The Pilgrim Conspiracy

by Jeroen Windmeijer

  He saw that he was in a large tent made of a rough black material that was indeed filtering the light. It was sparsely furnished. There was another cot like the one he was sitting on. There were two big bales of what looked like carpets bound up in a large, thin cloth. The ground was covered in carpets too, with sand and rocks visible through the gaps. An artfully decorated silver-grey jug stood on a large tray, surrounded by about ten small tea glasses and a pile of roughly shaped cubes of sugar.

  The tent flap was flung open, and a sea of light flooded in.

  Peter instinctively shielded his eyes from the piercing brightness with his hand. He slowly removed it again, but the bright light behind the figure in the tent opening made them hard to see. The flap fell closed, and Peter was plunged into darkness again.

  Whoever it had been, they were gone again.

  Where am I?

  Peter noticed a jug of water at the foot of the bed. He put it to his lips and drank so thirstily that he choked and coughed, and the water spilled over his chin and onto the floor. Exhausted, he put the jug back on the ground and fell back onto the bed.

  He heard the tent flap being opened again. He could see the light increasing even with his eyes shut; a pink glow moving over his eyelids.

  I was lost, but now I’m found.

  Someone approached him, cautiously, like he was a wounded animal and they weren’t sure how he would react to being touched. Then there was silence. Peter turned his head to the side and slowly opened his eyes. A man was crouched down beside the bed, staring at him intently. He had a rugged, weather-beaten face, a stubbly beard and dark eyes. He wore a loose-fitting djellaba that looked like it was made from the same fabric as the tent.

  A Bedouin.

  A long white scarf was draped around the man’s head just like Peter had seen on photographs of desert nomads.

  The man put his palm flat on his chest and tapped it gently.

  ‘Bilal,’ he said. ‘Bilal.’ He gave Peter a wide smile that revealed missing front teeth and molars.

  Peter copied him. ‘Peter,’ he said. ‘Peter.’

  The man repeated it, but it came out as ‘Bater’.

  Peter nodded.

  Bilal picked up the jug of water.

  ‘You drink,’ he said in English. Peter couldn’t tell from his intonation whether he was asking a question or making a demand.

  Peter took the jug and swigged from it a couple of times.

  ‘You Katrîne?’ Bilal said, pointing at Peter emphatically, as though he wanted to avoid any misunderstanding about who he was referring to.

  Peter nodded.

  ‘Katrîne, yes,’ he said and pointed to himself.

  ‘I bring,’ Bilal said, jumping up energetically, evidently happy that he had worked out where this stranded stranger had been trying to get to. ‘You eat?’ he said, obviously asking a question now.

  It was only now that Peter realised how ravenously hungry he was. He hadn’t had a chance to eat any of the bread and fruit he had bought that morning.

  Bilal went back outside. He uttered a few sharp sentences in what sounded like Arabic, apparently giving someone orders. The gentleness with which he had spoken to Peter in English had vanished in an instant.

  Why on earth would they leave me, Peter asked himself.

  His hand flew to the money belt at his waist to check that it was still there.

  That couldn’t have been what they were after, could it?

  He heard camels grumbling outside and the scrape of metal on metal, probably cutlery on plates.

  Peter slowly heaved his legs over the side of the cot so that he could sit up. He suddenly realised how full his bladder felt. He eased himself up and hobbled over to the tent entrance, not quite steady on his feet.

  He threw back the large tent flap and blinked hard. He heard the blood rushing in his ears, pulsing hard then soft. When he opened his eyes, for a moment, he thought he had stepped into a travel documentary on the Discovery Channel or National Geographic. To his right, a group of veiled women dressed in brightly coloured robes stood around a cooking pot hanging over a wood fire. Two young girls glanced at him for a brief second, but they averted their eyes as soon as he looked at them. They nudged each other and giggled.

  A few metres away was a large, half-open tent, like the beach tents that bathers might use to shelter from the wind but many times bigger. Inside, the ground was covered with overlapping carpets. Cushions had been arranged into two U-shaped seating areas with enormous silver-grey serving trays in the middle. Two camels lay next to the tent in the blinding sun. They appeared to be chewing something, although Peter couldn’t see anything in their mouths. They stared impassively ahead.

  Bilal dashed over to him. ‘Bater,’ he exclaimed. ‘Bater!’

  Peter didn’t bother to correct his pronunciation.

  Bilal grabbed Peter’s arm and led him over to the seating area.

  ‘I need to …’ Peter tried to think of a way to tell him he needed to urinate. ‘Pee pee,’ he said, hoping that baby language might somehow be international. He pointed at his crotch. ‘Pee pee,’ he said again.

  Bilal understood immediately. He took Peter’s hand and led him away from the tent to an area where, to Peter’s surprise, two thorny bushes were somehow growing in this otherwise barren patch of desert. Bilal waited until they had reached the bushes before he let go of his hand, and then he went back to the camp.

  With great relief, Peter emptied his bladder, taking care to aim at the bushes as much as possible.

  For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground …

  The moisture was drawn into the ground so quickly that, before he had even zipped up, all that was left of his deed was a dark patch in the sand.

  He heard a noise in the distance coming closer. He held his breath and listened carefully, but it was soon obvious that it was a car. His immediate impulse was to walk towards it, thinking that he might be able to get a lift. But after taking a single step, he froze.

  What if it’s Melchior and Katja?

  The sound grew louder. There was a row of sand dunes about fifty metres away from him. They looked like they were protecting an invisible coast from the crashing waves of a cruel sea. He heard the car speed past without slowing down, and then the noise faded away.

  It’s only a car, only a car … It doesn’t mean anything.

  Peter walked towards where he had heard the noise coming from. As he reached the top of the sand dune, he saw not only the road he had been on but also the bush where he had tried in vain to seek shelter. When he turned back around, he realised that if he had just climbed the sand dune then, help would have been less than fifty metres away.

  He returned to the tent where Bilal was waiting for him, waving his arms in the air as though he was worried that Peter would get lost on the short walk back.

  He hadn’t been able to catch a glimpse of the car.

  They sat down on the hard cushions, and Peter noticed that he was sweating profusely. He gratefully accepted a large tin mug that was filled to the brim with cold water.

  How do they keep the water so cold here?

  Almost as soon as he had sat down, the two girls he had seen earlier came in. One of them carried a steaming plate piled with rice and some sort of stew, and the other brought in a roughly torn piece of bread. They gave these to Peter and then stood and watched him curiously. Bilal snapped at them to leave.

  ‘You eat,’ he said to Peter with a friendly smile. He took a cigarette from a packet lying on a tray in front of him.

  How long was I lying on the roadside? How long was I asleep?

  Peter pointed at his wrist, hoping that the gesture also meant ‘What time is it?’ here too.

  He was surprised to see that Bilal was wearing a watch. He held his arm up to show Peter the time.

  Almost midday. It had been five hours since Melchior and Katja had, for whatever unfathomable reason, abandoned him in the desert.

&
nbsp; The stew was chickpeas and chunks of meat in a sauce. It didn’t take long for Peter to finish it all. He mopped up the remaining sauce with the bread until the plate was completely clean.

  ‘Good,’ Bilal said approvingly and took the empty plate out of Peter’s hands.

  ‘You family?’ Peter asked him, drawing a large circle in the air with his hands.

  Bilal nodded and parroted back, ‘You family.’

  He didn’t seem to have understood.

  ‘You live here?’ Peter asked.

  ‘You live here?’ Bilal parroted again, like an eager student at his first English lesson.

  ‘I Katrîne,’ Peter said. ‘You bring? Katrîne?’

  Bilal’s face lit up.

  ‘Yes. Bring Katrîne.’

  He sucked aggressively on his cigarette a couple of times and then shouted something in the direction of the large tent. A boy who Peter hadn’t seen before appeared. He stood still while Bilal barked a few short commands at him.

  Peter wanted to explain to him what he was doing here, but their lack of a shared language made it impossible.

  So here you are then, with all your education and knowledge, reduced to the ineloquence of ‘You family’ and ‘You bring.’ A sort of ‘Me Tarzan, you Jane.’ It’s amazing how strongly language is linked to who you are, to your whole personality. All your jokes and anecdotes, all your clever wordplay. It all disappears without language, and who you are disappears along with it.

  He heard the camels bleating again, and the boy clicking his tongue at them reassuringly. Peter heard clanging bells and then he felt the ground shake.

  Surely we’re not …

  ‘Camel,’ Bilal said. ‘You camel. Katrîne. Camel.’

  Before Peter had a chance to say anything, a woman came in carrying a dark brown robe that trailed on the ground, leaving a track in the sand. She gave it to Peter along with a large, white headcloth made of coarse fabric.

  Bilal pointed at them and said, ‘You.’ Then he pointed upwards. ‘Sun.’

  Peter stood up with the surprisingly heavy clothes in his hands and wondered how they could possibly ever be comfortable. They would protect him against the blazing sun, but he was worried that they would also be unbearably hot.

  On the other hand, there’s a reason they’ve been wearing these things for centuries.

  Bilal took the robe and headcloth from him. He threw the robe over Peter, which disoriented him for a second, but he quickly found the hole at the top and poked his head through. Then, with a few deft movements, Bilal draped everything around Peter’s body so that it all sat comfortably. The woman tied a belt around his waist, and then fastened the headcloth around his head, leaving just a narrow gap for his eyes.

  For a brief moment, he imagined himself as Lawrence of Arabia about to embark on a grand and exciting adventure. For the first time since he had been left behind on the desert road, he forgot what a precarious situation he was in.

  The boy came around from the back of the tent holding a pair of reins in each hand, by which he was leading two camels. The camels’ saddles were richly decorated and hung with copper bells. The boy ordered the camels to kneel.

  The beasts sank down on their front legs. It all looked so awkward, as if they were doing it for the first time. When they had finally settled, the two girls came over and tied a water bag to each camel’s flank with ropes.

  ‘Come,’ said Bilal, taking Peter’s hand.

  Meanwhile, Bilal had wound a cloth around his own head, just like Peter’s. He led Peter to one of the camels, and after a few clumsy attempts, Peter managed to clamber onto it, eliciting more giggles from the girls. The saddle was a tight fit, and Peter shuffled around to try to give his pinched privates some room. He needed to pee again already, but he had just found a comfortable position, and he didn’t want to lose it.

  Bilal spoke some encouraging words to his camel, and it stood up. Peter’s camel got up too, almost throwing Peter out of the saddle, much to the amusement of Bilal’s family.

  ‘You okay?’ Bilal asked when everyone had stopped laughing.

  ‘I okay,’ Peter replied, although the pressure on his bladder felt incredible now.

  The boy slapped the camel’s backside, and it started to move. It only took a few steps for Peter to realise why the camel was called ‘the ship of the desert’. Within minutes, he felt seasick. It had also started to grow very hot underneath the heavy robe he was wearing over his clothes. The intense light from the sun reflected back from the sand, forcing him to squint until his eyes were thin slits.

  Good Lord, please don’t let this take too long …

  He vaguely recalled that a camel could easily run faster than sixty kilometres per hour, but only an experienced jockey would be able to stay in the saddle at that speed. However, even at twenty kilometres an hour, it would take them at least six hours to reach the monastery. But perhaps the route across the desert was shorter than going by road.

  As time passed, his need to go to the bathroom strangely disappeared. He tried to fix his gaze on the horizon as they rode through a monotonous landscape of sand, weather-beaten rocks, and the thorny bushes that somehow managed to cling onto life in this harsh environment. Sudden twinges of cramp in his thighs and lower back forced him to adjust his position every few minutes.

  The camels’ initial burst of speed had given way to a steady trot now, which meant they could make faster progress, but surprisingly, it also made the ride even more uncomfortable.

  They appeared to be following a completely random path. How Bilal could find his way in a place where there were so few landmarks was a total mystery to Peter.

  After an hour, or possibly even two hours – Peter had lost all sense of time – they stopped near a rocky outcrop that had seemed to be the same distance away for so long that Peter had thought they would never reach it.

  The camels knelt down again, and Peter had to grip the pommel tightly to stop himself falling out of the saddle. His legs had gone numb, which made it difficult to keep his balance when he dismounted.

  Bilal spoke to him for the first time since they had left the camp.

  ‘You drink,’ he said, and took a drink from the water bag himself.

  They shifted their head coverings aside and gulped down greedy glugs of water.

  ‘Camel drink?’ Peter asked, pointed to the animals who stood calmly looking around them with their usual blank expressions.

  Bilal shook his head.

  He tied the water bag back onto the saddle and scaled the rocks, as though he needed to check where they were. He fished inside his robe and produced a packet of cigarettes. He held it out invitingly.

  It had been a while since Peter had smoked his daily cigarillo, but it had been years since he had last smoked a cigarette.

  He was overcome by a great longing to be back in his little office in Leiden.

  And a great longing for Fay.

  Peter felt himself choking up but walked over to Bilal and took a cigarette. After they had lit their cigarettes, they both sat down on the sand to smoke them.

  If you didn’t know any better, you would think I was a rich tourist who had paid hundreds of dollars for an authentic desert experience with a real Bedouin.

  The air was still, and the smoke from their cigarettes rose up in almost perfectly vertical plumes. Something was bothering Peter about all of this that he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but he was too tired to think deeply about it now.

  It was absolutely quiet.

  Peter stared out over the endless, open plain.

  Any Christian or Jew who believed that the Bible should be read literally would need to spend just a minute in this environment before they realised that nobody could wander around here for forty years. According to Exodus, manna rained down from heaven, and God provided quails in due course – quite a lot of manna and quails would have been needed to feed three million people each day – but the amount of water necessary to quench the thirsts of su
ch a multitude would require the sort of water sources that weren’t found anywhere in the desert.

  ‘You Muslim?’ Peter asked, breaking the silence.

  Bilal looked at him as if he had forgotten there was someone else with him.

  Bilal nodded. ‘Muslem.’ He pointed at the sky and said, ‘Allah. Muslem.’ Then he pointed at Peter. ‘You?’

  ‘Isa,’ Peter said, managing to remember the Arabic name for Jesus. This wasn’t the time or the place to explain that he thought of himself as an agnostic. Experience had taught him that in the Middle East – and other parts of the world too – you couldn’t just come out with the fact that you didn’t believe in God, so he always told people that he was a Christian.

  ‘Isa good,’ Bilal said approvingly.

  That, apparently, was as far as the theological discussion was going to go, because Bilal got to his feet. Peter got up and walked over to a spot a few metres away from the camels, but after he had struggled to hitch up his robe and unzip his shorts, he realised that he didn’t need to go at all. He took a few more large gulps from the water bag, then he fastened the white cloth around his head again.

  It only took a few minutes in the saddle for Peter to rediscover the position that was the least uncomfortable. He regretted having forgotten to ask how long the journey would take. If they had left at one o’clock, it would be getting on for three o’clock now.

  He looked at the sun. It had sunk closer to the horizon, so they only had a couple of hours of sunlight left. Peter assumed that Bilal wouldn’t want to travel in the desert at night, although the light from the moon and stars meant that it wouldn’t be completely dark.

  They rode on for a long time, much longer than they had on the first leg of the journey, Peter thought. Then, to his great surprise, a black ribbon of asphalt appeared in the distance. As they got closer, he could see the hot air shimmering above the road. Bilal steered his camel to the other side of the road and followed the sandy verge. Peter’s camel followed meekly behind.

  After a while, they came upon a faded blue road sign half scrubbed away by sand and covered in rust spots. There were about ten perfectly round holes in the metal that must have been made by bullets. The sign read: