Amazir

by Tom Gamble

  Slowly, the warrior lifted his heavy rifle towards the man’s face and Jeanne had the most horrifying certainty. A detonation. Suddenly, half of Abrach’s head tore away, the disintegration sending a spray of pink liquid hissing into the snow, the great body jerking and falling. It landed heavily and flailed, once, twice and then was still. Jeanne held her breath, numbed, certain she would be next to die.

  51

  Slowly, deliberately, on her hands and knees, she began to crawl away. Summerfield dropped the Lee Enfield.

  ‘Jeanne!’

  She looked back at him, over her shoulder, like an animal, almost a nonchalant curiosity in the gesture and Summerfield hesitated.

  ‘Jeanne?’

  He heard his own voice, perplexed, as he caught sight of her bruised and empty face, the layers of clothes and skins—a stray animal responding vaguely to a half-forgotten name. Was it her? Slowly, so as not to scare her, he unwound his headscarf and attempted a smile.

  ‘Jeanne…’ His voice was soft, foreign sounding and he was suddenly conscious of the reality of his clothes, the weathered colour of his skin. She raised herself and sat on her knees, unsure. ‘I suppose I’ve changed,’ he said, weakly.

  ‘Harry.’ The answer came as a whisper. She began to sob gently. ‘Harry.’

  They held each other tightly, silent as Badr’s men went through the dead bodies for loot.

  ‘Where is Badr?’ said Summerfield at last and had to repeat himself, almost a shout.

  ‘Wounded,’ came a reply.

  ‘God! Where is he?’

  A raised hand, an impatient gesture. ‘Over there.’

  Summerfield got up, wincing from the sharp pain in his knee, and in turn helped Jeanne to her feet. She looked stunned and wavered groggily. Summerfield half led her, half pushed her to a group of three men, one of whom he recognised as Taffu, squatting by a body. Summerfield fell to his knees.

  ‘Oh God, oh God—Badr!’ The young man opened his eyes and winced. There was a thick, black bubbling of blood just under the young man’s right lung. Summerfield glanced away only to see that Taffu had a pistol in his hand. ‘No!’ shouted Summerfield.

  ‘It is the rule,’ murmured Badr, looking resigned. ‘The tradition…’

  ‘To hell with your stupid bloody tradition.’ Summerfield snatched the pistol from Taffu’s hand.

  ‘Harry,’ fought Badr, attempting to move.

  ‘Shut up,’ hissed Summerfield. ‘You’re my friend. You lead us. We have to take you back.’ Summerfield looked around him. ‘Tie him to a mule.’

  Taffu’s mouth, until then agape, snapped shut. ‘We need them for the girl and our trophies.’

  ‘The guns, gold and trinkets can just fuck off,’ threatened Summerfield. ‘If you don’t do as I say you’ll get some English anger on your fucking plate.’ The men frowned in incomprehension, glancing at Badr for any sign of command. ‘Do it!’ yelled Summerfield, waving the pistol. At last, with begrudging silence, two of them left to fetch a mule.

  Light, the snow swirled in lazy circles as the small column trudged eastwards. The men were happy, having tasted battle, victory and taken loot and there was much chattering that made Summerfield frown condemningly. How they could swap such disproportionate stories of bravery and with such insouciance—while Badr agonised—was beyond him. He suddenly felt sickened, weary of this fickle people and their childish joy.

  Muttering oaths in English at the tribesmen’s jabbering, Summerfield led the two mules that carried Jeanne and Badr as the column picked its way through the snow-bound tracks. Badr’s moans of pain had set Summerfield’s nerves on edge and he felt relieved though guilty when his young friend sank into unconsciousness.

  For the most part Jeanne was sullen and brooding. At one point, she looked up and said, mechanically: ‘It was you who executed El Rifni.’

  ‘He’s dead,’ returned Summerfield, avoiding her eyes. ‘I was afraid, angry…’

  ‘You killed him in cold blood, Harry.’

  ‘I thought he’d harm you,’ muttered Summerfield. And then, after a long silence: ‘Yes, yes I shot him—in cold blood if you like. I have no qualms. Just—just shocked, that’s all.’ He glanced at Jeanne and her expression showed neither acceptance nor condemnation. She had withdrawn into her silence.

  It was late when Jeanne spoke again. They had climbed through a pass and were descending a valley. The winter white made the pink rock milky, almost translucent like a shade of jade, and a weak setting sun gave watery shine to the land. Summerfield thought he recognised a familiar outcrop and was about to check this with a tribesman, when he heard Jeanne’s voice, timid and shaking.

  ‘Harry, they—’

  She held her breath and Summerfield, seeing that something was wrong, took to her side. He felt like touching her, though feared that if he did her emotions would ignite, she was that tense. Suddenly, she continued, a spurt of words delivered in a weary monotone.

  ‘They did horrible, terrible things to me, Harry. And my father, mother… Soumia’s screaming…’

  ‘They were criminals,’ said Summerfield, ‘fanatics. I’m glad they died.’

  ‘Terrible things,’ she repeated. ‘The horror of it all.’

  ‘The brutes—you’re badly beaten, Jeanne. Don’t worry—the women of the valley—they have ointments and lotions that can heal you.’

  ‘Harry—they…they abused me.’

  The word came out as a squeak, somehow quaint and old-fashioned and it sent a shiver through Summerfield.

  ‘In the beginning, two of them. Then only Abrach.’

  Summerfield felt the air sucked from his lungs. He was sinking for her.

  ‘No, my poor darling. Oh, no…’

  ‘After the first two times, I just—just switched off. Yes, like a light—switched off.’ The unsettling chuckle in her voice, her snapping nerves, scared him, angered him. She turned slightly then looked away. ‘What if—what if I’m pregnant, Harry?’

  ‘I’ll cut them into pieces—fingers, hands, ears, bollocks and bloody tongue—’ spat Summerfield.

  ‘He’s dead, Harry. Remember—you shot him in the face. That sound!’ She laughed, a deranged little squeak. ‘When the muck hit the snow. Like fat sizzling in the pan.’

  ‘Jeanne. Please—stop!’

  Her face froze suddenly as though Summerfield had just slapped her.

  ‘Stop you say? After everything they did?’ Her voice trailed to a whisper, fell silent and then she burst into tears. ‘I’m sorry, Harry. So stupid. I’m not brave, not brave!’

  Confused, Summerfield stumbled a few paces then turned back. ‘But you are courageous. So very brave, my darling. Very.’

  ‘Please, Harry. Please—avoid that word.’

  ‘I didn’t—’

  ‘Just don’t say it. Please,’ she said, coldly.

  When they settled down to camp that night, Badr awoke in great pain. Summerfield hollowed out a hole in the snow, making a wall to protect them from the wind, and while Jeanne sat huddled and morose in a corner, tended to his friend.

  Summerfield grimly peeled away the layers of clothes to reveal the wound, difficult to locate due to a great amount of clotted blood. He fetched some boiled water, conscious of the smallness of his act, and set about cleaning the ragged hole in his friend’s strangely white abdomen. The only chance, he concluded, would be to return to the valley. How he hoped they knew how to deal with such wounds. Lastly, he gave Badr some opium mixture and wiped his friend’s brow, so burning hot despite the cold. Drifting in and out of consciousness, the young leader babbled words in a dialect Summerfield couldn’t understand. Once, their eyes met and Summerfield saw the strange, milky glaze in his friend’s regard, a beaten, weary look that he now knew to recognise as the resignation before death. Suddenly, Summerfield felt so tired, so powerless, that he was unable to control the tears that began to roll down his cheeks. He sobbed silently, kneeling beside his friend and started when he felt the lightest of touches on
his cheek. It was Badr, his hand raised, a look of tenderness in his eyes momentarily warming through the pain.

  ‘Dear Harry… After—care for Raja, will you?’

  ‘One more day, Badr,’ whispered Summerfield, taking hold of the young man’s hand. ‘Hold on for one more day and you will be fine.’ Badr gave an almost imperceptible smile of irony. Summerfield fought to hold back his tears. ‘We’re nearly home, Badr. I promise.’

  ‘My beard…’ whispered Badr.

  ‘What?’ Summerfield leant forwards, his ear nearly touching the young man’s lips. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘My beard,’ repeated Badr.

  ‘Beard?’ Summerfield frowned.

  ‘Oh, Lord, how it itches! And I can’t damn well scratch it.’ Badr attempted a laugh which turned to a painful moan. A long minute passed before he was able to breathe correctly again.

  Summerfield shook his head sadly. ‘You young fool, Badr. It never really did suit you, you know…’ But the young man was silent, having once again drifted into unconsciousness.

  They set out at 4 a.m., too cold to sleep for more than twenty minutes at a time and pressed to return to the valley. From the hesitant, unsure outsider, uninitiated in the ways of the mountains and command of men, Summerfield had become a leader. It was he who, deciding it was time to march, gave the order to raise camp. And it was he who, leading the two mules at the head of the column, picked the path back to the valley with now instinctive confidence. The men followed. There was no resistance to his role and they seemed to go faster. Maybe it was the fact that the terrain now became recognisable as their own, the confidence that came to men who knew that they were nearly home.

  After three hours of journey, the day began to rise and the sky turned from black to indigo to cobalt blue. Summerfield called the column to a halt and ordered tea to be brewed and the remaining rations distributed. While fires were lit and water boiled, he scanned the landscape behind them with Badr’s binoculars, one of the lenses of which had been shattered by a bullet during the combat. Nothing. They had not been followed.

  Once assured, he then turned to Jeanne. With hot water he moistened his cheiche and began to softly bathe her face, gently patting the cuts and bruises and stroking them whenever she winced. She did not look at him and Summerfield was glad for this. Her description of what had happened during her captivity had left him incapable of any form of verbal help. As a man, a member of the male race, he felt ultimately ashamed, as guilty as her former aggressors and somehow dirty. No wonder, he reflected, she was so distant, so detached. How could she not be? He was surprised then, upon finishing to wash her wounds, that she glanced up, offering a brief though—as he judged—sincere smile.

  With no unnecessary tarry, they were once again on the path back. One more crest to overcome and the next mountainside would be theirs.

  ‘I’m sorry, Harry,’ blurted Jeanne at one point. ‘For having been so sharp.’

  Summerfield, turning to her, pulled a face as much in embarrassment as anything else. ‘I was an idiot to have used that word.’

  ‘It’s not—not fitting anymore, is it, Harry?’

  ‘Is that a rhetorical question?’ quipped Summerfield, but she did not seem to notice the irony and he shook his head. The poor girl was completely vacant, as though her senses had been killed along with her ideals. ‘You know, Jeanne, that word I used—it came completely spontaneously. There was no other word I could find for a person so—so dear to me. It had nothing to do with—with what we lived before. I know that life sent you off in a different direction after they took me.’

  Jeanne raised her head and looked at him, briefly inquisitive.

  ‘I have a bundle of letters, Jeanne. I’m afraid I read them.’

  ‘Letters?’ Jeanne seemed to be coming back from afar.

  ‘Jim and all that,’ said Summerfield, humbly. ‘I’m aware of what you both mean to each other.’

  ‘How?’ Jeanne looked confused.

  Summerfield made a silent gesture as if to say don’t worry. ‘I accept that, Jeanne—you and Jim. Part of me has grown so old over the past two years. Sometimes I feel as though life is a continuous peeling away of idealism—just to reach the inner truth of disillusionment that is the reality of it all.’

  ‘But how did you get them? And where are they?’

  Summerfield pursed his lips. ‘Here.’ He dug into his knapsack and brought out the bundle, tied together with a slither of material. ‘Please—take them back. They’re yours.’

  She took them, hesitantly as though unbelieving, then clutched them to her. She began to sob.

  ‘You see, we reached the hunting lodge and I saw—’ he paused, failed a breath—‘everything. When we discovered that one of the occupants was missing—probably you—I wanted absolute proof. I found the letters on a shelf beside your bed.’ Summerfield fell silent and watched as Jeanne’s body heaved with little spasms of grief. ‘We both have something to shed tears over,’ he added, resigned.

  Four hours later and the column had climbed the slopes to a ridge that led down to the valley and home. The tribesmen let out a series of whoops and embraced each other and Summerfield caught sight of the village through the haze. His heart surged with joy and a lump came to his throat, a mix of relief, hope and a strange, desperate sadness. Instinctively, he turned to search for Badr and approached the young man’s body lying limp across the mule.

  ‘Badr. Wake up my friend. Wake. Can you hear me? We’re home. You’re going to get better. You’re saved.’ The young man did not move. ‘Badr?’ Summerfield peered closer, noticed the deadened eyes, the ashen skin and drew back. Badr was cold.

  52

  Jim Wilding stood on the quayside at St. Louis, French Senegal and watched as the Portuguese crew, shepherded by a moustachioed young bursar, finally opened up the gangway for the passengers to board. He drew a deep breath, felt a certain puzzled sadness come over him, and then nodded to the porter waiting by his luggage to follow him on ship.

  Paying off the porter and locking his cabin to stand on deck, Wilding felt the whole past four months slowly lift from him. Giddiness took hold of him and he had to brace himself against the ship’s rail. He’d tried everything: embassy contacts, friends, informers, the military, even appealing for witnesses for anything they had seen on the day of Jeanne’s disappearance. He could have stayed on, he thought, his mind dwelling momentarily on his return to the States. But if he hadn’t found her, it meant that she was either dead—he winced at the word—or had been spirited away to some remote area beyond his reach and influence. He knew it was almost hopeless and, in that calm and thoroughly logical way of his, had mastered his emotions, knowing full well that it would only lead to unnecessary pain and ill health. He’d left contact details in Marrakesh, just in case and had even paid for the off-duty services of a police investigator to routinely follow things up. Now was a moment to look towards the next step in things—his enlistment, training and hopefully active service. It was only a question of time before the United States entered the conflict. After that… He cocked his head, closed his eyes as he breathed in the sea air. After that, the next step—and strangely enough, despite the improbability, despite the cards stacked against him, Jeanne seemed a sure part of it.

  53

  Raja did not appear for ten days. Passing her parents’ house, one could hear the constant chants and wails of distress that accompanied Badr’s death. If it wasn’t Raja herself, it was her mother. And when their tears ran dry, a relative or neighbour was invited to stay and produce the sounds of mourning. Little gifts of coins, trinkets or, more precious in these desperate times, food were given for the service. Such was the tradition.

  Watching her house from the small, squat window of his dwelling, the January wind moaning up the valley, Summerfield remembered that Raja hadn’t wanted to believe him—the usual reaction of denial in such circumstances. For finally, he reflected, we are all invulnerable, a permanent and lasting presence unti
l the sudden gone. And like a kind of unreasonable logic, we somehow think our loved ones are immortal, as we do ourselves; and death doesn’t come tomorrow, after all—it is remote and seems rather nearer the impossible than the probable. One day, when death does come, our childish logic is ripped up and thrown away. And we are left with an empty space—the chair where he sat, her voice that filled the room—and a nagging, deepest questioning of the possibility that something else—another place, another life—in all superior, human calculation must exist after all. Raja had refused, despite the innate sense of fatality etched into her culture, the inevitable. In the end, Summerfield had had to call in one of the tribesmen who had fought with him to persuade the girl. And finally, ceding to the truth, Raja had pummelled out her pain on Summerfield, writhing like a viper when both he and her parents tried to wrestle her away.

  And then the burial, the old Mullah’s voice whipped away in the wind. Badr’s body, wrapped in a white linen shroud was laid on its side in a shallow grave, head turned towards Mecca. Supported by helpers at both arms, leaning against the wind, the old Mullah chanted prayers while the womenfolk wailed and the men lay stones and earth over the body, slotting them into place like tiles on a roof so that they formed a slight though elaborate mound. The body finally covered, a flat stone was laid upright where the head rested and turned profile towards the Holy City. Summerfield, standing apart, stayed on, as did Raja at the graveside, and watched the mourners drift away, heard the lamentations fade until they were alone in the whistles and moans of nature.

  Summerfield had approached his friend’s grave: Badr who had acted as his messenger, who had taught him so much, protected and befriended him with so much simplicity and sincerity. He spoke in English, intimate words, and Raja glanced at him red and dirty cheeked, her eyes hostile as though she were ashamed that Summerfield should see her so weakened. For some reason he found himself reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Though the words were out of place he carried on, for the lilt and intonation of the prayer were beautiful sound to any event. And then he had gone, touching Raja on the shoulder as he walked away and she, shuddering as her tears once more began to fall.