The Salt Road

by Jane Johnson

  As they walked now, she kept an eye on the weather, for clouds had been building these past days and she knew that the rainy season was almost upon them. ‘More people die from drowning in the desert than from thirst,’ Amastan had once told her, and she had laughed at him and called him a fool for expecting her to believe such nonsense. ‘You’ll see,’ was all he would say. The next day he had gone across the camp and fetched old Azelouane, who had confirmed the unlikely tale to her. ‘When the rain falls in the desert, it comes with thunder and downpour,’ he said. ‘It falls too hard and too fast for the sand to absorb it, and so it gathers in the oueds and becomes a torrent. When the clouds loom, we make for higher ground.’

  She still had not quite believed him, and thought Amastan had persuaded the old cameleer to spin her this yarn; but even so the words came back to her now and as the day darkened she led Takama up on to the slopes of the rocky valley. The going here was harder and slower as they picked their way through rocks and between boulders; but she soon found that Takama had a knack for finding the best path, and at last got up on to the camel and rested her weary bones. They had walked side by side for the last weeks – she was simply too cumbersome to haul herself upon it – and now Mariata was glad that she had been sparing of the beast, for Takama moved with a care and intelligence that reassured her that the camel was in good fettle. Her intuition was good: towards dawn the first drops came pattering down, staining the dusty rocks with their black splashes, and soon they had to take cover as the water fell in sheets. From her vantage point on the hillside Mariata watched in amazement as a wall of water came tumbling down the oued: a great, churning bore of brown water, sand and soil suspended in a thick veil inside its ruthless cascade. If they had been walking down there, both she and Takama would have been swept away in an instant. Soon she was shuddering from top to toe; but whether it was because of the drop in temperature or the shock of imagining what might have happened had they kept to the oued, she did not know.

  The coming of the rains was a catalyst for an intense burgeoning of life: plants sprang up in every nook and crevice, pushing their heads out into the world, only for Takama to greedily nip them off. Surrounded by this sudden abundance and vigour, all of Mariata’s energy seemed to be absorbed by the growing child, for her belly swelled like rising dough, though it seemed quite impossible it could grow any more. Exactly when had it been planted inside her, this giant child, she asked herself, and could not muster the energy to count back through the weeks and months to Amastan’s death and beyond. Exhausted, she slumped in the saddle, gripping its carved wooden fork with both hands, swaying with the movement of the camel. Suddenly, she had never felt so tired in her life.

  Then one day as they walked on she felt a gush of wetness beneath her robes. For a moment she thought it was urine, even though she had hardly been producing any these past weeks; then a pain spasmed through her abdomen that made her bend double, gasping. A minute later it eased, but it was not long before another seized her; then another and another.

  In the hills of the Adrar n’Ahnet, Mariata had her child. She was very matter-of-fact about the birth, willing herself not to panic. What was the point? There was no one who could help her. She stripped herself and chanted the words that would keep the djenoun away from her vulnerable places. In a sandy hollow between crumbling red rocks, alone but for her patient camel, naked to the single, boiling eye of the sun, Mariata squatted and pushed and prayed and sweated, and as the moon rose over Mount Tinnîret, the baby at last came slithering into the world while the jackals called to one another in the night.

  Shaking with weariness, Mariata knotted and cut the cord as she had seen women do in her own tribe. The cord was as long and thick as a snake: she hung it over a bush to dry. The afterbirth she buried to stop the scent reaching the jackals, all except for a small piece that she ate so that a part of the baby would always be in her and she could fight the Kel Asuf for its soul.

  The baby was strong but quiet. It lay on the sand, squirming as if it wanted to be up and walking there and then. Mariata brushed her hand over its tiny, swollen face and squeezed-shut eyelids, its mass of black hair, already drying in the cool night breeze. She cleaned it with sand and placed it on the soft leather bag that the enad had made for her. The knife, she thrust into the ground beside it to keep the spirits away. Until it was protected by the ritual on its naming day, six days hence, it would be at great risk from the djenoun. Next she cleaned herself as best she could and kicked fresh sand over the place of the birth. And then she dressed herself in her ragged robe, lay down and curled herself around the new life that she and Amastan had made.

  The baby fed quickly and easily and never once complained, getting on with the task of living as if it knew the dire circumstances they faced and had no wish to draw the attention of the evil eye. Over the next couple of days Mariata rested and regained her strength. She could not stop looking at the child. She cooed over it and sang to it, every song she could remember from her childhood in the Hoggar, even the sad ones; even the war songs. When the baby opened its eyes they were as dark as shadows, and for a moment Mariata was afraid, but whether she was afraid of the child or for it, she did not know.

  On the third day, when Mariata stirred in the afternoon heat to fetch some water from the gerber that hung from the bush where the afterbirth was curing, she disturbed something that shattered white and translucent into a hundred different pieces, exploding out into the light of the blue sky. She stared at them for a few seconds before realizing they were butterflies, tiny and fragile, their pale wings made translucent by the sun, and then she smiled to herself. ‘If you can survive in this place, so can we,’ she whispered.

  On the evening of the sixth day Mariata got up and walked solemnly three times around the baby and the camel, the nearest thing she had to a tent. There was no ram, and no member of the inadan to sacrifice it for a feast, so Mariata begged Takama for just a little blood from her neck. She was careful not to make too deep an incision. She gave the baby a taste of it from her finger, but it twisted its face away, hands batting the air at the salty scent of it. Mariata sighed and persisted until it took a little to keep the Kel Asuf out of its mouth. Then with a fine twig she drew the patterns of goose feet at the corners of its eyes and across its forehead so that its eyes and its mind would be strong. When the blood was dry there, she turned it over and marked patterns down its back and legs, for strength and protection. She wrote its name over its liver and proclaimed it six times to the world, so that all would know it for itself, its parentage and tribe, as part of the matriline of Tin Hinan. Then she took off her amulet, removed the scroll inside and painstakingly, with her tongue clamped between her teeth for steadiness, wrote in tiny letters the name of the new life beside the names of the two who had made it.

  Then she took down the cured umbilical cord and with great concentration beat it flat upon the rocks and cut it into three thin strings, which she then braided so finely that Tana herself would have praised her handiwork. She removed the pretty beaded string that had held the amulet till now, reknotted that and placed it back around her neck; then she rethreaded the amulet upon the braided thong, and wound it around the baby and put them together into the bag. It was now the most powerful amulet that could be made, and if that couldn’t keep her baby safe, nothing could.

  On the seventh day she unhobbled the camel and led it down the long, dry watercourse that ran down to the plain. In a valley at its base they came upon the well of Azib Amelloul and some nomads who called out, ‘Isalan? What news?’ and praised the beauty of her child. They were kind, simple people, but although they were as poor as mice they insisted on killing one of their goats for her. For two days Takama shared the good pasture with their animals, and Mariata was treated like visiting royalty. The women spoke a different dialect of Tamacheq to the one Mariata was used to: their intonation was harsh and nasal, the vowels drawn out at great length. They were curious as to why she was alone and where she
was going.

  ‘I came out into the desert to have my child,’ she told them, and they nodded approvingly: it was the old way.

  They asked her to stay with them – a newborn always brought good luck – but they were travelling north to the Adrar Tissellîlîne. ‘It is not good for a woman to be travelling on her own,’ they told her. ‘There are many bandits and soldiers about, travelling between Tamanrassett and In Salah. If you must continue alone, be sure to avoid the road. They do not follow our code: they have no respect for women.’

  Mariata thanked them, but the next day they parted company. She watched them until the last goat was no more than a speck in the distance, then she slung the baby across her back and took Takama’s halter to load her up. The nomads had cleaned and mended her robe as well as could be done, replacing the ragged edges with a bright new border. They had given her a clean, fresh swaddling cloth for the infant, a new veil and a pair of old shoes that almost fitted her. They had given her millet and dates and goat’s milk and cheese. At each gift, tears had sprung to her eyes: people – and strangers at that – were so kind. She kept trying to refuse, knowing how little they could spare these things, but they acted as if she gave offence by her refusal, and so she came away feeling as rich as a princess.

  Mounted up on Takama, she travelled south and east for two days until the mountains of the Hoggar loomed on the horizon, their spiky, volcanic peaks unmistakable against the setting sun. Mariata laughed out loud. She had done it! She had come home, against all the odds. She took the baby in her arms and turned its face to the hills. ‘There lies your homeland, my little lamb, my sweet figlet, my love.’ As they went, she told it the legends of the Ahaggar: of the Sanoussi revolt, when the Kel Taitok rose up against the foreign invaders; of the legendary beauty and poet Dassine, courted by nobles far and wide, who imperiously turned down the suit of the most powerful chieftain of them all, because she said he was ugly; of the massacre at Tit; of the cunning of raiders and the courage of warriors. She told it of the paintings of Touhogine and Mertoutek, where elegant gazelles danced across the rocks, and of the Mountain of Spirits, the Garet el-Djenoun.

  ‘Soon we will be amongst our own people and you will be fêted and adored by all the women as the only baby who has traversed the Great Desert.’

  But by the end of the following day the massif seemed no closer. They crossed the Oued Tirahart and took on water at the well of Anou in Arabit, and there marvelled at all the prints in the ground that surrounded it: not just goats and sheep and camels but also donkeys and mules. ‘If there are donkeys here, we are almost home,’ she reassured herself by way of the child. Takama gave a great gurgling bellow and shook her neck out, tilting her chin skywards as if in assent.

  They crossed the streams that ran below the isolated peak of Ti-n-Adjar. Beyond lay Abalessa and the valley of Outoul; above lay the hills of her people. The land rose steadily, giving rise to strange and magnificent rock formations that changed colour dramatically through the course of the day, going from a pale, sandy ochre at the height of noon to a glowing umber and then a flaming scarlet as the sun dipped behind her. Mariata touched them with wonder, her heart filled with joy. They seemed full of energy, these rocks; and so did she.

  As dawn came the next day it brought with it a lowering cloud billowing in from the south, and Mariata groaned. There was precious little cover here, little that would protect them from a major sandstorm. Best to press on. She got Takama down on her knees and made the baby safe aboard before hooking a leg over and climbing up the camel’s neck and into the saddle. Despite the approaching storm she laughed: it was good to be nimble again after feeling like a pregnant ewe these past weeks. They made some progress but soon the leading edge of the storm was upon them, lashing them with sand so that even swathed in a veil Mariata felt the grit between her teeth. Harder it came, and thicker. At last it was clear there was no advantage in going on: they had to find shelter and take cover until the storm passed. Through the stinging waves, Mariata made out a hillock with what looked to be a cave in its side. She urged Takama towards it and tapped her on the head till she couched. Then she crawled up the crumbling side of the hill. It was a cave: thanks be! She placed the baby inside the opening, then went back down to hobble the camel, the sand stinging her face and hands. But Takama had already seated herself with her hindquarters determinedly set against the storm.

  Inside the cave, Mariata hugged her baby close and lifted a milk-heavy breast towards its small, seeking mouth. They had had such luck thus far it was as if Tin Hinan herself kept watch over them. Outside, the storm howled and shrieked like a thousand hungry djenoun, but inside they were safe and well. Mariata lit one of the candles from Tana’s bag. She melted the end of the second candle with the flame of the first and stood it on a stone. Then she did the same with the other. The twin candles lit the cave, only to reveal it as something else entirely, and not any natural formation. Mariata stared around, amazed. She was in a chamber of stone, stone shaped unmistakably by human hands. A chill crept over her. She was in a tomb, or the entrance to a tomb, for there seemed to be what looked like doorways leading off from the antechamber where she crouched. As soon as the realization struck her, she wanted nothing more than to be out of it, even if it meant running out into the teeth of the storm. It was the child that kept her there: it gave a small, inarticulate cry and reached its hands up, grasping at the air as if at something unseen. Mariata immediately became convinced that a djenoun had entered the tomb, or more likely had been lying in wait there for unwary travellers. ‘Keep off! Stay away!’ she yelled; but her voice was lost in the howling of the storm. At last she burned the remains of the herbs Tana had given her, and, mixing their ashes with drops of blood from one finger, she made a paste and used it to inscribe a charm: first on the wall of the chamber; then in the amulet, so that each line of names took in a symbol from each of the other three lines, a complex, dense weaving. Satisfied, she replaced the parchment in the amulet’s compartment and placed the necklace on the infant’s chest. ‘This amulet will surely protect you against the worst of the worst,’ she promised. And then she cried, because no charm in the world had been able to save her Amastan.

  The next morning there was a lull in the storm, though the sky remained a louring, heavy yellow, hanging low over the Hoggar, obscuring its famous peaks. There would be a reprise soon, she was sure: there was no time to be wasted. But the baby was uncharacteristically obstructive and uncooperative today. It twisted in her hands like a mountain hare and would not take milk. At last, Mariata lost patience. ‘Well, if you won’t eat, you will go hungry!’ She swaddled it fiercely in the cloth so that it could not kick any more. Then she went out to see to the camel.

  But of Takama there was no sign. Mariata shouted and interrogated the landscape, but to no avail. There were not even tracks in the sand: everything had been scoured clean by the passage of the storm. She sighed. So be it: she had walked further distances than that which remained; it was no great way and no doubt she would find Takama as she went. But her heart was heavy: the two of them had shared so much that to lose the camel now was painful.

  She picked up the baby and the enad’s bag, took off her veil and was about to make the sling in which she would place the child as she walked when she heard the sound of someone approaching. She whirled around to see three men on camels leading a fourth animal. It was Takama! She was about to run down the mound towards them before remembering herself. They were Kel Tamacheq: they wore the veil. It would not do to go running at them like a mad beggar woman. And no ordinary Tuaregs either, for they rode on big white mehari and carried guns, as well as their traditional takoubas, strapped to the sides of their camels. What a fine sight they made, coming out of the sun towards her. So she sat there on the edge of the grave mound, watching and waiting.

  The leader rode forward and sat looking up at this woman whose face shone with light in the bright air, at this mother with a baby in her arms. He looked at her for a long
, long time. Then he said, ‘One miserable Mauretanian is hardly a recompense for the two meharis you stole from me, but I will take it as down-payment on your debt. And I know very well how you can make up the rest.’

  Mariata felt as though someone had slipped an icy knife into her gut. Then her heart began to beat painfully and arrhythmically. She could not breathe, let alone speak.

  The three riders dismounted and came towards her. The tallest of them stared with distaste at the swaddled baby. ‘You can put that grub down into the dirt where it belongs,’ said Rhossi ag Bahedi. ‘You won’t be needing it any more.’

  She fought: she wailed; she bit and scratched – but they were too strong for her. They dragged her out of the tomb; she’d tried to resist them but they trussed her up like a shot gazelle, slung her over Takama and took her away with them. For three hundred yards Mariata screamed for her baby; but when it became clear they had no intention of turning around, she mastered herself and made herself concentrate very, very hard, memorizing every step of the way they took, every stone and plant they passed. She took note of each change in direction, of the patterns in the sand made by the prevailing wind and the positioning of shadows. Months in the desert had taught her many things; but most of all they had taught her fortitude.

  Just outside the encampment Rhossi threw her down to the ground like a sack of rice and stood over her contemplatively. Then he smiled. ‘Scream or struggle and you will be made very sorry for it later. You are a poor, lone traveller whom we have rescued. I am taking you as a second wife for your own protection and out of the goodness of my heart.’

  These words washed over Mariata. They were meaningless: all she cared about was the baby. She had a plan, but she would have to be patient. Whatever happened in between did not matter. Uncharacteristically docile, she let them lead her into the camp. They passed a group of hobbled camels, a knot of men, smoking; they passed two battered khaki jeeps and some people in European dress.