Amazir

by Tom Gamble

  The leaf spring suspension, almost flattened by the weight, made it impossible for them to rest and worse still, he and Jeanne were showered with flakes and salt dust every time they drove over the slightest dip or stone. It irritated their skin, made their sweat like mustard and the only way to avoid this was by remaining completely covered despite the heat. Before setting out, Moulay had ordered them not to speak and so Summerfield and Jeanne communicated with occasional gestures, mouthed words or the expressions on their faces. The main messages between the two of them were hunger—a grimace followed by rubbing the belly; and uncomfortable—a grimace followed with wriggling on Jeanne’s part and a rather overdramatic rubbing of the arse by Summerfield.

  The strangest thing was that despite being separated from the driving cabin, Summerfield could hear Moulay and the driver jabbering almost incessantly, and sometimes it seemed—hysterically—from within. Summerfield felt strangely robbed. From having spent nearly ten days mute and brooding, Moulay now showed a will to yap on a par with the most vociferous of village gossips. The driver, he soon found out, was Moulay’s cousin and husband to Moulay’s sister, Wafa—which also made him his brother-in-law. As time went by, Summerfield learnt of probably most of Moulay’s vibrant and extended family—Walid, Torkia, Nour, Sadi, Redouane, Mabrouk, Djelloul and God knows how many others—and also of most of their lives. A house bought here, a cuckold there, Nour’s cakes that sold so well, a botched circumcision and Abdelghani’s shingles.

  Angry that he had to share his time and space with a brooding Jeanne, angry that Moulay had betrayed him, angry that he was far from Raja, angry that his stomach was crying out for food, angry that he smelt like a mature and very salted cheese, Summerfield passed away the tedium by singing to himself, picturing Raja, holding in an ever-present urge to urinate as they bounced over the tracks and open sand and bearing a constant series of painfully hard erections that lasted, quite naggingly, for hours on end.

  On three occasions they were stopped at roadblocks set up where the desert tracks converged. Moulay became as silent as stone. In the back, the fear making his heart accelerate, Summerfield closed his eyes and practiced the scenario he had imagined a hundred times—the tarpaulin pulled back, stacks of salt pushed aside, Jeanne’s nerve cracking, her cry that betrayed their presence, shouts in French or German, the looming shape of a uniform as the cargo was prised away, then Summerfield’s shot, pushing forwards as he loaded again, searching other targets and then—then a blank, his mental rehearsal having avoided what could happen next. During the forced stops, long, excruciating minutes of fear passed in which every noise became amplified and meaningful. Voices in French, orders, Moulay’s grunts and the rustle of money passing hands.

  The second time they were stopped, Summerfield had had to pull Jeanne to him and smother her mouth with his hand. He could feel her tiny spasms, the hot breath from her nostrils on his fingers, her voice on the verge of releasing a sound. He feared that he would suffocate her. Once out into the safety of the plain again, he released his hold and although she gasped and spluttered, she lingered in his arms and squeezed him for comfort and Summerfield wondered if there was any hidden meaning in it all. He returned the embrace, nerves and mental exhaustion seeking something physical, more animal, more emotional. They spent several long minutes, just like before, holding onto to each other for safety and reassurance, alone in the hostility of it all.

  The third time he heard the lorry grinding down through the gears and whining to a halt, Summerfield twisted his body round and peeped through the salt to a crack in the wooden buffer adjoining the driver’s cabin. To his stupefaction, the approaching roadblock was not a barricade of barbed wire or a string of soldiers, but a ragged line of what looked like pygmies adorned with grotesquely painted cardboard hats and armed to the teeth with spears and shields. What the hell, he hissed, the initial shock giving way to relief as the lorry drew closer. They were boys, an odd mix of what looked like six to twelve year olds. And it was only when the tallest of them, the leader, held out his hand and rubbed thumb and forefinger together that Summerfield understood their novel way of earning money: a road toll. Moulay gesticulated with his stick and threw them insults, but his cousin, more tolerant, reached for something—food or a pinch of tobacco perhaps—and tossed it to the impudent warriors through the open window. The make-believe warriors drew apart, giving a cheer, and let the lorry through.

  On the fifth or sixth night, stopping for food and sleep, Moulay informed them that they were two hundred kilometres into southern Algeria and travelling parallel to the Mauritanian and Malian borders. Here, the frontiers merged, unclear and mostly unmarked. The land was a meeting point not only the Vichy French patrols, but marauders, caravans, Spanish deserters, brigands and the fierce Blue men of the nomadic Tuareg tribes. Clashes were frequent and once in a while tribes confronted each other in dispute, only to turn their guns in common cause against the white invaders patrolling the area.

  Here the dusty earth and sand of the plains gradually turned from pinkish grey to beige to a fine peppery orange. Sand drifts appeared, then dunes and before he knew it, Summerfield realised they had entered the true desert and that it stretched before them towards the east, unbroken for three thousand miles.

  A three-hour drive the following morning and the lorry came to a final halt. This time, as though anticipating the next stage of the journey, Moulay’s voice slowed, becoming taciturn as he entered a final conversation with his driver-cum-cousin. One last time, the stacks of salt were unloaded and a narrow passage cleared through the cargo.

  Summerfield, helping Jeanne to her feet, squeezed through the slabs of salt and jumped down from the lorry, tottering when he hit the sand, his legs unfamiliar with firm ground. He stretched, groaning from the pain in his knees and after rubbing them vigorously looked up to see Jeanne already upright, profile to him and her head turned in a stare that panned from the tired looking cluster of date palms to the left of the lorry across the immensity of open space that occupied the whole horizon on the right. Summerfield went and stood by her. He whistled through his teeth which made her momentarily turn her head and then back again to the desert. Summerfield had the strangest impression that he was the edge of an inversed beach, looking out not to the water but to the expanse of an ochre sea of sand, rippled and whipped by a million petrified waves that lapped endlessly into the horizon.

  ‘Are we actually going to try to cross that?’ he said, turning to Moulay and his cousin.

  The little guide gave a curt shake of his head. ‘No—not try. Just cross it, that’s all.’ His cousin seemed to find this particularly funny and the fact that Moulay had gotten the better of a white man no doubt added to the hilarity. He rolled his head in a series of laughs that resembled a severe fit of hiccups. Summerfield, turning sour, picked up his Lee Enfield and began deliberately to test the sights. Moulay’s cousin abruptly shut up, looking disconcerted, then worried and disappeared round the other side of the lorry checking tyres.

  ‘What now?’ said Summerfield, content that he had imposed himself.

  ‘We wait,’ returned Moulay, begrudgingly. ‘My cousin goes this way—’ a wave of his stick—‘and we go that way’—another wave towards the dunes.

  Summerfield shouldered his rifle. ‘And what will we wait for?’

  ‘Camels,’ answered Moulay. ‘Our ships of the desert.’

  In among the cluster of palms was a well and while Moulay bartered a transaction with his cousin and waved the lorry off, Summerfield called for Jeanne to help him draw water. He had expected a bucket and a rope, but the well was equipped with a hand pump that offered stiff resistance and squeaked abominably as it drew, coughing out water into a makeshift trough made of a petrol barrel that had been cut in two. After five minutes, sweating, the two of them had managed to fill the bottom of the trough with four inches of cloudy, beige-coloured water.

  ‘I need a damn good wash,’ he said, turning to Jeanne. ‘But you go firs
t.’ She hesitated, a silent, questioning look on her face. Summerfield grunted and then smiled. ‘I’ll turn my back—keep an eye on Moulay. There’s no need to undress—look, I’ll show you how.’ Squatting, Summerfield unwound his headdress and loosened his robes, making a series of gestures to show her how to wash.

  ‘You know their ways,’ she said. ‘You’re almost one of them.’

  ‘Two years in the mountains,’ he confirmed. ‘One of them as a prisoner. I had to learn.’

  ‘I suppose one does,’ agreed Jeanne and gave a little flick of her head to make him turn away.

  Standing there, back turned, Summerfield heard the sound of loosening clothes. Water splashed and miraculously he caught a sudden nip of lemon.

  ‘My God—I’ve just smelt heaven,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Soap,’ answered Jeanne and he thought she sounded pleased. ‘Olive and lime.’

  ‘Soap?’ Summerfield was astonished.

  ‘The women in the village. They gave it to me before we left.’ There was a long silence. It was as though she were making a point of her superior possession. And then, in a small, tentative voice: ‘You can borrow it if you like.’

  ‘Super—thank you, Jeanne,’ returned Summerfield, surprised by her gesture and felt himself grinning.

  He heard the sound of her hands, wet upon her skin and the soft plop of the soap being dropped into the drinking trough. Instinctively, he turned his head slightly, glancing at her from the corners of his eyes. She was busy, sluicing her armpits and he had a delicious though furtive glimpse of a tit, shuddering as her hand brushed against it, momentarily bulging in the action and then falling back into place, a heavenly hang of a shape. He closed his eyes, looked away and felt his throat go dry: if there was one Godly creation that could rival the beauty of nature it was the curve and movement of a woman’s breasts.

  After a further few minutes in which he heard a groan of effort, the clang of metal and her hands scooping water—probably washing her hair—Jeanne announced that it was his turn.

  He turned round and momentarily froze, a feeling of clumsy timidity suddenly overcoming him. Her face shone creamy-white and had a waxy glow and with her hair pulled back she wore a boyish expression of grumpiness mixed with almost glee.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ she said, looking worriedly at her feet. ‘Is it a scorpion? A snake? Where?’

  Summerfield laughed and his embarrassment evaporated. ‘No.’ he shook his head. ‘Just you—it’s the nicest I’ve seen you in a long time. You look beautiful. You seem—happier. And it’s good to see.’

  For an instant, he thought she would close like a book and return to her isolation, but she checked herself, though not without some effort, and forced a smile.

  ‘I think it’s your turn now,’ she said, pointing to the soap. ‘I’ll help you draw more water if you like.’

  Summerfield pondered the option and grunted. ‘No need—I’ll use your water. If it has the same effect on me, I’ll be a happy man.’

  They were sitting drinking the mint tea Moulay had brewed when three shapes shimmered into view on the near horizon—three sets of outrageously long legs, like ostriches, with a fat belly and a giraffe’s neck attached to it: the camels had arrived.

  One was ridden by a man dressed in the dark blue robes and headgear of the Tuaregs—the Berber nomads of the desert. It was no surprise that they were called the Blue men, for when the rider halted before them and uncovered his face, Summerfield observed that the rider’s skin was a darker shade of blue, the sweat having washed off the dye of his headdress to the pores of his skin. Seeing Summerfield’s consternation, the rider grinned showing a perfect row of gleaming white teeth and rubbed his cheek. He spoke rapidly, in a dialect Summerfield couldn’t understand, and Moulay bade him to join them with a cup of sweet tea.

  After a long and ceremonious three glasses, they agreed on a price for the remaining camels. Moulay gave the beasts a second thorough going-over, checking for old wounds, gall and any abscesses and then made Summerfield dip into his knapsack and produce two gold coins. How Moulay had known he’d been given them, Summerfield hadn’t a clue—for it had been a tacit arrangement between himself and the Kaïd—but he handed them over to the Tuareg rider who nodded politely. Another glass of tea, exceptionally sugary, was made from pouring the rests together. The Tuareg sucked the syrupy mixture noisily before rising sharply to his feet and proffering a long series of Godly farewells.

  56

  As dusk settled on the horizon, Moulay lashed their belongings and two ten-litre goatskins filled with water to the camels. Before setting out, he made Summerfield and Jeanne stand before the two beasts and gave them a brief instruction on how to ride. They were to climb atop WaRed—flower—hardly a name that pictured speed or prowess—a spindly female with a large, brownish petal-shaped spot around the left eye and hence her name.

  ‘Speak to her,’ ordered Moulay, ‘For she must trust you.’

  ‘What do we say?’ said Summerfield, feeling slightly silly.

  ‘Your names. And how much you want her to take you across the erg.’

  Summerfield shrugged, translated to Jeanne, who let out a laugh, and putting all embarrassment to the wind, began to charm WaRed with I wandered lonely as a daffodil which he thought very fitting given her name. Several tries at mounting—the initial sharp jerk and lift off making them cry out and laugh—and Moulay tied the reins to the pummel of his own saddle. With a last look back, only his eyes showing from behind his headgear, Moulay gave his customary gesture with his stick, a disrespectful upwards thrust that Summerfield couldn’t help thinking meant something unpleasantly directed at him, and they set off at a lazy, looping pace eastwards towards the gun grey sky.

  Solitary, but somehow present was how Summerfield described the desert. They journeyed relentlessly into the sea of sand, leaving the tracks behind them, at first a desert of rocks and stones and strange, twisted trees with bulbous green fruit shaped like bladders that Moulay informed them were called Sodom Apples. At one point, disappearing into a hollow between two dunes, the guide approached one and struck deftly at a fruit with his stick. Immediately, the great bloated bladder exploded with a puff, making Moulay emit a mirthless laugh.

  ‘Don’t touch,’ he commanded. ‘The sap will not leave your hands again. If it touches your tongue, you will be very ill.’ His eyes glaring grotesquely, he briefly mimed stomach cramps.

  Beneath the loping hooves of the camel, Summerfield caught the glint of quartz in the moonlight, some of the stone perfectly smooth and large, forming strange and angular phallus shapes. During a stop to relieve themselves, he pocketed one—translucent and pink—and while he turned, his eye caught sight of something else, curved and black. He let out a muffled cry, at first sight believing it to be an animal and then, stooping low, picked it up. Encrusted in the black stone was a finely sculptured trace of white, a score of delicate branches seemingly sketched into its surface.

  ‘Good God, it’s a fossil—a damn worm or something.’ He beckoned for Moulay and Jeanne to come over. ‘What is it?’ said Summerfield.

  Moulay shrugged his shoulders. At their feet, scattered in an area roughly twenty feet wide, they discovered many hundreds of them.

  ‘Fish,’ said Jeanne. ‘Thousands of years ago, this must have been a sea.’

  ‘A sea—do you hear that, Moulay?’ said Summerfield.

  ‘No,’ Moulay’s eyes looked stubborn.

  ‘Yes—a sea,’ repeated Summerfield.

  Moulay shook his head and Summerfield understood that he didn’t want to speak further on the issue. Perhaps, he thought, as they re-mounted the camels, Moulay thought they were questioning his faith and thought it very odd.

  As they journeyed slowly through the night, the rocks petered out to stones which seemed as though some great hand had scattered them in flurries across the sand. Eventually, they found themselves treading fine sand. Around them, the dunes closed in,
becoming uncountable in number, undulating humps and waves—they had finally entered the true sea of sand. It grew cold, much colder than Summerfield had imagined, a dryer, sharper cold than that of the mountains that made his skin prick and pimple. They wrapped themselves in the thick woollen mats that Summerfield had seen Moulay take from the Blue man—mats that apparently served several practical uses: sleep, tea, prayer, blankets, capes, protection against the sand storms, parasol and makeshift tent—and rode until Moulay at last gave the order to halt.

  Much as they had done to hide their presence in the snow, Summerfield dug two small, funnel-shaped holes in the sand and lit their fires. He boiled a cup of rice and—Moulay having decided not to eat and huddled against his camel for warmth—Summerfield shared the bland though filling feculent with Jeanne. Having washed their bowls in the sand, they sat in silence for a while, looking at the shadows of the dunes and the incredible quantity of stars.

  ‘I have never seen so many,’ whispered Summerfield, leaning across to Jeanne. ‘Not even in the mountains.’

  ‘Like pins in a velvet pin-cushion,’ returned Jeanne, her voice sounding breathless in the effort. ‘We watched them together once before,’ she added after a long silence.

  Summerfield smiled inwardly. ‘That was another life ago. I thought you’d have forgotten the poem.’

  ‘I very nearly have,’ she replied, tiredly. ‘I do not want to offend you.’

  Summerfield shook his head, though inside, he was indeed put out that she should have said it. He wanted to ask what she had done with them, but instead: ‘It doesn’t matter. A new life is beginning for you.’

  Jeanne glanced at him and fell silent once again. She ran a hand through her hair under her cheiche. ‘Do you think we’ll make it?’