The Salt Road

by Jane Johnson

  That night as the men slept she stole past them and grabbed up one of the tassoufras, delved into it and discovered a skin of dates. They tasted impossibly sweet, and the corners of her jaws sent shooting pangs through her bones at the first bite. She could not help herself: she ate them all, gathering the sticky stones up in her skirt to hide amongst the roots of the palms. She considered, briefly, stealing one of the camels, but her brothers were expert trackers and would soon find her, and no matter what sympathy they might have for her plight, they were duty-bound to carry out the job the butcher was paying them for. Nor would they shame their father by going against his word. Besides, this reminder of her suitor’s bull-like features and his overbearing temperament steeled her resolve: she would let them go where they would without her. Close to death she might be, but it was still better than being close to the butcher.

  The next morning the light seeped slowly over the horizon, a dull grey-blue to start with, followed by a burnt-orange glow that gradually lightened and spread itself like a flood into the night sky, so that the stars were put out one by one. Azaz was the first to rise. He uncoiled himself from his blanket and went straight to the foodsacks. He lifted the tassoufra that had contained the dates and weighed it contemplatively. Baye came to stand at his shoulder. He bent down and examined the gritty sand, then looked back up at his older brother. Azaz nodded once, then put a finger to his lips. They both glanced around to where Mbarek lay snoring. Then Azaz scuffed the sand as if erasing something. He picked up one of the other tassoufras, walked into the shade of the nearest palms and hung it up out of sight, looking around all the while as he did so. Then he walked to where the camels sat couched and unhobbled the smallest of them. ‘When he wakes tell him one of the camels wandered off in the night,’ he told his brother quietly, ‘and that I have gone to look for it and when I find it I will catch you up. Break camp quickly and head back on the same path on which we arrived. Wait for me in the hills by the oued with the blue stones in its bed; I will be there by noon.’ He pulled the camel’s head around by its lip, threw a leg over and urged it to its feet. ‘If I am not, do not wait for me.’ Moments later both man and camel had vanished from sight.

  Baye scratched his head, then went to brew tea.

  The butcher grumbled mightily about having to turn back, and one camel light at that, but an hour later he and Baye were gone, and Mariata was left alone at the oasis. But she was not alone for long. A lone figure on a camel came slowly into view.

  ‘Mariata!’ he called.

  She did not answer; nor did she show herself.

  Azaz rode right up to the water’s edge and allowed the camel to drink. He filled his own waterskin and took a mighty swig from it. ‘I know you are there,’ he said softly. ‘Your footprints were by our stores this morning and the dates were gone – unless a monkey has stolen my sister’s red leather sandals with the carved instep …’

  Mariata stood up and walked out into the sunlight. ‘I will not go back with you, so do not try to make me.’ Her voice, which had once been so mellifluous that grown men had wept when she sang, sounded now as harsh as a crow’s.

  Azaz regarded the ragged figure before him. ‘The desert has not been kind to you, sister.’

  ‘It is kinder to me than a butcher might be.’

  ‘What about the baby?’

  It was the first time either of her brothers had acknowledged her condition: back in Imteghren they had averted their eyes and said not a word on the matter.

  Mariata put her hands over her belly, and, as if on cue, the baby kicked not once but twice. She smiled and looked down, and was at once struck by how thin her wrists were, how the bones showed through the tops of her hands. She knew that beneath her robe her ribs and pelvis would be equally prominent. What would Amastan say if he saw her now, he who had peeled away her clothing under the indulgent eye of the moon and run his hands over her sleek, opulent curves? The desert was paring her away, layer by layer, like a healer peeling a wolf onion. Soon she would be down to the thin green quick. ‘We are both fine,’ she said.

  ‘And where will you go?’

  ‘Home. Home to have my child in the lands of the Kel Ahaggar.’

  ‘It is a long way to the Hoggar, sister, and you are alone. Perhaps two would stand more chance than one?’

  ‘We are already two,’ she smiled at him, touched by this oblique offer. ‘Go back to the others and say nothing about me.’

  Azaz caught the camel’s halter and held it out. ‘For you. And there is food, up there in the palm. Our father would wish it, if he were here. No one should force a woman of the Veil to marry against her will.’

  Mariata’s eyes filled with tears. She bowed her head so that he would not see her cry. ‘Won’t you be punished for the loss of the camel?’

  She heard the smile in his voice. ‘It is a small price to pay. Just east of here there is a road. Do not go on to that road: there are military vehicles patrolling on their way to Timimoun and Tindouf. Try to keep its position clear in mind as you go. Cross the road at night on to the Tidikelt Plain, where you will see the three-horned hill; then keep moving east for three days. When the wind begins to pick up as the sun goes down, set your face into it and keep walking. The Guide will appear over your left shoulder and keep travelling around in front of you. In the hours when he has disappeared beneath the earth’s rim, keep the North Star at your back and the Daughters in front of you. There are waterholes along the way, but they are few and far between. The land rises steadily: follow the contours and they will take you to Abalessa. The camel is called Takama. She is generally sweet-natured, but can be headstrong. She should suit you well.’

  Takama was the name of the servant who had walked out into the desert with their ancestress. Mariata looked up, surprised by both the grim irony of this and by the gift of her brother’s sudden invention, and tears spilt down her cheeks. ‘Tin Hinan should be proud of the men of her line.’ She took the halter as if it tethered her to life itself; the plaited rope felt at once massive and fine against her skin.

  ‘And of the women too.’

  They touched hands; then Azaz turned and walked away, his back very straight, his arms swinging freely. Moments later he was gone, a diminishing figure running swiftly across the sands.

  31

  We stayed in the camp for three days while a sandstorm whistled around us, making it impossible to move anywhere else. Bizarre to relate, they were amongst the best days I had ever spent. Taïb and I were left in one another’s company, a situation I would have found claustrophobic and intrusive at any other time in my life; but the weight of fear and reserve that had been pressing down on me all my adult life seemed to have been lifted. And perhaps the semi-darkness of the tent helped: it provided the perfect venue for confession and discovery. We lay there on our backs, staring up into the gloom, asking one another the sort of questions you wanted to ask someone you knew was going to play an important part in your life, a sublime mixture of the profound and the absurd. I asked Taïb why he had never married, how many times he had been in love and what had gone wrong; whether he believed in an afterlife, if he had ever wanted children; what he had learnt from the mistakes he had made in his life; the music he liked; his favourite meal; the best memories he had; the funniest joke he could remember. We lay there close but not touching and laughed and murmured and dozed. At last, he asked me about my life in London and about my childhood, and I told him about my tent in the garden and the war-games my friends and I had played, and how we had run about half naked, hitting one another with sticks.

  ‘What a wild little thing you were,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘I was,’ I said softly. ‘It was a long time ago.’

  ‘But wild calls to wild, Izzy. I can see it in your eyes when you look at the desert: the wild part of you still loves wild places. Isn’t that why you climb; isn’t that why you came to Morocco?’

  I had never thought about it quite like that; but he was right, in his way. �
��It was the box that brought me here.’

  ‘The box?’

  I explained about my father’s legacy to me: the box in the attic and what it had contained when Eve and I had opened it up. Then I sat bolt upright. ‘Eve!’

  He turned towards me, his eyes wide. ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘Eve: she’ll be worried sick. She’ll have the entire Moroccan police force looking for me!’ I burrowed in my bag for my mobile phone, found it and pressed buttons frantically. ‘Shit!’ The battery was dead. I hurled it furiously across the tent, all self-control lost, and it hit the canvas wall with a most unsatisfying soft thump.

  Without a word, Taïb dug in a pocket, then handed me his phone. Amazingly, even here, in the greatest wilderness on earth, there was a signal, though it was weak. It took me three attempts to compose Eve’s number, and then it rang and rang. At last a distant voice said, ‘Who is this?’

  ‘It’s me, Eve: Izzy.’

  ‘Iz! Where the hell are you?’

  At the time it had amazed me that our captors had not confiscated our mobiles, but it was at this point that I realized there really wasn’t any point in their doing so. What could I say? ‘Good question. I haven’t the faintest idea. In the middle of the Sahara somewhere.’

  Her cry of surprise was audible even to Taïb. I held the phone away from my ear till she calmed down, then told her as quickly and simply as I could what had happened to us.

  ‘Kidnapped? Jesus, Izzy. What shall I do, shall I call the embassy?’

  I was struggling for an answer to this when a man ducked inside the tent and, seeing me speaking on the phone, snatched it out of my hand and broke the connection. He barked something at me in his aggressive-sounding language but all I caught was the veck moi; however, the gesture he made with the gun was unmistakable. I turned helplessly to Taïb. ‘Go with him,’ was all he said and the look in his eyes was enough to warm me to the pit of my stomach.

  Outside, the storm seemed to have abated. The air was still grey-yellow with a suspension of sand, and banks of it had drifted up against the sides of the tents like snow, but, even though it was gritty in my mouth, I found it was possible to breathe. I followed the guard to the largest tent, which was black and low-slung, and had to duck almost double to enter. Inside, the leader of the trabandistes lounged full length on a reed mat, propped up on one elbow. If it were not for the sparseness of his surroundings, he would have resembled some ancient emperor or war-chief, for such was his demeanour. He had changed from the dusty fatigues he had worn on the day he had taken us captive into a long dark robe and a pair of loose cotton trousers with an intricate white design embroidered down the side; his brown feet were bare, showing long bony toes and the wide, tough soles of a child that had rarely worn shoes; and his head remained swathed in his tribal veil so that only his dark, glittering eyes showed. On the floor in front of him a small round table bore a pair of steaming glasses, a dented blue tin teapot, a pile of flatbreads and a bowl of oil. He gestured for me to sit, and I crumpled gracelessly to my knees.

  ‘So, it seems the British are saying you are a French citizen, and the French say you are British.’ He seemed highly amused by this. With his free hand, he pushed one of the glasses of tea towards me, and it was only then that I realized that in his other hand he held, of all things, a state-of-the-art satellite phone. ‘It seems no one wishes to claim you, Isabelle Treslove-Fawcett.’ So saying, he tossed my passport back to me, a gesture of utmost contempt, as if to say, see how much good that does you here.

  I tucked it away in a pocket, though I could hardly think of an object less useful in this desolate place. Not knowing what to say, I picked up the tea glass and concentrated my attention on it, but the liquid was so sweet and strong I almost recoiled.

  ‘No matter. It is all part of the game. I advance my piece, they parry with some time-wasting move while they try to work out where we are and what to do next … it is an old pattern. They pretend disinterest, but you can be sure they are scurrying about in some panic, hoping that we do not decide to speak to the media.’

  He pushed the basket of bread towards me and did not speak again until we had both eaten for several minutes. I was fascinated to see how he passed the bread up under his veil and turned his head aside from me as he ate, as if there was something too intimate in the act for me to witness.

  The satellite phone pealed suddenly into life and he pressed a button and listened intently, then growled something fast in response, finished the call and sprang to his feet, shouting to his guards. Suddenly, where all had been peace and order there was noise and urgent movement. In a great and organized whirlwind of activity, men took down the tents and stowed them on the roof-racks of the vehicles. I was bundled into the Touareg with such force that I did not have a chance to see where Taïb might be, and suddenly we were bumping across the rutted desert tracks at speed, and all in different directions.

  Fiercely shepherding the car over the vicious terrain with one hand on the wheel, the trabandiste shouted orders into his phone. A great cloud of dust engulfed us as we fishtailed through soft sand, then we were out the other side and banging across a gravel-strewn plain, loose stones clanging and thudding against the floor and body of the vehicle as if we were being strafed by small-arms fire. Taïb’s poor car, I found my Western brain thinking: its once sheeny black paintwork would be utterly ruined by such treatment. For a small, mean moment I was glad it wasn’t mine. This thought was interrupted by a high-pitched roar overhead: a military jet with a pale belly and camouflaged wings arced swiftly away from us and in an eyeblink vanished into the distance.

  The trabandiste grinned with grim delight, the fan of wrinkles beside his eyes deepening to crevasses. ‘Ha! They think we are worried by their spycraft? While we have you with us, no one will dare to attack us. Imagine what bad publicity it would make for them!’

  He paused as if to allow me to assimilate the fact that he, a rough desert man, should understand the concept of publicity, then threw the car into four-wheel drive. He took it crawling up a steep dried riverbed, topped out and gunned it off on to a harder track bordered by feathery tamarisk trees.

  ‘Of course, if anything were to happen to you they would simply blame us. “Brutally murdered by her terrorist captors”, that’s what they’d say. But we have our own sympathizers amongst the world’s media.’ He flicked a sly glance at me. ‘Do you know any journalists, Isabelle?’

  I stared at him. ‘Me? No.’

  ‘No one at the London Times, or the BBC? No one at Le Monde?’ he persisted.

  I made a helpless gesture. ‘I move in different circles.’

  ‘It’s of no consequence. You can post something yourself on the BBC website: we can upload photos of you at the next camp.’

  He sounded so sure of himself it made me obstinate ‘You’ve kidnapped my friend and me, you’ve stolen his car, you’re driving us God knows where – why on earth should I help you?’

  ‘When you see what I am going to show you, you will want to do whatever you can to help our cause.’ For him it was simply a statement of fact; I shook my head and stared out of the window at the jolting scenery, trying not to laugh, all my outrage seeming to have fled away. As the desert swallowed us, I found I hardly cared any more about where I was being taken or what was going to happen to me. It was out of my hands; it was not my fault. I did not feel threatened or even upset any more; forces more powerful than I was had me in their grip, and I just accepted it. Surrendering myself to any eventuality, I felt a sensation of calm I had never before experienced in my life creep over me. How very odd: was the insh’allah attitude catching? If it was, I seemed to have got a good dose of it. Taïb’s grandmother would be furious with me. Taïb: even the least thought of him made me smile inside. Now, why was that?

  After a time we found ourselves on a flat, sandy plain dotted sparsely with round black stones and the occasional solitary tree that spread its branches wide. The trabandiste drew the car to a halt und
er one of these and we got out into stifling heat. The two guards in the back went off to relieve themselves, and I followed their example, picking a good-sized acacia tree at a discreet distance from the car. When I came back, the leader of the group had picked up one of the stones. He tossed it to me nonchalantly, as if playing ball with a child, and I caught it and almost at once dropped it, for it was much heavier than I had been expecting. I turned it over and examined its rusty, pitted surface.

  ‘It’s a meteorite, but my people call them thunderstones,’ he told me. ‘They are considered very lucky.’

  ‘Not so lucky if you’re hit by one,’ I said sourly, and he burst out laughing.

  ‘Ha, Isabelle Treslove-Fawcett, you have a properly Tuareg attitude! Even in the worst of circumstances you can still show humour.’

  Tuareg. Why hadn’t it occurred to me? I don’t know what I had been thinking all this time; I had thought he maintained the veil as a disguise, rather than for cultural reasons, that he was simply a criminal who wished to hide his identity. I regarded him with renewed interest, although a chill began to spread through me. When Taïb had mentioned his Tuareg ancestry, I had been charmed by the exoticism of it all, but now my mother’s bloody history lessons came flooding back. A French column under the command of Colonel Flatters, making an expedition into the Algerian Hoggar in 1881 to map out the route of a possible Trans-Saharan railway, had been brutally slaughtered, lured by the Tuaregs into an ambush in the hills, and between the tribesmen and the desert wiped out to a man. Four hundred camel-mounted Tuaregs had launched a reckless charge against the later, better-prepared Lamy-Foureau Expedition and were cut down by grapeshot till not a single camel or warrior was left standing. As a child I had always pictured them to be like the Cherokee or the Sioux, bravely battling against the impossible odds of modernity and ‘progress’; and, as I had always sided with the Red Indians against the cowboys in the films, so I had inwardly cheered the Tuaregs on against the stiff-necked French, intent on netting down and taming the wild world much as Mother was intent on doing to me. But in hindsight I had to admit there had always been a more sinister side to these desert warriors: a cool ruthlessness that cared for nothing but their own concept of honour and freedom. And now I was caught up in that age-old conflict of the ancient world against the new, a pawn caught neatly in the middle. The insh’allah feeling I’d had an hour or so before soon began to ebb away.