Tongues of Fire

by Peter Abrahams

  In a little while Major Kay moaned again. He said, “Don’t.” He vomited. It ran down his chest. Rehv smelled souring milk. Major Kay opened his eyes. Rehv remembered those pale brown eyes and how they had gone soft and dreamy on a night long ago. The night of the permanent damage.

  The pale brown eyes were not soft and dreamy now. They were dull; then they looked up at Rehv, and for a moment were frightened; finally they were watchful. They examined the jeep, the tools on the ground, Rehv.

  Rehv squatted in front of him. “These things follow a pattern,” he said. “First you deny everything. Then, when the pain starts you make up a long and clever story that often resembles the truth quite closely, but never really says anything. Finally you tell the truth. Everyone does.”

  He waited for the frightened look to reappear in the pale brown eyes. It did not.

  “Who are you? Kay? Provin? Krebs?”

  “What difference does that make?” Major Kay said in a tone that sounded genuinely puzzled.

  He didn’t like the way Major Kay was watching him. It was detached, professional, trained: Was Major Kay slotting him somewhere among the types of interrogators? Could he do that—naked, bound, with a bloody bump on his forehead and vomit on his chest? “I asked you a question,” Rehv said.

  Major Kay laughed.

  Rehv punched his face. Major Kay’s eyes went dull. He vomited again. But Rehv did not know what to do next. Finally he asked: “How did you find me?”

  Major Kay spat something out of his mouth. It landed in the dust at Rehv’s feet. “Routine,” he said.

  Rehv thought of hitting him again, or breaking his leg with the tire iron, or jabbing the screwdriver into his eye, or slicing off his ear with the wire cutters. Or his testicles. But he knew he could do none of these things: not with Major Kay tied there to the tree. He tried remembering the night of the soft dreamy eyes, he tried thinking about Major Kay and his son, but it wasn’t enough to make him do what he would have to do to discover how much Major Kay knew about the boy. And that was really all that mattered: Did he know that the boy had come with him? Did he know why?

  “Who do you work for?”

  “The U.S. government. You know that.” Major Kay looked up at the moon; perhaps he was trying to estimate the time. Its light glistened on the hardening blood over his eye.

  “What do you want with me?” Rehv asked.

  “You killed a man on U.S. soil. Abu Fahoum. Remember? We have laws against that kind of thing.”

  Major Kay was thousands of miles from home, Rehv thought, naked and helpless, but somehow still in authority. “I didn’t kill him.”

  “Fine. You and I will go back to the States, you’ll be acquitted and walk away a free man.” Major Kay spoke sarcastically.

  Rehv knew he could not interrogate Major Kay. How could he make him tell if he knew or suspected anything about the boy? He could not scare him; he could not hurt him the way he would have to hurt him. In the end he would probably untie him and let him go. He was a clumsy amateur and Major Kay knew it.

  So there was nothing to do but be a clumsy amateur and go on making mistakes—the kind of mistakes that would lead Major Kay far from the boy. Rehv wrinkled his brow in thought. “I know you’re lying to me,” he said. “You wouldn’t come here because of a murder so long ago. You don’t give a damn about that.” He paused; then blurted: “It’s the Jeddah drop, isn’t it?”

  Major Kay did not answer, but for the briefest instant his eyes flickered in the moonlight.

  It was enough. More talk would gain nothing. He raised his voice: “Answer me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” There was a tentative sound in Major Kay’s tone that had not been there before.

  Jerkily, like a man on the edge of panic, Rehv grabbed the tire iron and jumped up. “What do you know about the Jeddah drop?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re lying,” Rehv shouted. He lifted the tire iron above his head. “I’m asking you for the last time.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” Major Kay said.

  “I said that once, too.” With the blunt end of the tire iron Rehv struck down at the side of Major Kay’s head, firmly, but with much less than all his force. A hoarse grunt climbed partway up Major Kay’s throat. His head slumped forward on his chest.

  Rehv let the tire iron fall to the ground. He jumped into the jeep, turned the key, and drove away with the accelerator pressed to the floor. He felt the contents of his stomach rising inside him. He fought them down for one mile, two miles, three. But in the end there was nothing he could do about it.

  He drove east. The yellow moon watched him in the rearview mirror. Lena liked Peter Lorre. Naomi would make popcorn; they would sit around the television. He tried to picture them around the television, but all he could see were shadows of bodies and faces with no features. He could not even picture his own face. Lena’s face, Naomi’s face: decayed, decomposed in his memory, as they were in the little grave on Mount Carmel. Peter Lorre had been dead much longer than they, yet he could see his face very clearly. Of course he had the moon to remind him of Peter Lorre. All he had to remind him of Lena and Naomi were screams.

  East across the plain. Dark mountains rose in the distance. The moon sank lower in the sky, out of range of the rearview mirror. When he thought he must be beyond Muglad, Rehv turned north until he found a track leading east. He took it. At first it was rocky; then it disappeared; then it was two lanes wide and paved. He pressed on the accelerator. Eighty miles an hour. Eighty-five. The pavement stopped. The jeep bounced over some rocks, spun around, came to rest. The engine was no longer running.

  “Goddamn it.”

  He turned the key. The motor came to life. Slowly he drove on.

  He began to laugh. “The Jeddah drop.” He laughed and laughed. He stopped laughing when the motor sputtered and died. He tried the ignition. It whirred, but the engine did not fire. “Goddamn it. Goddamn it. Goddamn it.” He pounded the steering wheel and jerked back and forth in the seat. “Goddamn it.” He shouted the words for a long time, pounding and jerking in the darkness. After a while he stopped and sat quietly, his chest heaving. He wondered if the car was out of gas, and looked at the gauge. It was. With a gasoline can from the back of the jeep he filled the tank and kept going.

  He drove all night. He sang. “My paddle’s keen and bright, flashing with silver.” He roared the words. He heard the harshness in his voice and made it harsher. Jutting out his jaw, he roared as harshly as he could.

  The moon went down. The sun came up. Suddenly he thought of Major Kay tied to the tree, thought for the first time that maybe no one would see him there. But there were villages not far away and the dirt track. And nomads. Still, what if no one saw him? The sun was up; it was already hot. Squeamish Isaac Rehv, man of scruples—who couldn’t bring himself to use the wire cutters the way they should have been used, to protect himself, his plans and the boy—had left a man to die of thirst. “Going to die, going to die, going to die,” he roared.

  No. Someone would find Major Kay. Someone would cut him loose. He would go after the boy. And stick sharp things up his penis.

  No. He wouldn’t. Because of the Jeddah drop. Major Kay would follow him east. He knew nothing about the boy. So he would lead him east to the sea, and while Major Kay crossed it and went on to Jeddah he would double back and meet his boy under the railway bridge. When? Five days? Six? There was time.

  But what if Major Kay went after the boy anyway? He wouldn’t. He had fooled Major Kay, and saved the boy, himself, everything. He had done it. And if he hadn’t, was there a choice?

  The choice was to turn back, get the boy, and take him somewhere safe. Another lake, like Lac du Loup. It could be done. Anyone who had done what he had already could do that. He had been happy on Lac du Loup—if not happy at least quiet inside. Quiet enough to go on living.

  “It’s too late for that,” he roared.

  He knew it wasn’t.
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  But he kept driving east.

  He drove all day. He sang. He laughed. He roared. He screamed. He screamed about Lena and Naomi and his mother and Paulette. And the boy. He saw naked black women and tiny black babies tied to their mothers’ backs with strips of cloth. He saw lean brown men holding hands. He saw schoolchildren writing their lessons in the dust. Whenever he saw people he tried not to scream. But usually he did anyway.

  He came to many roadblocks, manned by soldiers with rifles slung across their backs. They all smiled and waved him through. Later he noticed that people by the road were smiling at him too. Everyone had a smiling face for him: big white teeth in black faces, brown faces, or faces almost the color of his own. It was a long time before he realized that they were smiling because of the words on the door of the jeep—Food Relief.

  The sun went down. The moon came up. He drove all night. He sang. He laughed. He roared. He screamed. East. But he should be going west because he couldn’t see Lena’s face or Naomi’s face or anybody’s face except the boy’s. The boy was beautiful. He was hard. But that was Rehv’s work. So. Why? He could no longer remember what Israel was like. He couldn’t even remember how to speak Hebrew.

  But he could. He opened his mouth and in Hebrew roared: “I hate myself.”

  In the morning he reached Port Sudan. “What’s first?” he said. “One: Leave the jeep in a prominent place. Two: Catch the train going west. Two things. Jeep. Train.”

  He drove to the docks and left the jeep parked by a big crane hanging out over the water. “Two,” he said. “Train.” But he didn’t turn and start walking into the city. Instead he went out to the end of a long pier. He sat down and looked at the sea, the sea that had parted for Moses.

  It was as blue as the sky. The sun broke against its surface into countless golden pieces, too bright to see. Rehv thought how dusty he was, how dirty. He pulled off his clothes, wrapped his leather neck pouch inside them, and laid the little bundle carefully on the end of the pier. On top he put his sandals so nothing would blow away if a sudden breeze came off the water. Then he dove into the sea that had parted for Moses.

  It was warm and clean. He swam out. Because of his back he couldn’t kick very much, but his arms felt strong and soon he was gliding quickly, very quickly, across the water. He swam out, feeling stronger the farther he went. He felt strong and happy. Then he remembered Sergeant Levy.

  Sergeant Levy was down there somewhere. He put his face in the water and opened his eyes. There he was, floating just above the bottom. Why was he swimming about aimlessly while Sergeant Levy was drowning? He took a deep breath and dove. Down, down he swam, closer and closer to Sergeant Levy; but the water was much deeper than it looked, and he went up for air.

  He breathed in the salty air for a minute or two, then filled his lungs and dove again. It was very deep. He pulled at the water with his hands, and kicked hard with his legs. Never mind your back. Swim. Now Sergeant Levy looked up and saw him. He was alive! His lips moved, but of course he couldn’t hear what Sergeant Levy was saying because of the water. A little farther, not much, there. He reached out and grabbed Sergeant Levy’s arm. It was slimy; it came away in his hand. He wrapped his arms around Sergeant Levy’s slimy body and struggled up toward the surface. He broke through, gasping for air. Then, clutching seaweed to his chest, he lay on his back and closed his eyes against the sun. “You’re going to be all right,” he said.

  Oars squeaked in their locks. Hands touched his body; lifted him; set him down. “Be careful with Sergeant Levy,” he said in Hebrew. “He almost drowned.”

  “What did he say?” a man asked in Arabic.

  “I don’t know,” another man answered.

  Why were they speaking Arabic? Or was it English? It didn’t matter. “Be careful with Sergeant Levy,” he repeated.

  They rocked him to sleep. Later he awoke. They had stopped rocking him. Something bit his upper arm. It didn’t hurt very much. He slept.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The boy awoke, fully and all at once, as he always did. Although it was still dark, the others were already up; he could hear them moving outside the tent. Through the opening he saw the dull glow of the dung fire, and the iron teakettle hanging above. He heard the muffled ring of sugar lumps being dropped into empty glasses. Una’s slender hand reached out of the darkness and took the teakettle off the fire. Una was the third and youngest wife of Bokur, the omda, but she was the most important: She had borne Hurgas, his only son.

  Metal clinked against the rim of a glass. Tea gurgled out of the spout. Hurgas spoke in a low voice: “He will cry like a baby.”

  “Quiet,” Una said. She blew on her tea to cool it.

  “He will cry like a baby,” Hurgas whispered angrily. “He is soft.”

  There was a pause. A girl spoke: “I don’t think he’s soft.” Neimy, Una’s daughter.

  “No one cares what you think,” Hurgas said. “Go get my sandals.”

  Paul heard Neimy enter the tent. Her bare feet were almost silent on the dirt floor. He closed his eyes. She went to the rear of the tent, patted her hand over the ground, feeling, and then approached his bedstead. He felt her standing beside him and made his breathing slow and even.

  Outside, Una said, “What makes you think he is soft?”

  “I could tell yesterday, when we bled one of the cows. He looked away.”

  “Did he drink it?”

  “Yes. But he didn’t like it. I watched him.”

  “Did you tell your father?”

  “No.”

  “Good. He believes.”

  “Do you?”

  Una did not answer right away. After a few moments she said, “I will wait and see.”

  “I didn’t cry,” Hurgas said, raising his voice. “I didn’t cry once.”

  “Quiet,” Una said. Then, “Yes, you were very brave.”

  “I was.”

  Paul felt Neimy back away and slip out of the tent. Very softly she said, “He won’t cry.”

  “No one asked you.”

  Paul opened his eyes. Dawn was piercing the worn straw over his head. It was his last night in the tent. Today was the day of his circumcision: After that he would sleep outside until he was married. He had known it would happen, but he had not expected it so soon. It was only six days since he had seen his father.

  He got up and went outside. Hurgas and Una sat by the fire, drinking tea. They looked alike—tall, lean, with light brown skin and noses that were more Arab than black. Neimy was different—shorter, broader, darker: the color his mother must have been, Paul thought. With a small mallet she was pounding beef into long strips for drying. There was plenty of beef: Every day a few more cows died of starvation. She had let her robe slip off her shoulders while she worked. “Good morning,” he said. He was aware of the smooth muscles in her shoulders, and her breasts still too small to sway with her movements, the way Una’s did.

  “Good morning,” Neimy said with a smile.

  “Good morning,” her mother said without one.

  Hurgas drank his tea and said nothing.

  Paul walked past them and continued slowly toward the center of the ring formed by the circle of tents, and into a cross fire of stares. He prostrated himself on the dusty ground, in the attitude of prayer. After a few seconds of silence he heard their footsteps. More than yesterday, more than the day before, they came, no longer only the old and middle-aged, and knelt around him, and touched their foreheads to the earth. They prayed. Paul did not pray: He thought about the day ahead, and the night, and the railroad bridge.

  In the middle of the morning the barber arrived from a nearby tent. The barber was old and stooped, with no teeth and yellow eyes and three wide scars on both cheeks. He was the barber because he had no cattle, no wife, and was Bokur’s uncle. Over his shriveled body he had put on a clean white jubba that was much too large.

  With two other boys who were to be circumcised, Paul stood by the men’s tree at the edge of the camp
. “Salam alaykum,” the barber said to them. “Alaykum el Salam,” they answered.

  The barber walked stiffly over to the tree and sat down with his back against the trunk. “Run,” he said.

  They ran, once around the tree and then around the outside of the camp. When they returned their heads were soaked with sweat. Paul saw that most of the camp—two thousand people—had gathered near the tree, and he knew it was because of him.

  The barber felt the tops of their heads. “Good,” he said. He reached inside his robe and drew a long knife from the scabbard strapped to his chest. Sunshine glinted on its shiny edge. “Come here,” he said to Paul. Paul stepped forward. The barber raised the knife and shaved his head. Paul felt the sharp blade slide easily over his skull: No water was wasted. His black curly hair fell in a little clump at his feet.

  The barber shaved the heads of the other boys. Then he said, “Undress yourselves.” They pulled their jubbas over their heads and laid them on the ground. Paul saw that the others had not yet reached puberty. He had. He felt blood flow up into his head, and heat his face. For a moment he looked down at the ground. Don’t be a fool, he told himself, you were prepared for this. He raised his head. The crowd grew quiet.

  “It’s not going to hurt,” one of the boys whispered.

  “No,” the other answered. “It’s just a little scratch, that’s all.”

  Paul turned to them. “It’s going to hurt, and you’d better be ready.” They flinched.

  Three men walked forward. It was customary for each boy’s mother’s brother to stand with him. Bokur came to be with Paul. He was the only person in the camp who wore western dress. Today he had a white robe over his suit, and sweat was dripping off his round heavy face. He patted Paul on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. You will make us all very proud.”

  “In sha’ Allah,” Paul said.

  Bokur smiled. His teeth were sharpened chunks of silver. “In sha’ Allah.”

  The barber moved in front of the smallest boy. The boy’s uncle stood behind him and held his shoulders. The crowd pressed closer. The girls began to chant, “Don’t cry, don’t cry, we won’t sing for you if you cry. Don’t cry, don’t cry.” The barber sat on his haunches. His knees cracked. He felt inside the pouch he wore around his neck and took out a small steel cap. He placed it over the head of the boy’s penis. “Don’t cry, don’t cry, we won’t sing for you if you cry. Don’t cry, don’t cry.” But the little boy started trembling while the barber was pulling his foreskin up over the steel cap. The barber touched his penis with the point of the knife. The boy made a little noise in the back of his throat. He was wailing long before the cutting was over.