The Salt Road

by Jane Johnson

  ‘No!’ Mariata started to go after him, but her speed of movement was hampered by her pregnancy, and the scattered rocks bruised the soles of her feet and turned her ankles. ‘Come back!’

  But the camel took off as if pursued by afrits, its great feet flailing, its neck swinging from side to side.

  Mariata shrieked till her throat was raw but to no effect. Soon the camel and the boy were no more than a speck in the distance, though a miasma of dust hung in the air and marked their passage. Mariata sighed with frustration. She felt like an elephant, slow and lumbering, and now they had got away. Furious at herself as much as at the thief, Mariata marched on in their wake. They would have to stop somewhere: there must be a camp. The boy had a look of the harratin, or of an iklan child, avoiding its chores. If the camp was not too far away she would be magnanimous, would not demand restitution for the theft and the inconvenience of walking the extra mile or two. After all, she could afford to be generous, for hospitality surely awaited her: tea, and a good meal. When they knew whose camel it was, when they heard of her prestigious bloodline, they would probably slaughter a goat, or even a sheep, to honour her. In better spirits now, Mariata walked with her head high and a good long stride. Each time a crest of rock scored the horizon she climbed it with the expectation of finding an encampment on the other side, an oasis and fresh water, smiling women and respectful, veiled men. Perhaps they would even be heading south as far as the Hoggar and she could join their entourage.

  Hours passed with these pleasant thoughts rolling through her mind and still there was no sign of the boy and the camel, except for tracts of churned-up ground where stones had been displaced, the sand between them imprinted with the split-toed impression of the beast’s feet. The terrain no longer seemed so hostile: she managed to find a certain bleak beauty in the cratered, rock-strewn landscape and to marvel at the changes the sun falling lower in the sky wrought upon the scene, transforming the ground from a pale and powdery dun to the ochre of a gazelle’s hide and finally to the rich purple-red of blood. By the time the setting sun cast long fingers of shadow between the rocks, she was parched and exhausted – so when she topped out on a rise and saw below her three tents of black hide pegged low to the ground, she almost cried out for joy. She began to run down the slope, letting gravity guide her steps, before realizing that three tents were all there were. Where was the rest of the tribe? Screwing her eyes up against the falling darkness, she made out only a handful of goats rather than the herds that would be necessary to support a proper encampment. A handful of goats, and a solitary camel. Were these people outriders, or outcasts? She slowed, unsure.

  Then dogs began to bark. There were half a dozen of them, rangy mutts whose ribs showed through their coats. Years of miscegenation and poor diet had not improved their tempers, or their welcome to visitors. Mariata drew back, nervous. Her own tribe had hunting dogs: sleek, elegant animals that ran obediently at their masters’ heels; and the Kel Teggart could barely support themselves, let alone a pack of wild dogs. The dogs advanced, running low to the ground. Mariata stood rooted to the spot. Then she bent, picked up a stone and threw it at the nearest dog. It caught the animal on the shoulder and the dog fell back with a yelp. Mariata gathered more missiles and sent another spinning down amongst them. The dogs danced, outraged. Their barking redoubled in noise, but they did not advance.

  At last a man came out of one of the tents. He was tall and thin and as black as night. Iklan, was Mariata’s first, relieved, thought. ‘Call your dogs off!’ she cried imperiously. Where there were slaves there were always masters.

  The man stared at her suspiciously. He called out and the dogs circled back towards him, turning warily as they went, as if expecting her to throw more stones. The noise of the dogs had brought the rest of the tent-dwellers out. No masters here: they were a motley collection, none veiled. These were baggara, wandering beggars: ragged nomads who scraped a living outside society. It did not look as if they were making much of a success of it. Amongst them she recognized the boy she had seen with the pack camel. The man who had brought the dogs to order ducked back into the tent and a few moments later another man came out, followed by a woman cradling a small child. They all looked towards where Mariata stood silhouetted on the rocks. For a moment Mariata’s eyes locked with those of the woman and she experienced a jolt of pure sympathy, almost tangible, as if her soul was a bead running down a string stretched taut between them.

  Then the woman began to shriek, ‘It is a spirit! It is the spirit that took my boy!’ She came rushing out of the enclosure, her face a mask of fury and pain. Mariata saw that the child’s limbs flopped limply with the impact of the woman’s steps and it came to her in a sudden unwelcome rush of understanding that the child was dead and that, appearing out of the wilderness in the fey twilight – just when the Kel Asuf began to walk abroad – the woman had taken her for a djinn.

  The men caught up with the grieving mother before she came close to Mariata. One of them pulled the body of the child from her and stalked back towards the tents and, as if she could not bear to be separated from it, she followed, arms outstretched. The second man stood still, watching Mariata.

  ‘I am not a djinn!’ she called out; but her throat was parched and the words came out in an unearthly rasping whisper that had him reaching for his amulets. She swallowed and licked her lips with a dry tongue and tried again. ‘I am not a djinn,’ she repeated, walking towards him. ‘I am a flesh and blood woman, a woman of the Kel Taitok. Do not be frightened. My camel ran away last night. I have been following it all day. That boy there’ – she pointed beyond him – ‘he took it. Maybe he thought it was a stray, or that its owner was dead; maybe he took it to care for it. Whatever his reason I have come to claim my camel and the pack-goods that were on it, and I would be grateful if you would let me have some water and shelter for the night. Then I will take my camel and be on my way.’

  The man said nothing; then he went down on his haunches. It was an odd gesture and she did not know what to make of it until she saw him stand up again and let fly the first stone. It whizzed harmlessly past her shoulder, clattering against the rocks behind her. The second caught her a glancing blow on the arm, the shock of it rather than the pain making her cry out.

  ‘What are you doing? I have done nothing to you!’

  The man hefted another stone. ‘The camel is ours now: go away.’

  ‘You are thieves!’

  ‘Go away or we will kill you.’

  ‘Have you no honour? Do you have no respect for the code of the desert?’

  ‘The only code in this desert is death.’

  ‘May the spirits curse you if you drive me away!’ Mariata waved the amulet at them. ‘I will call down the evil eye upon you: you will all die.’

  The man’s eyes were dull. ‘We are dying anyway. Go away.’

  The third stone he threw lost its force in the folds of her robe; but he was already gathering more and the dogs were barking, bouncing stiff-legged with pent-up aggression. Mariata turned her back on them and walked away.

  She lay in the lee of some boulders for long hours pondering what to do. The idea of her camel so close at hand and yet so unattainable gnawed at her. She could not simply leave it with the baggara family, but she did not know how she might steal it back. All through the night she thought about it, anger boiling away inside her, concocting and dismissing dozens of foolish schemes. She could have been using the cool darkness to walk on to better fortune, but the knowledge that her pack-goods, water and supplies were just a few hundred yards away held her prisoner. Something in her knew that if she allowed the opportunity to regain the camel to slip away she would die, and deservedly so. The People of the Veil valued cunning, resourcefulness and stealth as highly as their honour; to be so feeble as to allow such low vagrants to get the better of her would be an admission of defeat, a shameful act. Had the Mother of All ever suffered such indignity? She found it hard to believe. What would her esteemed an
cestress have done? ‘Tin Hinan,’ she said softly into the darkness, ‘guide me now with your wisdom and strength.’ She pressed the amulet to her forehead and felt its metal cold against her skin.

  How long she stayed in this attitude she did not know, but after a time she became aware of a small sound in the rocks to her left. She stilled her breathing, suddenly terrified. Had they tracked her down: would they carry out their threat to kill her? Silently, she reached into the fringed leather bag and drew out the little knife and waited.

  The noise was soft, barely audible, like something brushed against the rocks; a tap, a scuffle. It came closer. Mariata readied herself, teeth clenched. She would not go without drawing blood; they would not take her easily.

  When the hare appeared she stared at it, bemused. It stared back at her, frozen in surprise, its ears held rigid, every muscle poised for sudden flight. She caught it before she knew consciously what she was doing, felt its strong back legs kicking out at her as she buried her hands in its fur. It felt so warm and determined, so shockingly vital and alive, that she almost relented and let it go, but some more primal instinct prevailed. A few moments later she looked down to find it lying limp, its blood black against her hands.

  It was a large animal, sturdily built and well muscled. Examining its body by the pale moonlight, Mariata found herself blinking back tears at its beauty: the cool silk of its coat, the long limbs and huge ears. Then she mastered herself and did what she had to do.

  *

  Mariata watched the sun come up from the back of the camel many miles from the nomad camp. The beast was sweating, despite the chill of the dawn, and so was she. But elation banished exhaustion. She had risked everything and she had triumphed. She shuddered, remembering how the dogs had torn into the pieces of the dismembered hare that she had flung far and wide, how their jaws had crunched down on its fragile bones; how a fight had broken out between them for the last and best morsel, the head, and how the men had had to come out of the tents and beat them with sticks to make them stop their noise. In the midst of all this she had slipped into the enclosure and been surprised to find the camel clumsily hobbled and the pack-goods stacked haphazardly to one side, along with the saddle and the blanket. Only the sack of flour and the old bread were missing, she saw, amazed at her own good fortune. The rice sack stood to one side, a little of its contents spilling out into the sand, the tiny white grains rendered pearly and luminescent by the moon’s light. Mariata stoppered the hole in the sack with some of the fodder straw, checked that the waterskins were full and slung them over her back.

  The camel regarded her sulkily and, when she came near, threw its head up and rolled its eyes. I have walked far enough, those eyes told her, quite clearly: do not think to make me walk more. Mariata knew camels to be obdurate beasts; but she also knew a firm hand and a determined attitude would usually prevail. She marched up to it and, remembering how Rahma had bound the muzzle of the camels they had ridden across the Tamesna when the soldiers had come to the oasis, used her veil to gag it before it had a chance to bellow its dismay. This took the beast so much by surprise that Mariata was able to sling her pack-goods aboard, and then haul herself up with them. The camel swung its head to regard her with an aggrieved look and Mariata glared back at it grimly, then wrenched it to its feet by sheer force of will and urged it into a lumbering gallop.

  Now she laughed aloud and patted her belly. ‘You are the son of Tuaregs, and do not ever forget it! What an adventurer you will be, inheriting the best of your mother and your father. No ragged baggara shall trick you or steal from you, for between the goodwill of the spirits and the power of your own resources you shall always triumph!’

  She tapped the camel peremptorily upon its poll. Grumbling, it folded its knees and let her down and in the rosy light of the desert dawn she undid the knotted veil and carefully hobbled the animal so that it could not escape again; and then they feasted and refreshed themselves before seeking a well-earned rest in the shade of the spreading branches of a solitary acacia.

  30

  Mariata’s fierce optimism did not last. For days, her instinct had been urging her to move eastwards, but she ignored it because not to keep moving south seemed plainly wrong; and so it was that when she passed between the oases at Ougarta and Aguedal she did not even realize it, for by seeking the shadow of the Jebel el-Kabla she took a col that led only into yet another long arm of the bone-dry Hamada du Guir by mistake. The terrain through which she travelled alternated between crumbling towers of red rock and areas in which a strange dark patina lay plastered against the ground, a brittle glaze that shone dully in the sun and cracked beneath the pressure of the camel’s wide pads. Not a plant grew here, not even the hardiest cactus or euphorbia, and the camel bellowed his displeasure whenever they stopped, twisting his head tortuously to try to steal the ever-diminishing bundle of fodder strapped to his back. He was starving, she knew: the usually solid hump was collapsed and soft, its fat reserves almost gone.

  ‘No, Acacia!’ she told him fiercely. She had not meant to form a bond with the camel – he was a pack animal, as functional as her own feet – but, after being all day and night in his company and sharing his trials, she had been ambushed by an unexpected affection for the smelly, bad-tempered, recalcitrant beast. The name had offered itself easily: the animal shared the tree’s spiky hardiness. If one of those tough and thorny trees were able to express itself, she was sure that it would roar and grumble and gargle and spit in just the same way as its namesake. ‘If you eat it all now there will be nothing left and then you will regret your greed. Be strong and patient and bear your troubles without complaint and you will be rewarded.’

  Strength and patience and obduracy: these were the values her people most valued. No man ever complained about the hardships he had faced in the desert; his pride would not let him, for to complain rendered him less than a man. Instead, they vied with one another to recount the worst trials they had faced: the sand beetles they had cracked with their teeth and chewed to a bitter paste; the vipers they had eaten raw; the urine drunk at the worst of times. She remembered the near-legendary tale of the trader separated from his caravan on his way to Sijilmassa, who had wandered without food and was down to his last mouthful of water when a caravan of merchants from a rival tribe had happened upon him. As is the way of the desert, they had offered him their hospitality: some dried camel meat and water from their gerbers; but he had merely smiled and patted his pack and told them he had all he needed and offered to prepare tea for all of them instead. The situation was quite clear to both sides; but no one would shame the lone traveller by calling his bluff, and so the merchants had gone their way and the trader had died a day later. His story lived on, five hundred years later. And is that not a better legacy, the men of the Kel Ahaggar said, to die nobly and with your pride intact than to have survived by taking sustenance from your enemy?

  Mariata was not sure her own resolve would hold quite as firm: even if Rhossi ag Bahedi himself were to suddenly appear bearing fragrant lamb and apricots, she would probably fall upon the food and devour every last morsel before remembering that she had such a luxurious thing as pride, so she could hardly blame the camel for his attempted thievery. She felt the saliva glands in the corners of her jaw twitch and clench, but she was so dry her mouth could not even water. She had not taken a drink since the sun went down. One waterskin hung slack and useless, slowly baking to a crisp; what was left in the other furry black gerber tasted warm and brackish, as if the liquid in the goatskin had transmuted back to blood. And as if it too were complaining at the lack of nutrition, the baby kicked out hard, once, twice. She placed her hand over her belly, fingers spread. ‘Quiet in there, little man. Kicking your mama won’t make it any better.’

  By the thirteenth day all the fodder was gone and there was so little water to spare that she had enough only with which to wet Acacia’s nostrils, and when she did so the ungrateful beast did his best to bite her. He nosed at her sandals,
but these were too precious to be eaten, so she let him eat the reed mat that she slept on, and he chewed slowly and with painful effort, grinding the mat to a dry cud with a determined back and forth sawing of his long jaw. For herself, she tried to eat the rice uncooked and all but cracked her teeth, and even grinding it between stones just reduced it to a flour-like powder that coated the inside of the mouth and was impossible to swallow without water to mix it with. Now she realized why Atisi had brought two female camels with him: their milk would have sustained them in such hard circumstances, and she remembered poor Moushi lying dead by the roadside and cursed her luck that the only mount left to her was male. She had heard of traders reduced to tapping the blood from their camel’s neck; but when she approached Acacia with the little knife from Tana’s bag he peeled his lips from his long yellow teeth and pronounced he would bite her arm off if she came a step closer; or at least that was what she imputed to his bellow of rage, and so she persuaded herself that things were not yet so desperate.

  Even so, when they stopped on the thirteenth day, she tipped the bag upside down for the hundredth time and interrogated its contents in the vain hope that she had missed something useful. She pushed the objects around in a desultory manner as the camel chewed the handful of fodder, seeing nothing new. Just as she was about to scoop the items back into the bag, a small, striped pebble caught her eye. It was a bluish-green with a single white horizontal band running around its centre: quite different to the ambient red and dun. Mariata picked it up. It sat smooth and tiny in her hand, as smooth and tiny as a songbird’s egg. She brushed grains of sand from its surface and then, without a single conscious thought, placed the pebble under her tongue, where it fitted with perfect comfort. Within moments saliva had flooded her mouth, trickling over her teeth, and she swallowed gratefully. She kept sucking at the pebble and moving it around with her tongue and found for the rest of the day that it kept her mouth moistened and took the edge off her thirst; but it was the smallest of aids and at best a temporary measure.