James folded his arms. ‘I’ll stay with him.’
‘You like each other, huh. He gets tired of donkeys, he fucks you instead?’
There was a rumble of amusement from the watching troops.
‘Any rice, beans maybe?’
‘Any rice?’ the sergeant mimicked. ‘Any nice white rice for the nice white Englishman?’
Salif raised his head and addressed the soldiers in solemn Arabic. ‘The trouble with donkeys is, their cunts have bristles. It’s like fucking a bag of straw. Trust me, you’re better off with a nice soft piece of English arse.’
The timing was perfect and it brought the house down. The soldiers on their bunks roared. The boy-soldier blushed. The sergeant looked on with a condescending smile fixed to his mouth. He was not entirely pleased that Salif had swung the mood in their favour.
‘What did you say to them?’ James asked Salif with a show of indignation.
Salif grinned. ‘I said you had the arse of a lamb, milky white and soft as a dumpling,’ he replied, still in Arabic.
‘Let’s stick to French,’ said James, with a show of indignation. ‘Oh yes, I like French very much,’ said Salif in Arabic, beaming. The soldiers bellowed their approval.
‘OK, ramzis, I’m going to let you go. Tell your Sahrawi friends it costs fifteen hundred dirhams to cross here.’ He waved an arm at the boy-soldier. ‘Get them chickpeas and water. See how nice I treat you?’ he said to James and Salif, as the boy pushed open the steel door.
‘I take the knife,’ said Salif, reaching for it. ‘The Englishman’s like a bitch on heat when he gets excited.’
The sergeant’s hand closed over the scabbard, then spun it across the table. ‘Take the knife and fuck off.’
The soldiers fell silent, the mood of hilarity gone. The boy-soldier returned with a can of chickpeas and two plastic bottles of water. James took them and moved quickly to the door.
‘Remember what I said about donkeys,’ Salif said, but the blokey tone had gone and the soldiers merely stared.
‘We don’t fuck donkeys, we fuck Polisario,’ said the pale-faced sergeant, his voice sour.
James pulled Salif out of the stinking guardroom before he could speak again. They set off across the steely light of the concrete apron and heard the door slam behind them.
‘You, me, we kill stupid Marocains.’
‘We got out, OK?’
‘He call me Polisario donkey-fucker,’ Salif seethed.
‘You were smart in there, Salif, let’s not throw it away.’
‘You give me idea. Wah wah wah, don’t hurt me!’
‘Yeah, OK Salif, the joke’s over.’
‘Wah wah wah!’
James and Salif walked for five minutes, then opened the chickpeas and ate, scooping handfuls into their mouths and taking turns to drain the viscous, salty syrup from the can. Invigorated by the food in their stomachs, they walked as fast as James’s knee would allow. It felt like a reprieve to be out here with Salif, after a day that should have seen him dead. The track dipped down to follow a dry riverbed across a wide, shallow depression, where the sand lay in billows like a painted sea. After an hour they saw a signpost set in a concrete block lolling by the side of the track. It was decorated with a Moroccan flag and read: Poste Militaire 309, Provinces Maroc du Sud. Beyond it the tarmac road gleamed beneath a swirling skein of windblown sand.
Salif spat at the foot of the signpost and pointed south. ‘Smara.’
After twenty minutes, Salif took him by the arm and pointed: a vehicle approaching from the south. They retreated from the road and lay in a hollow while a white Toyota Land Cruiser passed by. It bore the logo of MINURSO, the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, and had little flags flapping self-importantly from either wing. The referendum was supposed to have taken place at least fifteen years ago, as far as James could recall, but had been successfully obstructed by the Moroccan government. The vehicle blasted past in a furious crescendo of noise and was gone, leaving a diesel-scented vacuum in its wake.
‘Off to do not very much and write a long report about it,’ James said. ‘How far, do you think?’
‘We get a ride. Be in Smara soon.’
They walked on through the immense night, little breathing things traversing the earth’s circumference, footsteps tapping at the silence. No border here would ever be more than the fantasy of a bureaucrat with pencil, ruler and map. And yet they had marked it with two and a half thousand kilometres of rubble wall, garrisoned it with soldiers marooned in their little forts, surrounded it with secret gardens sewn with mines that burst up to pop your toes. And the people for whom this unearthly land was home had been herded into a place called the Free Zone and told to wait while the world twiddled its thumbs.
James’s reverie was interrupted by Salif, who had taken him by the elbow again.
‘Car.’
They stepped away from the road and turned to watch. It was still perhaps three miles off. Compared to the MINURSO Land Cruiser, its headlights were feeble, a smudge of yellow on the arrow-straight road. It came on slowly, its progress still utterly silent to James’s ears until, when it was about a mile off, he caught the faint chirring of its engine.
‘Not army,’ announced Salif. ‘Peugeot 504.’
He stepped into the road and stood blocking the way. James thought it would be prudent to stay just where he was. The headlights tunnelled the darkness. Then the left-hand beam caught Salif’s dusty fatigues and the vehicle slowed to a halt. The driver got out and uncurled himself stiffly. Salif walked up and the two men stood in the road and conversed. Salif pointed up the road; the driver nodded and indicated his car. They seemed to have reached an agreement, so James stepped forward from the roadside, hand outstretched, a large smile on his face. The Peugeot’s horn sounded behind them, its interjection harsh and offensive. A second man pushed open the passenger door and stood up.
‘Get the fuck back in the car or we’ll drive to Smara without you,’ he said: a tall, thin European, speaking in an odd Scottish accent, wearing a Bermuda shirt that managed to look loud even in the dim light from the interior of the Peugeot.
‘Hi,’ said James, walking briskly towards him. ‘What a piece of luck to bump into you guys. We thought we might have to walk to Smara.’
‘You do have to walk to Smara,’ said the man, ignoring James’s proffered hand. ‘There’s not enough room in the car.’
‘You can get ten people in one of these if you pack it right,’ said James. ‘I’ve seen it in Dar es Salaam.’
‘We can’t take you,’ the man insisted.
James disliked him on sight, with his ridiculous shirt and shifty eyes, and wondered whether to just dump him by the side of the road. The driver had already taken Salif round to the rear of the Peugeot and opened the boot so he could clamber in.
‘You can keep the front seat,’ said James, opening the rear door. He climbed in and found himself being eyed up by a squat, powerful man with arms that would have been folded if their girth had not made that impossible. His expression was formidable, but it was hard to know what he thought of this incursion into his rear-seat space. At least he didn’t seem inclined to side with his companion, who remained fuming by the roadside as the driver slammed the boot shut and returned to his seat.
James wound down the window and looked up at him. ‘You coming?’
‘Fuck this fucking place,’ said the man in the Bermuda shirt, yanking open the passenger door. ‘And fuck you all.’
The five men set off south to Smara. The vehicle was now so low on its springs that its exhaust scraped the tarmac at the slightest undulation in the road.
‘James Palatine,’ said James above the din.
‘Mikhail,’ said the man beside him. They shook hands.
‘And you are?’ said James into the ear that presented itself over the back of the seat in front of him.
‘What the fuck’s it to you? You’re paying for this ride, I hope you k
now.’
‘He is Anton,’ said Mikhail. ‘Pissed about something.’
‘Why’re you making friends with these dickheads?’ said Anton. ‘If they try to rob us, they are fucking ant-food.’
‘You boys have business in the Western Sahara?’ James asked.
‘No,’ said Anton, ‘we’re on holiday.’
‘Found the sand OK,’ said Mikhail. ‘Still look for the beach!’
An hour later, the line of Smara’s rooftops appeared – like a zigzag of cream silk thread lain out across the inky sky. They drove through an outer fringe of corrugated iron shacks and low breeze-block huts strung with electricity cables, then turned into a larger thoroughfare. A scattering of streetlights cast a wan orange-sodium glow over a parade of stone-built buildings. At the end of the street was a square with a ruined fortress occupying one side.
‘Zawiy Maalainin,’ said Salif. ‘Spanish blow up everything, not Zawiy. Zawiy not fall.’
The evidence suggested otherwise, but no one disagreed. To the left of the fortress was a modern municipal building; the other sides were lined with houses and shuttered shopfronts. Three diminutive pickups were parked outside a café in one corner. Their driver left them in a smaller street just off the square, opposite a three-storey concrete building with a narrow glazed door. Someone with a bucket of yellow paint and a brush but not much in the way of sign-writing skills had painted HOTEL vertically down the façade. You wouldn’t have known, otherwise.
Chapter Sixteen
Nat woke up feeling awfully sick. A faint smudge of colour still played over the walls in rhythm with the screensaver, and for a moment she tried to identify the sequence, find the point of repetition that would make its motion predictable. The skin of her forearm felt sore and scratchy but she couldn’t remember why. Then the memory of the fight with the little square-faced, snake-eyed doctor came back to her and she sat upright and stared at the door. Still locked. Blood had seeped through the bandage on her arm. The cut was deep and ought to be stitched, or she’d have an ugly, clotted scar.
It was 7.15 in the morning – she’d been asleep for twelve hours. She got to her feet and checked her brother. His breathing seemed easier and he looked as if he might be asleep, rather than out cold. She glanced at his leg, laid out like something in a butcher’s shop. The drip bag was empty and he was going to need the doctor soon. But for the time being, he could sleep. There was a clipboard at the foot of his bed with a diagram of his wounds drawn on a pre-printed human figure; temperature, pulse and blood pressure charts; and a list of medications with dosages and a schedule. Nat read off the drugs: penicillin, midazolam, methadone – no wonder he was out of it. She searched the steel cupboard and packed supplies of each into her bag, adding syringes and field dressings. Just as she was closing it, there came a knock on the door.
‘Monsieur asks if you are awake.’ It was the boy, Adel.
‘Get me some food.’
‘Mam’selle wishes to go to her room now?’
‘No. Bring it here.’
After a few minutes, Monsieur himself came knocking. ‘Natalya? I trust you had a good night’s rest. May I extend an invitation to join me for breakfast?’
She didn’t reply. It was gratifying to have the all-powerful arms dealer reduced to talking to her through a solid oak door.
‘You are upset by this episode, bouleversée as we say. It is to be expected, and indeed is testament to your loyal and affectionate nature. But I believe that on reflection you will acquit me of anything worse than a desire to protect myself from the violence that pursues me, of which the channel cut by the bullet that passed inches from my liver is a painful reminder.’
Nat thought that if he didn’t leave her alone she would shortly pursue him with a violent kick in the shin.
‘The pilot you throttled on the flight down has refused to return,’ he said through the door. ‘A prudent decision on his part, I feel. It will take a day or so to organise a replacement.’
She heard Zender walk away. Ten minutes later, Adel returned with tea, bread, a dish of bean mash and two oranges. When she had eaten, she took her bag and went to her bedroom. Adel trotted along behind, informing her that Monsieur was waiting for her and if she would please now follow him? She showered awkwardly, keeping her bandaged forearm clear of the scant trickle of water.
Back downstairs, she went over to Nikolai’s side. He was squinting against the harsh light. A pool of watery vomit had settled in the hollow where his shoulder compressed the plastic mattress.
‘Nikolai?’
He tried to pull himself upright.
‘Don’t, Niko.’ She put a hand on his damp chest.
He turned his head to one side and retched painfully, then lay back, eyes clamped shut.
‘It’s good to see you, Niko, how’re you feeling?’
His good eye opened and he stared up at her.
‘It’s me, Natalya.’
‘Natalya.’
‘Yes.’
He stared up at her. ‘Natalya. Where am I? What’s going on?’
James woke up in his room in the Hotel Maghrib, Smara, and stared at the ceiling for an hour. The rickety wooden frame and lumpy mattress were everything you could possibly ask for in a bed, he thought. Heat was stirring the white nylon curtains, but it wasn’t yet uncomfortable. He heard voices from the street below, the sound of a man cajoling his companion, then shouts and footsteps running. He smelled coffee and imagined a pot rattling on the stove. A small engine ripped bossily down the street.
You carry too much garbage in your head, Sam Hu Li had told him once. I give you black plastic bag, you put garbage in, you throw it away! OK, James had responded meekly. Upon which Sam had produced a black plastic bag from a trouser pocket, thrust it at James and given way to the gale of laughter that he’d clearly been promising himself since the moment he’d first devised this tremendous jest. I got plenty more if you need them, charity student!
He could have done with one of Sam’s bags last night – a night full of scraps and leftovers from his flight from the compound, the sighs and twitches of men choking in his arms, the bone-hammering blast of the landmine, homosexual charades in the barrack room of the Moroccan army outpost, and finally the surreal appearance of two East Europeans in a Peugeot, gliding along the empty desert road at night.
Really, he should go back to London now, get the Playpen to sort it all out. But their grubby fingers were in this pie and James trusted them even less now than he had three weeks ago when he’d set off for Oran. He’d spend a month traipsing from dank SIS backroom to musty GCHQ antechamber and back again, justifying himself to an unspeakable procession of debriefers who’d convinced themselves they were looking after the nation’s interests and therefore ought to be rather superior and inscrutable – though none of them would have recognised the nation’s interests if they’d formed a choir and sung Rule Britannia in the Foreign Office lobby. How long, anyway, before his captors moved Little Sister somewhere else, before they dealt with Sarah the way they had dealt with Hamed? Not long enough for the Playpen to flounce into action, anyway.
He sat up and found that his knee had seized up – in fact it had disappeared altogether under a fat sheath of tight red skin. He limped downstairs and persuaded the hotel manager to part with an ancient first-aid box and a razor. Back in his room, he opened it and found a small hypodermic still sealed in its wrapper. He eased the needle in under the kneecap and drew off a quantity of murky pink fluid. The barrel was so small he had to repeat the procedure half a dozen times, but the relief was palpable. He hobbled into the shower and stood under the dribble of warm water, then laboriously scraped off three weeks of beard. His old face reappeared in the mirror, and he looked into the deep-set eyes that always seemed to make women want to ask him what he was thinking.
Well, what are you thinking?
That over the last twelve hours he’d seen all the vehicles and weapons he would need to get him back to the compound.
He dressed in the now filthy and tattered fatigues he’d taken from Younes. They rather spoiled the new-day, new-dawn feeling, but he had nothing else to wear. In fact, he thought, searching his pockets and finding only the black cotton square and a handful of pills, you have nothing else full stop. He stared at himself again. Death-junkie. Blood-addict. Were you always like that? Or is that what they made of you, when they got you to take a commission in Army Intelligence and sent you to Kosovo? The only honourable employment for someone with your unique talents, they’d flattered.
Kosovo. That little episode had employed his unique talents all right. He’d run away from that honourable employment, run away from the sickness that had lodged in his soul. Yet here he was dressed in gore-stiffened army fatigues, one dead body already on his mind and god knows how many more in his sights.
He joined Salif in the dining room, and they ate eggs, bread and dates in copious quantities. World Cup football replays were showing on a tiny television mounted high up on the back wall, and the feverish drama of the commentary made conversation difficult. James went over and turned off the sound.
‘Salif, can you take me back to the compound?’
Salif, who was dipping a hard-boiled egg into a dish of some gritty red spice, looked up at James and then back over his shoulder, as if to check whether there were any witnesses to this new evidence of the addling effect of Saharan sunlight on the European brain. He shook his head quickly and went back to his egg.
‘No. I go compound. You stay Smara.’
‘There’s an English girl there, I have to help her. And I need to get back the computer I was working on with Rakesh Nazli. I can go alone, but I don’t know the desert like you do.’
It was evidently mystifying to Salif that this man he had led to safety now seemed determined to put his head back on the block.
‘Take me as far as the compound, then,’ James said. ‘I’ll talk to Colonel Sulamani. He can decide what to do.’
Little Sister (A James Palatine Novel) Page 24