The Salt Road

by Jane Johnson

  ‘Do not look to them,’ Rhossi told her quietly. ‘They care nothing for people like you. All they care about is dust and bones, not about the living.’

  There were tents beyond, and more people; women mainly, a few children. They all stared incuriously at her, but Mariata kept her eyes averted. Behind her, she heard the jeeps start up and rumble away; people seemed more interested in their departure than in her arrival. Until she was pushed into a long, low black tent, that is. In there was a plump, dark woman with a small, mean mouth and the receding chin of a rabbit. Her dark eyes took in Mariata’s ragged appearance and the proprietary hand of the man on her, then she launched into a blast of invective. ‘What are you doing, bringing a baggara into my tent? She will be vermin-infested, one look could tell you that. Get her out of here before she ruins all my good things!’

  Rhossi just laughed and pushed Mariata hard so that she sprawled over the other woman. ‘Calm down, wife; or should I call you “first wife” now? This is … Mina.’ It was the first name that came into his head. It would do. Better not let word travel that a member of the powerful Kel Taitok had strayed into his path. ‘She will be my second wife, since you have so far failed to give me sons, and I know this one to be fertile!’ How he knew, he did not specify, but this alone was enough to cause the woman to shoot a look of utter loathing at the newcomer, even as she kicked her away. ‘Make sure she is clean and presentable for me by sunset or it will be the worse for you.’ He gave her a sweet smile, but she quailed: she knew all too well what that meant.

  The first wife, whose name was Hana, took out her frustrations on ‘Mina’, though she never once addressed her directly. Instead, she spoke to the air, as in: ‘Have you ever seen hair so matted and foul? We should cut it all off and have done,’ and ‘What he sees in her, I can’t imagine: she is thin as a stick and she stinks like a he-goat.’ For her part, Mariata let her do what she would, making no sound even though the combing and the scrubbing and the hair removal was as painful as Hana could make it. Nothing mattered but the rescue of her child: it became a chant in her head through the short ceremony in front of the marabout, through the cursory ‘celebrations’, which were in any case both muted and curtailed. No one much liked Rhossi ag Bahedi, it seemed, and many of those present appeared to be related to the first wife and took the arrival of an unknown second as an insult to their clan. Besides, it was all very unusual, people agreed, for a chieftain to take a second wife, especially at such speed. But the normal codes of conduct were all at odds now, with troubles everywhere and no one safe from day to day. The men agreed it was necessary to take your pleasures where you could and make the most of them: you might be dead tomorrow. And you had to admit that the woman was striking, now that she was clean and well robed and decked out in wedding finery, even if it was borrowed; much more interesting to look at than poor Hana. But she was thin: much too thin, they all agreed on that. Still, she’d soon put some flesh on those elegant bones and then she’d be a real beauty. And no bride-price to pay either: what a bargain!

  The women thought none of this, though not one said a word. Better the desert than to be Rhossi’s second wife. Or even his first. They’d seen the bruises on Hana, though she tried to hide them. They’d seen the harratin girls Rhossi had used too. And so, though they all loved a good wedding better than most things, their heart was not really in the singing and drumming that night, and as soon as Rhossi took the new wife to bed, they dispersed.

  When Rhossi disrobed her and stood staring down at her half-starved body, with its milk-full breasts and slack stomach and skinny limbs, Mariata willed herself elsewhere. When he laughed at her and reminisced delightedly about the attack that had taken his cousin Amastan from her even as he forced himself deep into her secret places, she stared fixedly up into the dark eaves of the tent as if she could see through it to the stars. An hour later when he was snoring heavily, she threw on her clothes, slipped outside, found Takama and disappeared into a night that was peculiarly moonless.

  How she found her way she did not know: everything looked so different under the blanket of darkness, but, as the sun came up over the hills in front of her, Mariata saw the piled earth and rock of the tomb ahead. She did not wait for Takama to couch, but hurled herself off the camel and hit the ground running, her bare feet slapping the ground. ‘I am here! I have come for you!’ she cried, but no baby’s cry responded. She ran up the hillock and threw herself into the entrance of the tomb, but the interior was empty. She wailed, and the sound flooded in echoes through the chamber, bounding and rebounding off the stones. Out she went, scrambling on all fours, all around the tomb, until her hands and knees were bloody and raw. But there could be no mistake: the baby was gone.

  34

  For three days and nights the Fennec had driven like a man possessed, hurling the Touareg across the desert pistes and stone-studded plains. The world passed by in a blur, landscape spun out into separated strands of colour like something in a centrifuge. Part of the journey was along a tarmacked road, but this was even more unnerving than the rough tracks. The Fennec had a habit of tailgating lorries and then overtaking them and cutting back in again in such a reckless fashion that my right leg was going like a piston on the phantom brake pedal. Which would not, I realized after some time, have done me much good, since we were in a left-hand-drive car.

  Back on the pistes, we were jolted once again, up and down and sideways, and the amulet banged against my collarbone and the vehicle’s suspension groaned and clanged. I turned to look back at Taïb after one particularly vicious impact, but he was as impassive as ever, as if this top-of-the-range SUV hadn’t cost him the best part of two years’ work. Hard come, easy go. Beside him, the Fennec’s lieutenant looked rather less nonchalant as he watched the ground go past at this unnatural velocity, his eyes as big as dinner plates.

  ‘Can you tell me where you’re taking us?’ I had asked on the first day. It had been an effort even to speak, since I risked smashing my teeth together just by opening my mouth.

  ‘To see someone I know.’

  Was it necessary to be quite so cryptic? ‘Perhaps you could tell me why?’

  ‘You’ll find out when we get there.’ And that was all the Fennec would say until he slewed the car to a halt beneath a big acacia, got out and made two phone calls. I had got the gist of the one in French, though it involved much swearing and many colloquialisms I could only guess at, but it seemed to have something to do with a payment that would be made by somebody else. The other was in a language so impenetrable I didn’t even try to understand it. I turned to Taïb. ‘Any idea what all that was about?’ I had asked quietly.

  ‘He maintains the camp we were at by paying a pourboire to the commander of the local garrison. He was checking there wasn’t going to be any unexpected change of personnel for the next few days and assuring him the money was on its way. As to the other call, I only caught a word here and there: something to do with checkpoints and police stops.’ He shrugged.

  Which did little to settle my nerves.

  But in the end we saw no checkpoints and were stopped by no soldiers or police, and I gave myself up to the flow of events and the weariness that engulfed me. Forcing myself to embrace my inner insh’allah, after a while I fell asleep.

  When I awoke, the world had stopped rushing by outside and a pale and tranquil sun was showing its face over a cliff topped by boulders in all sorts of fantastical shapes. With very little imagination I could make out a crouched rabbit there, an eagle here; a sitting man, a giant mushroom, a long dog’s snout.

  ‘Where are we?’ I asked Taïb. Of course, he had absolutely no idea. We left the car parked in the shade of the rocks and started to walk. The Fennec strode out ahead as if determined to eat up the ground with his boots. I could imagine how fierce this man must be in combat, how obdurate and focused. I was glad those fierce hawk-eyes of his were trained on the way ahead and not on me; as it was, I was having trouble keeping up with my injured ankle and
was having to follow at a half-run, half-hobble. Beside me, Taïb loped along as if he could keep up this punishing pace all day, but the poor lieutenant was suffering: I could hear the soughing of air in and out of his smoker’s lungs, saddled as he was with the semi-automatic and a canteen of water.

  The Tuareg chief clearly knew where he was and where he was going: each time a myriad of possible pathways fanned out between the rocks, he selected his route unhesitatingly. After an hour’s hard walking, largely uphill, we came out on to a rocky escarpment. Down below us was a glint of water, sparkling between boulders, a sandy enclosure, a dozen or so low black tents and a small hut with smoke rising from its fire.

  The Fennec took the slope towards this small settlement at a run, scree skittering downhill in his wake. I had made hundreds of descents from cliffs and tors in my time and thought myself reasonably sure-footed, but I had never seen anyone move with such nimble, goat-like feet. By the time we reached the bottom he was nowhere to be seen. But a lot of other people came out to stare curiously at us. Fearless children with fearless eyes and gap-toothed smiles who ran after us, touching our clothing or arms as if on a dare, running away again giggling behind their friends. They pointed at my jeans, which they seemed to find inordinately amusing; they set about Taïb, climbing up his leg and demanding a ride. They laughed a lot at the poor, sweating lieutenant with the ‘Kalach’ and some of the boys picked up sticks and pretended to engage him in battle. One little girl with vast eyes and two dancing braids took a fierce interest in my watch and would not let go of my wrist, so fascinated was she by the way the second hand ticked around and the diamond in its face glinted in the sun. In another time and place it had cost me the best part of two grand. A ridiculous amount of money for an object that would tell the time of day and nothing more, when all you ever had to do was look at the sun or the length of its shadows on the ground. I could hardly imagine anything less useful in this place, except perhaps the paper money that had bought it. With a smile, I unbuckled the leather strap and let her run away with it, pursued by her friends.

  Taïb raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘That was Longines, wasn’t it?’

  The outraged face of the lieutenant was a picture. I took one look at him and burst out laughing. It was the reappearance of the Fennec that stopped the laughter turning hysterical. ‘Venez avec moi,’ he said abruptly and turned on his heel.

  We passed all the tents with their bright rugs airing outside, the women preparing food or weaving, the men plaiting and sewing coloured leather. At the far side of the enclosure we came to the hut with the smoking fire. Inside, it became clear that it was some sort of forge. There were blacksmith’s tools everywhere, hammers of all sizes, a stone anvil, a brightly decorated bellows. The child who was manning this watched us with large eyes, then went running outside, revealing a figure crouched before the fire. Its leaping flames showed skin wreathed with lines, bright eyes and a cap of close-cropped white hair, a shocking contrast to the blackness of the face beneath. When this person rose, he was almost as tall as the Fennec, and almost as imposing: his handshake was crushing, for such an old man.

  The lieutenant and his weapon were sent outside and the rest of us were beckoned out of the smoke and darkness into a courtyard beyond that was bright with flowers and vegetation. At a glance I could make out tomato, pepper and chilli plants, fennel, oranges, marigolds and bougainvillea. It was a veritable miracle, an oasis of plenty.

  ‘I see you like my garden,’ the blacksmith said in a small and delicate voice that was completely at odds with his stature. ‘Forgive me that I wear no veil: it is not out of disrespect but because I would be entitled to only half a veil in any case.’ The Fennec seemed to find this amusing, but my blank expression must have given me away, for the blacksmith smiled. ‘My name is Tana and they call me an homme-femme, but I prefer to be known by the feminine article,’ she told me in perfect French.

  I’m sure my mouth was a perfect O of surprise, and not just because I had never, knowingly, met an homme-femme before. ‘Your French is remarkable,’ I said, grasping for something to say that did not completely give away my discomposure. ‘How do you know it so well?’

  ‘I know many things. I know a little Songhai too: I find that dealing with the local authorities and aid agencies in their own languages can have more positive results.’

  She gestured us towards a bright blanket spread upon the ground with a small round silver table at its centre; a silver teapot was already heating over a charcoal brazier a little distance away. The table was beautifully and minutely patterned and tooled; at its centre sat four tea glasses, as if she had known we were coming. Or perhaps she had only four glasses and they sat there always. Tea was made and poured out most ceremoniously, and no one spoke through the entire procedure, as if to do so would be to interrupt a sacred ritual.

  At last, Tana leant forward. ‘I’m told you have a certain amulet in your possession.’

  I looked at the Fennec and he gave me a sharp nod. ‘It has a scroll written in Tifinagh inside.’

  ‘Ah, yes, the scroll.’ The blacksmith regarded me steadily. ‘What do you know of the Tifinagh?’

  I had to admit I knew very little.

  She pulled back a corner of the blanket and made some marks in the sand underneath. ‘Our language is all about the world we live in. It’s the same for all cultures, of course, but ours represents the fundamentals of our life more directly than most. You see all the straight lines we have? These are the sticks: they represent the legs of men and animals, whose lives are entwined in permanent interdependence – the goats and sheep and camels, the gazelles and jackals and lions. The crosses indicate the roads we must choose from, the paths we take through the desert of our lives, the road along which the sun and moon and stars guide us. There is a saying amongst our people that all important things start from the heart and move wider and wider still into the Circle of Life, just as the world’s horizon circles around the tribe and the herd. But it always comes back to the heart, you know. Love is the strongest force in the world.’ She opened the amulet’s hidden compartment, shook the parchment out into her hand and gazed at it for a long time. Then she gave a long, slow smile and put it back, closing the central boss with a very final-sounding snap. ‘This was something I never expected to see again. But I am glad to hold it in my hand, for all the ill luck it has witnessed.’ Her dark eyes seemed to pierce right through me. Then she turned to the Fennec. ‘Poor soul. Forty years in the wilderness; forty years of turning your face away from love, from the things that hurt most; forty years denying that the heart is at the centre of the world. You never found her, did you? And that is why you are back here with this thing after all this time. Oh, don’t get me wrong: we have been grateful for all that you have done for us, for the gifts of money and aid. But it would have been good to see your face, once in a while. And if you’d kept in better touch, I could maybe have saved you two years of misery.’ She gave a small, strangled laugh. ‘Why is it always poor old Tana who holds all the threads in her hand? Ah, well, we shall weave the tale soon, strange though it is.’ She patted my hand. ‘This is all very strange for you, child, I can see. Stay here: I’m afraid it will get stranger.’ Like a much younger person, she uncoiled herself from the ground and ducked back into the hut.

  ‘What does she mean?’ I asked the Fennec. He was staring into the glowing coals of the brazier as if all the necessary information might be read there. And he was shaking.

  I looked at Taïb: he ran a finger across the top of my hand. ‘There is a great mystery here, but I think it’s about to reveal itself. Have patience, Izzy.’

  There was a disturbance at the door and then Tana reappeared, followed by a shorter woman whose long black hair was shot through with streaks of white and braided in elaborate tails and coils. Long silver earrings dangled from her ears, reaching almost to her shoulders, alternating pieces of silver shaped into hollow circles and inverted triangles. More silver shone upon her fingers an
d arms; long silver weights held down the corners of the scarf she wore over her head, and a dozen decorative pins adorned her dark blue robe. Her hands were hennaed to a deep rich brown; her lips too, so that they stood out sharply against her pale skin. I thought I had never seen such a stately woman. She looked as I had imagined the desert queen might have looked in all her finery. But the desert queen was long, long dead and this woman was very much alive. The eyes with which she regarded us were the colour of a storm cloud, though there was a gleam of humour there and a deep intelligence that spoke of hard-won lessons. Her nose was long and straight, her brows were thick, and her chin told of a determination that ran to wilfulness. No one had ever called this woman pretty, I thought: she was too striking for that. Handsome: the word slipped into my mind. Handsome: she defined the term.

  Her bold, black gaze fell upon me first of all and lingered for several moments, and I thought I saw that strong chin tremble; then she looked to Taïb, gave an approving nod, and finally allowed her eyes to rest on the Fennec.

  ‘Amastan,’ she said, quite clearly.

  ‘Ah, Mariata …’ It came out as hardly more than a sigh.

  The names in the amulet. I stared from one to the other, trying to make some sense of all this. Tana leant towards me and touched me on the shoulder. ‘They haven’t seen one another in forty years, and each thought the other dead. Forty years is a long time to hold another deep in your heart but never in your arms. Come with me. They have eyes only for each other, but perhaps we shouldn’t eavesdrop.’

  We walked out of the garden through an archway of flowers that droned with the sound of bees. Beyond it, we came to a deep, largely dry river in which pockets of water glinted between the smooth white boulders of the bed. ‘In my youth there was always flowing water here,’ Tana said sadly. ‘There were reeds and frogs and birds singing always; and oleanders with beautiful pink flowers. The number of children I’ve fed charcoal to because of oleander poisoning …’ She shook her head. ‘Life can be like that: the most beautiful things are often the most lethal. Take those two back there: you never saw two more handsome young people in your life. Amastan, he was straight and tall – well, he still is – with the most eloquent eyes, poet’s eyes, I called them; but you’ve seen what he became when life turned bitter on him. It’s not surprising he chose the course he took: he’d seen too much already by the time he first came here as a child. Then to lose your first love by nineteen; and your second by twenty-three: that does things to a man’s soul. Now he’s fought his way from here to the Levant, and what good has it done him?’