Once they had passed the final house, Ilham saw a town sign reading ‘Turleque’. They switched off the sound on the navigation system, the voice that was trying to take them back to the highway.
Leaving the asphalt, they made a few lefts and rights on unpaved roads that ran between the fields. Whirlwinds drifted across the plain, faraway and close by. They were alone on an endlessly flat surface, not a car or tractor to be seen. A cloud of dust rose up behind them from the metalled road, and was blown away. The grain silo had disappeared from sight.
Across the crumbly earth they drove on, to where they thought no one would see them. Ilham was amazed at the occasional holm oak she saw, the perfect circle of shadow at its foot; the trees were stunted and wore a dark-green crown atop their low grey trunks. This was how a child drew a tree. How did they survive here? How could anything survive here?
There were traces of human construction, abandoned wells and outbuildings of clay and stone surrounded by a few trees. Straight above all these things smouldered the big sun; the earth could burst into flame at any moment.
A sand spout came towards them from the left, across a fallow, ruby-red plot of ground — Ilham saw the seething funnel at its foot and how the plume fanned out and grew weaker as it rose.
Straight in front of them was another, pale and furious, the colour of the road itself. Thouraya slowed to avoid it and forgot about the whirlwind to their left — suddenly they found themselves caught in a vicious rattle of grit, chaff, and prickles. Blinded, Thouraya hit the brakes, and the sand spout came straight through the open windows; they could no longer see a thing, and they screamed. The noise was deafening, then it was over. The car had come to a halt, pitched across the road. The unearthly rattle moved on. The wipers swept the dust from the windshield.
On the far side of the dirt road, above the field of grain, the whirlwind changed colour and pursued its wild dance in bright yellow.
The dashboard, the seats, the two of them — everything was covered with a confetti of dust, bits of chaff and thistles. They wiped their faces and shook the debris from their hair.
A little further along they left the dirt track and drove across a field of grain that had already been gathered, towards a ruined outbuilding of clay. Its walls were eroded, melted more like; beams stuck out of it like ribs from a carcass. They passed it and drove further across the field, until the dirt track was so far behind them that they could no longer see it. When they stepped out of the car, stubble crackled beneath their feet.
Ilham walked a little way into the field. Above her head, the swifts were crying their sri, sri. She stared at the horizon — it wasn’t a matter of her taking in the space around her, the space was taking her in. It was as though she had landed outside the limits of her body and was being scattered across the plain. The only thing she heard was the quiet rush of the wind and a single fly, a frantic, starved fly revived by the nearby smell of death. Through her lashes she looked at a snowy white cloud, the only one in the sky, which was otherwise as empty as the earth below.
Thouraya was picking burrs from her clothes, a cigarette in the corner of her mouth and one eye squeezed shut against the smoke.
Ilham walked back to the car.
Her friend handed her a cigarette. They nodded to each other, braced themselves and took a deep breath.
The trunk popped open. Blowing smoke from their nostrils, they bent over the dead boy. The thick, syrupy smell of corpse rose up to meet them. The blood in his eyes had turned black, the eyes themselves had a murky film across them. Ilham heard a deep groan beside her. His skin was wet and marbled; it looked like he was sweating heavily. They both seized him by a trouser leg and pulled his legs outside the car. The rigor mortis was gone; he felt only soft and sickening.
Thouraya dropped the leg, leaned over, and vomited as she stumbled away from the car. Ilham did the same, almost immediately. The one prompted the other: as soon as one of them started vomiting, the other followed suit immediately.
Ilham was sweating all over. She wiped the tears from her eyes and helped her friend to her feet.
They pulled in unison now, first on his trousers, then by his belt, and finally by his t-shirt until they had him out of the trunk. The body fell limply to the ground. A colourless discharge trickled from his nose and mouth; his trousers were soaked with his own excrement.
They moved away from the car, snorting, gasping for air.
‘Oh my god,’ Thouraya said at last. She couldn’t take her eyes off the body on the ground.
Ilham fetched a bottle from the car and poured water over her friend’s shaking hands. ‘We did it,’ Thouraya said as she rinsed her hands. ‘We fucking did it …’
Ilham nodded, a feeble smile playing at her lips. She sank to her knees and rubbed her hands in the dust. Thouraya held the bottle for her. A thin stream of water fell onto the earth, a dark spot in the dust between the stubble, and evaporated fast.
Thouraya brushed her hair back with her fingers and walked to the car, giving the body a wide berth. She pulled the Audi away from him, the trunk still open. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here,’ she shouted.
Ilham nodded. She looked again at the paltry pile of limbs and textile, then walked towards the car, in lonely silhouette between heaven and earth.
‘Shouldn’t we say something?’
‘Like what?’
‘A prayer or something?’
‘You know one?’
‘No.’
‘Me neither. Come on, move.’
Ilham took Murat’s plastic bag from the trunk and shook it out on the ground. A comb, some underwear, a disposable razor, and a little leather pouch, tied tightly with string. She picked it up and felt it. Soft, it gave way to her touch. Holding the marabou’s bundle, she walked over to him. She knelt and laid it in his open hand. Metallic green flies were crawling over his body — god knows where they all came from so suddenly. She heard the feverish, aggressive zooming, a noise so isolated and intense against the hissing silence that it sounded as though they were scurrying over her eardrums.
‘Sorry,’ she said, and stood up.
At the car she turned around again. ‘Beslama, Murat,’ she murmured, then climbed in quickly. The plastic bag wafted up and blew into the fields. Thouraya touched the gas, and the car leapt forward. Ilham looked back. Through the veil of dust she saw him disappear quickly, nothing other than a blackened trunk or a windswept piece of plastic sheeting on the immeasurable plain.
The Death of Murat Idrissi Page 7
