“You would learn it is not easy, Moussa,” Serena said, “just as Tashmani did. One day he fell asleep and a lion attacked his goats, and ate them.”
“There are lions in the desert?” Paul asked.
“Not anymore, but there were then,” Serena said. “You can still see pictures of them, drawn in the caves. Tashmani should have been more careful, but when he woke up and saw the lion, he ran away without trying to protect his goats. When he went back to camp to tell his elders, no one believed him. Lions were very rare and they all thought he had lost the goats to his own carelessness, which of course was partly true.
“Tashmani was very discouraged. His father told him that he would have only one more chance, and that if he lost any more goats he might never overcome the shame. Tashmani, as you can imagine, was worried that he would never wear the tagelmust.”
“When does he get to wear the veil?” Moussa asked.
“Usually when he is sixteen, when he is thought to be a man.”
“What does he wear before that?”
“Until he is a little younger than you he goes naked,” Serena said, and the boys were appalled at the notion.
“After that,” she continued, “nothing could keep Tashmani from his duty. He tended his goats very carefully. He practiced with his lance for hours, in case he might encounter another wild animal. He never slept until his goats were safe. For a long time he made no mistakes. But no one ever forgot the goats that he lost. A whole year passed, and Tashmani’s head remained bare.
“Then one day he wandered far from camp, looking for pasture. He came to a high plateau where he’d never been. He was near a cave when he heard a horrible noise. When he went to look he saw the most frightening sight of his life. It was a beast, bigger than this house.” The boys’ eyes widened as she indicated the château.
“Tashmani crept silently as a breeze into a corner of the cave. He knew it was a tharben. He’d heard of them, of course, but no one among the Kel Rela had ever actually seen one. It was a reptile, like a giant lizard. Its eyes smoldered like the embers of a fire, and it had long tufts of soft hair growing on the back of its head. Its sides were layered with scales that glittered like jewels. On each of its feet there were six claws, curved like scimitars, only sharper. Its mouth held three rows of teeth, each as long as a dagger, and its tail was spiked like a cactus.
“The tharben didn’t see Tashmani, who held deathly still as the creature crawled past him to the entrance of the cave. He saw it leap into the air like a bird. It sprouted wings from behind its front legs, and soared up and away into the sky, making a gust of wind as strong as a simoom. Tashmani was afraid to move.
“Before long the tharben returned, carrying four wild camels in its claws. To Tashmani’s dismay he saw that the creature also clutched two of Tashmani’s own goats, which in his fright he had left untended outside the cave. But by then it was too late. The tharben breathed fire, cooking the camels, which he ate whole, one by one. Tashmani’s goats were dessert.
“Tashmani cowered in the shadows, afraid he might be next. When the tharben went to sleep he slipped away and raced home to tell his elders. But no one believed him. First a lion, and then a tharben – were there no bounds to his wild imagination? His father told him not to return until he found the goats he’d so foolishly let wander away.
“Tashmani returned to the cave, thinking the tharben might catch more goats and that somehow he might snatch them up and run before the tharben got to dessert. As he approached the cave he heard an awful shrieking, and then he saw that the tharben’s wing had gotten caught between some rocks. Tashmani almost ran away, but he couldn’t ignore the terrible cries. Bravely he took up his lance and stepped forward, to pry the wing free. The tharben roared and tried to catch him in its jaws, but then it saw he was only trying to help. Tashmani freed the wing, which was broken. The tharben could no longer fly, and without help it would starve. Knowing all the ways of the Tuareg to mend sick animals, Tashmani fashioned a splint from the branches of a tamarisk tree, and carefully bound the wing. While the tharben was mending Tashmani hunted for food, for lizards and hares and gazelles. In return the grateful creature promised not to eat him.
“When the tharben recovered the very first thing it did was to let Tashmani fly on its back while it tested its wing. Tashmani was thrilled to find himself flying above even the desert hawks. Later they went hunting together. Seeing that Tashmani was a shepherd with his own goats, and preferring the taste of wild goats anyway, the tharben agreed not only not to eat any more of Tashmani’s goats, but to let them graze on its back, where a rich grass grew. And the tharben even gave Tashmani half of the wild goats it caught, so that Tashmani’s herd might become stronger.
“All of this kept Tashmani from his home for many weeks. While he was away, the Shamba from the northern oases invaded the land of the Hoggar with a great army. Their numbers were too many for the people of the veil, who fought valiantly but found themselves overwhelmed. Finally the Tuareg were trapped on the slopes of a great mountain called Tararat. The Shamba soon realized they could never prevail with arms, so they surrounded the mountain, cutting off every route of escape.
“Of all the Tuareg only Tashmani had not been caught in the siege of Tararat, for, of course, he was still away. With the tharben fully healed and his herd of goats stronger than ever, Tashmani proudly returned to camp to tell his father the wonderful news. When he found the camp deserted and realized the terrible dilemma of the Kel Rela, what do you think Tashmani did?”
Moussa snorted. “I would have gone to the city to buy a mitrailleuse.”
Serena smiled. “There was no such thing in those days. And the people of the veil never fight with guns.”
“I’d make a balloon out of camel skins and use it like Uncle Henri,” Paul said. “I’d fly them out.”
“That is almost exactly what Tashmani did,” Serena said, “only he didn’t need a balloon at all. He raced back to the cave and told the tharben of his trouble. The tharben knelt down at once so that the boy could climb up. Holding his lance, Tashmani pointed the way. The tharben swept through the sky to Tararat, where the Tuareg and the Shamba were still fighting. Everyone feared the tharben, but when the people of the veil saw Tashmani on top they raised a great cheer. The tharben landed in their midst and one by one they climbed up. The Shamba could only watch, for the tharben kept them away with its tail.
“By then the tharben was quite hungry from its labors, so before soaring away it scooped up a score of Shamba for a snack. While flying the tharben breathed fire to cook them. It tried one but had never tasted anything so vile as a Shamba. So instead of swallowing the rest, the tharben spit them all out. They fell to the earth, where they landed in a petrified forest near In Salah. I have seen them myself. Their shocked faces still peer out at the sky, trapped forever within the stone.
“The disgraced Shamba retreated to their homes from Tararat, passing their fallen warriors on the way. Neither they nor any other tribe ever dared return to invade the enchanted land of the Hoggar, fearful of the spirits they might find there doing the bidding of the people of the veil.
“All over the Hoggar, the Tuareg wrote poems and sang songs about the brave boy who had saved his people. Tashmani acquired many camels and became a great warrior. He married Alisha, the descendant of Queen Tin Hinan, the first and most noble of all Tuareg women, and together they had many children. I am a descendant of Tashmani and Alisha, as are you, Moussa.”
But Moussa was lost in thought, idly wondering how long it might take a tharben to cook a nun, and whether his family connections might be sufficient to get the job done.
Later that night, after the boys had gone to sleep, Henri looked wryly at his wife. “Are all Tuareg women so adaptable with their legends, or is it just you?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve told me the story of the tharben, only there wasn’t any siege, and it didn’t eat any Shamba. As I recall it h
ad something to do with a whole caravan that disappeared over a woman’s jealousy.”
“I thought you were sleeping,” she protested.
“I could never sleep through a tharben. I could use one just now, and a pilot like Tashmani.”
“That was a different tharben,” Serena said, her eyes twinkling. “Just for you. Besides, the boys didn’t want to hear a love story.”
CHAPTER 11
It was the day.
Paul awoke in the twilight before dawn and lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling. The room was quiet except for Moussa breathing heavily in the next bed, still dead to the world.
Paul felt good under the covers. All the world was at peace on this side of the bedroom window. But the butterflies were back, the ones that flew in to announce trouble or danger. Only this time they weren’t for himself. They were for this day, for his father. It was the day he both prayed for and dreaded, the day his uncle told him to be patient for, the day that never seemed to arrive.
It was the day his father would stand before a court-martial. The day Paul was determined to see him at last. It was a Monday, and he was supposed to stay away from the trial and go to school. “The trial is not something for children,” Henri had told him. “I will be there myself. I will tell you everything that happens exactly as it occurs. I promise.” Paul had agreed, but his insides got all knotted up as he thought about it.
He had heard his aunt and uncle talking, late one night when they thought nobody was listening. But he was awake and heard them through the vent, and what they said filled him with dread. If things didn’t go well for his father they might take him out and stand him by a wall and shoot him. Uncle Henri had said so. He’d said it twice. If Paul didn’t quite understand how that could happen, he certainly understood what it meant.
And he wasn’t about to let that happen while he was sitting in some lousy class staring at a nun. He never – well, almost never – directly disobeyed his uncle. There was just too much trouble when he did. But this was different. If it meant punishment, he would take it. He and Moussa had talked about it the night before. Usually it was Moussa who came up with the big ideas. This time it was Paul who forged ahead, daring to do the forbidden.
“I’m not going to school tomorrow,” he announced. “You can if you want. I have to see what they’re doing to my father.”
Moussa thought it was a grand idea, one that required them both to be there. “But they probably won’t let us in,” he pointed out.
“We’ll sneak in.”
“They’ll probably throw us out.”
“So we’ll sneak back in. I’ll watch through a window, or listen from behind a door. I’m not missing this.” Moussa’s grin of adventure gave Paul another thought. “We’re going into the city through the gate this time,” he said in a tone of voice that meant no arguments. Moussa pretended to be disappointed.
Paul watched the dawn light slowly fill the room with another autumn day. When it was time he awoke Moussa. Acting as if everything were normal, they left at the regular time for school. The count was late himself, busy with paperwork. Paul was pretty sure he felt the count’s eyes on his back from behind the window of the study as they disappeared down the lane toward St. Paul’s. Moussa didn’t seem to notice. They got to a junction in the road where they should have turned right, and turned left instead.
A month and a half of siege had dulled the sharp gay edge of Paris. People walked more slowly and talked more softly, and there was less laughter than before. Even the boys noticed something was different.
Long lines of people waited in front of the grocers they passed; food was getting scarce and expensive. The boys walked through the Champ de Mars, a huge encampment filled with guardsmen who looked haggard and hungover. The École loomed huge across the commons. Paul’s heartbeat quickened when he saw it. They were making their way quickly along the side of the street, staying out of the path of carriage traffic when a familiar voice froze them in their tracks.
“Have you forgotten the way to school, or do you test my patience?” Paul’s hair stood up on the back of his neck. He flushed and looked sideways at Moussa, who was studying the ground. The count never had to raise his voice to sound angry, Paul thought. He knew how to make you miserable without yelling, how to get right inside of you with his voice of velvet thunder. They turned to face him, and had to look up to see him. The sun was behind him and it blinded them. He looked as though he had a ring of fire around his head.
“It was my idea, Uncle Henri,” Paul said quickly. “I made Moussa come—”
“You have no mind of your own, Moussa? Your cousin thinks for you now?”
“Yes… I mean, no sir,” Moussa stammered. “I couldn’t let him come alone.”
“He wasn’t to come at all, and you knew it. You heard us talking.” Moussa nodded, red and ashamed. “I thought we had an understanding,” the count said to Paul. “I take you at your word, as you must take me at mine.”
“I had to come, Uncle Henri,” Paul said, and he thought about it and remembered that he was right, that he was sure, and he stood straighter and felt less guilty. “I know I said something different yesterday. But it wasn’t enough to just hear. I have to see what they do.”
Henri looked down on the two anxious boys. They fell mute, awaiting his judgment. He had known where they were going from the moment he’d seen them leave the house, just as he knew what he would do now. But if he was to prevent anarchy in his household he had to let them stew a bit in their broth of nerves and guilt. Paul was fidgety, moving up and down on anxious feet. Moussa’s hands fiddled with twigs, but his expression was a masterpiece of innocence. He gets that face from his mother, Henri thought fondly. The guile is his own handiwork.
“Climb in,” he said at last. The boys scrambled into the carriage, which started forward at once. They still didn’t know whether he’d keep going straight or turn around for St. Paul’s. With the count it might go either way. Henri regarded them sternly. “I will get you inside. Keep absolutely quiet and stay out of the way. Understood?” Paul’s eyes brightened, and a smile of triumph and relief crossed his face. He adored his uncle. The boys both nodded eagerly.
The carriage threaded its way through a throng of people and turned into the courtyard of the École. A guard recognized the count and waved them along. As they made their way inside the building, Paul watched his uncle moving easily through the crowd. Whether people wore uniforms or not, the count was greeting them, shaking hands and chatting. He seemed to cause a stir everywhere he went. Some in the crowd stood apart from him and scowled, looks of hatred on their faces. They loathed his influence, his nobility, his money. But no one was indifferent to his passage. Paul felt a surge of pride that he was with a man so commanding, so sure, so significant. It made him feel big and important himself. It had to mean good things for his father. He saw the count hand one of the guards some folded-up money, and they were waved inside.
The court-martial was to be held in a makeshift courtroom with a high ceiling and windows that ran along the top of one side. There was a bare spot on the wall where a portrait of the emperor had been. A tricolor had been hung in its place, but was smaller and didn’t cover the spot. The room had been chosen because of the large number of spectators expected, both military and civilian. It was the only room large enough. There was a long table at the front with three chairs, one in the center with a high back much larger than the others. Two smaller tables were set in front of the big one, with more seats. A podium stood to one side. Along the back of the room were scores of chairs and benches jammed close to one another for the audience. The civilian spectators were chosen by a lottery held in the courtyard. There were ten applicants for every seat. The boys watched as they streamed into the room, some noisy and rude, others quiet, others laughing, ready to enjoy themselves at the trial deVries, one of the few entertainments left in the city. “I wonder how come they’re letting so many in,” Paul whispered. He didn’t like it, didn
’t like the press of people filling the room, didn’t like the whiskers and jokes and rough manners and the smell of stale wine. He didn’t like what he saw in their eyes. It was like they were coming to watch the elephants at the zoo, Castor and Pollux. Moussa felt it too. “It’s like a carnival,” he whispered.
Henri indicated two chairs at the back of the room. His look left no doubt that he expected to find them there next time he looked. This time they would obey. They sat down as the count moved forward to one of the tables at the front of the room. He started talking to two men wearing uniforms that Paul didn’t recognize. Others came into the room, big men in other uniforms, uniforms that they didn’t recognize, and those men took their places at the table opposite Henri. The one in the middle carried a stack of papers. He had a large Adam’s apple and dark brooding eyes and a shock of unruly gray hair. Instinctively Paul didn’t like him. That one is the enemy.
A door on one side of the room opened, and Paul’s heart leapt with joy as his father came through. He looked pale and tired and not like himself, but he was still big and powerful and stood like a mountain in the boy’s eyes. Jules’s gaze swept the spectators and the officials, but he did not see his son. Ramrod-stiff, head high, he strode to his seat. At first his entry made the room fall silent, and then Paul heard the crowd beginning to stir to ugly life around him. “Voilà le poltron! Traïtre!” They reminded Paul of his classmates, when they dared to test authority: just loud enough for the words to be heard by all, but soft enough for their source not to be identified. Jules ignored them, and sat conversing with the count and the others at his table. The room was alive with a hundred conversations.
After a few moments another door opened and three men walked in, important-looking men, officers, and everyone stood. Paul and Moussa were unable to see over the crowd. They climbed up on the bench, but all they could see were bald heads and an occasional mustache up front. The day was a blur for Paul, who paid attention but couldn’t understand a lot of what was going on. It started with the prosecutor, the man with the gray hair, who stood and read from a paper detailing the charges against his father. He said once again all the terrible things, using words like treason and shame and cowardice, and talked about the conduct of an officer and unfitness for duty and dereliction and desertion.
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