“Talk to me,” said the fox.
All Raf gave him was an angry shake of the head. He knew how absurdly easy it always was to give in. To welcome Tiri back and make it speak to him or, rather, make Tiri speak for him, because that’s what the fox did, they both understood that now.
And Raf wanted the cold deep in his bones to go away and the memories that flooded his veins like iced water to vanish. Most of all he wanted to spend the rest of his life, however long that was, knowing that when he woke each morning the room in which he slept would not have changed colour, that no hedges would have grown to maturity from seedlings outside his window, that the season when he awoke would be the same as when he shut his eyes.
If banishing the fox from his head was the price Raf had to pay to achieve this, then the fox would have to go. And it had been a stupid idea of Tiri’s anyway to go ask advice of a lawyer who was already dead.
CHAPTER 16
Flashback
Sometime around noon, with the sun burning down on the outside of Sally’s airless carriage, three men wearing combat trousers, khaki T-shirts and checked kufiyyeh came by to throw passengers off the stalled train. At least that’s what Sally assumed was happening given that the nuns suddenly stood up and began to collect together their baskets, wrapping what was left of the salami inside its white cloth and burying the package at the bottom of the biggest basket, as if bandits might have stopped the train to steal their food.
“I find out what’s happening,” said the boy and nodded to Sally, pointedly ignoring the nuns as he jumped down onto the track. Sally watched him walk away, dodging between exiting passengers until he disappeared from sight. After a while she realized he probably wasn’t coming back.
Everyone waited in the sun for two hours beside the train. And then its diesel engine fired up and the abandoned carriages began to reverse slowly away from where the passengers still sat, picking up speed as they went. True to type, the nuns immediately formed a small circle with their baskets in the middle, as if they were the wagons and their luggage the settlers waiting for an Indian attack. Occasionally one or another would glance over to where Sally stood, too nervous to sit, but that was all.
As dusk arrived so did the soldiers. Teenage conscripts with hard haircuts and soft eyes, the clash between appearance and their friendliness not yet kicked out of them. They carried stubby submachine guns stamped out of cheap metal which they played with endlessly, flicking the safety catches and snapping out quarter-curve magazines only to snap them back again. The conscripts seemed to have no more idea of why they were there than Sally did.
Night never really came. The moon was too bright and, though air convected and a warm wind blew from the distant sea and a whole orchestra of insects finally fell silent, darkness stayed away. Sometime after midnight a new train rolled up. It looked much like the old train but dirtier, with carriages that were separate, unlinked by any corridor. The man driving wore combat fatigues, with an AK49 slung across his back.
“Great,” said Sally. No corridor meant no loos. And that meant six hours locked in a carriage with an uncertain stomach.
“Need help?”
Sally turned to find a barefoot boy wearing a samurai topknot, the baggiest Fat Boys she’d ever seen and a leather choker with a plum-sized amber bead tied round his neck. The orange lettering across his T-shirt proclaimed Rock and Ruin. And underneath in much smaller letters was a line that read archaeologists do it in spades.
Sally sighed. “Help with what?”
“Getting on the train.” The blond boy pointed at her rucksack, then nodded to the nearest carriage which stood empty with its door still shut. It was, Sally suddenly realized, going to be hard enough clambering up without having to drag her luggage after her.
“Yeah,” she said, “that would be good.”
Still smiling, the boy pushed out his hand and announced, “I’m Per.”
“Sally,” said Sally without thinking about it and remembered too late that she’d meant to travel as someone else.
Together they clambered up into a dusty-smelling carriage and Per yanked down the blinds on the side where everyone stood, blocking out moonlight and the shuffling crowd beyond. For about five minutes it looked like this might work, as compartments either side filled with noise but no one tried their door.
And then, with the train shuddering as its diesel fired up, the door was jerked open and a close-cropped skull gazed up at them. Whatever doubts the conscript felt about being faced with two nasrani lost out to his need for a seat. Pulling himself up, he was about to shut the door when someone shouted his name.
Five conscripts tumbled in after him, pushing and swearing until they saw Sally by the far window with Per opposite.
“Hi,” said Sally and six faces blinked as one. They were kids she realized, only a few years younger in age but a dozen in experience, uncertain how to react to some foreign girl in men’s clothes. Their problem, Sally decided, not mine, and nodded to one of them to shut the door.
“Sleep tight,” said Per, settling into his seat.
Sally wasn’t sure if that was the Swedish boy’s idea of a joke.
Along with everyone else in the carriage Sally found herself slipping down in her seat as the minutes turned into hours, until her head rested on her arm and her legs were supported by the seat opposite. She had Per’s bare toes almost in her face, clean but dirty (if that made sense). And her own sandalled feet were being used by Per as a cushion. Without even thinking about it he’d wrapped his arms round her knees, pulled her feet in close and fallen asleep, so that now his breath came slow and regular as waves against a summer beach.
“Sleep tight,” she said but he was already.
Headed for sleep herself, Sally hardly noticed Per shift onto his side and brush one hand along her calf. For a second she imagined it an accident but then the touch came again, so softly she could have been dreaming if not for the rattle of rails and dark sky scudding past outside.
Shutting her eyes, Sally decided to be asleep; remaining asleep as Per’s fingers crept up from her ankle to knee before smoothing down towards her ankle again. He moved his fingers in time to the lurch of the wheels. As if that somehow made it coincidental, merely part of the journey. And she kept feigning sleep as Per’s stroking became heavier and his hand moved higher, until the top of every stroke almost reached her buttocks.
Part of Sally, the part to which she usually refused to listen, regretted changing out of her shorts, because those were baggy and, well, short really.
“You awake?” His voice was soft, concerned.
Sally almost shook her head.
Shifting in her seat, she moved lower so she was almost balanced between the seats. At the same time she kept her eyes shut and her breathing regular, even when his fingers found the backs of her thighs and slipped between them, smoothing along a seam.
That was where Per’s fingers stayed, their movement so slight Sally could barely sense it though the effect was like water rising behind a flood wall. The warmth between her legs more than mere body heat, the dampness not just sweat.
“Per…”
The Swedish boy stopped. One bare arm still hooked round her leg and his hand crushed between her thighs. A barrier was formed by his half-turned body, screening them from the others, those sleeping children with their cruel haircuts and faces made soft by rest and dreams.
“Too much?”
Sally wondered what he’d do if she said yes. Not that she would.
“Wait,” she told him and sat up in her seat. Switching sides quickly, Sally snuggled down facing Per. Only this time round she was the barrier between the woken world and the snoring conscripts.
“Better,” she said.
“Much,” Per agreed.
They kissed or rather Sally kissed Per. And when his hand reached for her, Sally didn’t move away but put her own fingers over his and snuggled closer, holding it there.
Per skipped several of the stages s
he’d come to expect from boys her own age, stages that Wu Yung had also ignored. And when Per removed his hand it was to reach between the buttons of Atal’s shirt and expose one breast.
“Small,” she told him.
“Perfect,” he replied, dipping his head.
When Sally eventually opened her eyes, it was to see one of the conscripts watching her in the window, his distance doubled by reflection. The boy said nothing but neither did he look away.
“Okay?” Per asked, his head still buried between her small breasts, licking salt and a distant echo of cheap soap from a bath she’d taken in Catania; so distant as to be almost lost under the dirt of five days’ travelling without a break.
“Sure,” said Sally, “everything’s fine.”
Per’s back was to the window and his head was bent, his arms tight around Sally and little doubt could exist as to what his reflection tasted. On the other hand, for two strangers making out in a railway carriage they were being unusually discreet. So Sally shrugged and shut her eyes again.
Somewhere between barest dawn and reaching the Italianate Gothic monstrosity of Tarabulus station Per dropped his fingers to the waist of Sally’s jeans and discovered she’d already freed the top button. As she wouldn’t let him ease the jeans past her hips, he made do with sliding his hand inside.
She bit his shoulder so hard when she came that Per was the one who cried out. A muffled yelp, hastily swallowed. Although had Per turned round he’d have discovered how redundant that was. Every conscript in the carriage was already awake, wide-eyed and envious.
Discreetly, so that her move wasn’t too obvious Sally put her hand down and held Per, watching him tense. She waited until he shut his eyes at the intensity of her grip, then let go.
“Your turn after Tarabulus,” she said. “That is, if you’re not getting off at this stop.”
Per hesitated.
“I’m going on to Gabes,” Sally added.
“Take a break,” he suggested. “Spend a few days in Tripoli.”
“No time.” Sally shook her head. “I’ve got stuff to do.”
“What stuff?”
Sally dropped her hand into his lap, making it look casual. “I’m on a quest,” she said.
“For what?”
“The Libyan striped weasel,” said Sally, and gave his trousers a squeeze.
As they pulled out of Tarabulus less than an hour later, sat in a carriage that was once again theirs alone, Per asked what had been troubling him from the first moment they met beside the stopped train.
“How old are you?”
Without even stopping to think Sally lopped three years off her age. And tried not to grin when the Swedish boy looked suddenly appalled.
CHAPTER 17
Monday 14th February
“Yeah,” said Raf, “I already know…”
A life of brain-rotting boredom awaited Tunisia’s last bey, who took with him into exile his wife, his German mistress (standard Thiergarten-issue, one), a dozen, French-educated ministers, most of his children and a 392-piece set of china made in the Husseinite colours by Noritake.
And while the brave speech made from the door of his departing train was enough to make some doubt the probity of supporting Colonel al-Mansur’s plot to overthrow the government, the convenient discovery two days later of an empty beyical treasury was enough to make those same people realize how right Colonel al-Mansur had been to propose himself for the new position of Emir.
“You done now?” Raf asked.
Inside his head, Tiri nodded and smiled, glad to be back. Raf’s refusal to talk had lasted a whole bus trip and half a train journey. So now the fox was sticking to easy thoughts and simple facts. Which was why it didn’t mention what was happening up ahead.
The secret police were waiting for Raf on platform three of Gare de Tunis. It was nothing personal. They were waiting for everyone. Although, to be honest, Raf didn’t care. He was being someone else for the day, maybe longer.
Maybe forever.
Slung under the arms of each mubahith was a new-model HK7, the complete works right down to Zeiss laser scope and double-length magazine. Since Ifriqiya was on the UN embargo list for weapons sales and the ministry in Berlin responsible for overseeing HK shipments obeyed the ruling when it suited them, shipping must have been via false end-user certificates. Presumably the same applied to the military-issue BMW bikes parked on the concourse behind.
Their black uniform wasn’t one Raf recognized but whatever force they represented it seemed to require them to wear steel-capped eighteen-rivet boots cut from shiny leather. Always a bad sign. For his part, Raf still wore sandals cut from an old tractor tyre and a filthy jellaba. His skull was hidden under a cheap Dynamo’s cap and three-day stubble accentuated rather than hid the scar on his jaw; he looked rough, made worse by the fact that seventy-six hours of not eating had hollowed his cheeks and put dark circles round his naked eyes.
The smile on his face was that of an idiot savant. Or maybe just an idiot.
That the mubahith wore aviator shades went without saying, since mirror shades and big boots went together across most of North Africa like midsummer riots and tear gas. Raf’s own dark glasses were missing and in their place he wore cheap contacts that turned his eyes brown and overlaid the world with a haze of ghostly smoke.
“You.” A hand clipped his shoulder, sending him stumbling. “Can’t you read?” A soldier with corporal’s stripes was pointing to a sign. A dozen soldiers and an officer in khaki were there to do the actual work. The mubahith just stood around in black uniforms looking bored.
Raf shook his head mutely and the corporal sucked his teeth.
“Into line,” he ordered and indicated a row of barriers set up to funnel passengers through one of two metal arches. Men, who made up the bulk of the crowd, jostled and pushed their way towards one arch, where a bored soldier sat off to the side, chain-smoking in front of a bank of screens.
The few women alighting from Raf’s train had their own arch with no screens visible. All results of their strip scans were hidden within the walls of a tall black tent and seen only by trained nurses. Sécurité’s gesture to common decency.
“Come on.”
Most of those who passed through the arches raised little interest. Although a few of the men were pulled out of line and made to turn out their pockets just for show.
“Your turn,” said the fox and Raf nodded, dropping his bidi to the platform and grinding it under heel. Raf had no real idea why he did that. Unless it was meant to be polite.
Shuffling forward with the felaheen gait of those too poor to own correctly sized shoes, Raf passed under the arch. And all might have been well if he hadn’t looked up and stared straight into the eyes of Sergeant Belhaouane, recently promoted to the mubahith.
“You,” the man jerked his heavy chin. “Come here.”
Raf did what he was told.
“Look at me.”
Reluctantly Raf raised his head then looked away. He stank of sweat and his jellaba was rotten beneath the arms from lack of washing.
“Your papers.” The order was barked out. It didn’t take the fox to tell Raf that the security man was enjoying himself, which didn’t stop the fox from telling him anyway.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.” Raf shook his head. “Nothing, Captain.”
Sergeant Belhaouane looked almost mollified by his sudden promotion. Although that didn’t stop him from clicking his fingers loudly to hurry Raf along.
“Come on…”
Raf hurried. Scrabbling in his jellaba pocket, then in all the pockets of the tattered trousers he wore beneath. Finally, when the sergeant’s patience was almost gone he found his wallet.
“Your Excellency,” said Raf, producing it.
The mubahith flipped open the battered square of leather and looked inside. Then he checked the pocket behind the empty slots where credit cards would have been were this felah the kind of man to have c
redit cards.
A hundred US dollars hid there, in tatty green ten-dollar notes. One month’s wages to the sergeant, three months’ wages to someone like Raf. About as much as a family might scrabble together to send one of them to the city to find work.
“These your identity papers?”
Raf shuffled his feet.
“Thought so.” The man pocketed the notes with a twist of the wrist as deft as any magician making cards disappear. “Right,” he said when that was done. “What’s your business in Tunis?”
“Work,” said Raf. “I came to find a job.”
“Doing what?”
“Unloading ships… There’s a strike.”
Sergeant Belhaouane snorted. Work at the docks passed from father to son, strike or no strike. The only way an outsider like Raf could ever get dock work was to marry the daughter of a stevedore and hope that, when the time came, the jetty bosses were open to bribes and the man about to retire didn’t already have a son.
“What’s your village?”
Raf named a place so small it didn’t occur on most maps.
“Where?”
In reply he named a town nearby not much larger. Although the sergeant appeared to have heard of it this time, probably because Segui was known as a place of annual pilgrimage for Soviet nasrani who spurned UN sanctions and raced the salt lakes with sail boards on wheels.
It was obvious from the sergeant’s dismissive gaze that he held out little hope of Raf finding work enough to send money back to his village. The concrete-stained sandals and filthy jellaba identified Raf as a man mostly used to casual graft. And construction in Tunis was run by one family. If you didn’t pay for an introduction, you didn’t work. Life was that simple. And since the last thing Tunis needed was another itinerant from the south Sergeant Belhaouane decided his best course of action would be send the idiot back to Segui on the next train.
Unfortunately the fox disagreed.
“Run,” suggested the fox. But Raf was already running through a crowd that didn’t so much move out of his way as trip over their own feet in their haste to let him get to the exit on Rue Ibn Kozman. A woman screamed, Raf noticed, freezing an image of the chaos around him. An old man burst into tears and a boy put a hand to his mouth like he was about to vomit.
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