The Salt Road

by Jane Johnson

  And all this talk of stars and death: where had that come from? Her grandmother had taught her the cosmology of their world, framing each element of it in stories and poetry from her own grandmother’s time, which in turn had been passed down by elder generations. She knew that the unquiet dead walked the earth; that you had to inter a body immediately upon its death, intact and with its face turned to the east, and top the grave with seven flat stones to keep the soul in its right place, thorny branches to stop wild animals tearing the flesh. The physical body would surely rot away down in the ground: surrounded by death all the time – of goats and dogs, of camels and babies – it was impossible to deny such a fact; but the life of the spirit was another matter. Those who followed the new religion spoke of some nebulous heaven for the souls of the elect, but people like her grandmother, and those like Rahma who rejected the call of Islam, held a darker, more elemental view of the world. But none of them had ever spoken of spirits in the stars. The wild concept of the dead hanging over her head in the endless sky seemed at once oppressive and revolutionary; she could feel her mind rebelling even as it entertained the possibility. She shook her head. ‘No one should speak of such things by night. It attracts the wrong sort of attention.’ And she touched the amulet she wore about her neck.

  Amastan smiled. ‘You are still wearing my amulet.’

  ‘I have worn it ever since we took it from you.’

  ‘I once believed that all the ills of the world resided in it.’ He took a step towards her, took hold of the bright string of beads on which it was suspended and lifted it out on to her robe. ‘But when I see it on you, I know that cannot be true. It lifts my heart to see you wear it, Mariata.’ He gave her a steady look. ‘Before Manta, there was no one who stirred my heart. I thought there never again would be.’

  ‘And now?’ she asked unsteadily, the longing plain in her eyes.

  He was silent for such a long time that she thought she had pressed him too hard, overstepped the bounds of respect. Then he took her hand in his, turned it over and gazed at it intently. ‘Such a little hand,’ he said, and pressed her palm to his lips.

  Through the soft cloth of his veil she felt the warmth of his mouth against her skin and thought her knees might fail her.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said at last, and led her down to the river.

  16

  The sound of a child’s agonized screaming jarred me out of a pleasantly sensuous doze. I turned around to see a blond toddler lying on the path where it had fallen, beating the ground with its fists, its face scarlet with fury. Its harassed-looking mother, equally blonde, marched across the hotel’s plant-festooned terrace, and scooped it up.

  Behind them, the peaks of the Ameln Valley glowed in the sun; the Lion looked as if it were dozing in the heat.

  ‘He’s bored to death! I can’t imagine why you thought it was such a good idea to come here: there’s bugger all for him to do!’ she shouted back over her shoulder to her husband, a balding man poring over a set of maps spread out on the table a few metres to my right. And with that, she stalked back and deposited the shrieking child unceremoniously on his lap. The man looked at it with a puzzled expression as if he had no idea what it was. Then he reached across, picked up an almond biscuit from the tea tray and stuffed it in the child’s mouth; taken by surprise, it abruptly ceased its wailing.

  I felt a reluctant sympathy with the toddler. If I could have got away with throwing a similar tantrum, I’d have done so in a heartbeat. But there was no one in the vicinity who was likely to pick me up and dust me off and give me an almond biscuit to shut me up. Well, at least I could do the almond biscuit thing for myself: I’d ordered mint tea with its delicious accompaniments and had forgotten all about it, instead dropping off to sleep. The boy who was waiting tables had obviously been too polite to wake me. I poured myself a glass of tea; but it had gone tepid and orange from over-brewing, and was as bitter as poison when I tasted it.

  I’d spent three days of my precious holiday cooped up in the Tafraout hotel, or on its terrace, resting my wretched ankle while everyone else was off having adventures. On the first day after Taïb had rescued me from the crag and brought me back here, Eve had stayed with me, but bearing the burden of guilt for the boredom she tried so hard to veil from me was worse than being on my own and at last I couldn’t take it and sent her off with Miles and Jez.

  The second day I’d almost enjoyed having time on my hands with nothing to do and nowhere to go. I’d sat out on the terrace, with my face turned up to the sun like some heat-seeking flower, and felt my kinks and nerves slowly unwind themselves from the tight coils in which they’d been knotted. I’d gazed out over the impressive scenery and marvelled at being for the first time on the continent where all human life began. Surveying the vast, unchanging quartzite cliffs, the piled-up tors of red-orange granite and the bright splash of green in the oasis in the valley floor, I could easily imagine life going on here since the earliest times: the endless procession of people and animals travelling to trade their wares and barter their crops and artefacts for those goods they could not make or grow themselves. Seeing the local people go slowly about their daily routines in the long robes and head-gear – scarves for women; turbans for men – that people in this region must have been wearing for centuries, I could almost imagine myself a time-traveller as well as a tourist, one who had crossed not only a thousand air-miles but also millennia.

  But the novelty had soon begun to pall and I’d long since started to regret being abrupt with Taïb when he’d dropped me at the hotel after his grandmother had worked her odd magic upon me. Well, not dropped exactly; he’d insisted on carrying me from the donkey and into the lobby, like a groom carrying his bride over the threshold. This over-familiarity had so unnerved me that I’d leapt out of his arms and been positively rude to him, not wanting the stern-looking man behind the reception counter to read anything illicit into the scene.

  ‘I’ll come and fetch you tomorrow or the day after, give you a tour of the area in my car if you’d like,’ he’d offered generously. I’d demurred, and was now regretting it.

  I looked at my watch. Just gone three o’clock. It was incredible how time dragged when you had no useful way of passing it. I applied myself to the much thumbed guidebook, hoping in vain to find a secret chapter I’d yet to read, but of course there wasn’t a page left unturned. I’d also already read the only other book I’d brought with me – a biography of Gertrude Bell – and in desperation had raided Eve’s luggage, only to find a girlie novel that utterly failed to hold my attention after two pages of inconsequential chatter about shoes and boyfriends. Work and its constrictions usually confined me like the boning of a corset; climbing took its place on holidays such as this, bringing its own structure and routine to bear. Without either, I was at a loose end: a formless, shapeless jellyfish of a creature. I hated to feel so helpless, so empty of inner resources. Was I really such a robot, so programmed by the dull, repetitive exigencies of modern Western work-life that I couldn’t find any other way to amuse myself when hampered only by a twisted ankle? How did other people manage, with far worse handicaps to contend with in their lives?

  Angry with myself now, I made my mind up to get down into the town, whatever it took. Perhaps visit some of the jewellery stores the woman at the restaurant had mentioned, ask more about the amulet. Given my reasonable French, I might also be able to have a conversation about the local area, its culture and customs. Or perhaps I’d just mooch around the stalls in the little souq I’d glimpsed when we’d bought provisions for our day’s climbing on the Lion’s Head. Who knew what other bizarre things I might find in a place where they ate locusts for fun?

  Having fuelled myself with these tentative plans, I was ready for action. Before I could change my mind I put twenty dirham on the tray for the tea, shovelled my guidebook into my shoulder bag and stood up carefully, balancing on my good leg. Then, gingerly, I put my injured foot to the ground and experimentally placed so
me weight on it. Jesus! Hot aches rushed up my leg, making me suck in my breath. I clutched the table and waited for the pain to pass and a moment later it eased. But when I flexed my toes to make a step another lesser surge ran up into my calf. Ow. If I had to spend one more day at this blasted hotel, one more hour … I took one step, then another.

  ‘Mademoiselle?’

  The voice came from behind me. I spun, taken off guard, lost my balance and fell in a crumpled heap, knocking my ankle on the metal chair leg as I went down and grazing my face on the patio stones. Pain regressed me from civilized human being to foul-mouthed child. ‘Shit! What the fuck do you think you’re doing sneaking up on me and taking me by surprise like that? Jesus, my bloody ankle. Christ almighty!’ I raged and swore and then swore some more for good measure in my best climber’s English until the fury and hurt had poured out of me. And all the time I did so a small part of me, like a little demon sitting on my shoulder and whispering in my ear, reminded me how down in the town I had seen a man with no legs knuckling himself along on a little cart, joking with the local children who ran alongside; an old woman bent almost double by some severe scoliosis turning her face up at an extraordinary angle and smiling at everyone she passed, wishing them good day and baraka; a painfully thin boy falling off his donkey and on to his head in the middle of the street, bouncing straight back up again as if on a spring, dusting off his robe and laughing to ward off the fact that everyone else was laughing at him and it had hurt so badly. And here I was with only a twisted ankle, making a ridiculous scene, as my mother would have put it. Izzy, don’t make a scene. As if to do so was the worst sin in the world. I looked up and found that even the blond toddler was watching me open-mouthed. ‘That’s right,’ I thought savagely from my undignified and uncomfortable position on the uneven ground. ‘Take a long hard look: this is how to throw a proper grown-up tantrum, sonny. Why don’t you learn some good Anglo-Saxon vocabulary and then you can really shock your smug middle-class parents?’

  Someone took hold of me under the armpits and hauled me upright and into the chair, and then there was a flurry of activity and a barrage of unintelligible Berber and moments later an attendant came running out with a jug of water and a small white hand towel, and the next thing I knew someone was dabbing at my face and murmuring in soothing French, ‘It’s only a graze, no real harm done.’

  I thrust the towel away from my face, feeling suddenly ferocious at having my personal space invaded. ‘Leave me alone!’

  ‘Forgive me, I was just trying to help.’ It was, of course, Taïb, his strong-boned face grim with concentration beneath the folds of his turban.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, embarrassed by my overreaction. ‘I’m just fed up with needing everyone’s help.’

  ‘I thought you might like to come with me to a village up in the hills to meet a very old woman who might just be able to tell you what the inscription in your amulet means.’

  I stared at him. ‘Really?’ Curiosity warred with wariness. Could I trust this man I had only just met? Can you trust any man? a voice in my head goaded. I took a deep metaphorical breath and pushed that unworthy thought away. ‘OK …’

  ‘Had enough of lazing in the sun, have you?’

  I grinned at him, won over. ‘Afraid so.’

  He took a seat and gazed at me intently. ‘Europeans simply aren’t used to sitting around doing nothing.’ He laughed. ‘We Moroccans can do nothing for days on end. In Paris I work, work, work: all day, sometimes all night. Here’ – he spread his hands, taking in the town and the magnificent hills – ‘I become myself again. I slow down, sometimes come to a complete stop. I get up late, I take a long, slow breakfast, then sit in a café and talk with my friends. I visit all the neighbours and relatives I missed when I was in the city, catch up on their news, pass the time of day with them. I watch the sun changing the colour on the rocks. I sleep a lot, or sit and watch the world go by. But I can see you’re finding it hard to do that.’

  I shook my head. ‘I can’t bear doing nothing. It drives me mad.’

  ‘Too bad. It might do you good.’

  I shot him a look, but decided to bite my tongue. ‘So … this old lady. Where is she and how did you find her?’

  ‘She lives in a village a couple hours’ drive south of here, a place called Tiouada. Nana knew her when she was a child: she’s a … a distant cousin.’

  ‘And she can read Tifinagh?’

  He shrugged. ‘That’s what Nana said. But what have you got to lose? At the very least you’ll spend time with one of Tafraout’s most charming sons, and get to see some spectacular countryside into the bargain. I’d say that was a good deal.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  He gave me a sly look under his lashes, which were, I noted with some annoyance, longer than my own. ‘It’s what I’m often told.’

  ‘And do I have to pay for the privilege?’ I was getting used to the expectations of the local populace, who seemed only too keen to fleece tourists under the smiling pretence of doing them a favour.

  Taïb looked offended but quickly masked it. ‘If you wish to, you can offer something for the petrol,’ he said shortly and got up to leave. ‘You might want a coat. When the sun goes down it gets very chilly in the uplands.’

  I watched him walk briskly down the steps towards the hotel’s car park and felt a brief frisson of irritation. Then I hopped and hobbled my way to my room to fetch my mountain jacket.

  Back down in the car park I looked around and saw no sign of Taïb. A couple of ordinary saloon hire cars had been left to bake in the full sun by their unsavvy drivers; the hotel manager’s antique Renault sat smugly in the shade beneath the fig tree. Other than that, there was an empty Dacia pickup and a gleaming black SUV. Even in the short time I had been in Morocco I could tell a local’s car from a foreigner’s at a hundred paces: Taïb must have gone off to fuel up his vehicle in preparation for the drive, I decided. So when the SUV turned in a purring circle and drew up beside me, I was surprised.

  ‘VW Touareg,’ I said, falling into the waiting passenger seat. ‘Did you choose it for the name?’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ he replied straight-faced, and off we went in leather-seated, air-conditioned luxury.

  Down the long hill from the hotel we rolled: past terracotta-painted modern houses; an internet café with handwritten signs in the window; a shop selling local antiques; an elderly man sitting side-saddle on an emaciated mule; and a truck disgorging hundreds of crates of soft drinks into a warehouse that already seemed stacked high. I craned my neck.

  ‘Full-fat Coke,’ I observed. ‘Horrible.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Taïb said. ‘No one likes the diet version: people here were brought up to regard sugar as currency. If you drink Coca Light, you must be poor. Even though it costs the same. We traded in it, you know: Moroccan sugar was used all over the world. People still give sugar cones to couples getting married, and for special occasions. My mother has the cones she was given for her wedding, and the one to mark my birth.’

  ‘Really?’ I was intrigued. ‘Sugar cones? I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a thing.’

  ‘You will.’

  In the centre of the town there seemed to be schoolchildren everywhere, chattering excitedly or drifting along in pods of three or four, the boys in market-stall rip-off jeans and T-shirts and mock-Nike trainers, the girls all thin and dark in trousers and white coats, as if it was kicking-out time for a convention of trainee dispensing chemists. Hardly any of them covered their hair, though the few women I saw – their mothers and aunts and older sisters – all wore the regulation black haik, covering everything except their faces, their lively brown hands and brightly shod feet. The men sat at roadside café tables, smoking and drinking tea and talking, though their eyes lazily took in every detail. The atmosphere was relaxed: no one was doing much work, except perhaps the café staff. In the central square, Taïb drew up and got out, leaving me alone in the car. I looked around. A row of dusty shops lined one
side of the square. Carpets whose bright dyes had daily been leached by the sun to the shades of an old colour photograph were displayed; striped woollen cloaks and hooded robes that looked far too substantial to be worn anywhere except the South Pole; ornamental swords and daggers, silver jewellery and chunky bead necklaces against a faded felt board; copper kettles gone green with verdigris, lots of big old clay jars like the ones I had seen in Lalla Fatma’s house – all tourist goods but shabby enough to be authentic.

  It was getting stuffy in the car: I turned the ignition key and buttoned down the window. Just as I did so two teenage boys on a beaten-up bicycle rode idly past, and one looked back over his shoulder at me. He said something to the friend who sat in front with his feet up on the frame, a bundle of knees and elbows, and then turned the bike and wobbled past me in the opposite direction.

  ‘Gazelle!’ they declared loudly in unison, and rode off, giggling.

  Gazelle? Was this an obscure form of insult, or a compliment? I had no way of knowing. I supposed it was better than having someone shout ‘Hippopotamus!’ at me or ‘Elephant!’, but even so … I looked around and found that this had set some of the men in the nearest café to laughing. Others watched me out of their lazy black eyes, their expressions unreadable. I was relieved to see Taïb returning, even if he did appear to be in a heated discussion with someone in a royal blue robe with smart gold-embroidered facings and a vast black turban. Furious, guttural words shot out of the two of them like gunfire; hands waved wildly. Then Taïb grabbed his companion by the shoulder and I thought they were about to fight; but a moment later they embraced heartily and burst into uproarious laughter. Clearly, I understood neither the verbal language nor the body-language involved in this culture.