The Count of the Sahara

by Wayne Turmel

  Standing as tall as possible in his cleanest desert garb between the much taller de Prorok and Tyrrell, he was still a shrub between two pines. At least those guys cast a little shade, for which he was grateful. It was only nine o’clock in the morning, but the desert sun announced its intention to make up for all the clouds and rain the past few weeks.

  The King and his half-dozen envoys grabbed the cross-shaped pommels of their saddles and threw their legs over, alighting on the sand with surprising grace for men so large. What was doubly impressive to the young American, they managed it while wearing ankle-length robes and huge turbans which never budged an inch. Black veils covered every face, leaving only a narrow slit through which mahogany-brown eyes surveyed the world. All seven of them wore swords; King Akhamouk sported one on each hip. The first blade was a long, straight sword the other a jeweled flyssa, its wicked curved sheath jangling noisily as he moved.

  Pond watched carefully as de Prorok demonstrated the correct way to greet the King. Akhamouk of Akhmenal held his hand out, palm down. The Count took two steps forward, bowed at the waist, gently gripped the royal fingers and lifted them up, kissing the back of his own hand. “Allah salaam alaikum.”

  The King smiled. “Alaikum salaam.” He moved on to greet Reygasse, dressed as expected in full military regalia. His Highness spoke to the Marshall in very good French, and moved down the queue to Alonzo. There was a moment of confusion when the King, obviously briefed about American customs, offered his hand out to shake Pond’s, and the shorter man nearly bowed into it. Quickly gathering his wits, and terrified how he’d tell Dorothy if he messed up, he shook the huge brown hand, then proffered the ceremonial fake kiss as well, just to cover all the bases.

  It must have gotten the job done, because Akhamouk grinned down at him, patted him on the arm encouragingly, and moved on to greet Tyrrell, Chapuis and the rest of the entourage. The rest of his men worked the receiving line as well, offering polite head nods and smiles.

  The exchange of gifts began. The Count gave the King a truly impressive hunting rifle, complete with a scope, over which the Tuareg made appropriate gushing noises. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Legion commandant shift uncomfortably, and fight to hold his tongue. Packages of sugar, salt and tea were doled out with great ceremony.

  Pond offered the runt of the litter, who stood only about five eleven but almost as wide across, a pocket knife with a six inch blade. The happy recipient beamed and thumped Alonzo on the shoulder, drowning him in a stream of words, smiles and salaams. He opened and closed it half a dozen times, showing it off to his compatriots. Pond nodded and smiled back, wondering if the guy had ever heard of a magical place called Woolworth’s, since that’s where the knife came from.

  “Okay everyone, let’s adjourn to my offices please.” The Commandant, de Beaumont politely but firmly tried to shepherd everyone out of the sun into the relative cool of his command center. As the party broke up, he leaned over de Prorok and hissed, “The rifle is one thing, but you had to give him a scope? You’d better hope none of us wind up on the wrong end of it.”

  The Commandant arranged for both chairs and cushions for everyone’s comfort, depending on their personal preference. De Prorok thought that was an excellent touch. Beaumont was, by all accounts, a generous host as well as an excellent commander. The Count liked him, and thought the feeling was mutual, the gaffe with the rifle scope notwithstanding. This was a relationship worth tending.

  As Reygasse went into his standard, “The Government of France Sends its Greetings” speech, Pond leaned over to the Count and whispered, “Would they mind if I took their picture?”

  De Prorok realized what a terrific picture it would make: the modern White explorers and the Tuaregs meeting indoors, blue robes against stark white walls, medieval and modern. They’d eat it up. “Please do, wish I’d thought to invite Barth.”

  “But isn’t there a… taboo or something… about Muslims not wanting their pictures taken? I don’t want to cause an incident.”

  Good old Pond, thought Byron, overthinking everything. He grinned, “Tuaregs aren’t too fanatical about their Islam, Lonnie. In fact, the Arabs call them ‘The Abandoned People’ because even Allah doesn’t really want them, and the feeling’s quite mutual. They’re just Muslim enough that the Arabs leave them alone, and Algerian enough the Legion won’t shoot as long as they don’t shoot first.”

  While Belaid translated the King’s conversation with Reygasse, Pond held up the camera to the two warriors in the colorful robes and gestured that he wanted to take their picture. He was assured everything was fine when one of them put his arm around his partner and offered a cheesy, if mostly toothless, smile. Then Pond turned his camera across the room, and King Akhamouk stopped in midsentence to strike a regal pose on his cushion, remaining perfectly still until he heard the camera click, then picked up where he left off.

  At last the deal was struck. The Expedition would spend the next thirteen nights in the Tuareg camp, which currently sat fifteen kilometers from the fort at Tamanrasset. Beaumont attested to the harmless nature of the expedition, which seemed to reassure the King. Byron liked the man more and more.

  “Thank you, Commandant. I appreciate your efforts.”

  “Not at all, happy to help,” said the Legionnaire. “All in the name of science. I hope you find what you’re looking for. Oh, one thing more,” he looked uncomfortable. “I’m afraid you should leave the machine gun here.”

  “You’re sure?” Byron was perfectly happy to do so, since it meant more room for gasoline and water. “Can you ensure our safety?”

  “D’accord. If they bother you, it will bring the full fury of the Foreign Legion on their heads. You will be as safe as in your own back yard.” The way Beaumont sat back in his chair folding his arms over his chest said that agreement was likely ceremonial. The decision was made and irrevocable.

  “If you think it’s for the best. You’re the professional after all.”

  The Count caught up Belaid on the stairs, and they stopped to talk on the landing. “Is she there?”

  The interpreter chuckled. “Oh yes, I heard from her last night. She’s there, and everything’s set.”

  “Will they tell us, do you think?” Byron asked, looking Belaid right in the eye. The slim interpreter pursed his lips and nodded. “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “Six months or so, last time I was through. So far everything she’s told me is true, which is more than I can say for when we were married.”

  Byron slapped him on the shoulder in appreciation. “Almost there, my friend. Almost there.”

  Ninety minutes later, the three cars bounced off the broken creek bed that served as a road onto the flat, hard sand of the camp. Pond grabbed his notebook before the car even came to a halt and began scribbling furiously.

  What he presumed would be a small group of nomads was virtually a village of three hundred or so light brown tents, laid out in concentric circles, with a well as the center point. Most of the tents were just one large piece of material, mostly camel hide, pegged to the ground at the back and supported by poles at the sides and center. The openings faced away from the wind, and were less than three feet high. That made them tricky to enter, but kept the inside of the tent out of the direct sun, and allowed the minimum amount of blowing sand to find its way into the stew pot.

  Five tents had been set aside for the Expedition team. De Prorok claimed the largest for himself, Barth and Hal Denny, thinking it best to keep an eye on his chroniclers. Reygasse claimed a tent for himself to no-one’s surprise, the Renault drivers bunked together, as did the Americans. Chapuis gladly threw in with Martini, the two desert hands choosing to be as far from the action as possible. Pond realized one of them was unaccounted for.

  “Belaid, what about you?” he asked.

  The Caid gave him a sly smile. “Don’t worry, Monsieur. I have made other arrangements.”

  Five minutes later, those other arrangem
ents arrived in the person of the former Madame Belaid. A woman boldly strode into their camp and greeted the interpreter with a smile and a soft peck on the cheek. Unlike the men of her tribe, she was unveiled. Her raven-black hair was wrapped in a French-style scarf made of cheap but vibrant green silk. Gold earrings dangled almost to her collarbone and framed a strong, symmetrical face. Pond thought she might be thirty years old, and every year of hard desert living showed around her striking grey-green eyes.

  She slipped a possessive arm around Belaid with a smile that took some of those years away, but made her seem no less formidable. The guide held out a hand to de Prorok, speaking in slow, clear French for her benefit. “Monsieur le Comte, may I present my wife… former wife… her name is Tadêfi. It mean ‘Sweetness.’”

  “As it should Belaid. Whatever possessed you to let her go?” Tadêfi laughed at the obvious, but no less appreciated, flattery. Like all Tuareg women, she had the right to marry—or divorce—anyone she wanted. After three years of living up North, she returned to her own people, leaving Belaid with a broken heart, but full visiting and conjugal rights.

  Byron bowed deeply. “I understand we have you to thank for this?”

  “It was nothing. It makes the French happy, and your gifts have been most appreciated.” She shook her sleeve and a large silver bangle slipped to the end of her thick, bull-strong wrist and work-hardened fingers.

  The Count bowed again, “If I’d known how lovely it would look on your delicate hand, I’d have given you two.”

  “We’re not finished yet,” she countered playfully, giving Belaid a punch on the arm for looking jealous. “We still need the exact location, but I’m sure we’ll find out soon.”

  Byron allowed his disappointment to show. “He won’t tell us?”

  She shook her head. “He can’t just come out and tell strangers where Our Mother sleeps, but he’ll give you enough hints that even this one…” she gave her ex-husband’s arm another squeeze, “…can follow. Of course another gift or two might not hurt your cause at all.”

  After some small talk, she turned and half-dragged Belaid towards her tent. De Prorok chuckled, feeling a momentary tinge of concern for the man’s wellbeing. He knew how Alice got when he’d been gone for any time, and she was no Tuareg between the sheets.

  The next several days were a frenzy of picture taking, movie shooting and fanatical note-jotting. Barth recorded hundreds of feet of film; children playing, men and women dancing, even a few domestic scenes, although Byron knew his audiences didn’t care much how these people lived day to day in ways so much like theirs. They wanted to see how American lives were so different from—and superior to—others.

  While Brad Tyrrell cranked away taking movies for his private collection and played endless games of tag with the children, Pond went about his work with the determination and focus he put into everything he did. Each trinket he picked up or traded for was catalogued in small, precise handwriting along with when, where and how it was obtained.

  A normal mortar and pestle were obtained by trade for a small hand mirror. A pair of sandals, the straps almost eaten through, was merely picked out of a trash heap. These were the mundane items of everyday life for these people, but he found them exotic, and hoped the folks in Beloit would, too. They weren’t gold, but gold didn’t have anything to say about real lives in the real world.

  He noticed that the older members of the village were the hardest to deal with. They were suspicious of the visitors, although they seemed to find the odd white men harmless enough. They often refused to sit for pictures, or demanded so much in trade for their posing it was easier to look elsewhere. They also showed very little interest in European or American goods, unlike the younger generation of Tuaregs.

  The difference between generations was evident in the everyday life of the camp. In the tents of the newer families Pond found modern cooking pots, and the occasional canned food item. Simple but beautiful handcrafted sandals and jewelry were traded for modern conveniences with little thought.

  On their fifth day there, Pond saw an item he coveted. A young Tuareg bride walked across the camp bouncing a necklace of polished brown stones held together by delicate gold wire off her lovely brown chest. He got caught staring a bit too long, because the husband glared at him and demanded to know if there was something Pond wished to tell him.

  Given that Alonzo was the shortest person over the age of thirteen in the encampment, he immediately called for Belaid to assist in the discussion before things took an uglier turn. While anger and jealousy might be universal languages, salvaging the situation without bloodshed would require linguistic skills he didn’t possess.

  After a series of shouts and growls, the explanation was clear. “He wants to know why you were looking at his wife.”

  Pond blanched. “I wasn’t looking at his wife… I mean I was… she’s quite lovely but…” he gestured to his own collar, “I was admiring her necklace. It’s beautiful.” Belaid relayed the message.

  The young woman shyly fingered the item and allowed herself a proud smile, while her husband turned the heat on his rage down to a simmer, still glaring down at Pond. He rattled off a few sentences to Belaid, who relayed them in French in a much calmer voice. “He wants to inform you that if you try to steal it he’ll kill you. There were more details if you want them.”

  “No, I get the message, thanks. Please tell him that I only admired it very much and would love to acquire it. How much do they want for it?” Belaid got about halfway through the translation when the couple began arguing in particularly heated fashion.

  “He said no,” the interpreter explained, “and then she said it wasn’t his to give, and she said hell no. He said, ‘what do you mean it’s not mine’? And…” he finished the sentence with another shrug. Marriage was a universal language.

  By now they had an audience. A couple of older Tuareg women shouted angrily, then the men. De Prorok watched, concerned, from the periphery but said nothing. Reygasse stood several feet outside the circle, smiling smugly and lighting a cigarette, thoroughly enjoying the show.

  “It is… comment est-ce que vous dites… an heirloom?” Pond nodded that was probably the right word, so Belaid continued. “Her mother, her mother’s mother and so on… has worn that necklace. It’s part of her trousseau. You understand trousseau?” He did understand, in fact his recent letters to Dorothy contained more veiled talk of trousseaus and dowries than discussions on the finer points of paleolithic anthropology.

  At last it was explained that he didn’t want it for himself, or for his own woman, although he did allow himself a quick fantasy of presenting it to Dorothy, but for the Museum. This elicited a long detailed explanation of what a museum was and why anyone would stand in line or pay money to see things like shoes and necklaces and camel bridles. Finally, it was agreed there was no harm meant, no damage done, and Pond was, indeed, an insensitive ass. Everyone but Alonzo Pond seemed satisfied with that summary of the situation.

  That night, after Tyrrell introduced another of the master works of Stephen Foster to their hosts, and choruses of “How do you do, Harry Jones?” were sung in a hodgepodge of languages and varying degrees of musicality, Pond, Chapuis and de Prorok were left alone beside their fire.

  Each savored the silence, their eyes drifting aimlessly from the sparks rising in the smoke, to the insane number of stars above, then to the other fires dotting the tent village. The night was cooler—not cool to be sure—but less oppressive than it had been all day.

  Belaid appeared out of the darkness, and whispered in Pond’s ear, “Monsieur, someone wishes to speak to you about a private matter.” The Count raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. He merely pulled out his pipe, tamped some tobacco in and lit it with a twig from the fire, enjoying the solitude. Pond and Chapuis got up and followed into the darkness. They were met by a tall, unusually thin, young Tuareg warrior.

  “Monsieur, the young man has something to show you.” He gestured t
o the warrior, and from inside his robes he produced a necklace similar, albeit a few stones lighter, than the one he’d tried to purchase earlier that day. “He says he’s willing to sell it to you.”

  “Why? I thought these were family heirlooms? Did he steal it from someone?” Belaid asked him if he wanted to rephrase the question, since accusations of thievery often ended in swordplay. Eventually the story emerged: it belonged to the wife, who desperately wanted to go to the North, Constantine most likely, although her dream was Algiers. They were willing to sell it for the right price.

  At first, Pond tried to talk the young man out of it but eventually the image of the necklace mounted on a white base behind glass at the Logan, his name prominently featured on the descriptor card, not to mention how irate Reygasse would be, overcame his better nature. They agreed on an extortionate but not unobtainable price. It would take several days for the money to be wired to Tamanrasset, but he’d go into town and pick it up. They had til then to change their minds.

  The young warrior agreed, slipping the necklace back into his robe and slinking away into the dark.

  “Thank you, Belaid.”

  “D’accord.”

  When Pond returned to the fire, Chapuis turned to him. “You know, I think you are here just in time.”

  “How’s that, Louis?”

  “Fifty years ago, we’d have been dead before we even smelled this place. Ten years ago, a couple of us might have been allowed in, but no cameras. Trading only, no money—not francs or silver. Tomorrow, who knows what this will look like?”

  Pond looked around the village as they slowly made their way back to the fire. “You know the same thing happened at home. The Ojibway, the Sioux, they were warriors, too. Wanted nothing to do with us. Then they made peace—they had to, of course. Now the only way to see their way of life is to look at old pictures, or buy moccasins by the side of the road.” He thought of the arrowheads, baskets and beadwork he’d personally shipped to Reygasse’s museum in Algiers.