Sand

by Wolfgang Herrndorf

  He thought for a moment and then said toward the driver’s seat: “I know you.”

  “It would be strange if you didn’t. It’s not anterograde amnesia. And now keep quiet.”

  “It’s you? Why are you doing this? What do you want?”

  “Easy.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “What do you want from me?” mimicked the man in the passenger seat in a simpering voice.

  “I said quiet down.”

  “What is this all about?”

  “Okay,” said Dr Cockcroft. “Gag him.”

  “I can’t get it in his mouth. He’s clenching his teeth.”

  “Stop him from floundering around like that.”

  “But I can’t get it in.”

  “So just leave it as long as he stays quiet. Are you going to stay silent? Or do you want to keep jabbering?” Dr Cockcroft jerked the wheel sharply a few times to make Carl’s head loll from side to side.

  He was silent and tried to concentrate on the noises outside the vehicle.

  The windows were all closed despite the heat. The muted sound of traffic on the main road, passing music, the calls of a water salesman. Horse hooves. While waiting at an intersection, the din of many voices and along with it extra pressure on his neck from the Syrian.

  At some stage the Syrian asked how much longer it would be and the man in the passenger seat mumbled something. Carl saw his angular jaw from below and was suddenly convinced it was the bassist from the band.

  “Approximately,” said the Syrian.

  “About an hour to get out of the city. Then about two more. And if the road cuts out before the mine, we might need the whole night.”

  “It’s nearly time for the Maghrib prayer.”

  Nobody responded to this statement, and the Syrian added: “When the sun is down we have to stop for a few minutes.”

  “You must be out of your mind.” The bassist. “Just see to it that you do your job.”

  “That won’t work.”

  “What won’t work?”

  “I’ll quit.”

  “What?”

  “If I can’t pray then I’m out.”

  “So pray.”

  “You have to stop.”

  “Are you crazy, man? In the middle of the city, with a hostage back there who’s not even gagged, just so you can fucking pray?”

  “I can stuff something in his mouth.”

  “Better yet, pray in the car.”

  “It’s not allowed.”

  “Of course it’s allowed. Now shut your mouth.”

  “Ah,” said the Syrian with forced self-certitude. “So that’s how it is. I’m supposed to shut up.” He rummaged around in his pocket and then stretched his arm out toward the front of the vehicle. “I’m getting out. Here’s the hundred and the twenty. Stop the car.”

  “Keep the fucking money, you can’t quit now.”

  “Watch me.”

  “You can pray in the back seat. Rattle off your verses, bow down and stop bothering us.”

  “It won’t work. Even if I wanted to. Don’t you see where we’re going?”

  “We’re going where we want to go.”

  “We’re going west. Mecca is—”

  “Good god, we’re going west! So pray to the west,” barked the bassist. “The earth is round after all.”

  “I don’t have to put up with this.” A strained pause. “This is an outrage.”

  “What’s an outrage? That the earth is round?”

  “Stop the car.”

  “Keep going.”

  During this exchange of words Carl felt the pressure of the hand on his neck diminish. He cautiously lifted his head and looked out of the vehicle. The buildings of the Ville Nouvelle. Shouting, the bassist turned around and banged the handle of his gun on Carl’s head.

  “Do. Your. Job.”

  “Then stop. If I can’t pray, I quit.”

  “Do you want more money?”

  “Your narrow-mindedness.”

  “What?”

  “I said: your narrow-mindedness.”

  “What about it?”

  “Your Jewish estimation of money! You think you can manage everything with money! Money, money, money.”

  “I’m happy to have you work for us for free.”

  “I’ve never met an American who was any different. The only thing that matters to you is mammon. You don’t pray, you don’t know the five columns, your salvation is—”

  “Five columns, don’t spew that crap.”

  “It is a holy obligation, and the holy obligation—”

  “But not in every situation?” Dr Cockcroft intervened. “You wouldn’t pray during a war if there was an Israeli tank rolling toward you.”

  “Though that would explain a lot,” mumbled the bassist.

  “I’ve never missed a prayer, not in twenty years. And we are at war.”

  “That is debatable.”

  “Your war, maybe. I am just an employee. You pay me—but I don’t have anything to do with the whole thing.”

  “Wow, you don’t have anything to do with the whole thing!” With feigned excitement the bassist turned to Dr Cockcroft. “We’ve hired the man they call Pliers and he has nothing to do with the whole thing! His salvation has nothing to do with the whole thing.”

  “I’m getting out at the next traffic light.”

  “There are no more traffic lights.”

  “I’m getting out anyway. Stop.”

  Nothing happened for a while, then the Syrian opened the door on his side. Carl could hear the road rushing by. A melee ensued, Carl’s clothes were yanked, and he used the opportunity to lift his head and have a look around. They were driving on the six-lane Boulevard of the May Revolution that connected the Ministry of Commerce to the civilian airport. They were just passing a bus station and for a split second Carl looked into the eyes of a woman who was waiting there and watching traffic go by. A frizzy perm, neat clothing and an upstanding, ordinary face. The woman from Tindirma. He nodded desperately at her with his head. She acted as if she saw nothing.

  The bassist clubbed Carl and the Syrian with the pistol grip from the front seat. Dr Cockcroft sped up. The Syrian closed the door.

  “I’m a faithful man and a good Muslim—”

  “Even a faithful man and good Muslim is allowed to skip prayers once. You can make up for it in two hours.”

  “That’s against the rules.”

  “And I suppose kidnapping and torture are not against the rules?”

  “You do it, too.”

  “What do we do? What kind of bullshit logic is that?”

  “Is it consistent with your religion?”

  “I’m an atheist.”

  “You said you were a Jew.”

  “I said my mother was a Jew. But she believed in God about as much as she did in the superiority of Aryan cock. And now tell me how you can do your job and still believe that Allah will be enraged because of one measly missed prayer? Do you think you’ll meet your maker one day and say: Hey, I’m the guy they call Pliers, but everything I did is excusable because an atheist Jew and a bearded, piece-of-shit psychiatrist also did it?”

  “You Americans just don’t understand. Prayer is holy. Nothing is holy to you.”

  “The question isn’t what is holy,” said Dr Cockcroft. “The question is whether you are with us or not.”

  Carl didn’t hear anything more for a long time. He could only guess what was being negotiated with glances. Finally the doctor’s voice: “What if I turn around briefly? Would that be a compromise? We could pull off up ahead. Then we can turn around and drive eastward on the avenue for a few minutes and you can pray up here in the front seat, and then we’ll turn around again. Does that work? Stopping here in the middle of Targat is not an option.”

  Twenty seconds in order to save face. Then: “I need absolute silence.”

  “Of course, silence, no problem!” yelled the bassist, and looking between the sea
ts Carl saw Dr Cockcroft touch the bassist’s forearm with the tip of his finger.

  Then it was quiet for a long time. The jeep turned right. And then right again. Carl listened to the changing sounds. Heavier traffic. Construction. Beeping mopeds.

  After a few minutes the painstakingly restrained voice of the bassist: “What’s the story? Are you going to start or have you already? We can’t go any further east.”

  “The sun is still up.”

  “What?”

  The Syrian tapped on the side window. “There’s a red glint.”

  “Have you lost your mind? The compromise was that we would turn around. Now that we have, kindly pray!”

  “Only after the sun has set.”

  “What, what, what, what, what? You said it was time for your fucking evening prayer.”

  “I said it was nearly time. It will be time any minute now. When the sun has set.”

  “The sun has set, man!”

  “The red glint has to be gone.”

  “What about them? Look! What are they doing?” The bassist turned around agitated.

  “They’re no Ja’ faris.”

  If the bassist’s tone up to this point had been a mix of threatening and hysterical, now it became bewildered.

  “Do you know where we are going? Do you think this is some kind of vacation trip? If we drive another five minutes in this direction we’ll be in East Targat.”

  “What’s the problem? I’ll keep his head down.”

  “Cockcroft, turn the fucking car around.”

  “I can’t turn here.”

  Carl heard a rooster crow.

  “Pray!”

  “Don’t make a fool of yourself.” The Syrian was getting a second wind. “You can’t pray as long there’s a red glow in the sky. It’s haram.”

  “Haram!”

  Dr Cockcroft’s voice, which was also no longer so calm: “Why is it haram? Those people are doing it.”

  “That’s the way it is.”

  “But why? Does it say so in the Koran?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know if it’s in the Koran?”

  “I know that’s the way it is. And that is enough.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “How do I know, how, how? Because I know. It’s haram at sunrise, too, at sunset, and when the sun is at its zenith—haram.”

  “In other words: it’s not in the Koran, and you don’t know where it comes from.”

  “I don’t need to know where it comes from. My father prayed that way, my father’s father prayed that way, the father of my father’s father prayed that way. Islam isn’t like your churches, where one person tells everyone what to do.”

  “Which part of ‘we are atheists’ did you not understand?”

  “Atheists or Christians, it’s all the same. Nothing is sacred to you. And my sacred duty demands—”

  “Sacred duty! You haven’t even read the Koran. Can you even read? Sunrise, sunset, haram—what do you know.”

  “Since the people around us are praying,” Dr Cockcroft said, trying to placate, “it is apparently a question of interpretation. And in this dire moment, in this quasi-military situation, and since we are currently heading toward the troops based in East Targat, I’m sure that an exception—”

  “Open to interpretation, exactly.” The Syrian’s voice kept getting more and more calm, more polite, and he managed to come across as noticeably smug even with his modest English. “There are these schools of jurisprudence and those schools of jurisprudence. And in the Ja’ fari school, you wait until the red glow is gone from the sky.”

  “Why?”

  “That is a stupid question. Only a Nasrani would ask such a stupid question. It’s not about why. It is about something greater than why. Why does God allow evil? Why do clouds float in the sky? Why doesn’t America win the World Cup—why, why, why?”

  “If you don’t know,” said Dr Cockcroft, “then I’m going to turn around.”

  “I know,” said Carl. He stared at the rubber mat at his feet. The silence in the vehicle didn’t seem to invite him either to speak or to shut up, so he continued talking. “It’s because of the natural religions. In the Near East, where they come from. They didn’t want the prayers of the orthodox believers to be mistaken for worship of the sun.”

  The Syrian patted his ventriloquist dummy’s neck appreciatively. “That is exactly the reason.” And he added boastfully: “Along with a hundred other reasons.”

  The bassist groaned. Dr Cockcroft drove slowly on. Shortly afterward Carl saw the Syrian take off his sandals. Carl’s head was pulled sideways and wedged between the back of the passenger seat and the Syrian’s knee. Then the Syrian’s hand left the back of his neck, though not without a shove that made clear that any further movement would not be tolerated. Carl felt some jostling above him, then ninety kilograms leaned over him in the direction of Mecca.

  Carl’s upper body slowly slid sideways beneath the rhythmic motions above him. His mouth ended up near the door handle. He stretched out his neck.

  After three or four futile attempts he managed to get the handle between his teeth. He waited for the moment when the prayer was over and the Syrian was getting himself upright again. The car took a sharp left and Carl opened the door, and with the help of the centrifugal force managed to wriggle out of the car. Two fists tried in vain to keep him in the vehicle. Kicking his feet wildly, Carl spilled out onto the street in front of a braying mule and, despite the handcuffs, landed on his feet and started running off. In the wrong direction. Directly in front of him a two-and-a-half-meter-high wall, buildings to the left and right. Behind him already the pursuers: screeching brakes, two car doors, at least two pairs of military boots stomping in the sand. They were already too close. He had no time to think about alternatives. There was a burned-out car propped up on blocks in front of the wall. With his hands still cuffed behind his back he took a running start and used the trunk and roof as a springboard, smacking with his hips into the top of the wall. For a moment he and his life hung suspended in air, then his upper body tilted cumbersomely over and down and he landed head-first in a giant pile of dates.

  Merchants jumped up. Veiled women—a market—in the middle of a huge, gray tent. Carl rolled around in the fruit and looked up: nobody was jumping after him. He looked right and left: wall as far as he could see. He turned onto his back, pulled the handcuffs down around his seat and into the back of his knees and then pushed the chain under his feet. Another look up: still nobody. Screams around him. An old woman pulled on his clothing, held a smashed date in her hand in protest and yelled. He pushed her aside and bounded off. The screams immediately grew louder. Merchants and market women in billowing abayas came at him, and Carl noticed a door in the wall just a few steps away—through which came three men, smiling. Dr Cockcroft leading the way.

  Carl impulsively pushed his way between two spice stands and scattered the colorful bags. He bumped into two sheep halves, jumped over a pile of unripe pumpkins and stumbled into a contraption of rope and sticks. A giant tent collapsed on top of him. Ear-splitting noise. A mass of people covered in gray linen heaved around him. The squawking women could still be heard but no longer seen, and when Carl managed to extricate himself from the tent cover, the first thing he saw was a drawn pistol.

  The pistol was in the hand of a mustachioed policeman. Next to him, still partially covered in the tent cover, a second policeman with the remains of a broken water pipe in his hand, behind him the market women, behind them the Syrian, the bassist and Dr Cockcroft. Carl was so overcome by his luck that he gave his pursuers a look full of schadenfreude.

  The Syrian whispered something to the bassist, the bassist whispered something to Dr Cockcroft, and Dr Cockcroft pulled a wallet out of his pocket and tossed it to the policemen.

  As the valiant public servants were still examining the contents of the wallet, Carl felt himself being pulled by his handcuffs through the masses and
shoved into the jeep with a kick.

  BOOK FIVE

  The Night

  54

  The Rattan Chair

  All the Libyan nomads bury the dead in the same manner as the Hellenes, except the Nasamonians; they bury their dead in a sitting posture and take care, when a sick man breathes his last, to put the body in that position, and not on the back. Their houses are constructed of asphodel-stalks, wattled with rushes, and portable. Such are the customs of these people.

  HERODOTUS

  A GAG IN HIS MOUTH, a plastic bag loosely over his head and the cuffs once again bound behind his back. His feet bound together with the bassist’s belt. To Carl the drive seemed to last for ever. Aside from a few commands related to the directions, nobody said a word. The sounds of the city faded away and soon there was nothing more to hear than the noise of the jeep itself. Rocks pattered against the undercarriage. Carl was sure they were driving through the desert. At some point a sharp left turn and then a steep uphill climb. Serpentine. More serpentine. The vehicle braked to a stop.

  Strong hands pulled Carl out into the night. He was laid on the ground and tied to something by a long rope around his neck. He managed to glimpse out from under the plastic bag and saw he was tied to the bumper of the jeep. He screamed into the gag and felt two, four, six hands patting him down, yanking on his clothes and searching his pockets. They removed his shoes and socks. They opened his pants and grabbed him between the legs. He writhed around. The plastic bag was taken off his head. They put his shoes back on. Then he heard the three men walk away. The wind carried snippets of words to him. Finally they returned. Dr Cockcroft shone a flashlight on Carl’s face, double-checked the rope holding the gag in place, and then he and the others got back in the jeep. Apparently to sleep.

  Carl didn’t sleep. The balled-up rag in his mouth turned overnight into a giant, slimy lump. His jaw might as well have been paralyzed. He had long since lost feeling in his bound hands and feet.

  He was happy to see the bassist get out of the vehicle at first light of the breaking dawn.

  Dr Cockcroft did some exercises. Knee-bends, jumping jacks, push-ups. The bassist complained about the working conditions. The Syrian pressed his forehead to the ground and praised the All-Merciful. After each of the three had eaten an apple, they untied Carl from the bumper, took the belt from around his feet and pulled him by a long rope up the mountain, over the crest and down into the next canyon—and toward the goldmine. Practically the exact same path he had taken with Helen a few days before.