The landscape appeared empty and foreboding, as if it had been abandoned after futile attempts to tame it long ago. Tribes of settlers had moved on, unable to find sustenance from the barren rock.
But then, just as the men began to fear that they might be lost, Salek noticed four black figures, blurred shapes on horseback, riding through the valley towards them, holding their spears aloft.
‘Women,’ he observed. ‘All of them.’
‘Are they attacking?’ asked Jacopo.
‘Wait.’
The women were dressed in pleated chadri, long ochre robes which blew back in the wind, and their legs were bound with strips of grey cloth. Blocking the path ahead, they pulled up their horses and asked the men where they meant to travel.
‘East,’ replied Salek. ‘Through the hills.’
‘Follow.’
They turned, expecting immediate obedience. The men steered their mules up through a narrow pass and approached a settlement of eight large tents at the foot of the mountain. They had been placed in front of a cave which had been crowned with antlers and god-like images wedged into the crevice of the rock. It was surely a sacred doorway, the entrance to a series of further dwellings.
Six women stood behind a row of flame, holding shallow bowls of water.
‘You must pass between the fires.’
The men were shown how to purge themselves through a gate of flame, scattering water into the air as libation and obeisance to the sun and the winds. They were then led to the main tent.
‘This opening faces south,’ said a small woman as she folded back the entrance. ‘Sit to the west.’
Paolo hardly dared believe that this might be Sar-i-Sang, the mine in the mountain, the heart of Badakhshan. Why else would the women be so guarded and the cave so protected?
In the darkness he could make out a hearth under a smoke hole where a cauldron boiled on a trivet. The floor was covered with straw and animal skins.
‘What would you have with us?’ It was a woman’s voice.
Salek asked if the women followed the code of the hills, giving refuge to travellers regardless of their lineage. They were tired and would be grateful for shelter.
‘If you come in peace then you are welcome.’
The rest of the women began to enter the dwelling and sat on the matted floor. They seemed suspicious, as if waiting for guidance.
‘What is happening?’ whispered Jacopo. ‘Where are the men?’
‘Wait,’ urged Salek.
A young girl poured mint tea into small pottery cups. As she handed the drink to the men they sat in awkward silence. Paolo looked at the group of half-veiled women. ‘What do we do?’ he whispered to Salek.
‘We wait,’ he repeated.
Salek lit his pipe. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.
A woman emerged from the darkness into the light. ‘I am Aisha. These are my people.’ She was taller and darker than the other women, and was dressed in a long ochre chador. Paolo watched as she walked towards them, slowly and gracefully, accustomed to authority and obedience.
Jacopo was unable to restrain himself. ‘Where are your men? Are they hunting?’
‘There are no men.’
‘No men?’ asked Salek and, at that moment, Paolo knew they had come to the place Yusuf had described.
‘Only boys. The children that survived. This is the valley of widows.’
‘There was a war?’
‘Two winters ago,’ the woman replied. ‘This will be our third. Our only hope is for the children to grow and replace the men we have lost.’
‘Why did they not take you as wives?’ Salek asked.
‘They took our stone. It was more precious.’
Paolo leaned forward, trying to look at Aisha more closely. He could see her dark hair fall onto her shoulders beneath the scarf.
‘Those that survived swore they would return in the spring,’ she continued. ‘They stole our food. They killed our men. And we are all that we have left.’
‘I have heard tell of this stone,’ Paolo said quietly.
‘It is a curse,’ Aisha replied. ‘No matter how far we travel with it, or wherever we hide it, we cannot escape the bloodshed it brings.’
‘What happened?’ asked Paolo.
‘They had gunpowder. We did not. Dujan, my man, rode into their fire. We watched from the mountain, men riding hard at each other, their swords held high, gleaming in the light of the valley.’
She paused as if this was already the end of the story.
‘When they fell I could feel my own life falling. It happened so quickly and yet it is slow when I recall it. I think of it every day, and each day it lengthens. Sometimes the memory will fill an entire day and I will be able to think of nothing else. Perhaps this is what it is to grieve.’
‘Please. Continue,’ said Salek.
‘After our enemies had left we walked through the remains of the battle. Such wounds. Bright blood against bone. Dead horses. The men were so heavy. We washed them by the waters. When they had been cleansed, we built great fires, higher than any of us had ever seen. The children gathered wood, plants, and roots, anything that they thought would burn, crying as they did so, but quietly, because they were frightened by the rage of their mothers. Some women even pulled down their homes because they could no longer see any purpose in living. They ripped them apart, piece by piece, carrying walls and roofs to the fire. Shirin, my sister, set the pyre ablaze.
‘It takes so long for bodies to burn. I did not know this before. I wish I did not know it now.
‘Then we mourned. We sang the songs our fathers had taught us, through the night, until the sun rose again. The pyre burned into the next day. It was only after the sun had fallen again that the fires were quiet and our men were no more. We waited until the ashes were cool. The ash of our men and the fires in which they had burned would return to the earth.
‘I took a handful and could still feel the heat in the ash, as if it were the heat of my husband against me. In the madness of grief I thought the heat was his life and that I might create him again, and I could cry out to the gods, “Make him anew! You, who made him once, make him once more. Do not leave me without such a love. You, who can shape a life and change destinies, you, who know what miracles can be, do this now for me. Turn this ash once more.”
‘But the gods were silent.
‘And so we took the ash to the stream, handful by handful, and we let the lives of our loves fall away from us. I do not know how long this lasted. Perhaps it was night again. The stream became a river. It raged as we did. We thought we might stop it, dam it with ash, but the force of the water was strong, like blood.’
She looked at Paolo. ‘It used to be sweet. But now when we drink from the stream, we know that we are drinking the water of our forefathers. We remember that day. We drink the water so that we never forget them.’
‘May your men be blessed,’ said Jacopo, ‘and may they have found peace.’
‘So this is why the stone is a burden. And if you wish to see it then you must prove worthy of it,’ Aisha replied.
‘We have money,’ said Jacopo. ‘We can trade.’
‘And what if we do not want your money? What if we do not need to trade?’
‘Everyone needs to trade.’
‘I will decide what we need and what we do not.’
Paolo realised that even though they had arrived, the sight of the stone might yet be withheld from them.
‘Now you must sleep,’ Aisha was saying, suddenly distracted, ‘and in the morning you must tell me why you want to see our stone. Tell us why you think you are so worthy of it.’
‘It is not a question of worth,’ said Jacopo.
‘Do not lie to me.’
‘I will tell you now,’ said Paolo, but Aisha cut him short.
‘In the morning. Now rest,’ and as the men rose to be shown to a tent where they might sleep, she added: ‘They say that some men can never love again once they have seen th
e blue of our stone. After the sight of the mountain their life elsewhere means nothing.’
Paolo was unafraid. ‘We would see that stone.’
They were shown to a small tent with simple matting on the floor. The women gave them sheepskin blankets and gestured that they should lie down. As soon as they had left, Salek told Jacopo and Paolo that even though they might be prepared to risk their lives in pursuit of the stone, he was not. ‘It is too dangerous,’ he insisted. ‘And I do not trust them.’
‘I have never bargained as that woman proposes,’ said Jacopo. ‘Why must we prove ourselves worthy? Why can she not trade like anyone else?’
‘Because it is a treasure,’ said Paolo. ‘Perhaps it can only be given, never bargained.’
‘Those men took it soon enough,’ said Salek.
‘But why have they not returned?’ Paolo replied. ‘Perhaps some terrible fate has befallen them.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Jacopo. ‘It is because no one wanted to buy the stone from them. Perhaps it is only painters who want such a stone. Everyone else is content with turquoise. We should never have come.’
‘We cannot stay,’ said Salek.
‘At least let me talk to her,’ said Paolo. ‘Now that we have come so far.’
‘You think you can convince her?’ asked Jacopo.
Salek lit a pipe. ‘Perhaps we have more chance with the boy. She might pity him.’
‘It is I who need the stone most. Let it be me that speaks to her,’ Paolo insisted.
‘First make her show it to us,’ said Jacopo. ‘Then we will know whether it has been worth our effort. It may have no value, and perhaps she lies.’
‘I do not think so,’ Paolo replied. ‘I heard how Yusuf spoke of it.’
Jacopo was surprised by such boldness. ‘Then you will know how hard you must try to persuade her to part with such a stone.’
The next morning, when the men emerged from their tent, they could see that the women were up and working, preparing skins and sewing them with sinew. They were given bread and goat’s milk, and then taken to the main tent to see Aisha once more.
Salek and Jacopo looked at Paolo. He paused, uncertain whether or not to tell Aisha the true nature of his journey. ‘I have a friend,’ he began.
Immediately Aisha interrupted. ‘Man or woman?’
‘A man.’
‘There is no woman?’
‘No.’
She seemed amused. ‘Tell me of this man.’
‘He is a painter in the city of Siena. I hope to take him the stone.’
‘Why does he need it?’
‘To turn it into paint.’
Aisha was shocked. ‘You would destroy it?’
‘No. He would spread it far and wide, as colour across a wall.’
‘And what will your friend paint with this colour?’
‘Eternity,’ Paolo answered. ‘A world without grief.’
‘But has he seen it? How can he know?’
‘He paints to take away the fear of death; to bring the consolation of a greater place beyond our own.’
‘We will live on?’
‘This is the belief of my people, that there is a future for our deepest loves.’
‘I share that hope. But why this stone?’
‘I have heard it is a colour like no other, and that with it we might paint a world like no other.’
‘A noble ambition,’ said Aisha doubtfully.
‘Let us do so. Even if you refuse, even if you will not give it to us or trade at all, I ask you at least to let us see the stone and then depart. Then I can tell my friend that I did all that I could to complete my task. Do not let our journey be in vain.’
‘And why should I trust you?’
‘Because I come in peace and do not travel for myself.’
Aisha smiled sadly. ‘You speak well.’
‘I only speak the truth.’
Aisha said nothing. Paolo could not tell if she had suddenly changed her mind or had lost interest.
Then she spoke. ‘You have come for your friend, and so I will answer in friendship. Make ready. The way is hard.’
An hour later she appeared at their tent, and a small boy stood beside her, holding on to her skirts.
‘This is Jamal,’ she announced.
The boy must have been eight years old, and he appeared both sullen and mistrustful. Salek stepped forward to talk to him, but Aisha interrupted: ‘He does not speak. If you wish to see the mountain, then Paolo must follow him. He will take you.’
‘The entrance is not here, at the mouth of the cave?’
‘No. That is our temple. The stone is hidden. I have warned that it is dangerous but Jamal climbs well. He knows the quickest path.’
Paolo looked up. He could see the steep wall above, then the rock spur below a cornice. To the right stood a snow- and ice-filled gully; to the left avalanche runnels scored the mountain.
Jamal had already begun the ascent. Paolo put his right foot in the lowest crevice, found a hand hold, and began to lever himself up. He had never climbed at such a steep angle. No step was ever certain, no hold secure. All he could do was cleave to the rock, the stone close against his face.
The altitude was such that he could hardly breathe. Paolo imagined falling and his head splitting open below. He could only survive by concentrating on the texture and detail of the mountain, its resolution and its strength: the fine cracks, the strange sheen, unexpected crevices. Looking closely, Paolo noticed that the pattern of the rock mirrored the whorl of his fingers, obscenely enlarged.
He pulled his head back to distance himself from the face, and sensed that he might fall at any moment, backwards, away from the mountain, his life disappearing into the void of winter. What would it mean if his life ended now?
At last he found himself on a high ledge where Jamal made them wait for his mother to join them. Paolo wondered if she had ascended by a different route, one that was far simpler, for when she appeared both she and the women who had accompanied her were perfectly calm. Perhaps the difficult route had been selected only to test his ability and intent?
‘Jamal has brought you safely here,’ said Aisha. ‘Follow me.’
She led them to a small dark entrance in the rock face.
‘I cannot see,’ said Paolo.
‘Our ancestors made a tunnel. We will need fire to travel within it.’
A woman gave Aisha a flaming brand which she passed to Paolo; others followed carrying a supply of firewood which they roped against the wall.
‘The stone is hidden beneath the surface. It is the blue from which the gods moulded us. It is not of this world. We must heat the rock.’
The women felt for crevices and placed wood against the stone. Then they roped sections together as if they were making a series of giant hammocks. A flint was struck repeatedly and the wood began to catch.
The flame flared up, first gold, then blue.
The heat intensified, warming the cave, and then, just as the flames were beginning to die down, the women threw snow against the rock.
The mountain spat back at them as the fire and ice fought for control of its surface, but the women continued as if it were their enemy.
They gestured to Paolo, urging him to continue the fight, miming the way in which he should cut at the rock, pointing to the most vulnerable sections of the surface. One of them handed him a pickaxe.
‘Strike,’ ordered Aisha. ‘It cracks under heat and snow.’
Paolo swung but his pick bounced off the rock, vibrating its energy back into his hand.
‘Harder.’
Paolo thought that the mountain must be as impenetrable as when he had climbed it, but he was now determined to reveal its secret. He began to strike blow after blow as Aisha prised stone out with her fingers, breaking her nails, reaching into each fissure.
Then she picked up a rock and hammered at the sides of the cave, following each crack and crevice: stone against stone.
The lapis fe
ll to the floor.
Aisha bent down, picked out a piece of stone, and handed it to him. It was jagged and cold, but a strange heat emerged from its centre. ‘Take it outside.’
On one side the stone was awkward mountain rock, but on the reverse, the side that had been newly cut, Paolo saw an intense irradiated blue, pitted with gold and streaked with silver.
He had thought that he knew stone, and could no longer be surprised by the way in which gold could be threaded, or silver glisten within. Other men might want to separate the blue from the white, or extract the gold and silver and sell it. They might even discard the blue of the lapis lazuli that he held in his hand.
But now he understood why he had come. Once he had known the richness of sapphire, so translucent that it had almost been white. He had seen the paleness of aquamarine, witnessed the play of pearl in precious opal, and admired the deep-blue gleam in the midst of a piece of firestone. He had once seen a blue so dark as to be black, splintered in tourmaline, disseminated in the darkness of chromite, weathered in the verdigris of caledonite. He had seen it shining as silver in hematite and pyrite, and in galena and in quartz. He had inspected the brittle blue of antimony, and the soft blue of stephanite. He had found a fine blue in the poisonous crystals of cyanite and amidst the white of arsenic. He had seen it in needle-shaped crystals, in druses: granular blues, scaly blues, massive, efflorescent, spathic, and fibrous. He had found blue in rock salt, in quartz, and even in topaz. He had seen pearls that were blue, and had once examined an emerald striated with a strange intrusive rivulet of azure. He knew the heat of blue flame and the cold metallic blue found in the gills of fish or deep in the ice. But he had never seen a colour such as this.
He held the stone in his hand, glowing as if lit by its own light, carved from the sky. All the blue that there had ever been in the world now seemed concentrated in this rock.
He heard Aisha’s voice. ‘People who come tell us that they have never known such beauty,’ she said.
‘They are right,’ said Paolo.
She stood close to him. ‘And we tell them in turn that we have never seen so much death.’
The Colour of Heaven Page 10