Firebird

by Michael Asher

  I’d been among the team of Hawazim who’d disguised themselves as Camel Corps troopers to spring Ross and Elena, and I’d seen Ross put a bullet through a guy’s head from a hundred metres with a snapshot, while the guy had his handgun in Elena’s ear. It was in the same battle that the Old Man had been snuffed, and Ross had taken his place as leader of the tribe. The Hawazim weren’t led by a sheikh, but by a sort of shaman whom they called amnir, or ‘One Who Lights The Way’, and who had the intuitive sense they called ‘the Shining power’. A lot of people had a touch of the power, just as I did, but Ross had it more strongly than any Hawazim amnir for several generations — stronger even than the Old Man himself.

  Ross stooped and picked up my stiletto — the Hawazim khanjar. He passed it to me handle first. ‘You’ve earned this forty times over,’ he said, ‘and this.’ He brought a silver earring out of his pocket — my fidwa — engraved with my own personal brand. ‘I kept it for you, like I promised,’ he said. I hadn’t worn it since I’d left the desert four years ago, and I took it and fitted it into the hole in my upper right ear. It was as if this was the signal the tribesmen had been waiting for. Suddenly they crowded round me, nose kissing, clasping my hand, slapping me on the shoulders, shouting, ‘Nawayr!’ and ‘Thank the Divine Spirit for your safe return!’ I was moved by the warmth of their greeting. No matter where you went, I thought, you would never find any people so welcoming as the Hawazim. A small, squat man with a great shaggy beard and a chest as broad as a bull camel’s suddenly shot out of the crowd and charged at me with the force of a bullet.

  ‘Nawayr!’ he bawled, wrenching my hand as if he wanted to crush it. ‘Good thing we came when we did! You’re letting women down you now!’ It was my blood brother, Ahmad, who was nicknamed Buraym or ‘Little Pot’ — a miniature Samson, one of the strongest and bravest men in the tribe. ‘By God!’ he said, ‘you’ve no more muscle on you than a camel stick! You need a good dose of lizards’ eggs and milk. And what do you look like in those rags! I hardly knew you, by God! Get some real clothes on and then we’ll see the old Nawayr!’

  A tall slender man heaved him out of the way and took my hand. He was thin and wiry, even for a Hazmi, his face long and narrow as a slice of melon, with a sharp goatee beard. It was my blood brother, ‘Ali-Ahmad’s half-brother. ‘Don’t listen to the Little Pot,’ he said, laughing, ‘you haven’t changed at all, brother. It’s a miracle, thank the Divine Spirit. I don’t know how you stood it in the city. All those fat and dishonest folk so stupid they don’t even know their own ancestors — all that rottenness and perversion.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said, ‘you know what Mukhtar used to say: La yadhurr as-sihaab nabh al-kilaab: The clouds are not harmed by the barking of dogs!’ The tribesmen laughed and applauded. ‘You knew I was coming?’ I asked Ross.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I saw it in the Shining — you, the girl, the exact place and time. I didn’t see Hammoudi, though. Where is the old Night Butcher?’

  ‘Last I saw he was drawing fire from a bunch of thugs who were trying to kill us. He’s probably feeding the Nile perch now.’

  Ross smirked. ‘I doubt it. Hammoudi has a habit of getting himself resurrected. I killed him once myself, and it turned out he was wearing body armour!’ He adjusted his glasses and handed the sniper’s rifle back to ‘Ali, its rightful owner. For years it had been his pride and joy.

  ‘I knew that shot could only have come from the Hawk’s Eye,’ I said.

  ‘True,’ Ali said, caressing the weapon as if it was a child, ‘but if it had been me I wouldn’t have shot wide!’ He glanced playfully at Daisy, who was cowering by the Daihatsu with the wild look still on her face. ‘We’ll have to take her with us,’ he said.

  Ross raised a quizzical eyebrow at me. Daisy stared at him. I picked up my Beretta and blew the sand off the working parts. ‘She’s put her ass on the line for me,’ I told Ross. ‘On the other hand she might have set me up, and I don’t even know her real name.’

  ‘She has a right to keep her name. But treachery against a rafiq is serious. Did she set you up?’

  I put my pistol away and thought about it. The guards at the archives; the machine gun tracer splintering the Princess Maria; the way she’d shot the guy who’d blasted open my front door, and another of the thugs in the street, the way she’d wrecked the two MP motorcyclists with brilliant shooting at their front tyres. I still didn’t know who Daisy was, but like I’d told Monod, it was time for a leap of faith. OK, she might have a secret agenda of her own, but whatever Van Helsing had said she’d come too near to getting slotted too many times for it to have been an act.

  I looked at Ross. ‘I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt,’ I said, ‘she saved my life.’

  ‘Rolling in the sand is a funny way of saying thanks,’ Ross said, grinning.

  ‘It was a minor disagreement. Daisy wanted to know who I really was, and now she’s got her answer.’ I looked at her and the hard blue eyes met mine. ‘You were right,’ I told her, ‘I’m not really a cop. Oh, I trained in the Police Academy all right, but they didn’t know I’m really Nawayr, an adopted tribesman of the Hawazim — the Ghosts of the Desert. Sammy Rashid is my real name, and what I told you about my background was true. My father was a Yank and I did grow up on the streets of Aswan.

  One day I tried to rob an old man of the Hawazim, Mukhtar wald Salim — Ross’s uncle. It turned out that he was the amnir of the tribe, and he recognized I had a touch of the Shining power. He adopted me, and after that I grew up in the desert. Ross is my cousin by adoption, and these two — ‘Ali and Ahmad — are Mukhtar’s sons, my blood brothers.’

  Daisy opened her mouth to ask a question, but ‘Ali interrupted her. ‘We have to get moving, amnir,’ he told Ross, ‘they’ll be coming before long.’

  Ross turned his attention back to Daisy. Will you ride with us as our companion?’ he asked. Daisy nodded and he whipped out his stiletto so fast that its blade flashed in the lowering sun. ‘Who’s got salt?’ he demanded. One of the tribesmen hurried forward with a decorated leather bag of salt crystals and Ross took a few and scattered them on the blade. He offered it to Daisy. ‘Eat!’ he said. ‘This is the food covenant of the tribe.’

  Daisy blinked at me, then took a piece of salt from the blade with her teeth. Ross did the same, then shook hands with her and gave her back the SIG and its magazine. ‘I don’t know your real name,’ he said, ‘and you can keep it. Whoever you are, wherever you come from, whatever you’ve done in the past, doesn’t matter. All that matters is what you do from now on. You’ve already put your life on the line for Sammy. We’ll defend you with our lives and we expect no less from you.’

  Daisy nodded solemnly. ‘I won’t let you down,’ she said, ‘but what’s really going on here?’

  Ross laughed. ‘I’ll tell you the whole thing in good time,’ he said, ‘but not now. Now we have to move. Come on. Let’s ride!’

  ***

  By the time we got the car under cover in one of the large buildings, Ahmad had brought up two spare camels, ready saddled and bridled. I saw to my delight that one of them was my own Umm ar-Rusasa — ‘The Mother of the Bullet’, a ten-year-old off white racer belonging to al-Bil — the thoroughbred herd of the tribe. As a foal she’d been shot in a raid by the Fuciara and still carried the bullet in her body — hence her name. Actually the Old Man had given her to me as a three year old: she was bad tempered and highly strung, and he’d said that he’d chosen her specially so I would be obliged to learn about camels the hard way. He said he wouldn’t give me another till I’d mastered her, anyway, so if I lost or foundered her I’d have to walk. At first she’d tried to bite and kick me — twice she’d run away, and I’d had to track her down alone. But the Old Man had been right: I’d learned, and once we’d come to an uneasy truce, she’d turned out to be one of the fastest, most enduring camels in the herd.

  ‘She’s foaled twice since you were here,’ Ahmad said, ‘she’s an old lady now. Still
got fire in her belly, though. Are you sure you’re still up to it, brother? You wouldn’t like a docile old dowager instead?’

  I sidled up to Umm ar-Rusasa and pulled at her flexible lower lip: she crooned and snuffled at me, but didn’t snap. ‘See!’ Ali said. ‘She knows you in your city clothes, even if the Little Pot doesn’t!’

  ‘Can you ride a camel?’ Ahmad asked Daisy, pointing at the elderly she-camel he’d brought for her.

  ‘It wasn’t on my curriculum at Berkeley,’ she said, ‘but I’ll give it a go.’

  I helped her into the saddle and took the headrope. The she-camel stood up, groaning, letting her old joints unlimber. ‘You don’t have to do anything but sit,’ I told Daisy, ‘I’m hitching you behind me.’

  ‘No!’ she said. ‘Give me the bridle. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it properly!’

  I gave her the headrope and a camel stick Ahmad had brought for her. ‘This one’s easy to manage,’ Ahmad told Daisy. ‘She’s very even tempered. Just yank the rope right or left depending on which way you want to turn, but only pull back when you want to stop. If you want to go faster, tap her on the flank lightly with the stick and wiggle your toes on her withers.’

  ‘Wiggle my toes?’

  ‘Yes. Wiggle your toes. And only tap lightly with the camel stick or she’ll be off like a gazelle. She’s old but she’s still got plenty of fight in her!’

  Ross picked up his camel stick and slipped on to the back of his she-camel — the signal to start. I vaulted into the saddle. Rusasa roared and lurched to her feet with the explosive power I remembered so well — she would have taken off, too, if I hadn’t pulled back heavily on the rope. ‘You’re right,’ I told Ahmad, ‘she’s still got the old fire.’ He grinned and swung on to his own saddle. All around us camels snorted, spat and groaned as the troop mounted up. Then the amnir wheeled and led us at a fast trot out of the last vestige of the settled world and into the heart of the Red Land.

  37

  I will never forget that night’s march. It was a chance to reacquaint myself with the desert in a way that was impossible in a motorcar. The day’s heat had dissipated by the time we left al—Manakh, and the sun was already hovering above the western horizon, fusing serenely into sheepskin cloud laced with long sets of matching colours — burgundy, quince, chrome yellow, magma orange — building up in stacks and galleries as the sunlight grew more diffuse. There was a stillness to the air that you only hear in the deepest desert, a silence so deep there was almost a music to it — a bass resonant harmonic that reverberated like percussion deep down in your psyche. We rode at a brisk walk as the Hawazim always did in the desert, and the camels’ shadows were grasshopper creatures on the screen of the surface. As Rusasa swayed with her rollicking, easy gait, my eyes worked over the surface, picking out the signs of tiny dramas — the scuffle marks where a camel spider had fought and killed a scorpion, the carcase of a quail which had fallen out of the sky exhausted on its migration south, the imprint of coils and foot pads, where a snake had swallowed a lizard. I rode in silence reading these surface marks, lulled into a trance by the rocking motion of the camel, the crunch of camel pads in the gravel, the familiar slosh of water in the drippers, until the cloud finally absorbed the sun’s colours and the night unwrinkled like the folds of a great turtle skin, enshrouding us in darkness. By then, though, the moon was up and the stars were out in their full imperial majesty, undimmed by the lights of the city. Daisy rode beside me silently, nursing her thoughts, staring at the great panoply of the sky or watching me and copying the way I handled the camel, mouthing the same glottal clicks to urge the beast forward. She learned fast, and she was a natural, I thought, not sitting stiffly in the saddle but letting her body roll and flop with the camel’s jerky stride. We didn’t speak much. The night was a blue dome weighed down with a billion billion stars that sparkled like diamonds, rubies and sapphires — a glimpse of a cosmos so vast and unfathomable that Daisy gasped in awe and our camels pressed together shoulder to shoulder as if to remind themselves of their own existence.

  It was midnight before we came to al-Bahrayn and by then it was all I could do to keep my eyes open. The place was an uninhabited oasis in the Western Desert containing two lakes and hundreds of acres of wild palm trees, that no one had tended for years. The main body of the Hawazim was encamped here, hidden under the palms, but all we could make out in the starlight was the glow of a few scattered cooking fires. As we came into the palm groves someone shouted a challenge. ‘Rein in!’ Ahmad whispered urgently. ‘We’ve posted a machine gun on the approach.’

  Ross shouted back and a moment later we were couching our camels among the palms and the familiar smells of woodsmoke and uncured leather that I always associated with desert life. Dozens of shadows darted silently out of the palms, helping us off the camels, slapping me on the back, shaking my hand and calling my name. There was no accompanying ululation from the women, though, and I realized that this was an all-male camp — a qom or raiding party, without the black tents which were considered the property of the women. ‘We left the rest back in the Jilf,’ Ross told me, ‘we had to move fast and light.’

  ‘So you’re here, you city slicker!’ a voice cried in my ear, and I turned to see my third and eldest blood brother, Mansur, grinning all over his face and letting his boss eye roll maniacally. He shook my hand and hugged me, his one good eye blazing in the moonlight. ‘Welcome back, Sammy!’ he chanted. ‘Thank God for your safe return! Upon you be no evil! May the Divine Spirit grant you long life!’

  ‘No evil. May the Divine Spirit grant goodness to you and yours!’

  He looked gaunt, I thought, but not as gaunt as his half-brother ‘Ali who was built like a beanpole. Mansur had none of Ahmad’s rope-like muscles, yet there was a sense of power about him, and he carried not a gram of spare fat. His body under the ragged jibba and sirwal looked all sharp angles, right up to his face, which was a nest of interlocking blades like a giant Swiss Army knife. His hair was a clotted mop of curls, thickly smeared with mutton fat. Ross was the amnir — the tribal leader, and held ultimate authority, but Mansur — ‘The One-Eyed Warrior’ — was the Water Master of the tribe.

  ‘I’ve a new son, now, Nawayr,’ Mansur said. ‘He’s called Mandi. That’s four I’ve got, thank the Divine Spirit. The wealth of the Hawazim is in their children, by God!’

  ‘The Divine Spirit grant them all long life!’

  ‘Amen. And who’s this angel of delight you’ve brought with you?’ he demanded, looking at Daisy. ‘You married secretly, you devil, without telling the tribe!’

  I laughed, and Daisy pouted. ‘We’re not married,’ she said stiffly, shaking Mansur’s hand.

  ‘Not married!’ he exclaimed in mock astonishment. ‘What a fool you are, Sammy! You don’t find such a beauty as this every day. She has eyes prettier than a gazelle!’

  Daisy couldn’t help grinning at the quaint compliment, and allowed Mansur to lead her to a roaring fire of dry bast the tribesmen were building up in a clearing between the palms. They laid out home woven rugs and embroidered leather saddle cushions for us to sit on. Daisy lowered herself down painfully. ‘God almighty!’ she said. ‘I feel stiff!’

  ‘Yeah, you get that the first time you ride a camel,’ I told her, ‘I did. You’re using unaccustomed muscles, that’s why. But it soon goes, and it never comes back.’

  Ross sat down next to us and ‘Ali and Ahmad settled cross legged nearby. Mansur took up his place at the amnir’s right elbow, his blind eye glittering in the firelight. He opened an embroidered camel skin saddlebag and took out two bundles of russet coloured cloth, which he threw to me. ‘Proper desert clothes for you both!’ he said. ‘Stained it myself when the amnir said you were coming. I wondered about the girl, but he said she was Afrangi, so I put her down as an honorary man!’

  ‘You did right,’ I said, looking at Daisy, ‘she can move faster and shoot straighter than most men I know.’

  I examined one
of the bundles and found a Hawazim jibba and sirwal — the baggy pantaloons the tribesmen wore —and even a new checked headcloth and a pair of skin sandals. Daisy held her suit up to the firelight. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it’s an improvement on this old widow’s dress I’m wearing.’

  We slipped off into the bushes for a moment to change and by the time we came back the camels had been expertly unloaded and turned into the shadows. Our double horned saddles had been laid in a neat row behind the rugs, and from the horns of each one were slung two drippers —goatskin waterbags — bulging like giant slugs. The mass of tribesmen were gathering around the fire in a huge circle — there must have been fifty of them, the finest warriors of the tribe. The Hawazim were an open community and had no sense of privacy — every one of them considered himself entitled to hear what they called saqanab — ‘the news’.

  Daisy looked odd in her new desert hued outfit, which hung loosely on her, disguising her feminine contours. It wasn’t exactly a designer product — a poor match, I thought, for the Gucci handbag she carried her SIG in. But the value of Hawazim clothes lay in their comfort not their appearance, and they were far superior in the desert to anything outsiders had designed.