“Shame, Babouche! What gift for a pasha should be hidden beneath a Tuareg rag? I would see him laid bare.” He flicked a finger at one of the household guards.
“Strip him.”
Moussa heard the command. Mortified, he struggled fiercely but he was still chained and weak from the journey. They subdued him quickly. Two men held him as another removed his robe, then his pants. Finally they unwound the cloth covering his head, removing meter after meter of soft cotton until Moussa stood naked before them. He was bruised and cut where the guards had beaten him. The back of his neck was raw from the collar they’d made him wear. The metal had rubbed through his shesh. But he looked strong and stared defiantly at his captors. He recognized only Babouche, the slaver and caravan master. The big soft one in the middle was certainly the pasha. The eyes of the third man seemed familiar. They were disturbing and intense, but Moussa couldn’t place them.
Jubar Pasha appraised him with a practiced eye and a certain hunger. The devil’s body was lean and hard. Muscles rippled gracefully in his arms and legs. There was a certain elegance in his carriage. The man stood like a king. He considered for a moment. A beautiful man, truly. Yet as inviting as he looked, this one was not for the bed. He was too old and too strong. The pasha sighed. It was a pity.
This one was for ransom.
“Take him to the foggaras.”
* * *
It was dusk when they led him out of the fortress and through a maze of covered streets of the walled city. The mud walls were a deep reddish brown in color. The streets were narrow, choked with people who ignored his passage. Another slave aroused no interest, not even a light-skinned one.
Moussa had no sense of direction. The streets twisted and turned and curved back on each other in a web of confusion. They led him out through the gate, up a hill, and into a walled compound. It seemed to be one of several like it that stretched away toward the open desert. In the courtyard was a large group of black slaves from the southlands. They roamed freely, chattering and cooking over open fires. There were hundreds of them. They shared living quarters in stable-like enclosures whose roofs and walls were made of matted palms. At the rear of the compound was a door that opened onto a passageway with a guard at each end. On either side of it stood a row of squat mud huts with wooden doors and slits for windows. He was led to one of these and shoved inside. The door closed behind him.
He blinked to adjust to the sudden darkness. It was a small room with a ceiling so low he could only sit or rest on his knees in the dirt. There were no furnishings. He could make out the dim forms of other men sitting along the walls. They stared at him without speaking. He could see a man in the corner, his face barely illuminated by the dying light from the small window. He wore a dirty turban and a loincloth and nothing else. He was a small man, a tight bundle of muscles. His eyes were dark and cheerful. He had been studying Moussa. “Allah’s blessings on you, tall one. You will forgive us for not standing.” He laughed. “You will get used to small quarters. It is the highest ceiling you’ll see here. Soon you will think of this ceiling as you once thought of the sky.”
Moussa sat in the opposite corner, trying to gather his thoughts. The little man began to scurry toward the door, which opened suddenly. Moussa hadn’t heard anyone outside. His companion accepted the bowls that were handed in and set them quickly on the floor. The door closed.
He passed them around, giving the last one to Moussa. Moussa looked into his bowl without interest. In the low light he could see it was a nondescript blob of something on a rock-hard lump of couscous. It looked unappetizing. He wasn’t hungry.
“It is said you are Tuareg,” the little man said, greedily eating his own food with his fingers. “Is this so?”
“How did you know that already? I only just arrived.”
“News sometimes arrives here before the event. There is nothing to do but talk and gossip. Everyone talks. Even the guards, and caravan drivers. A Targui raises much interest.”
“I am part Tuareg, yes.”
“You do not look clothed enough to be Tuareg. What is your name?”
“Moussa.”
“I once had an ass called Moussa. A good one too. I will not dishonor him by so calling a Targui. I will call you Sidi.” There was only good humor in his voice.
“They took my clothes.”
“They take everything here, Sidi. What does it matter? We are all naked before Allah,” the man said. “I am Abdulahi. I am of the tribe of the Ouled Nail. That” – he pointed – “is Monjo. He is a Hausa man.” Monjo was stretched out on his back. He was bulky and looked strong. He was coal black. His eyes were intense but seemed friendly. He nodded, but remained silent. “The other is Mahmoud. He is a Moor. A Berber like yourself, but from the High Atlas.”
“Ma’-tt-uli, Tuareg dog,” Mahmoud said amiably, brushing Moussa’s hand with his own and touching it to his chest. “How do you fare?”
“El Kheir ’Ras, Moorish pig.” Moussa grinned, touching his own heart in kind. He liked the man immediately. Abdulahi laughed delightedly at the exchange.
“It is always thus in here, Sidi. Tuareg, Moor, Hausa, Ouled Nail. Outside these walls we would cut each other’s throats. Yet in here we are all brothers. Only the throat of Jubar Pasha is at risk. Like the devil, we are all dwellers of the darkness. All equal. It is a good thing, yes? We need each other to survive.”
“Speak for yourself,” Mahmoud said. “I am nothing to do with the devil.”
“Ah, but you are a darkness dweller.”
“How do you come to be here?” Moussa asked.
“Monjo is a slave.” Abdulahi said it as if that was the beginning, the middle, and the end of Monjo. “I was taken prisoner in a razzia. Mahmoud is being held for ransom. He has been held a long time, and is not worth as much, I think, as a camel. Even Berbers would have paid for a camel by now – at least for a good one. But Mahmoud sits here unbought. Yet he is not such bad company for a Moor. All of us have made trouble in one way or another. It is why they keep us here instead of letting us outside with the Negroes from the southlands. You saw them?”
“Yes.”
“They have the run of the place. They never give trouble, never seek to escape. Only the difficult prisoners live in these rooms. But there are worse places than this, Sidi. There is another area of confinement for the hardest of the prisoners. They are nothing more than holes cut in the ground, covered by heavy doors. They have no windows. There is no one to keep you company. You are chained inside except when you work, and when you work they put you in the worst tunnels where the sand is soft and your death is sure. I spent time in one of those pits, Sidi. Two months they kept me there. I was quite mad when I got out.”
“You were quite mad when you went in,” said Mahmoud.
“True enough. But I cannot recommend it even so. You would be wise to avoid giving trouble, Sidi.”
“You have been here a long time?”
“Four years. I am expert in the foggaras, Sidi. You are lucky to have found me. I am a good teacher.” He eyed Moussa’s bowl. It hadn’t been touched. “Is it your intention to eat that, Sidi?”
“No,” said Moussa, handing it over.
“Blessings,” Abdulahi said, attacking it with zeal. With a rock he broke the couscous into two smaller pieces. He gulped them down without trying to chew. “It is the first lesson, by the way.”
“Yes?”
“Give no one your food. You will need every bit to survive. It is why I have lived four years here. And why I will live four more.”
He grinned and licked his lips.
* * *
Tell me about the foggaras. I have seen them but know little of their workings.”
“There is much water here, Sidi, even though we are surrounded by the dunes. It comes from” – he shrugged – “from Allah knows where. Some say it comes from the mountains near the Great Water, that it comes the whole way underground, beneath the sea of dunes. The problem is that like salva
tion, the water will not come to us. We must go to find it. It runs deep. We must lead it out. This is our work, Sidi, the work of the foggaras. We find the water in the darkness and lead it to the light.”
“They are wells, then?”
“No. A well in Timimoun would give little and take forever to fill. The foggaras are tunnels. First we make a deep shaft from the surface. Some shafts, in the lowlands near the oasis and the palms, are quite shallow. A man can nearly stand in them. Others, closer to the open desert, are much deeper – a hundred paces deep at least. We dig down until we find water, much like a common well. That is where we begin the tunnels. We dig them at the level of the water, and slope them down toward the oasis. The water flows inside the tunnels. The longer the tunnels, the more water they bring. Some are many leagues long, Sidi. If you should one day visit the oasis itself you will see rich streams of water, flowing to the gardens and the palms. The pasha sells his water to the harratin who till the soil and pay him tribute. It is a beautiful oasis, Timimoun. It could not exist without the foggaras. It would die without them, and be covered with dunes. With the foggaras – only we will die, and be covered with dunes.”
“How many slaves are there?”
“Only Allah and Jubar Pasha know, and they do not say. There are five compounds such as this one that can be seen from here. Others are located on the far side of the fortress. How many is that? It takes a multitude to keep the foggaras. The foggaras are like a great underground dragon that eats men. There are cave-ins. Men drown, men disappear. The caravans are always welcome in Timimoun because the caravans feed the dragon. It is a different world down there, a world without light. You must learn to use all your senses, Sidi.” They heard the low jabber of slaves in the courtyard, still socializing by their fires. A baby cried. In the gloom of their little room there was nothing to see. Nothing to do. The men settled down to sleep. There was barely enough room for the four of them. Moussa felt a knee in his back, and his head rested near a foot. Abdulahi took the best place, on the wall opposite the door where he could stretch out. He yawned.
“You will live long if you can out-think the dragon, Sidi. If you cannot you will die.”
* * *
They were awakened before dawn. Another bowl of food was passed through the door. Moussa crunched through it this time. They were allowed to visit a common latrine. Men squatted with no privacy. Even in the darkness Moussa felt his nakedness. He tried to cover himself but it was no use. Abdulahi saw him. “There is too much naked man for the hand to cover, Sidi,” he laughed. But as they were passing through the courtyard Abdulahi paused to talk with one of the Negroes. Apparently they knew each other well, and the man trotted to his enclosure. He reappeared a moment later with a length of cloth and presented it to Abdulahi amid smiles and chatter.
Abdulahi gave it to Moussa. “For your modesty, Sidi,” he beamed. As they walked Moussa tore it into strips. He made himself a loincloth and a skimpy turban for his head. There was not enough to cover his face. He felt better, but still quite naked. It gave him no comfort that everyone else was dressed in the same manner.
They passed through a gate where a slave issued them tools from a wicker basket. Moussa was given a mattock for digging, a length of rope, and a stiff goatskin bag. He watched Abdulahi and copied the way he tied the rope around his waist, then attached the handle of the mattock to the end. He hung the goatskin around his neck. “Take care of these things,” Abdulahi said. “If you do not return them tonight you will not eat.” Another man gave them each a handful of dates. Ten each as they passed by. Again Moussa copied what he saw the others doing. As he walked he unwound his turban and tied the dates into a little knot at the end, and then replaced the cloth on his head. Ten dates. Not much, even by Tuareg standards.
Their guard was Atagoom, a burly man with sun-blackened skin. “He is strong as a mule, Sidi,” Abdulahi whispered, “and he knows how to use the sword. Yet even more than the sword you should fear the palm. He will use it without hesitation. It will rip your flesh like the beak of a crow.”
Moussa studied the switch in Atagoom’s hand. It was a large palm branch. Wicked-looking spines ran down each side like a row of needles. They had been cut to stand away from the branch, then lashed into place with twine. They would be effective.
Atagoom walked off to the side and eyed Moussa with a look between hostility and curiosity. “Like everyone, he wonders about the Tuareg devil,” Abdulahi explained. “It was to everyone’s relief to learn in the latrine this morning that you do not possess two penises, Sidi.”
“Yes?”
“But of course. It is a thing I myself have wondered about you devils since I was a child.”
* * *
Atagoom led them out of the compound and away from the town toward the open desert. They walked for half an hour, climbing a slope that rose gently toward a distant plateau. They could see the sun rising bright over orange dunes. Timimoun was coming to life. They heard the faint cry of the muezzin. Donkeys and camels and men stirred beyond the walls. There were two casbahs, or fortresses, one on either side of the town. A long wall stretched between them. On the far side of the town was the oasis, a lush sea of green against the gold. Beyond the oasis Moussa could see a sebkha, a blinding white saltwater flat that filled every few years in savage floods.
Low mounds dotted the ground where they walked, stretching away in straight lines up the slope toward the plateau. They were spaced twenty or thirty meters apart, the area around them built up with dirt and rock. “Foggara shafts,” Abdulahi told him. “We will work there today.” He indicated an area about halfway up the slope. Groups of men gathered around each opening. Moussa could see them disappearing over the edges, swallowed by the earth.
He tried to imagine the subterranean world described by Abdulahi, the tunnels and the darkness. He was a man of open air, a son of the desert. It made him shudder. It made him afraid.
* * *
He sat on the edge of the shaft and grasped the rope. He looked down into the hole. It dissolved into blackness. His heart pounded. Abdulahi, Mahmoud, and Monjo were waiting, along with two other men Moussa didn’t know.
Abdulahi put his hand on Moussa’s shoulder and spoke quickly.
“Hold to the knots tightly, Sidi,” he said. “You must learn to use your toes. Grasp the rope between them, and ease yourself down from knot to knot. This is a deep shaft, I am sorry to say. Three times you will have to change ropes before the bottom. It will seem a long way before you stop. If the wall around you collapses hold tight to the rope and wait. We will try to get to you from the top. If you let go of the rope you will die, Sidi. Do not let go.”
Moussa nodded. He clutched the rope tightly.
“Enough talk,” said Atagoom. “Down.” The palm frond was raised threateningly over Moussa’s back.
“Blessings, Sidi. May Allah preserve you. I will join you soon.”
Moussa slipped over the edge and into the hole. The rope dangled loosely below him. He could hear it hitting against the sides of the shaft. He knocked some pebbles from the side. He listened as they fell. He didn’t hear them hit bottom.
He lowered himself hand over hand, trying to hold the rope with his toes as Abdulahi had told him, but it kept slipping out. He supported himself with his hands. “Do not try to support yourself with only your hands,” Abdulahi had warned him. “They will tire and then you will have an interesting time.” He had no choice. His toes were useless. He was taller than the others, though, and found he could rest by propping his legs against the opposite side of the shaft, so that his back and feet operated as a brake. He was breathing hard by the end of the first rope. His arms ached already. He switched ropes and continued downward.
He descended to the bottom of the second rope and found the anchor where the third was attached. As he let go of one and transferred his weight to the other he slipped. He yelped and grabbed the rope with all the strength in his hands. He slid down almost ten meters before he was able
to catch himself. The rope burned his palms, the knots racing by, one by one, as he plunged downward, each one shaking his grasp, threatening to let him plummet to the bottom of the shaft.
“Sidi! Are you all right?” The disembodied voice followed him down.
Moussa gasped with pain. “All right,” he called up.
“Do not let go, Sidi.”
* * *
The shaft was not perfectly straight, so he could no longer see the top. It was dark, past dark. The blackness was so complete that it seemed like a wall, like a presence. He couldn’t see his own hand. He shuddered. It was cool, much cooler than at the surface, and damp. When his back touched the side it felt almost slimy. He should have worn something. He didn’t know what. They’d taken his clothes. He had to get them back. He thought he would freeze to death before the day was over.
As he rested near the end of the rope he heard something different.
Water. The trickle of water. In the open desert the sound was wonderful, the sound of life. In the shaft it was a sound of mystery, ominous and intimidating, a trickle of fear. He was nearing the bottom. Again he tried to make his toes work. Again he failed. Knot to knot to knot he descended with aching arms.
At last he felt the ground. His feet were in the water. He let go of the rope and rubbed his arms. He heard a noise and looked up. Bits of rock and sand fell into his eyes. Someone was climbing down after him. He jerked his head and blinked painfully, trying to clear away the grit. Another lesson.
“Do not look up, Sidi,” Abdulahi had warned him. “You will always regret it.”
There wasn’t room to do anything but kneel. He had arrived at an intersection of tunnels that departed from the shaft. There was a small chamber at the junction. The tunnels were just large enough to crawl through on hands and knees. Even then he could feel the top rubbing against his back. Foggaras were made by men smaller than he. He moved out of the way of the shaft and waited for Abdulahi to descend. He felt his way slowly, his fingers groping in the blackness. He had lived in a world of endless sky and no walls, and now the tunnel and the blackness pressed in around him. He could feel its presence even if he couldn’t see. He could hear himself breathing, and he could hear the trickle of water. The sounds nearby were amplified; the more distant one of Abdulahi descending the shaft was muffled. It was all suffocating. He fought to control the beginnings of panic.
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