Blood & Ink

by Stephen Davies

  I feel a pang of disappointment. I thought Redbeard himself would lead us into battle, not that crafty camelman Alhassan Litni.

  ‘Litni will lead you well,’ continues Redbeard, ‘but there is one thing that he and his men lack.’

  ‘Soap,’ I mutter.

  ‘No!’ Redbeard glares at me, and for one heady moment I think he is going to strike me. ‘What Litni’s battalion lacks is stealth. If we are to have the advantage of surprise, I need ten of you boys to spearhead a silent invasion. The boys I choose must be invisible, inaudible and deadly – like djinn.’

  Already there are hands in the air, pleading hands thrust up so high that every sinew strains. My hand shoots up as well, propelled by God himself.

  ‘They must be strong of limb, fleet of foot, utterly devoted to God and to our cause. They must be ready to kill – and to be killed.’

  Omar’s hand goes up as well. There is not a single boy in this battalion who does not long for the glory of martyrdom.

  ‘As I said, ten of you will suffice. I choose’ – his pointing finger slices through the air – ‘Hilal, Hamza, Rashid, Malik, Bilal, Usman, Zayd, Jabir, Omar, and Ali Konana.’

  I want to leap in the air and shout for joy, but that would be shameful. I just nod instead.

  ‘Ali, you will do for real tonight what you have done today in practice. You will infiltrate the city at dead of night, scale the wall of the Sidi el-Beckaye Fort, and lead the attack inside the enemy’s camp.’

  Tonight. Yes, of course. I have seen it in my dreams.

  ‘There will be sentries,’ warns Redbeard. ‘Not termite mounds and sacks of beans, but living, breathing, beer-swilling infidels with assault rifles. Take no chances, Ali. If a sentry sees you, open fire. Otherwise, wait for the rest of your platoon to climb up and join you. Wait as long as possible before engaging the enemy. Keep your nerve. Surprise is on your side. Ali, Hilal, Hamza, Rashid, Jabir, you will rappel down to the ground, fight your way across the compound and open the gates for Litni and his men. Malik, Bilal, Usman, Zayd and Omar, you will stay on top of the wall and lay down covering fire.

  ‘Once the military camp is ours, you will split up and follow Litni’s men to the radio station, the police commissariat and the airport. I expect little or no resistance at these sites. By noon tomorrow, Timbuktu will be ours.

  ‘Go with God, boys. Watch your brothers’ backs, and show the enemy no mercy. Peace be upon you.’

  Manuscript 8467: the tariq of Sidi Ahmed ben Amar

  Sidi Ahmed ben Amar was one of the holy men of Timbuktu. He was a teacher at the Sankoré Mosque, well known for his love of God and his gentle spirit. He had many disciples and they all adored him.

  One day, ben Amar accepted a loan from a one-eyed Berabish merchant, promising to pay him back in forty days when his salt caravan came in from the desert. Forty days came and went, and still ben Amar’s salt caravan had not arrived. The merchant went to see ben Amar and shook his fist in the saint’s face. ‘Pay me what you owe me!’ he cried.

  ‘Be patient, friend,’ said the saint. ‘A man makes plans in his heart, but his destiny is in the hands of God. Allow me three more days to pay my debt.’

  ‘Twenty-four hours,’ said the Berabish, and off he went.

  Sidi Ahmed ben Amar went straight to see the chief of Timbuktu and announced to him that God’s power would visit Timbuktu that night. The chief told the minstrel, and the minstrel marched around town with a big drum. He warned everyone to stay indoors, for a miracle was on its way.

  That night Sidi Ahmed ben Amar went out into his courtyard and spread out his prayer skin under the stars. He closed his eyes, leaned forward and began to pray. What happened next is sung about to this day in every nomad camp in the Sahara desert.

  A huge slab of salt fell from the sky. It landed next to the spot where Ben Amar was praying, one big slab and then another.

  That’s right, slabs of salt from the sky.

  Ben Amar prayed for many hours. Salt fell all around him and a great wind battered the roofs of Timbuktu. People cowered in their houses, gnashing their teeth and begging Allah for mercy.

  The slabs of salt fell so hard and fast that his compound became a vast crater, yet still ben Amar prayed. At three o’clock in the morning, Halimatu, the saint’s third wife, stripped off and ran outside. She clambered across the slabs of salt to where her husband knelt, and snatched the prayer beads from his hands.

  ‘Stop it!’ cried Halimatu. ‘You’ll kill us all! Stop it!’

  The sight of his naked wife distracted ben Amar from his prayers, and the salt stopped falling.

  For many months after the miracle, no one in Timbuktu paid money for cooking salt or cattle licks. They gathered it free of charge in the yard of Sidi Ahmed ben Amar. Even the one-eyed merchant went along to beg the saint’s forgiveness – and some salt.

  Today there is a crater behind the Sankoré Mosque where Sidi Ahmed’s salt slabs landed. It is called the crater of Takaboundou. Ben Amar’s tomb stands in the Cemetery of the Three to the south-west of Timbuktu, and people come from all over Africa to visit the shrine and ask for things they need. They do a special whirling dance and they sing these words:

  We entreat your blessing, Sidi Ahmed ben Amar,

  Son of Sidi el Wafi, son of Sidi el Moctar,

  For daily salt we beg thee, Sidi Ahmed ben Amar,

  Let the heavens rain down on us.

  The afternoon is crazy hot, and tempers in the club are fraying.

  ‘Come on, girl, this is a wedding we’re preparing for, not a rally,’ says Alpha, pointing a balaphone mallet straight at me. ‘Let’s have none of your political songs.’

  I am with the band at the La Détente nightclub in Timbuktu, rehearsing music for my friend Tondi’s wedding party in two weeks’ time. We perch on stools upon that hallowed stage where so many of Mali’s greats have plucked and strummed and sung their way to glory: King of the Blues Ali Farka Touré, Salif ‘Golden Voice’ Keita, Kandia ‘La Dangereuse’ Kouyaté. One day, perhaps, our names will be spoken with theirs and our photos will join theirs on the walls of La Détente. But only if we don’t kill each other first.

  ‘“Alla La Ke” is not a political song,’ I tell him. ‘It’s a song for peace. It’s a heart cry for our country.’

  Our country. Over the last few years, a terrible shadow has overtaken us. Our radios relay news of kidnappings, uprisings and assassinations. They talk of dark forces massing in the desert, preparing to attack, and now, since last week’s coup, the fear is at an all-time high. My father says that Al Qaeda and the Tuaregs are working together now. They have control of Kidal, but they won’t stop there. They’ll march on Gao – and then on Timbuktu.

  ‘We don’t do political songs,’ repeats Alpha, staring me down with his sightless eyes.

  ‘It’s not political!’ I stab my finger in the air, not that Alpha can see it. ‘If a bird sees a woodcutter coming to chop down the tree that holds her nest, and she squawks to alert her family, do you call that political?’

  ‘Definitely,’ he says.

  ‘You just don’t want to admit you’re wrong,’ I snap. ‘What about you, Yusuf? If you and me go swimming naked in the Great River and a crocodile gets hold of me and you shout out to raise the alarm, is that political?’

  Yusuf’s pupils dilate and his fingertips tighten on the strings of his ngoni. ‘We’ve never done that,’ he mutters, and the others burst out laughing.

  ‘We’re doing the song,’ I tell them flatly. ‘I’m the leader of this group, and I say we’re doing the song.’

  I walk home with Aisha after band practice, and the millet pounders all around us put rhythm in our step. Pok-pok, pok-pok, pok-pok-pok, we bob along together in the rosy afternoon.

  ‘You’re cruel to flirt with Yusuf,’ says Aisha, taking my hand. ‘You know he’s mad about you.’

  ‘It’s not flirting,’ I say. ‘If you were Fulani, you would understand. It’s normal for Fulani to tease th
eir cousins.’

  ‘And marry them too,’ she says. ‘Do you love Yusuf?’

  ‘Only when he’s playing the ngoni. When he stops playing, I stop loving him.’

  ‘Well then,’ she says. ‘Stop giving him false hope.’

  We pass the Well of Old Bouctou and take a short cut through the market. The sun is so fierce at this time of year, it burns your brain – when I shut my eyes I see market stalls outlined in blue and pink on the insides of my eyelids.

  ‘I like giving him false hope,’ I say. ‘It makes me feel powerful.’

  Aisha looks at me sharply, and I manage to keep a straight face for all of two seconds before I burst out laughing.

  ‘Girls, come here!’ a woman calls. ‘I’ve got something for you.’

  It’s Mama’s friend, Halimatu Tal, frying bite-sized millet pancakes over a fire. She puts four pancakes in a plastic bag and hands it to me.

  ‘Thank you, Auntie,’ I say, and curtsy.

  At the exit to the market, an old woman is bartering with a merchant for a sack of rice.

  ‘Forty thousand francs,’ the merchant tells her.

  ‘You’re killing me,’ says the woman. ‘It was thirty last week.’

  ‘And now it’s forty,’ says the merchant, unmoved.

  ‘Crazy,’ I mutter, as we walk on past. ‘Only the mayor’s wife can afford to eat rice at forty thousand a sack.’

  ‘If you want a sack of rice you should go and sing “Alla La Ke” outside the mayor’s gate,’ says Aisha. ‘I hear he likes political songs.’

  I push her into a passing donkey and she squeals with laughter.

  We leave the market by the West Gate and amble down Toumani Avenue towards Independence Square. As we pass in front of the Sidi Yahya Mosque, my father phones me.

  ‘Come home quick,’ he says. ‘Gao has fallen to the rebels.’

  Timbuktu is a slow town, especially in the hot season. People saunter. If they are late for something, they stroll. But as the news about Gao spreads from tongue to tongue around Independence Square, there is striding and even some scurrying. If Gao has fallen, Timbuktu is next.

  I can’t believe they’ve invaded Gao so fast. My father thought it would take weeks, but it’s happened in two days.

  I say goodbye to Aisha and cross the square alone. In the middle of the square stands a statue of Al Farouk, the great protector djinni of Timbuktu. ‘Good luck, Al Farouk,’ I murmur as I pass. ‘You’ve got some work to do.’

  I turn right up Askia Avenue and then duck through a mud-brick archway into our family’s compound.

  Marimba is licking a slab of salt in his trough. When he hears the creak of his gate he looks up and whinnies at me.

  ‘Stay away,’ I tell him. ‘I still haven’t forgiven you for what you did to me.’

  It was more than ten years ago that Marimba kicked me, but I’ve never ridden since. If a thing is dangerous, don’t mess with it, that’s what I say.

  Ignoring Marimba’s liquid gaze, I skirt round the edge of the horse enclosure and slip into a narrow gap behind the hay bales. In the darkness I feel along the wall until I find what I am looking for, an ancient wooden door with silver rivets. Only eight living creatures know about this door – seven humans and one horse.

  I open the door silently and tiptoe down the mud-brick steps. Ever since I was small I have loved the earthy, papery smell of this secret vault. The smell of wisdom, Baba calls it.

  A paraffin lamp on a table casts an eerie orange glow across the walls of the underground chamber. The table, a chair and a sprawling bookcase are the only furniture, and the only decoration is a seventeenth-century Kabyle musket hanging on the staircase wall. Its wooden stock is skilfully inlaid with swirls of ivory, and the silver lock plate gleams.

  My father is taking manuscripts off bookshelves and stuffing them into metal trunks. His back is turned and he jumps when he feels my hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Kadija, don’t creep up on me like that.’

  ‘Another power cut, Baba?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ Lit from beneath by the paraffin lamp, his face looks wan and hollow-cheeked.

  ‘Are you moving them out of the vault, Baba?’

  ‘No, I’m simply making them more portable. I do not believe the rebels will take Timbuktu. Our army garrison will be too strong for them.’

  ‘You said the same about Kidal and Gao.’

  ‘That proves it,’ he smiles. ‘I’m never wrong three times in a row. Now stop prattling, girl, and get to work. I want you to log these manuscripts for me.’

  I sit down at the table and pull the notebook and pencil towards me. ‘April 2012’ reads the Arabic script on the cover. ‘New manuscript locations.’

  ‘Stories of the saints,’ says Baba, taking a manuscript out of the cabinet. ‘The tariq of Sidi Ahmed ben Amar.’ He lays it in the trunk.

  ‘Sidi Ahmed ben Amar,’ I repeat, writing in the book. ‘Trunk thirty-two.’

  He gathers up another manuscript. ‘The tariq of Sidi Yahya.’

  ‘Sidi Yahya.’

  ‘The tariq of Muhammad Fodiri Al-Wangari.’

  ‘Al-Wangari.’

  ‘The tariq of Sidi el Beckaye.’

  ‘El Beckaye.’

  The only sounds in the vault are the rustling of manuscripts, the scuff of pencil on paper and the singsong recitation of manuscript titles. The saintly names subdue our fears and cool our blood. They take us back four hundred years to the golden age of Timbuktu, an age of noblemen, holy men and scholars. They restore our hearts to peace.

  Hours later, in the middle of trunk sixty-five, the sunset prayer call jolts us out of our trance and reminds us of the world of men above.

  My father yawns and stretches. ‘We are going to need more trunks,’ he says. ‘After sunset prayers, I will order twenty more from the blacksmith.’ He takes out his phone and moves towards the steps.

  ‘Baba, wait,’ I say. ‘How are the rebels treating people in Gao and Kidal?’

  ‘Don’t worry so much.’ He turns to look at me. ‘The rebels’ quarrel is with the government and the Malian army, not with simple people like us.’

  ‘What about the women?’ I ask. ‘Are they – are they threatened?’

  Baba starts plucking at his salt-and-pepper beard, and there are tears in his eyes. ‘I will keep you and your mother safe, my dear. Do you hear me? I swear I’ll keep you safe.’

  He hesitates a moment, then reaches up and lifts his Kabyle musket off the wall.

  ‘What are you doing, Baba? You always said that thing was just for decoration.’

  ‘It always was,’ he says.

  Manuscrits. Manuscripts. Dereeje. It doesn’t matter what language – manuscripts are not sexy. Look at them lying there, thick wads of parchment covered in desert dust and Arabic scribble. Boring, right?

  Wrong. Look closer. Take a manuscript from the shelf and set it down in the orange light of the paraffin lamp. As soon as you start to decipher the Arabic script, the words will reach up from the paper and grab you by the throat. You will start to tremble or dance or weep or jump for joy or gnash your teeth or groan or ululate or pray, and from that moment on, you will keep coming back to the manuscripts every day of your life.

  What is written in these precious books?

  Ha.

  Astronomy so powerful it will bend your mind and give you vertigo. History so vivid you can taste the blood in your mouth. Love poems so passionate that your heart will beat out of your chest. God-talk so wild it will light up your face like the archangel Jibreel himself.

  Magic too. Be careful, now. Imam Wangari says a single word from the wrong manuscript will summon a djinni strong enough to pick you up, throw you across the room and slam you into the wall so hard that every bone in your spine will shatter like a clay bead.

  They are worth protecting, these manuscripts. That’s why the owners of private manuscript collections are called timbakewen, Guardians. When the firstborn son of a Guardian turns seve
nteen, he swears a solemn oath and becomes a Guardian himself. If there is no son, a daughter may take the oath. Which is good news for me, of course.

  My seventeenth birthday is still two years away, but I think about it all the time. I cannot wait to take the oath and become a Guardian. Just think of it: two thousand manuscripts in my care! I will cherish every single one.

  Wisdom of Timbuktu #1: Learn to ride fast, shoot high and swim deep. But above all, learn to read wide.

  Timbuktu is dark tonight. The electricity has still not come back on.

  Baba drives a wooden pole into the middle of our courtyard and uses twists of wire to attach a fluorescent battery-powered light. The makeshift lamppost casts a circle of harsh white light, in which we arrange a dozen chairs and three mats.

  As the head of one of Timbuktu’s oldest families, Baba has been an elder for as long as I can remember, and tonight he is hosting an emergency elders meeting. The elders used to meet at the town hall in Independence Square, but the threat of invasion has made the mayor nervous. He wants to have the meeting as close as possible to the military camp. He thinks it’s safer here.

  First to arrive is Baba’s brother Uncle Abdel, who lives next door to us. He is Chief Librarian at the Ahmad Baba Library, and we see him every day. The other elders arrive on motorbikes: twelve heads of families, three imams and some officials from the mayor’s office. The place of honour, a comfortable basket chair, goes to the mayor himself. Like Sundiata, Lion King of Mali, he sits imperious in gold-embroidered robes.

  The only person I don’t recognise is the thin one with his shirt tucked into his trousers. I hear Baba introduce him to the others as Albert Sanon, the new headmaster of the school. Fresh off the boat from Bamako, poor man.

  I squat on a small stool by the kitchen door, using the light in the courtyard to pick weevils out of a bucket of millet flour. No one pays me any attention, apart from Uncle Abdel, who raises his eyebrows in greeting.

  Imam Cissé raps the ground three times with his ebony walking stick to bring the meeting to order. ‘News from the nomads,’ he says. ‘Redbeard’s battalion has taken up their position in the desert to the north of the city. A Tuareg battalion is riding to meet them.’