The Fury of Rachel Monette

by Peter Abrahams

  “Help me how?”

  “You tell me. After all, you haven’t yet explained what you are doing here.”

  Rachel took the shovel. “I’ll show you,” she said. She dug the hole again.

  It was easier the second time. The earth, looser and drier than it had been the day before, offered little resistance to the shovel. DePoe stood to one side, hands in the pockets of his tweed coat and the collar turned up. In less than two hours Rachel reached the round wooden cover. She leaned on the shovel and rested. She had spent most of her strength and energy, converting it into matter, the dirt that lay in mounds around the hole. She tried to remember her last meal. Sticky buns, almost two full days ago.

  “Is anything wrong?” DePoe asked, looking down at her.

  “I’ll need your help to lift this cover,” Rachel said. “It’s very heavy.”

  “I’m sorry. Lifting is out of the question. The doctor was adamant on that.” In the movies secret agents never had bad hearts, Rachel thought. “Why don’t you use the shovel to pry it off?” DePoe suggested.

  “All right,” Rachel sighed. Wedging the blade of the shovel between the cover and the edge of the well she leaned all her weight on the handle. The cover began to lift. “Be ready,” she warned him. “The smell is awful.”

  But the smell was gone too. When the cover slid off the top of the well it released only the scent of damp earth, coupled with a faint suggestion of cool fresh water. Rachel peered down in the empty blackness. DePoe shone his flashlight into it, but the beam didn’t reach bottom. It expired somewhere in the void.

  “Is this a joke?” DePoe asked in a hard voice.

  “Not by me.”

  The yellow beam climbed backwards out of the hole, curved in a slow arc the way a rifle follows a moving target, and fastened on Rachel’s face.

  “You’d better explain,” came the voice quietly from behind it.

  Standing in the pit Rachel raised a hand to shield her eyes. “First get that damned thing off my face.” In the silence which followed she heard DePoe’s rapid shallow breathing. The light left her face, trailed down her body and came to rest at DePoe’s feet like a heeling dog.

  “Go on,” DePoe said.

  “I’m not trying to play games with you. I want to find out what’s going on just as badly as you do, believe me. More so.” And she told him about Dan and Adam and Andy and the document. She left out the blond man.

  “The connection seems rather flimsy to me. It might help if I saw this document.”

  “I don’t have it with me.”

  “Is it at the hotel?”

  “No.”

  “Where then?”

  “In a safe place. But I’ve got an English translation in my pocket. I’ll show you.” She moved to climb out of the pit.

  “Stay right there,” DePoe said in a tone that sounded cold and frightened at the same time. His right hand moved out of the shadows and pointed at her head. It held a small black gun.

  Some people have reported that their life stories unreeled in their minds when they thought they were about to die. Rachel watched a shorter film. She saw DePoe eating sticky buns in the dining room of the Hotel Mhamid while she discussed the planned drive to the ruins with Madame Ratelle. She saw the three jeeps coming without hesitation across the desert, as if they already knew where they were going. She saw Lieutenant Moutassim pacing in the night outside her cell.

  “So you couldn’t get Moutassim to do your dirty work for you,” Rachel said, and she heard her voice as if it were another person’s. It sounded hard, and calm. “No, that’s not it. He was willing. The caid was the one who said no.” DePoe did not speak. His breath wheezed quietly in his throat.

  “Surely you don’t believe the caid can keep this a secret much longer?” She gestured at the pit around her.

  “Place your hands on your head,” DePoe said nervously.

  She did. “Think of all those soldiers who saw the well,” Rachel continued. “Are you going to kill them too?”

  “If it is necessary.” But the quaver in his voice said it wouldn’t be that easy.

  “It was clever the way you asked for directions,” Rachel said. “As if you didn’t know the place at all. I bet you knew it when it was a going concern.” She felt adrenaline pumping through her as if it had a heart of its own. “Who are you? Kopple? Shreyer? Reinhardt? Feldbrill?” DePoe’s forehead wrinkled in a puzzled way. Suddenly his eyes opened wider and Rachel was sure that they held a look of recognition.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, breathing very loudly. He made a flicking motion with the gun. “Now lift the shovel and place it slowly and carefully on the ground.”

  “You haven’t got the strength to bury me,” Rachel said, remaining motionless.

  “Shut up,” he said shrilly. “Do as I tell you.”

  “All right. But if I’m going to die anyway why not tell me where Adam is?”

  “Is?” DePoe said. He shone the light into the pit. “The shovel. Now.”

  Rachel slowly lifted the shovel forward, off the ground. In the same motion she scooped a bit of dirt onto the end of the blade. She brought it even with the lip of the hole and as she stepped forward to set the shovel down she flung the dirt upward in DePoe’s face. The gun went off. Rachel drove the blade at DePoe’s groin. With a cry he fell backwards. She scrambled out of the pit. DePoe was crawling toward the gun, which lay on the sand a few feet away. His breath made a high whistling sound. Rachel grabbed the shovel and went after him. As his hand curled around the gun she brought the flat of the blade down hard on the back of his head.

  Rachel dragged the body to the pit and tumbled it in. It hung on the lip of the well. She climbed into the pit and rolled it over the edge. After a few seconds she heard the hollow echo of a distant splash. She threw in the gun and the flashlight. Then she replaced the wooden cover, climbed out and began to fill in the pit. The well had been free of bodies for only a day. Rachel realized with horror that she was on the side that was putting them in.

  She smoothed the earth over the top of the pit. With the edge of the shovel she tried to duplicate the furrows made by the rake. Then she put it in the back of the jeep and drove toward Mhamid.

  18

  Rachel drove the jeep across the plain until she saw the squat grey blocks of Mhamid thrust against the blackness of the night sky. She left it in the desert. As she walked toward the town she thought of Rashid’s vipers, and wanted very much to be racing through the night on the road to Zagora, up the valley of the Draa, and over the mountains to Marrakech and the airport. She had very little time.

  No lights shone in the town. The streets were empty. Behind the clay walls of the houses no one muttered in his sleep. Like a thief Rachel walked softly through the shadows.

  She tried the door of the hotel. It opened with a squeak of the hinges. Quickly she turned to look at the gendarmerie across the square, but it remained dark and still. She entered the lobby and felt her way up the stairs. Keeping one hand on the wall she went along the corridor until she came to the second-last door on the right. Her fingers reached for the brass numeral screwed to the wood and traced the metallic shape of the number five.

  Rachel knocked three times, quickly and almost noiselessly. There was no response. She counted to thirty before turning the knob and stepping inside.

  She could see the shape of the bed under the narrow window. On the white pillows lay two heads, one dark, the other light. Rachel went to the dark one, found a shoulder, and prodded it gently.

  “Rashid,” she whispered.

  On the other pillow the light head came awake with a jerk. “Who’s there?” said Madame Ratelle in a high scared voice.

  “Shh,” Rachel said. “It’s me.”

  “You? How dare you break into my room like this?” Anger pushed the fear out of her voice, and made it louder.

  “Be quiet,” Rachel hissed.

  Rashid rolled over and sat up, rubbing his eye
s. Sweeping away the covers with a furious motion Madame Ratelle leapt from the bed and pressed the switch of the lamp on the dressing table. It stayed dark. Madame Ratelle swore at it, quite loudly.

  “It’s the generator,” Rashid explained. “They’ve gone back to shutting it off at night.”

  “Merde,” said Madame Ratelle. Rachel heard the dresser drawer open, hands fumble in jewelry and tissue paper, the scrape of a match. Madame Ratelle lit a candle and faced Rachel across the bed. Her long thin breasts pointed to the curved scar on her lower abdomen. Her pale body shook very slightly.

  “I see your bribe was acceptable,” she said. “But you are crazy to come here. If they find out we’ll all be in that stinking jail. You have no right to do that to us.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rachel said firmly. “I need Rashid. Not for long, but I need him now.”

  “Why? You weren’t satisfied with the guard?”

  “Don’t be a fool.” Rachel turned to Rashid. “I want you to take me to see the man you mentioned in the note.”

  “Tonight?”

  “It’s the only time I’ve got,” Rachel said. Rashid looked at Madame Ratelle.

  “If you go, you don’t come back,” she said.

  “Madame Ratelle, please. A boy’s life may depend on it.”

  “What about Rashid? He’s a boy too.”

  “Shh,” Rachel whispered fiercely. “I’m talking about a five-year-old boy. And if you cared so much about Rashid you wouldn’t tell him not to come back.” Madame Ratelle had no answer. Her eyes went to Rashid, and they seemed to want him to say something. But he kept silent. “Please don’t make it difficult,” Rachel went on. “I can give you both money if you want.”

  “No,” Rashid said. “Some things I do for free.”

  “Shut up,” Madame Ratelle told him. She turned to Rachel, holding the candle in front of her breasts the way nuns do in processions. “How much money are you offering?”

  “I don’t know. Five hundred dirhams.”

  “Make it a thousand each.”

  “I don’t know if I have that much in cash. I can sign some traveler’s checks.”

  “That’s very funny,” Madame Ratelle said. But not enough to make her laugh. “What happens to us when we cash them?” She snorted. The haggling improved her mood. “How much cash have you got?”

  “About thirteen hundred dirhams.”

  “Very well.” She held out her hand.

  “It’s in the jeep.”

  “Go get it.”

  “There isn’t time,” Rachel said impatiently. “The jeep is outside the town. You have my word that I will give the money to Rashid before I leave.”

  “I won’t take it,” Rashid said.

  Rachel gripped his bare shoulders very hard, digging her nails into the flesh. “You will,” she said quietly. “You can solve the problem of what to do about your pride some other time. Now let’s go.”

  He got out of bed and searched about the floor for his clothing. Madame Ratelle bent over him extending the candle. Huddled together their naked bodies looked defenseless, but in some way suggested to Rachel that their relationship had a better basis than she had first suspected.

  When Rashid was dressed Madame Ratelle hugged him and kissed him on the mouth. “You are a stupid boy,” she said. He turned to Rachel.

  “I’m ready,” he said.

  In the eyes of each of them Rachel saw fear. They were afraid of loneliness, poverty, each other, Moutassim, the caid, the west, the east. And of her. She was struck again by the predatory feeling that had come to her as she smoothed the sand over the well.

  Rachel left the hotel door open to avoid risking a second squeak. Rashid saw the Land-Rover parked in front of them. He put his mouth very close to her ear and spoke in a voice so light that the words seemed to bypass her auditory passage and enter her mind directly.

  “You lied to us.”

  She shook her head and cupped her hands around his ear. “I have another jeep,” she said, reaching inside the Land-Rover for the spare gasoline can. They took turns carrying it into the desert.

  Rachel was worried that she might not be able to find the jeep in the darkness, but her steps led her directly to it. It was much closer to the town than she had remembered.

  “This is Professor DePoe’s jeep,” Rashid said suspiciously. Rachel did not respond. “How did you get it?”

  “He lent it to me.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight, of course.” She sat in the driver’s seat and glanced at the luminous dial of the dashboard clock. It said twelve forty-eight. “Get in. We haven’t got much time.”

  Rashid refused to budge. “I don’t believe you,” he said stubbornly. “Why would he do that? He is a friend of the caid.”

  “I thought they just met last week.”

  “That’s what he wants people to think,” Rashid replied. “But when he arrived I took him to the caid’s house. They looked at each other in a very strange way. They had met before.” He said it with certainty. “So how did you get the jeep?”

  “I stole it,” Rachel said impatiently. “The keys were in the ignition and I didn’t want anyone to wake up in the night and wonder where mine had gone.”

  “I still don’t believe you,” he said.

  “You wouldn’t believe the truth either.”

  “Give me a chance.”

  “No, Rashid. It wouldn’t do you any good to know, and it might do you a lot of harm.”

  He sighed and got into the car. “Drive north,” he said. “Toward the hills.”

  The temperature continued to fall and the open car gave little protection. Rachel adjusted the heater to its maximum, but the warm air barely had time to touch their feet before the cold wind reached in and blew it out the back.

  “Tell me about this man,” Rachel said.

  “There is not much I can tell you. After they took you to jail I was very angry. I went to Zagora and talked to a friend of mine. He is a school teacher, and knows the history of this region. He said he has an uncle who once told him a story about that place.”

  “What story?”

  “He didn’t say.” Rashid paused. “His uncle is not an educated man. I don’t think my friend takes him seriously.”

  “He hasn’t seen what we saw.”

  The rounded bulks of the hills seemed to float on the plain like icebergs on a calm sea. Rachel slowed the jeep.

  “Over there,” Rashid said. “Where the tents are.”

  Rachel saw no tents, but she steered in the direction he pointed. After she had driven a short distance her eyes were able to separate two low shapes from the shadows of the slope.

  “Stop here,” Rashid said. They left the jeep and approached the tents on foot. A sharp voice called to them in a language Rachel did not recognize. Rashid quickly responded in a placating tone. Rachel heard a rustling sound and two robed men stepped forward from the shadows. Both carried rifles. When they came closer Rachel saw they were no older than Rashid. He spoke to them for a few minutes. She did not understand a word he said, but the polite soothing way he said it was unmistakable. One of the men grunted and turned on his heel. Rachel and Rashid followed him to the nearest tent. The other man followed them.

  The first man lifted a flap in the tent wall and went inside. Rachel heard a brief, muffled conversation. The flap reopened and a line of women, children, and babies paraded out and walked to the second tent. The man behind them nudged them forward with his rifle.

  Inside the first man had lit two oil lamps that looked like they had been handed down by Aladdin: the smoky flickering light illuminated the worn rugs overlapping on the floor and the goatskins and sheepskins lying in little piles where people had been sleeping. On the edge of the thickest rug was a powerful overseas radio. Sitting beside it was the man who liked drawing pictures in the sand. Rachel smiled at him. He smiled back, but without a hint of recognition. He raised his fine hands above his head, palms up, and lowered them slowly
to the rug. Everyone sat.

  “Tell him why we are here,” Rachel said to Rashid, “but don’t mention what we found in the well.”

  Rashid spoke to the man in a questioning tone. He answered, talking rapidly and making vigorous gestures, most of them toward the south. Rashid turned to the two younger men and said something in a language that sounded different to Rachel. One of the men shook his head.

  “Is something wrong?” Rachel asked.

  “He speaks a dialect of Berber I’ve never heard.”

  “Can you understand what he says?”

  “Most of it. I don’t recognize some of the words. His grandsons speak Arabic, but he does not. He has no education.”

  Rachel had supposed they were his sons. While he and Rashid talked she watched his face. Like the caid’s it did not betray his age.

  After a few minutes Rashid turned to Rachel. “He says that he comes from far away, deep in the desert. Many years ago there was a very bad summer. The wells went dry. People died. He took his family and camels and came north. It was a hard journey. His first wife died, and a baby. He slaughtered a camel and the rest of his family drank its blood to stay alive. They reached the lower Draa, which is always dry, and followed it toward the source. One night they camped within sight of that rock in the circle of dunes. He knew there would be water nearby—he smelled it, he says—and before dawn he got up to have a closer look.

  “There were two buildings near the rock. One was very low, and had no windows. The other was smaller and had windows. He saw two sentries so he hid behind a sand dune. They wore gray uniforms and had very fair skin, the fairest he had ever seen. He says that he had never seen a European before that time.”

  “Does he know what year it was?”

  Rashid asked the man a question and he nodded eagerly and replied.

  “It was the year his youngest son was born,” Rashid said.

  “How old is he now?”

  Rashid and the man exchanged a few words. “He died the same year.”

  “Tell him I’m sorry.”

  Rashid did. “It’s the will of Allah, he says. Do you want to hear the rest?”

  “Yes.”