#
Day followed monotonous day as Marius and Louis carried rocks and mixed mud to fix the gourbi, so as to have protection from the hot days and freezing cold nights. The goat provided them with milk they drank as breakfast, and in which they cooked a little semolina to make thin soup for their lunch and evening meal. Only on Sundays would Marius use some of their other provisions to vary their meals, so worried was he that these would not last, and occasionally they would fish for trout in the river, but had little time for such diversions. And each night, Louis would tie the mule to the tree, and bring the goat into the gourbi to sleep with them, so as to provide a little warmth.
The well-digger came with a steam-powered drill mounted on his wagon, bringing with him a gift from Madame Bertin – a jar of olive oil, potatoes, onions, flour, and to Louis’ delight, two jars of plum jam – and for the next few days Louis was kept busy chopping wood and helping the well-digger and his father.
When the well was dug and the gourbi weather-proofed, Marius and Louis pegged out a small field and began clearing it of rocks and junipers. Marius would dig out the rocks with a crowbar he had bought from Mr Campetti, and Louis would load them onto a type of travois they had built from pine branches, which the mule pulled back to the gourbi. There they would unload the rocks, stacking them into piles according to size, because out here everything had a use and these rocks would one day become the walls of a house or a stable. And each evening Louis would flop onto the ground, too exhausted to even think, while Marius cooked their meal. His back ached from the work he had done that day, and his hands were covered in blisters that would bleed during the day then crust over during the night, only to bleed again the next day. He would eat his dinner in silence, painfully, then curl up and sleep till dawn, when the whole routine would begin again.
Often Marius would look at his youngest son while he slept, and wonder if perhaps he should have left him in Sablières with his brothers. The boy appeared frail and the work was backbreaking, but Marius also felt an underlying determination in Louis that had not been evident in France. And he’d promised his wife that he would look after the boy – there was nothing in Sablières for Louis, but here in Algeria, at least he had a future…
And so each dawn Marius would shake Louis awake and hand him a cup of goat’s milk, then gruffly tell the boy to hurry and get to the field before the sun became too hot.
But one day, when Louis woke, his father wasn’t there. He looked around the gourbi. The sun shone through the doorway but there was no sign of the makings of breakfast. He rose and went outside.
Marius was by the tree they tied the mule to each night. He held the rope in his hand, but the rope was not attached to the mule.
‘Father? Where is it?’
‘They’ve stolen it.’
‘Who? When?’ He looked towards the mountains. ‘How do you know?’
‘How do I know? Look at this rope. It’s been cut – that’s how I know. And do you see our mule anywhere? Do you?’ Marius threw down the end of the rope and picked up the crowbar. ‘Well, come on. We’ve got work to do.’
Louis wanted to ask his father about breakfast, but Marius’ anger silenced him. He watched his father stride off towards the field. ‘Father? Aren’t you going to report it?’
Marius stopped and turned towards his son. ‘And how long do you think it would take me to walk to Ain Azel, hey? Then walk back again. And for what? Do you really think they’ll find my mule? It’s gone, and that’s all there is to it.’
‘But the rocks. How will we—’
‘We’ve got hands, haven’t we? And good strong backs? We’ll just have to manage.’
#
Autumn came quickly to the valley but Marius and Louis barely noticed. The loss of the mule increased their workload to the point where each day bled into the next, and they would fall exhausted into their beds each night and sleep until dawn, when the goat would nudge them and demand to be milked.
#
Louis sat up with a start – something had wakened him. The sky was just beginning to lighten, and beside him Marius snored. The goat was up, ears pricked forwards, looking towards the doorway. Then he heard it again – an animal snort, just outside.
‘Father, wake up,’ he whispered.
Marius woke, instantly alert. He looked at Louis, then the goat, following their gaze to the doorway. He rose and went outside. The goat and Louis followed.
Tied to the tree was a mule, and sitting cross-legged beneath the tree was Imez, his father, and an old man. Unlike Imez’s father, this man was not draped in indigo, nor was his face covered. Instead he wore a white burnoose frayed at the edges, the hood of it pulled over his head. The old man held the reins of two camels.
Louis ran to the mule. ‘It’s ours, Father, look – you can tell. Look at the ear.’
Imez’s father rose and salaamed. ‘‘as-salậmu calaykum’ he said.
‘How do you do,’ answered Marius, holding out his hand. The men shook hands, and Imez joined Louis. The boys stroked the mule as Louis watched and listened to the two men. Through a mixture of sign language and a few words of French Imez’s father was explaining the return of the mule.
‘Gwafa, my father,’ explained Imez, ‘stop thief.’
‘But how did he know it was ours?’ asked Louis.
Imez shrugged. Gwafa spoke to his son, pointing to the old man still sitting under the tree. Imez nodded. ‘Merzoug stay,’ he announced, also pointing to the old man who nodded and smiled.
‘I don’t think—’
‘He stay,’ Imez repeated.
Marius tried to protest but Gwafa held up his hand, silencing him. He salaamed towards Marius, then Louis. ‘Ilâ l-ligâ,’ he said.
Imez also salaamed. ‘Ilâ l-ligâ. Till next time.’
Louis watched Imez and his father lead the camels around the boulders that indicated the turnoff to Ain Azel.
‘Why is this man staying?’ he asked Marius. ‘Who is he, anyway?’
‘Well, apparently his name is Merzoug. And why he’s here, I really don’t know. He’s not dressed like them, so I don’t think he’s Tuareg. I’m just wondering if he’s not one of their slaves… I think we’ve just been given a slave.’
‘But we don’t keep slaves.’
‘I’m well aware of that, but what would you have me do? Look at him. He’s old. They probably don’t want him anymore.’
‘We could pay him.’
‘I agree. But with what? To do what? Look at him – what use can he be?’ He looked at the old man still sitting under the tree, smiling at them. ‘I’ll have to think of something. Obviously we can’t keep him. For now, I just hope he doesn’t eat much.’
#
Early next morning Merzoug was not there when Louis and Marius woke, but he returned just as they were drinking their morning cup of goat’s milk. With a toothless smile he handed Marius three rabbits he had trapped, already skinned and gutted. Then, without asking, he went to their supplies and broke off a large piece of salt from the cone, which he mixed in a bucket of water in which he soaked the skins to cure. And when Louis and Marius went to the field Merzoug was there beside them, picking up the smaller of the rocks and stacking them onto the travois.
He always stopped for a nap of an hour or so in the middle of the day, and five times a day he would kneel, always facing in the same direction, and touch his forehead to the ground in prayer.
He spoke little, but always smiled and nodded at whatever was said to him, except when Marius tried to explain that he could not stay. Then the old man would frown and wander off for a while, only to return a short while later and act as if the conversation had never taken place. So Merzoug stayed. Each night he slept outside the doorway of the gourbi, and there were no more thefts. Each morning he would appear as Louis and Marius woke, with rabbits or fish or berries for their evening meal.
Then one morning, when they had nearly finished clearing the field and the air held the promise
d of rain, Merzoug did not appear at breakfast. For a whole week he was gone, then on the eighth day reappeared followed by an Arab with a horse pulling a wooden plough. Without bothering to explain anything or introduce the Arab, Merzoug showed the man the field and the man began ploughing.
It took him two days, and during that time Merzoug sat on the edge of the field and watched him, moving only to pray. When he had finished Merzoug walked him to the boulder turnoff, then returned to the gourbi and pointed to the parasol Louis had found in Algiers.
‘Do you want it?’ asked Marius. Merzoug nodded and smiled. ‘Then it’s yours.’
Merzoug went outside to the tree where he liked to nap, and slept the rest of the afternoon, all the while with the parasol unfurled above his head, the handle wedged in the crook of his arm.
#
With the clods of earth in the field now ready to be broken up by the frost and snow that were not far away, Merzoug showed Marius and Louis how to dig silos into the ground to hold the expected harvest. Then, when winter arrived, they went into the pine forest to cut down trees that Marius and Merzoug split into planks, out of which Marius made beds and a table and four chairs. While Marius was thus occupied, Merzoug would take Louis into the mountains and gorges and teach him about this land, and the old man and the boy became close friends. And everywhere he went, no matter what the weather, Merzoug proudly held aloft the open parasol, and occasionally he would look up at the small garlands of spring flowers and fluttering butterflies, and smile.
The first snows came and still Merzoug slept outside the doorway of the gourbi. Every night Marius asked him to join them inside, and every night Merzoug refused. He had sewn together the pelts of the many rabbits he had trapped, and he would wrap himself in that, and lay on the ground outside the doorway, guarding them all.
When the weather allowed, Marius, Louis and Merzoug cleared the land where Marius had decided to build their house and stable. They would first build one large room, with a large fireplace in which to cook. It would be made of the rocks they had dug out of the ground, and have three doorways. The first would be the door leading outside. The other doorways would be boarded up, awaiting the time when they would be able to add extra rooms made from the rocks they’d yet to gather. Marius hoped he could then persuade Merzoug to accept the gourbi as his own.
9
The sound of a chainsaw stopped Nicolette. She knew there were no loggers around, and even if there were, they wouldn’t be working today; they’d all be watching the Cup. Then the sound was followed by that of different birdsongs – magpie, kookaburra and robin – then the chainsaw again, and she knew a lyrebird was close. Walking so as make as little noise as possible on the powdery dryness of the forest floor, she veered away from the track towards the sound, hoping the hot northerly that had been blowing all morning would mask any slight noise she may make.
About the size of a rooster, it stood on a small mound cleared of leaf litter, its lacy plumed tail fanning out behind its body. Once more it mimicked a chainsaw, then a kookaburra. Nicolette pressed the shutter of her camera and the bird froze. It scanned its surroundings, and though Nicolette was sure it couldn’t see her, the bird gave a call of alarm and ran off into the undergrowth. Nicolette lowered her camera, sat down on a fallen log and took a long drink from her water bottle. She had left her car parked in a picnic area, and had been walking for more than two hours already, following tracks uphill, deeper into the mountain. As she lowered the bottle and breathed deep, she became aware of a new smell – smoke and the aroma of burning eucalypts. A sudden quietness surrounded her, an expectant silence, as if the bush was holding its breath. No bird chirped, no insect thrummed nor frog croaked. Only the rustle of leaves in the wind.
From the track she could see swells of smoke billowing higher and higher from a ridge some distance away, engulfing the sky, smothering the sun. At ground level, the bush was being devoured by flames and the wind became stronger, the sky darker, and she knew she had to get back to her car. Now. She walked faster, telling herself not to panic, that she had plenty of time, that the fire was nowhere near. A snake slithered across her path and Nicolette panicked and she ran, her camera bag banging against her hip. She ran until she felt her lungs would burst. Then she stopped. She should have come to the turn-off to the picnic grounds by now. Had she missed it? The smoke in the air was apparent now, acrid, a toxic furnace breath that confused her. Frightened her. But there was nowhere to go except to follow the track.
It ended at the T-junction of an unsealed road. This wasn’t the way she’d come. She stood in the middle of the road, coughing, trying to catch her breath, trying to decide which way to go. She couldn’t think. Still she knew she needed to calm down so she squatted to where the smoke was less dense and shut her eyes, trying to visualise a map of where she had gone. Think! Which way? You’re on a road and all roads lead somewhere. But which way? But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t visualise the terrain.
The sudden honk of a horn assaulted her, so that she fell back onto the road and sat staring at the headlights of the fire truck like a rabbit caught in a spotlight. The truck stopped, doors slammed and two men in khaki overalls and helmets walked towards her.
‘Not the best spot for a picnic, love,’ but Nicolette could only stare. ‘Come on then. You can’t stay here.’
Nicolette squeezed in between the two men in the cab, while two more stood on the back of the tanker, hanging on.
‘My car. I left it—’
‘Sorry love, no time. We’ve got to stop this bastard crossing the road before it gets out of control. We’ll take you back when we’re finished. You’ll be right.’
Nicolette wasn’t so sure that she’d ‘be right’, but she didn’t have any other choice, and the calm attitude of these men was reassuring; better that, than being on her own.
#
It had taken the men close to three hours of hard labour to contain the fire. They’d told Nicolette to stay in the truck, and she had, at first, and watched in horror as two of them each lit the end of what looked to her like a canister with a handle and a long, looped wand, then, walking in opposite directions a few feet in the bush, parallel to the road, set fire to the scrub. But as she watched this infant fire fingering its way up the ridge towards the main fire, she’d understood what they were doing and, reassured by the sight of the men with hoses or knapsacks at the ready, took her camera and jumped out of the cab. This was news. Her chance to get her photos in the paper. Her chance for a by-line.
She stood transfixed, staring into the flames as the backburn line expanded in size, strength and noise, snaking its way up the hill. Ash rained down. Glowing embers. Two rabbits zigzagged their way out of the burning scrub, too panicked to react to the humans in their path. Flames engulfed bushes and licked their way up tree trunks then leaped like demented monkeys from treetop to treetop. And all the while the fire-fighters patrolled the road, making sure it didn’t turn back, occasionally dowsing a tree trunk or a bush.
She took photographs of the men silhouetted against the flames, the jet of water from the fire hose a white slash against the red of the flames and the black of the ground. She took photos of the sky, red-brown with the sun just a pale white dot and embers swirling overhead like deadly fireflies, and when the one they called Junior came back cradling a baby wallaby he’d found alone, she took a photo of that too. The smoke irritated her eyes, making them water continuously and she had trouble breathing, so that every so often she’d go back into the cab of the truck where the air seemed fresher, but she kept telling herself that if these men could take it, so could she.
Evening fell and the fire was out but still the men stayed, checking the perimeter, spraying a log that still smouldered, making sure there were no flare-ups. More volunteers had joined them, and women came too with sandwiched and biscuits, thermoses of tea and bottles of water. And when the women were leaving they offered to drive Nicolette back to her car, but she refused. She felt
she needed to stay as long as these men.
#
Nicolette dropped her photographs on the local news editor’s desk. She’d stayed up half the night developing her films and printing the best of her shots, then writing a report on the fire. In the morning, she’d returned to work earlier than usual, wanting to make sure her news story and photos were seen first thing.
‘What’s this?’
‘That is news. While you lot were watching the Cup, the Dandenongs were going up in flames. And I was there. It’s all there – the pictures and the story. Think it’ll make the front page?’
‘Leave it here and I’ll have a look at it.’
For the next few hours Nicolette had trouble concentrating on her work. She knew her photos were good – hoped they’d use the one of Junior with the baby wallaby, to show the human side of bushfires. But it didn’t matter which one they used, at last she’d get her work in the papers. Then maybe she could convince them to give her the work she really wanted…
When she felt the building shudder at ten thirty, she could barely stay at her desk. But she forced herself to wait a while, then went down for a copy of that day’s paper.
The front page was all about the Melbourne Cup – she’d expected that. She turned each page, looking for one of her photos. There were none. Surely they hadn’t ignored the fires? Once more, more slowly this time, she scanned each page for a mention of the fire. Then she saw it – at the bottom of page eight, not even a quarter of a column long:
Melbourne, Wednesday
Two small fires were spotted in the Dandenongs yesterday by a Royal Australian Air Force plane, which co-operated with the Forest Commissioner and the CFA in reporting the bushfires. Local volunteers soon had the fires under control, and no damage to person or property was reported.
Was that it? No photo? No tag line? And she hadn’t said anything about two fires, anything about a plane. She ran up the stairs two at the time and dropped the paper on the local news editor’s desk.
That Devil's Madness Page 7