Aliyyah

by Chris Dolan

  It was the first time he’d laughed out loud since the accident, and he felt both guilt and release. The cold water was invigorating on his skin and he felt a freedom in his nakedness and solitude. The stars above mingled with the shards and droplets of water so that it seemed he was bathing in the Milky Way itself, shimmering in glittering light.

  He spoke to Duban the following day of the sensation. “Do you know the story,” the old man asked, “of Juno? There are many different versions, but here is one. Juno was the mother of Mars and Vulcan. But she was also the saviour of Heracles. After completing his trials the warrior, exhausted, lay dying. But Juno came down from the heavens to suckle him at her breast, thus turning him from weak mortal into eternal deity. Some drops of milk spilled whilst she was nursing him. And those are the stars we see now. Truly the Milky Way!”

  “You know a lot of odd things, Duban!”

  They were sitting inside the chamber looking out on a dusty day. Since early morning the day had seemed cloudy – still dry and hot, but as if a fog had gathered. The dregs of a sandstorm, the reconnaissance officer had worked out, probably blowing high up among the mountains somewhere.

  “Knowledge is a useful vessel, my son, but it needs a skillful driver, else it might take you nowhere in particular.” Duban was standing looking out on the brownish, hazy orchard. But now he came and sat close by Haldane’s side. “We must speak about Aliyyah, Thomas.”

  “Ah.”

  “I have still known you longer as a sleeping man than a wakened one, but I think I can make a judgement. You are honourable, that is certain. But also I think perhaps tenacious? Would that be the right word?”

  “I’m not sure. I seem to be making a slow recovery. And I admit to having felt a lack of resolve. But I think that is changing now.”

  “I am glad to hear it. It is possible that tonight we will be visited by our friends on the outside.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “I do not know, Thomas. But dull, sooty days like this are not, I have gathered, ideal for fighting. Restricted visibility et cetera et cetera et cetera? I have noticed a certain pattern and while the dust is settling our companions often arrive. But I may be wrong.”

  “You were talking about Aliyyah.”

  “And I will come straight to the point. Your comportment with her I know will be exemplary… as far as you can be aware. But you must know that your presence here is a major event in her young life.”

  “Young. How old is she, Duban? She’s not a girl.”

  “She is, she can only be, given her cloistered life here, younger than her years. Cloistered, I should say, by events, not by any person’s will –”

  “I reckon she must be… twenty? And are you sure that she is not being kept here by the will of others? Instead of posting you and Ma’ahaba to look after her here her father could have brought her to the city. Or sent her somewhere safe.”

  “This is the safest place the General knows, Thomas.”

  “My memory of the details of the war are vague, but I think it’s likely to be a long one. So many years confined to a single house? However pretty its gardens are.”

  “This is what I feared.” Duban looked directly at him and his eyes clouded over. “You want to make changes, revisions in the lives of others, without knowing much about them.”

  “I’m suggesting no such thing, Duban. We are just talking, and I’m telling you truthfully what I think.”

  “I thank you for your forthrightness. Naturally there is no restriction on thinking.”

  “Isn’t there? Are there restrictions on Aliyyah’s thinking?”

  “Even if one were to wish it, we cannot control what goes on inside people’s heads.”

  “And do you wish it?”

  “You mean as her counsellor? I think we all wish the best for those whom we love and if we could prevent damaging actions and thoughts we would. But we could talk for many days about such matters and, much as I enjoy our conversations, time is running out.”

  The old man got up from his seat with, Haldane noted, admirable ease. He moved, it occurred to him now, with the fluidity of a much younger man.

  “And that is why it is so important that you do not unsettle Aliyyah too much. You will be gone presently. Back to your life. A world fundamentally different from hers. We all fervently hope that this war will end sooner rather than later so that we can continue with our lives in peace. But that is not going to happen soon. The danger for you here is as great as the danger for her out there. By all means delight in your time together, but do not imperil one another.”

  Haldane got up. “You’re warning me off?”

  “That,” Duban said sadly, “is a churlish interpretation of what I have just said, and not worthy of you, Captain.”

  The soldier and the girl found new regions of the gardens to explore, places where the walls and barbed wire could not be seen, or even brought to mind. The air was still grainy but the heat, as evening approached, abated. The whole orchard was a study in gentle browns and yellows; the fruits, yesterday so red and gaudy, were today rose-hued and the trees and boughs delicate filigree. Aliyyah’s eyes, normally deep burning green, reminded him now of the briars and mosses of his native land.

  “So you believe in nothing?” she looked at him, fascinated, after he told her that he had given up on his father’s faith. “Strange.”

  “Why?”

  “It sounds… magical. This nothingness of yours. I can hardly even imagine it. Look – everything’s here. There are bits of nothing, I suppose, in the spaces there, between that tree and that one. But I know that it isn’t really nothing. There’s nitrogen and oxygen and carbon dioxide in there. Where is your nothing?”

  “I think what Duban has taught you best is riddles, Aliyyah! Like him you have a way of turning things on their head.”

  “I think he is right. That you, and those of like mind, are the most mystical of all. The holy books say beautiful things like, ‘In the beginning was the Word and the Word was made flesh,’ and ‘The heavens and earth once were one until torn asunder.’ Oh and I like ‘Nor aught nor naught existed; no confine twixt day and night.’ Strange words, I agree. But yours – ‘In the beginning there was nothing, and everything was born of nothing.’ That one I find hardest to understand.”

  “Only because Duban decides what you should read and how you should think.”

  She looked at him with mock anger: “Do you really think me such a foolish girl, Tom?”

  “Not at all,” he laughed. “You’re cleverer than me and have had more time to think. But we’re all limited by what we’ve learned and who does the teaching.”

  “All of us? You too?”

  “I suppose.”

  “The critic always looks for faults,” she laughed.

  “And the faithful for excuses.”

  She skipped ahead of him. “Enough. Tell me about the places you’ve been. Cities! Have you been to many cities?”

  “Yes. Though like everything else they’re a bit fuzzy in my head.” They sat down together on the ground under a willow tree. “The city nearest to me when I was growing up. Quite a small city really. I think you would like it there, Aliyyah. The stone is sometimes milky, when it’s sunny, sometimes silvery, in the smir.”

  “Smir?”

  “When it rains very softly. There are old streets, like in stories, winding and turning. And new gleaming ones with shops and restaurants and life and noise. You would definitely like it.”

  “I would. And books? There will be so many books.”

  “Just about everything that’s ever been written, I guess. Libraries and bookshops. And dress shops with every kind of fashion you can imagine. And gardens, with plants from all over the world.”

  “Then why did you leave?”

  “To see what other places are like?”

  “And you found a broken old house in the middle of a messy old garden,” she laughed.

  “Going out into the world yo
u learn.”

  “Or do you just carry what you already know with you everywhere?”

  “You would learn all kinds of things in my country.”

  “There are so many things I do not know even here, in front of my eyes. What is that little flower there? I’ve seen it so many times, yet it has no name for me. I read of a man once, who saw a flower. Perhaps one just like that. He sat down to study it, and became entranced. When finally the spell was broken he found a hundred years had passed.” She smiled directly at Haldane. “Or perhaps it was ten. I don’t remember. Or perhaps I dreamed the whole story up.”

  They wandered through the wood for some time more, looking for trees and grasses and fruits, exchanging their names for them. Tulip, fig, rose and quince. Her words for the same things sounded spacious, rippling – more like, Haldane thought, the things themselves. When neither of them knew the name in either language they invented one between them, hybrid words. “Shanitha!” “Flomerah.” “Distãn!”

  That evening, having walked Aliyyah to the old main door, Haldane strolled a little longer by himself through the dusk. He heard voices that at first he assumed came from the great chamber. But passing it, a few lamps and tapers still flickering, he saw there was no one there. The voices were somewhere outside, beyond the old wall that concealed the shower fountain. He ventured further in that direction, quickly picking up a path that he calculated must branch off from the dust road that led back to the porch and main door. The voices were further from the house, however, and Haldane followed the sound. He assumed he was hearing Duban and Ma’ahaba, discussing something happily.

  Night falling fast now, he tripped once or twice on roots and stones and scratched his finger on a thorn. To one side the wall loomed darkly behind bushes and trees and this new path followed its contour. Turning a gradual bend he saw a light emerging from an opening in the centre of a copse of trees. At first he thought it must be a campfire. Closer still he could make out the silhouette of a man, lit but not by flames. The light didn’t flicker but still came from the ground around the man’s feet. Little glowing oblong pools, like fairy lights. The man was sitting, but even so Haldane could see he was much bulkier than Duban. The soldier’s protective instincts kicked in and he crouched low, studying the terrain in front of him, picking a line of least resistance to get nearer without being seen or heard.

  The stranger was dressed in the outfit that many of the subjects of the portraits wore: a round cap, khaki shirt with gun belt and some kind of tabard over his shoulders. Next to him, at the edge of the faint but steady light given out by those strange little rectangles, Haldane thought he could make out a rifle, lying against the bench or rock the man was sitting on.

  He was talking calmly, telling a story, but to whom, Haldane couldn’t see. The story didn’t seem particularly important or serious, the man at ease and comfortable in his surroundings. Haldane decided not to risk getting any closer – whether there was any danger or not he couldn’t be certain – but moved to one side trying to see who the stranger was talking to. And just as he saw her, as she leaned into the mysterious gloaming and he glimpsed her covered face, thinking at once she was Aliyyah, the woman and the soldier burst into loud laughter. Ma’ahaba – for it was she – immediately put her finger to her face to subdue the man’s guffaws, but still chuckling herself.

  There was an easy familiarity about them. As if all she wanted was not to disturb anyone trying to sleep rather than keeping their meeting clandestine. When their laughter subsided Ma’ahaba spoke in her language to the visitor and she made no attempt to keep her voice low. The man leaned in closer to her, listening, and once, perhaps to illustrate a point, she touched his shoulder, like an old friend might. Or a lover. Or brother.

  “The light didn’t flicker but still came from the ground around the man’s feet. Little glowing oblong pools, like fairy lights.”

  Haldane backed up, reversing blindly in the direction he had come, the curious glow slowly fading, until he felt it safe to turn and quicken his pace home.

  The next morning Haldane went back to the same spot and found, stacked behind a tree stump, the devices that must have created the light. Mobile phones. About ten of them. All old, different sizes, their brand names either scratched off or faded away. He pressed the on button on one and it lit up. But there was no signal. None of the rest had either, and in most the charge that lit them up was already low or exhausted. Lying beside them was what looked like a case, newer than any of the phones themselves though it seemed too big for them. Then he saw it had a connection plug. He tried each of the phones and the connector fitted neatly into one of their pinholes. On the other side the device had a clear plastic panel.

  “Duban! Duban!” Haldane called as he ran towards the door of the great chamber. Duban met him just before he stepped inside. “I don’t know how I’m going to do it. Maybe I won’t be able to. But, at the very least, I have a source of power!”

  “Come in. Tell me.”

  Sitting down at the table Haldane showed him the phones. “And this,” he said triumphantly, “is a solar charger! Don’t you see? The charger gets power from the sun, which we have no lack of, the phones themselves are useless as phones but their batteries work. Look, they light up! If I charge one or two of them up and find a way of connecting them to the radio, that might be enough to power it.”

  Duban threw back his head and laughed till Haldane thought he might injure himself. “Of course! Ma’ahaba has collected these dud appliances from our occasional guests. When they can no longer use them she likes the light they give off to brighten the garden in the evening. But we had no way – until now! – of recharging them. Where did you find this?”

  Haldane, unsure of the politics of Ma’ahaba’s meeting last night evaded the question. “Well we can charge them now. But let’s not to be too hopeful. I have no idea if my idea will work. And even if it could I have even less notion of how to do it.”

  “Ah. I know where it came from. We had a visitor only last night. We did not think it safe for you to meet him. He told us he could not find a radio battery, that he was sorry. But his little gift to Ma’ahaba might very well save our skins!”

  “Maybe. I’ll do what I can. What else did your friend from outside say?”

  The old man turned serious. “That there has been little fighting of late in the immediate vicinity. That our people are safe for the moment, as are we ourselves.”

  “And beyond the immediate vicinity?”

  “So far as he is aware your base is still where it was, but communication with it is more difficult than ever.”

  “And the war? In general.”

  Duban bowed his head. “There are brigades moving up from the south, opposing tank squadrons from the plains. I think this is what he said. The news is muddled. Talk of schisms on one side or the other, or both. Our guest himself was unsure of the details. Breakaway groups and bandit armies confusing the theatre of battle.”

  Duban leant over the table towards Haldane. “You want to understand what is happening in the war? You never will, my son, until one side or the other claims victory, and it all starts again. For you soldiers it is necessary, I imagine, that you have news and that you believe it. For those of us caught up in it, all reports are contradictory. Reports of conflicts are always conflicting!” he squealed, delighted with his joke.

  “I’ll take this radio outside and dabble. You can say a prayer.”

  Duban looked at him. “I’m joking, Duban.”

  The old man laughed again. “Asking assistance of the Sacred oft-times does the trick.”

  “And you honestly expect an answer?”

  “Perhaps it has already been answered? We may be saved by energy from the skies! Aha!”

  “Stored by a device invented by man. But to be honest, your praying’s probably going to be as effective as my corrie-fisted tinkering.”

  Haldane settled himself on the grass just beyond the French windows, a cup of cool cardamom te
a at his side. He had brought with him all the pieces of wire and little tools he had together with the various pieces of the radio’s workings that had come loose. Within an hour he felt he was making sense of how the battery, which he was sure was drained, connected to the radio itself. He placed the solar charger against the wall of the house where he thought the light and heat might be most concentrated. Then he lay back on the grass, still grainy from yesterday’s dust, and let the boughs and leaves fan him. When he opened his eyes Ma’ahaba was approaching, presumably from her usual resting spot.

  “Have you made it work? The radio?”

  “Nowhere near. But I have an idea.”

  “Do you want to? Make it work.”

  “Of course.”

  “Then back to the war.”

  “Can’t stay here forever.”

  “Why not? We do.”

  “You could come with me.”

  She laughed. “Me?”

  “And Aliyyah. And Duban, if he wanted. All of you. Why stay here?”

  “You seem quite comfortable here, Captain.”

  He thought about this for a moment. “True. But because, I suppose, I know I will be leaving.”

  “Like it’s a holiday?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I did some of your holidaying when I was in your part of the world. We went to a beach town. Swam, and danced, sang songs at midnight by the water’s edge. I wonder when my next holiday will be.”

  “Then come with me. If I ever get out myself.”