienced before coming here. I held on tight to the table, until my knuckles went white and my legs started to shake.
‘Hey, you l
ook kind of rough,’ David said. ‘Sit down. Have some water.’
I sat down on a broken chair opposite him. He poured me some water from an aluminium canteen into a plastic mug. It was warm but I drank it gratefully.
‘When?’ I asked.
‘About a week ago. I was in Seattle and the British Consulate got in touch with me — I’m like, next of kin, you know, so I flew over. It hit me real hard. I mean, Mum and I were never very close, but I saw suddenly how we could have been. See, I got my head together in the end, met a wonderful chick. I’ve got a kid of my own, now, and I was just starting to understand, you know, the parent—child thing. You can’t bring it back, can you, man?’
‘David, I’m really sorry. Doc was about my best friend in the world.’
‘Yeah, I gathered that.’
‘You think it was suicide?’
‘Funny thing is Mum never struck me as being the kind who would do herself in. I know she had a bad time after Dad went, and hit the bottle a lot, but I never thought she was that sort.’
‘Was there any sign of violence in the flat?’
‘Well, the police had been in and out, like, but the thing was, when I looked round it was all too neat, you know what I mean?’
‘Neat?’
‘Yeah, like Mum wasn’t a tidy person, you know. But everything was in place — no, that’s not it — things were tidy, but they weren’t in place: stereo speakers the wrong way round, floppy disks filed under the wrong headings, printer connected to the wrong socket on the computer — that kind of shit. It was, like, as if someone had tidied up in a hurry.’
‘You mean as if the place had been trashed and then put right?’
‘That’s exactly right. Shit, there was even stuff broken, as if it’d been thrown on the floor then picked up again.’
‘You said there was a message for me?’
‘Yeah, it was weird, man. I booted the computer to see if there were any messages — I knew Mum’s password. There was a message file on the disk, but all it had on it was this one thing, “Omar James Ross, al-Maqs village, Kharja oasis” — and the words, “indaloo”.’
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