The Hidden Oasis

by Paul Sussman

  ‘You know this man?’ asked the detective.

  ‘He worked with my sister,’ said Freya. ‘He’s been …’

  She was about to say ‘looking after me’ but hesitated, before continuing:

  ‘Driving me around.’

  ‘I will leave you in his hands, then,’ said Khalifa.

  He walked her out of the police station.

  ‘Please, don’t hesitate to contact us should you have any further worries,’ he said as they came up to the car.

  ‘Thank you,’ replied Freya. ‘You’ve been so helpful. I’m just sorry to have—’

  The detective waved a hand, cutting her off. He nodded a greeting at Zahir, who just grunted and looked straight ahead, then took a step back as Freya climbed into the Toyota and pulled the door shut.

  ‘It has been a pleasure meeting you,’ Khalifa said. ‘And please accept my condolences on the death …’

  Before he could finish Zahir floored the accelerator and sped away, eyeballing the policeman in the rearview mirror.

  ‘Police no good,’ he muttered as they swung round a corner, narrowly missing a cart piled high with watermelons. ‘Police no understand things.’

  He had been unusually talkative on the drive back, bombarding her with all manner of questions about Alex’s death, why she had been suspicious, what the police had said, his eyes all the while flicking across at her. It had made her feel uncomfortable, even more so than his reticence the previous day, and her answers had been terse and monosyllabic, evasive, although what exactly she was trying to evade she couldn’t be sure. When he finally pulled up in front of her sister’s house, she couldn’t get out of the car fast enough. Mumbling a curt thank-you she disappeared inside, slamming the door and leaning her back against it, relieved to be rid of him.

  Now he was gone and she was on her own, and exhaustion suddenly enveloped her, as though, with her sister buried and her suspicions allayed, her body was finally holding up its hands and saying ‘Enough!’ For the first time in three days, she realized, she didn’t have something to worry and obsess about. She’d got herself to Egypt, she’d buried Alex, she’d resolved the questions surrounding her death. Everything that needed to be done had been done. Except for the grieving. And the guilt. Of those there was plenty to come.

  A sharp cheesy odour hung in the air from the breakfast remains still sitting on the living room table. She went over to them and piled some bread, tomatoes and cucumber onto a plate. Then, dragging an armchair outside to the veranda, she sank down and curled her legs under her, gazing out across the desert, picking at the food with her fingers. She was hungry – she hadn’t eaten properly for the last three days – and in a matter of minutes the plate was empty. She could have eaten more, but by then the exhaustion had become so intense the prospect of covering even the short distance back to the living room table seemed too much. She laid the plate on the ground, snuggled further down into the cushions of the chair and, resting her head on her arm, closed her eyes and was asleep almost instantly.

  ‘Salaam.’

  Freya jerked awake, startled, thinking that she was dreaming, had only just nodded off. Then she noticed how red the sun had become, and how low it had dropped in the sky, almost to the level of the horizon. She must have slept for an hour or more. Groggily she stretched out her arms and legs, yawned, and was just rising to her feet when she saw the figure standing three metres away at the end of the veranda. She froze.

  ‘Salaam,’ the voice repeated, a man’s voice, gruff and guttural, his face wrapped in a linen scarf so that only the eyes were visible.

  For a moment they just stood like that, looking at each other, neither saying anything. By now wide awake, Freya began to back away, hands coming up protectively in front of her, bunching into fists, her eyes dropping to the large curved knife slotted into the stranger’s belt. He must have realized what she was thinking because he raised his own hands, palms outwards, gabbling something in Arabic.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Freya said, her voice more shrill than she would have liked. She backed away another step, glancing around for something to use as a weapon should he come at her. There was a rake leaning against the bole of a jacaranda tree away to her left. Stepping carefully off the veranda, she edged towards it. Again the man seemed to realize what was going through her mind because he shook his head and, reaching down, slipped the knife from his belt and placed it on the ground, taking a step backwards away from it.

  ‘No danger,’ he said, speaking in halting, heavily accented English. ‘He no danger you.’

  They stared at each other, the air echoing with the twitter of birds and the rasping chirrup of cicadas. Slowly he reached up and tugged away the linen scarf to reveal a long, bearded face, the skin deeply lined and dark as ebony, the cheekbones so high and prominent, the cheeks beneath so sunken it looked as if someone had scooped the flesh out with a spoon. His eyes were red with exhaustion; his beard, Freya noticed, speckled with flecks of sand and grit.

  ‘He no danger you,’ he repeated, patting his palm against his chest. ‘He friend.’

  Freya’s hands came down slightly, although her fists remained bunched.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked, her voice more assured now the initial shock at his appearance had passed. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘He come Doctor Alex,’ he said. ‘He …’

  His eyes narrowed as he tried to find the word he wanted. With a frustrated click of the tongue, he gave up and instead mimed knocking on a door.

  ‘No person,’ he explained. ‘He go back of house. You …’

  Another mime, this time of hands pillowed underneath a head. That was how he had found Freya, asleep.

  ‘He sorry. He no want scare you.’

  It was clear by now that he meant her no harm and Freya’s hands opened up and dropped to her sides. With a nod she indicated that he should pick up his knife. Leaning down he tucked the blade back into his belt before slipping a canvas bag off his shoulder and holding it out to her.

  ‘This find,’ he said, tilting his head towards the desert. ‘For Doctor Alex.’

  Freya bit her lip, her chest tightening.

  ‘Alex is dead,’ she said, the words sounding curiously dull and emotionless, as if she was trying to distance herself from what she was saying. ‘She passed away four days ago.’

  The man clearly didn’t understand. Freya rephrased the sentence, with no more success, and in desperation she ran a finger across her neck, the only mime she could think of to indicate death. His eyebrows shot up and he muttered something in Arabic, raising his hands towards the sky in a gesture of shock and disbelief.

  ‘No, no, not murdered,’ she said quickly, shaking her head, realizing he had got the wrong end of the stick. ‘She took her own life. Suicide.’

  Again, her words meant nothing to him and it took another thirty seconds of explaining and gesturing before awareness finally seemed to dawn. He broke into a broad, brown-toothed smile.

  ‘Doctor Alex go away,’ he said triumphantly. ‘Holiday.’

  How she had managed to give him that impression she had no idea, but it would have been too much to correct him again and so she just nodded.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Doctor Alex has gone away.’

  ‘You okht?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  He clasped his hands together, indicating closeness, connection.

  ‘Okht?’ he repeated. ‘Sister.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, smiling despite herself, amused by the absurdity of the situation. ‘Yes, I’m Doctor Alex’s sister. Freya.’

  She held up a hand in greeting and he mirrored the gesture before holding out the canvas shoulder bag again.

  ‘You give Doctor Alex.’

  Freya came forward and took the bag from him.

  ‘This is Alex’s?’

  He frowned, confused. Then, realizing what she was saying, shook his head.

  ‘No Doctor Alex. He find. In sand. Far.’

 
He chopped a hand out towards the desert.

  ‘Far, far. Half to Gilf Kebir. Man.’

  He slit a finger across his throat, as Freya had done. The man of whom he was speaking must be dead, although whether he meant that he had been murdered or was simply deceased she couldn’t be sure.

  ‘Doctor Alex give money,’ he continued. ‘Doctor Alex say he find man in desert, he find new thing in desert, he bring.’

  He reached into the pocket of his djellaba, pulled out a steel Rolex watch and handed this across as well.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Freya, clutching the bag in one hand and the watch in the other. ‘Why would Alex want these things?’

  ‘You give Doctor Alex,’ he repeated. ‘She know.’

  Freya continued to press him, asking why Alex had paid him money, who the man in the desert was, what it was all about, but having handed the objects over, he clearly considered the purpose of his visit had been achieved. With a final ‘You give Doctor Alex,’ he bowed, turned and disappeared around the corner of the house, leaving Freya staring helplessly after him.

  EGYPT – BETWEEN CAIRO AND DAKHLA

  The Agusta helicopter flew fast and low, just a few hundred metres above the desert, its shadow sweeping along the dune tops. The thrub of its Pratt & Whitney-powered rotor blades echoed dully across the sands like the thudding of distant drums. All of its eight seats were occupied, one by the pilot, five by hard-faced men cradling Heckler & Koch submachine-guns in their laps, and two – the rearmost seats – by Girgis’s twin henchmen in their grey Armani suits and red and white El-Ahly FC football shirts. The pair of them were gazing intently at the football fanzine one of them was holding in his lap, utterly engrossed. Throwing a half-glance over his shoulder to make sure they weren’t listening, the pilot nudged the man beside him.

  ‘No one’s ever found out their names,’ he whispered. ‘Seven years they’ve been with Girgis and no one’s ever found out their names. Even he doesn’t know, apparently.’

  The man said nothing, just gave a slight shake of the head, indicating that this was not the time or place to talk about such things.

  ‘They killed one of his pimps,’ continued the pilot, ignoring the warning, warming to his subject. ‘Cut him up and dumped him in the Nile because he said El-Ahly were shit and el-Hafeez takes it up the arse. Girgis was so impressed he gave them a job.’

  Another shake of the head, more vigorous this time, accompanied by a cutting motion of the hand to signal that the conversation should go no further. Again the pilot didn’t take the hint.

  ‘Mother’s a smack-head, apparently. They absolutely worship her. Forty people they’ve killed and—’

  ‘Shut the fuck up and fly,’ came a voice from behind.

  ‘Or it’ll be forty-one,’ came another almost identical voice.

  The pilot’s hand tightened around the steering column, face turning the colour of milk, thighs squeezing together as if to protect his crotch. He didn’t speak for the rest of the journey.

  DAKHLA

  Back inside Alex’s house Freya opened the mysterious canvas bag and removed its contents one by one, laying them out on the living room table alongside the Rolex watch. Map, wallet, camera, film canister, distress flares, emergency rations, handkerchief with miniature clay obelisk wrapped inside and, lastly, a green metal compass with a folding lid. She held on to the latter, opening it up, smiling sadly to herself. It was exactly the same model her sister had owned when they were children: a lensatic military compass, with a dial, bezel, magnifying lens and, in its lid, a slot with a hair-thin brass wire running through it. (‘You line the wire up with the point you’re aiming for, then read the bearing through the lens,’ Alex had explained to her. ‘It’s the most accurate compass you can get.’)

  Whether this particular version was so reliable Freya doubted, for its sighting wire had snapped in two, making it almost impossible to take a precise reading. Despite that she cradled it in her palm as though it were some priceless antique, its feel and weight pitching her back to her youth, to those magical, carefree Markham summers, before it had all gone wrong, before she had broken her sister’s heart. She held the compass up, aligning the lens, dial and sighting-slot, just as Alex had taught her, watching as the needle swung lazily around, hearing Alex’s voice again, the stories she used to tell about how her compass had once belonged to a marine in the battle of Iwo Jima. Almost a minute passed, then, with a sigh, she closed the case, put it down on the table and turned her attention to the other objects.

  The wallet contained some German banknotes, a couple of credit cards, a wad of receipts – all dating from 1986. And there was an identity card. It showed the wallet’s owner: a handsome, blond-haired man with a heavy scar cutting across his chin beneath his mouth.

  ‘Rudi Schmidt,’ she read aloud.

  The name meant nothing to her. A friend of Alex’s? A colleague? After repeating it a couple of times she returned the card to the wallet and moved on. She examined the clay obelisk with the curious motifs inscribed on each of its sides, the film canister, the camera, which had another roll of film still inside its chamber, all but two of its pictures used up according to the exposure counter. Finally, she opened out the map, pushing the other objects aside and spreading it flat on the table.

  It was Egypt, the western half of the country from the Libyan border to the Nile Valley, 1:500,000 scale. The paper was crumpled, the creases where it had been folded starting to split from overuse.

  She gazed down, her eyes drawn to the bottom left-hand corner where a circle had been pencilled around the words Gilf Kebir Plateau. She frowned. Wasn’t that where Alex had been working? She cocked her head to one side, trying to remember what her sister had said about it in her letters, then looked back at the map, bending over it, examining the diagonal line that extended north-east from the Gilf towards the nearest patch of green, Dakhla Oasis, which had also been circled. Five small crosses bisected the line, starting near the Gilf and extending about a third of the way to Dakhla, each cross accompanied by a pair of numerals: a compass bearing in degrees, and a distance in kilometres. While the bearing was always the same, 44 degrees, the distances appeared to diminish the further the crosses moved away from the Gilf – 27 km, 25 km, 20 km, 14 km, 9 km.

  The record of a journey, that was Freya’s immediate impression. A five-day journey, on foot to judge by the relatively short distances covered, starting at the Gilf and continuing for ninety-five kilometres before ending abruptly amid the blank yellow emptiness of the open desert. Who Rudi Schmidt was, what he was doing out there, whether the map was in fact telling an entirely different story – these were questions she couldn’t answer. What she did know was that it didn’t feel right. None of it. Why should her sister be interested in these things? Why should she pay money for them? The more she thought about it the more odd it all seemed. She found herself going over Alex’s suicide again – her paralysed left arm, her horror of injections – and the doubts of earlier that day started to creep back in. All the explanations she’d been given suddenly seemed unconvincing. She wondered if she should return to the police station – that nice detective had told her to get in touch if she had any further concerns – but then what could she say? Someone turned up at my sister’s house with a dead man’s belongings? It sounded so paranoid, so … flimsy. And anyway, the detective had told her he was only in Dakhla for half a day and would probably be on his way back to Luxor by now. Which meant that she would have to start from scratch not only with someone else, but in a language none of the other detectives seemed to speak properly. Maybe she should call Molly Kiernan? Or Flin Brodie? But again, what was she supposed to tell them? That she thought something suspicious was going on? Christ, it made her sound like a character in some schlock B-movie.

  Freya stared at the map for a while longer, then folded it up and started returning the objects to the canvas shoulder bag, trying to decide what to do, wondering whether her doubts were valid or not. She
paused for a moment to gaze again at the miniature obelisk – some sort of souvenir or good luck charm, she assumed – before dropping that in as well, followed by the camera, compass, and, finally, the plastic film canister. Once everything was in she started to do up the bag’s buckles. Almost immediately she undid them again, brow furrowing as if she had been struck by a sudden thought. Delving in she retrieved the canister and camera, weighing them in her hands, pondering. Several seconds passed, then, with a nod, she reached for her knapsack and placed both objects inside it, tucking them down into the fleece she kept there. She retrieved the compass as well, wanting to keep it with her, a connection, however tenuous, with her sister and better days. Leaving the canvas bag on the table, she closed up the house and set off back towards the main oasis, hoping the Kodak shop in the village would still be open. That whatever was on the films in the canister and camera might offer some clue as to who Rudi Schmidt was, why he had been wandering around in the middle of the Sahara and why on earth her sister should have been interested in him.

  The Bedouin remained in Dakhla long enough to refill their water-skins, collect firewood, and purchase a goat and other provisions. Then, preferring to keep their own company, they withdrew into the desert and set up camp about a mile outside the oasis, beside a tangled clump of acacia and abal bushes that had somehow found purchase amid the surrounding emptiness.

  By the time their leader returned from Alex’s house the camels were tethered and munching on heaps of fresh bersiim; the goat had been slaughtered and was roasting over a fire and the men were sitting in a circle around it, singing an old Bedouin song about an evil desert djinn and the boy who cleverly outwits him. Tying his mount with the others the leader joined the circle, his companions shuffling around to give him room. His rich sonorous voice took up the song’s verse while the others came in with the chorus, the first evening stars twinkling in the sky above, the air heavy with smoke and the rich, fatty scent of roasting meat. When the song was finished they passed round cigarettes and fell into a discussion about the route they should take on the journey home. Some argued that they should go back the way they had come, others urged a more northerly line around Jebal Almasy and the top end of the Gilf. Their voices became increasingly loud and animated, rising and clashing until someone shouted that the meat was ready, and the tension evaporated. Hefting the goat away from the fire, they drove one end of the spit down into the sand so that it was standing upright and started to hack at it with their knives, slicing off long, slippery chunks. They ate with their hands, their voices dying away until all that was left was the crackle of the fire, the rhythmic sound of their chewing and, from somewhere away to the north, barely audible, a puttering, droning sound, like the flight of some enormous insect.