The Salt Road

by Jane Johnson

  Tana refilled her glass. ‘The second is as sweet as love,’ and with these words she regarded Mariata almost as if she hated her. Mariata tipped the glass to her lips; and indeed this second pouring did seem to taste more sugared than the first.

  ‘And one final glass –’ Tana pushed it towards her and waited.

  Mariata took the tea glass up and watched the specks of tea and herb swirl in the amber liquid. It seemed cooler and darker than the previous two glasses: she supposed the tea had brewed for longer in the pot, but when she sipped it she almost choked. She set it down. ‘It tastes horrible.’

  ‘You must finish it.’ The enad sat back on her heels and regarded Mariata implacably until the girl had drained the glass. Then she smiled as though well satisfied and said, ‘The third glass is as bitter as death.’

  Mariata felt the aftertaste on her tongue, and wondered for a chilling moment whether the smith had poisoned her, and was not at all reassured to see Tana closing the doorway with a long curtain of leather, and setting a series of gris-gris in the sand at the threshold. Gloom fell throughout the smithy: Mariata sat still, not daring to move, hardly daring to breathe. The light of the fire flared, rendering her strong features suddenly grim and demonic. Then she marked out a space on the floor, smoothing down the sand into a rough square, at each corner of which she set an amulet. At last, the smith went to the pole that supported the roof and looked up. Pale daylight filtered down through the smoke-hole into the room, illuminating a plain leather pouch that hung from a hook overhead. The air around the bag shifted and shimmered; dust motes and ashes danced in the draughts that spiralled up past it and out into the world. They spun and writhed like dervishes so that, for a moment, Mariata thought she was seeing spirits that were trembling on the edge of incarnation, about to spring to life. Something in the tea had made her head swim. The enad reached up, took down the pouch and weighed it in her hands. Something inside chinked.

  ‘What is in the bag?’ Mariata asked, trying not to sound too frightened.

  Tana tipped some of the contents into her large brown hand. Her thumb played over them, consideringly. Then she held out her hand so that Mariata could see. In her palm were pebbles, water-smoothed, such as you would find on the bed of a river. But out of the water they were dull and unimpressive: Mariata was disappointed, they seemed so ordinary.

  The smith dropped them back into the pouch with a clatter. ‘Each one contains a spirit,’ she said, and watched with satisfaction as Mariata recoiled. ‘That’s how I chose them: the spirit in each one called to me as I searched along the oued in the dry season. It is too dangerous to select stones when the river is flowing: everyone knows that water is where the spirits meet. They are not so strong when they are dry, but when they are dry I can control them. I will read for you the Roads of Life and the Roads of Death and we will see what we will see.’

  She touched Mariata’s amulet, tapping it three times, then touched her forehead, her shoulders, feet and hands. Apparently satisfied by whatever protection this afforded, she drew out a handful of the stones from the pouch, tossed them into the air with her left hand and caught some of them again in her right. Some she caught in pairs; others singly. She laid the caught stones out in a vertical line, like the engraved lines of Tifinagh on the boulders outside the encampment: one; a pair; another pair; one. Then she threw another set of pebbles up into the air, caught them and examined the contents, her lips moving as if she were counting. From time to time her eyebrows rose as if she were surprised; or she pursed her mouth, or frowned.

  Two pairs and two singles followed in a different configuration. It looked almost random, but with the smith investing the divination with great concentration and attention, Mariata could tell there was a system involved in the selection and display that she simply did not understand.

  More stones rose and fell, and the remaining pebbles were laid out alongside the first two lines: three pairs, a single solitary red stone. The smith hissed and made a face: she did not seem best pleased.

  ‘What do you see?’ Mariata asked, unable to bear the tension any longer, but Tana shook her head. ‘Do not interrupt the spirits while they do their work,’ she said sharply.

  The final line took shape: two pairs; a single stone, black this time; a final pair. The enad sat back and regarded her handiwork thoughtfully. She picked up the single red pebble, turned it over and replaced it. Now its upmost side was a dark brown: it seemed less ominous. Or was it more so?

  ‘Your father and brothers walk the Road of Life still, but death trails in their wake,’ she said at last. ‘Blood will be spilt.’

  Mariata did not know what to make of this cryptic pronouncement. ‘They are alive?’

  ‘They are.’

  The enad ran her hand over the configuration of four lines, making marks with her fingertips in the sand, moving stones around at great speed as if playing some frantic game of strategy such as the old men played sometimes with stones, capturing an enemy line with just two jumps of a pebble. ‘Journeys, journeys, journeys,’ she said crossly. ‘Well, we knew that.’ She appeared to be talking to herself. ‘From the unknown to the known; from the known to the unknown. A sacrifice; a betrayal; an ineluctable sequence of events.’ She picked up a white pebble, examined it closely. ‘What are you doing there, on the Road to Death, if you represent new life?’ she interrogated it angrily, as if it might somehow find a mouth and respond. Of course, it said nothing. She put it back in its place in the sequence, picked up a black one, frowning. ‘The spirit that inhabits this pebble is contrary,’ she pronounced. ‘It loves to try to lead my divinations astray.’

  Mariata waited. Then she asked, ‘What does the black one represent?’

  Tana sighed. ‘Chance. It throws off the entire reading.’

  ‘Then they might be dead? My father and brothers?’

  ‘No, no: I see no member of your family dead.’ She folded her lips, and added under her breath, ‘Just a lot of other people.’

  ‘What?’ Mariata leant closer. ‘What did you say?’

  The enad pushed herself to her feet, threw open the leather door-flap and let the sunlight come streaming in. ‘It does not matter. It is already written, and there is nothing I can do to avert it: I cannot see the time or place, just the blood and the eyes. Death is the door through which we all must go; we just pray we do not reach it too soon, insh’allah.’

  20

  No one seemed to think it at all odd when we turned up at Habiba’s house at three in the morning to collect Lallawa for her visit to the desert. Instead there was much smiling and agreement from the crow-women that an early start was a good idea. The old woman was beside herself with joy at the news. She caught Taïb’s hands and kissed them over and over, mumbling all the while. I kept hearing the word baraka.

  ‘It means “blessings”,’ Habiba told me. Our earlier falling-out appeared to have been put aside. She seemed pleased that we were taking Lallawa into the desert; but the uncharitable thought did cross my mind that she was relieved that Taïb and I would not be on our own, that the old lady would be acting as a sort of chaperone, a ghost at our feast. Or maybe she was just happy at the prospect of a break from nursing for a little while.

  The crow-women took Taïb away with them to prepare some breakfast and essentials for the journey, but as I turned to follow Habiba caught me by the arm. ‘Come help me with Lallawa.’

  It took an age to get the old woman dressed, and not simply because of my unfamiliarity with such a process. Lallawa was determined that she be arrayed in her best finery for the journey, and it was this determination that caused the delay. I had thought she would wear the ubiquitous black robe worn by the crow-women: but oh, no. Habiba was dispatched to bring an endless list of items, the old woman clutching her forearm exigently, punctuating each demand with an emphatic finger. The idea of visiting her desert again seemed to have filled her with energy, like a magical fuel.

  Left alone with Lallawa, I couldn’t think of
anything to say to her, since we shared barely a word of language. Instead, I found myself grinning inanely, because she unnerved me so. Suddenly animated, she patted me on the hand and gabbled at me and touched her neck, moving her hand to mime a square. The amulet. I fished it out of my bag, guided it into her fingers and watched as she held it close to her eyes and turned it over and over as if examining every aspect of it. What could she actually see, I wondered? Could she make out the shape of the necklace, or any of the etched markings? Or was she just feeling its dimensions, the glass discs and the raised boss? It did not seem to matter, for the smile she gave me was one of pure joy, and when she handed the amulet back to me, she unerringly cupped my cheek with a gesture of such unwarranted affection that I almost choked.

  Habiba returned with an armful of fabric and a bag of other items, and Lallawa gave herself up to our attentions, as compliant as a child. We changed her out of the nightclothes she’d been wearing and Habiba took out a great bundle of dark blue cloth with a faint metallic sheen. ‘It’s a tamelhaft,’ she said, folding the fabric lengthwise and draping it around the old woman as I held her up. ‘Very traditional; old-fashioned nowadays.’ Fastening the result with two big ornamental silver pins at the shoulders, she smoothed out the pleating and stood back. ‘Beautiful.’

  Lallawa smiled beatifically, then patted one of the silver pieces with pride. ‘They’re very old,’ Habiba told me. ‘It’s hard to come by such good quality fibulae now.’

  More jewellery went on: a pair of heavy silver earrings; dozens of bangles, some as thin as a sliver of light, others sturdy with chunky geometric designs; two heavy strings of cowrie shells; and three small amulets that Habiba pinned at various places on the dress. Last of all came an embroidered shawl, which she draped over the old woman’s head.

  I was curious about the motifs that were repeated in all of these items. ‘So many triangles.’

  Habiba laughed. ‘The sharp point wards off the evil eye, maybe is even designed to puncture it.’

  ‘How gruesome!’

  She shrugged. ‘The old folk swear by such things: they say there are evil influences everywhere. Not just the evil eye but also evil spirits – the djenoun.’ I must have looked clueless, for she leant towards me. ‘You’ve not heard of the djinn?’

  I shook my head. Then a thought struck me. ‘Unless you mean “genie”, like in Aladdin?’ And I gave her a swift explanation of the story in the Arabian Nights that I’d last read as a child.

  She frowned, then laughed. ‘Ah, you mean Ala al-Din and the lamp the sorcerous Moor sent him to retrieve in Alf Layla Wa-Layla. Yes, your “genie” is a djinn, a great and powerful spirit, though he’s rather more biddable than the wicked creatures the old people believe in, which lie constantly in wait to lead the weak and foolish astray, to confound plans and spoil food and addle people’s wits. Almost everything Lallawa wears is designed to ward off such spirits: from the dye in her robe to the kohl around her eyes; even the henna on her fingers.’ She said something to the old woman, who nodded vigorously and replied at length. ‘She says she will need such protection for going into the desert, for the desert is not only her home, but is home also to a legion of evil spirits. She’s very glad that you have your own amulet to protect you. But she insists that you wear it.’

  ‘Really?’ I took it out of my bag and weighed it in my hand.

  ‘It would please her.’

  Reluctantly, I put it around my neck.

  Habiba regarded it gravely. ‘Good.’

  Her scrutiny made me uncomfortable. Swiftly, I changed the subject. ‘Now, what about her medications?’

  Habiba laughed. ‘She won’t take anything the doctor gives her, only the herbal remedies the old women make. But lately she’s refused to take anything at all.’

  ‘She’ll be all right, won’t she?’ I asked nervously. It struck me suddenly and rather belatedly that taking such a sick old woman into the greatest wilderness on earth might not be such a good idea.

  Habiba quickly read the look on my face. ‘She’ll be fine, insh’allah. And if she isn’t …’ She spread her hands. ‘Taïb will deal with it: he’s very capable. You needn’t worry.’

  I felt suitably chastened, sensing that she had caught me out yet again in my Western selfishness. I was, if I were being truthful, suddenly terrified at being in the proximity of death. But for these people death was ever-present, a part of life, in a way that it simply wasn’t for us in the West, where it was hidden away, made distant and clinical and more taboo than it had ever been, as if the idea that we did not control everything in the world would somehow bring the whole shaky façade crashing down around us.

  Taïb put his head around the door. He looked as if he had taken a shower: his head was wet and he wore his turban draped loose around his neck, over a T-shirt and jeans that I realized he must have been wearing under the robe that was now bundled under his arm. Seeing Lallawa in her regalia, he beamed. ‘T’fulkit,’ he said; and whatever that meant wreathed her face in smiles. Then he looked right at me. His glance brushed the amulet, then returned to my face. ‘Beautiful,’ he said softly and held my gaze until I looked away. Then he bent and swept up the old woman, just as he had carried me into the hotel; but where I had been stiff and resisting, Lallawa grinned so widely that I could see the back of her throat.

  We got her safely stowed in the back seat of the car in a cocoon of blankets, held upright by the seat belt, and I came back for the bag of food and drink the crow-women had put together to sustain us on the journey. At the doorway Habiba gave me a short, fierce hug. ‘Thank you for doing this,’ she said, her dark eyes intent on mine. ‘Thank you. I am sorry I was harsh with you yesterday. This is a good thing you are doing, you and Taïb.’ Then she turned, waved and went back into the house.

  ‘Vous allez bien, madame?’ I asked the old lady, though I knew she couldn’t understand me. Her little wrinkled face peered out at me from amidst her headscarf and jewellery: she looked like a gypsy fortuneteller abducted from an end-of-the-pier show. The blanket stirred and out came her hand, as brown as a monkey’s paw, and a moment later her thumb came up in the universal gesture of all good things.

  We left Tiouada just as the sun came up over the hills, flooding the car with its bright beams. Nothing stirred in the still dawn except for a group of sparrows taking a dust bath by the side of the road; they burst up into the air, their dun wings full of light, which suddenly rendered them golden and magical, little streaks of fire against the azure sky.

  I turned to point them out to Lallawa, but her head was already nodding, her folded hands rising and falling rhythmically over the swell of her bosom. ‘She’s asleep,’ I told Taïb softly, and he glanced in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘No need to whisper: she’s very deaf.’

  ‘Poor thing. And her eyes too. She’s got glaucoma, hasn’t she?’

  ‘Cataracts, certainly. A life in the desert sun is harsh on the eyes,’ he agreed. ‘But she can still see.’

  ‘I thought she was almost blind. I hope this won’t be a wasted trip for her.’

  ‘She will see the desert, blind or not,’ Taïb said cryptically. ‘It’s a gift she shares with the People of the Veil.’

  ‘The People of the Veil?’

  ‘The Kel Tagelmust: the people who wear the veil. It’s what the desert people call themselves. The term “Tuareg” is not often used.’

  ‘But it’s what you said to me when you were talking about your family’s roots. You said you were Tuareg.’

  He gave an almost imperceptible shrug. ‘It’s an easy shorthand. Actually it’s an Arab coinage. Some say it derives from the region known as the Targa in Libya, since the word for one Tuareg is “Targui”; others that it means “cast out by God” or “those whom God has cursed”; but that’s probably because they resisted the Bedouin tribes who invaded from the east in the eighth century bringing Islam with them so fiercely.’

  ‘And the Blue Men? I’ve heard them called that
too.’

  ‘They prized indigo robes and turbans over everything other than their camels: good indigo cloth is hard to come by and very expensive. It’s been a form of currency throughout Africa for centuries and to achieve a really good-quality fabric takes a lot of work: the Hausa dye-masters dye the cloth ten times over and then beat it till it acquires a glittering sheen. And the better the quality, the more dye there is in the cloth, and the more of it will come off on the skin, marking the wearer indelibly as Kel Tagelmust. The odd thing is that it does actually protect the skin: it keeps moisture from escaping the body, and the women swear by its cosmetic properties too. So that’s what makes them Blue Men.’

  ‘Or Blue Women.’ I smiled. ‘But Lallawa … forgive me … Lallawa is much darker of skin than any of the rest of your family. She doesn’t bear much resemblance.’

  Even in profile, he looked embarrassed. ‘She’s not exactly … of the family, not originally. She’s iklan.’

  ‘Iklan?’

  ‘A slave.’

  ‘A slave?’ I heard my voice rise an octave.

  Taïb sighed. ‘Lallawa was bought by Habiba’s great-grandfather for cones of salt from traders in the south of Algeria. No one knows exactly where she came from, least of all Lallawa herself: she was no more than a child when she was captured. She was probably a victim of a tribal war in Guinea or the Ivory Coast, taken prisoner along with other members of her tribe by the victors and sold to passing traders. That was during the time when all of our family still lived a desert life, of course, and while Lallawa was young and able. She’s been with the family ever since: iklan are not treated like slaves in the way you think, but like regular members of the tribe. They shared the same encampment, travelled the same hard road, shared the same food; they chose their own husbands and wives and raised their own children; and when they became old and could no longer work, they were looked after just like the elderly of the tribe. And so when Habiba’s father made the decision in the sixties to give up the nomadic life and move to Tiouada, it was quite natural that Lallawa should come with the family. She said she had always wanted her own house, her own animals: it was Habiba’s brothers who built her house for her and set up her smallholding, before they went to work in Casablanca. She was sad to leave it, but Habiba said she was just too ill to be left there alone.’