Blood & Ink

by Stephen Davies

  ‘So this is where everyone is,’ says Jabir, grinning his buck-toothed grin.

  ‘That’s Timbuktu for you,’ says Omar. ‘They don’t protect their homes or shops or banks. They protect their manuscripts!’

  ‘Hardly protecting,’ scoffs Jabir. ‘It’s not like they’re armed, is it?’

  The three patrol trucks drive up to the front of the library and Chief Litni winds down the window. ‘Who is in charge?’ he barks.

  A tall thin man steps forward out of line. Intelligent black eyes shine out between the folds of his turban. ‘Peace be upon you,’ he says. ‘I am Abdel Diallo, Chief Librarian.’

  Chief Litni looks from the librarian to the pathetic human chain. ‘If hens guard the palace,’ he says, ‘the king will not sleep soundly.’

  The librarian forces a smile. ‘Perhaps you’ve never seen an angry hen.’

  Litni opens the door of the car and climbs out, his AK-47 dangling across his body. ‘Show me, then,’ he says. ‘What does an angry hen look like?’

  Abdel Diallo looks down at the Tuareg’s gun with big, watery eyes. He swallows hard. ‘What do you want, Monsieur?’

  ‘Manuscripts,’ says the Tuareg chief. ‘The manuscripts in this building are worth millions, are they not?’

  ‘You have already looted our markets,’ says Abdel Diallo. ‘You must leave our manuscripts in peace.’

  ‘Must?’ cries Chief Litni, looking round at his men. ‘Did the librarian just say must to me?’

  The Tuaregs hop out of the trucks and gather, armed and grinning, behind their chief.

  I reach across to Omar and snatch his phone from the top pocket of his shirt. My fingers fly across the keys.

  Urgent. Litni looting manuscripts. Advise.

  ‘Step aside, Librarian,’ says Litni, and his right hand drifts down towards the stock of his AK-47. ‘I want those manuscripts.’

  Abdel Diallo steps back into line and grasps his neighbours’ hands so that the human chain is once again complete. ‘The soul of Timbuktu is in the writings of its scholars,’ the librarian quotes softly, ‘and we will protect those writings to our dying breath.’

  ‘As you wish,’ Chief Litni says, and squeezes the trigger of his assault rifle.

  CRACK!

  The petrified protectors of the library jump and squeal as Litni’s bullet flies over their heads and lodges in the whitewashed wall above the door.

  ‘This is not right,’ I whisper to Omar. ‘We came to Timbuktu to teach the way of God, not to steal manuscripts.’

  Omar shrugs. He is terrified of this angry Tuareg. We all are.

  Abdel Diallo clears his throat and starts to chant, pronouncing in a quavering voice the words of some ancient vow:

  ‘I solemnly swear to guard the manuscripts of Timbuktu entrusted to my family by the saints of old. I will protect them in times of peace and in times of war, in times of planting and in times of harvesting, in times of joy and in times of sorrow. I will protect them from fire and from flood, from wizards and from thieves, from giants and from djinn. God grant me the wisdom of the horse, the stubbornness of the ox and the cunning of the—’

  ‘Shut up!’

  Chief Litni strides forward, seizes the librarian by the scruff of his robe, tears him free of his neighbours’ hands and slams him with a hideous thud against the library door. He tries the door – it’s locked – then presses the barrel of his assault rifle into the soft underside of the librarian’s chin.

  ‘Give me the key,’ he snarls.

  ‘No,’ says Abdel Diallo.

  ‘Then I shall take it from your corpse!’ shouts Litni. In one swift movement he cycles the bolt of his AK-47 to remove the spent cartridge, and puts his finger back on the trigger.

  Trill, trill. Trill, trill. Somewhere in the swathes of Chief Litni’s off-white robes, a mobile phone is ringing.

  He puts the phone to his ear and listens.

  Am I imagining it, or have the Tuareg’s shoulders slumped?

  He replaces the phone and whispers something inaudible in the librarian’s ear.

  ‘What’s going on?’ mouths Omar.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  With a deep sigh, Abdel Diallo hands over a silvery key. The Tuareg turns, throws it to one of his men and juts his chin towards a sleek Land Cruiser parked in the shade to the west of the library.

  ‘Another patrol vehicle for Azawad!’ shouts Litni, but the triumph in his voice is forced and his eyes are sparkling with rage.

  ‘I thought he wanted the key to the library,’ whispers Omar.

  ‘He did.’

  ‘Who were you texting just now?’

  ‘Redbeard.’

  I glance at the men and women in the human chain, who no longer show any emotion. They stand impassive in the sun, holding hands and gazing straight ahead.

  Two days later Redbeard arrives in Timbuktu with the rest of our battalion. They arrive in four white Land Cruisers, overflowing with fighters and weapons. One of the fighters in the back of each vehicle is carrying the black standard, the glorious flag of jihad.

  ‘They’re here!’ cries Omar, rushing out of the camp. We follow him into the street, grinning stupidly under our turbans. I still cannot walk on my own, but I have made myself a pair of wooden crutches to swing around on.

  The sleek white trucks brake sharply, filling the air with choking dust. Redbeard leaps down and embraces us each in turn. ‘Ninjas of God, well done!’ he cries. ‘I salute each one of you.’

  Chief Litni is the last to greet Redbeard. They do not embrace, and there is a cold reluctance in their handshake.

  ‘Peace be with you, Chief Litni,’ says Redbeard. ‘Your men have been busy, I hear.’

  ‘The first days of an occupation are always difficult,’ replies the Tuareg chief. ‘There are eating and sleeping arrangements to be organised. Pockets of resistance to be smothered. Municipal authorities to be instructed. You are yawning, Redbeard. Are you tired?’

  ‘Somewhat.’

  Litni’s eyes darken but he keeps his cool. ‘You should get some rest.’

  ‘Excellent idea,’ says Redbeard. ‘You take your men south and set up camp at the airport. My battalion and I will sleep here in the barracks.’

  The Tuareg scowls. ‘The dust from your tyres has not yet settled, Redbeard. Are you already giving me orders?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Redbeard, and a wide-eyed smile lights up his grizzled face. ‘Now that we are in control of Timbuktu, I no longer have to pretend that you and I are equals.’

  The sun is high in the sky and the Defenders of Faith are preparing for a feast.

  Plastic mats are beaten and unrolled. Bottles of warm Coca-Cola are uncapped and laid out in rows. Saharan salt and black pepper are pounded in a mortar. Pok-pok-pok, this meal will be heavenly. We have three things to celebrate: our victory in the Battle of Timbuktu, the reunion of our battalion and the departure of Chief Litni’s thugs. They are setting up camp at the airport, just like Redbeard told them to.

  A fire is burning by the north wall of the compound. Three cauldrons of rice and onions perch on the outer coals, whilst in the centre two headless goats revolve on a spit. Omar and I crouch on our haunches nearby, basking in the smell of cooking meat and listening to droplets of goat fat hissing on the coals. A happy day indeed.

  I bend down and write the date in the sand with my finger. ‘Tuesday 2 April 2012.’

  At two o’clock the goat is still not cooked, so we pray on an empty stomach, kneeling and bowing in front of our untouched Coca-Cola. Then we sit on our mats and raise our palms to heaven in grateful supplication.

  ‘You must be vigilant, boys,’ says Redbeard, when we have finished praying. ‘Put a man in the desert with only his Book and his gun, and he will easily master himself. But make that man a ruler of one of the greatest cities on earth and his worldly self will rise again. In the coming days and weeks, you will be tempted in every way, but you must not give in. This is Timbuktu and you are Ansar Dine
, Defenders of Faith.’

  ‘Defenders of Faith,’ I write in the sand, underlining it with a long squiggle.

  ‘The goat is cooked,’ says Redbeard. ‘Let the feast begin, before the Coca-Cola gets flat.’

  We gorge ourselves on the flavoured rice and then start on the meat. As we eat, Redbeard tells us how he rang Chief Litni at just the right moment and ordered him not to loot the manuscripts.

  ‘I told him straight,’ says Redbeard. ‘“Litni,” I said, “if you lay a hand on a single one of those manuscripts, I will tie the end of your turban to the back leg of your camel and fire off thirty rounds right by its ear.”’

  We laugh like hyenas and slap each other on the back. I’m sure he did not say that to Litni, but it’s a good story, which is the important thing.

  ‘I’m going to die of pleasure,’ groans Omar, snapping a bone and sucking out the marrow. ‘Even at the feast of Ibrahim I never get this much meat.’

  As always, we cast lots for the goat’s head, which has been roasted whole.

  Muhammad Zaarib draws the winning lot. Zaarib is one of the few grown men in our battalion. In a former life, he was a blacksmith with arms like iron bands. He has waged holy war all over West Africa and knows more about jihad and sharia than the rest of us put together.

  Zaarib takes the head and raises it triumphantly in the air. ‘God is great!’ he cries. ‘I haven’t held a head since that incident with the French spy in the Ifoghas mountains.’

  The other boys howl with laughter. They’re in that sort of mood, they’d laugh at anything.

  Zaarib chews the goat’s eyes with an open mouth, then turns the skull over to dig out the brain and tongue.

  I feel sick. The killing of the French spy was before our time but we’ve all heard the story, and some of the boys even have the video on their phone. I’m not saying Zaarib was wrong to kill the hostage, just that he took too much pleasure in it.

  ‘Peace be upon you all.’

  Hamza is back. With glassy eyes, he surveys the rows of merrymakers and the piles of discarded goat bones.

  ‘And on you,’ we intone.

  Redbeard jumps up and embraces Hamza. ‘Do not grieve, boy,’ he says. ‘Your brother died in the cause of God. His sins are forgiven.’

  Hamza nods like an agama lizard, but his eyes are dull.

  ‘A martyr feels no pain in death,’ says Redbeard, ‘except a brief pang like the sting of a bee. Your brother is alive in Paradise and praying for seventy of his relatives, including you.’

  ‘Does he remember his life on earth?’ asks Hamza.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘He won’t pray for me, then,’ says Hamza flatly. ‘The last he saw of me was my knee hitting him in the face.’

  ‘The elders of Timbuktu are meeting tonight at the town hall,’ says Omar. ‘I overhead two of them talking about it at the market.’

  ‘Perfect,’ says Redbeard. ‘We will do our sunset prayers and then pay them all a visit.’

  Omar catches my eye. This is going to be interesting.

  When we arrive at the town hall, we find a teenaged guard stationed outside the door, fiddling nervously with a slingshot and whistle. As soon as he sees our guns, he hurries to let us in.

  The tables in the meeting room are arranged in the form of a square. I recognise the mayor of Timbuktu who sits at the top table. A bunch of plastic roses decorates the table before him and a lazy fan revolves above his head. The other seats are occupied by older men. They stare like sheep as we burst into their meeting room and spread out along the walls, our rifles at the ready.

  As soon as we are in position, Redbeard strides in, clasping his hands in front of him in an exaggerated show of respect. ‘Peace be upon you all!’ he cries, Kalashnikov dangling at his side.

  The whitebeards shift in their seats. Not one of them returns the greeting.

  Redbeard makes his way into the centre of the room and wags his index finger at the elders like a schoolteacher scolding his class. ‘Sura An-Nisa verse eighty-six,’ he says. ‘When you are accosted with a greeting of peace, answer with an even better greeting, or at least with the like thereof. For truly, God keeps count of all things.’

  I feel a surge of joy. Already Redbeard is on top. Already his purity of heart and his knowledge of the Book have flooded this dingy meeting room with the light of God.

  The first elder to find his tongue is Imam Cissé – I recognise him from my childhood visits to the city.

  ‘Peace be upon you, Ould,’ he mutters. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Cissé!’ cries Redbeard, feigning surprise. ‘It has been a long time.’

  ‘Not nearly long enough,’ shoots back the imam. ‘What is it you want?’

  ‘The same thing I’ve always wanted,’ says Redbeard. ‘I want to preach in Timbuktu. I want to teach God’s Word. I want people to repent of their dissolution and double-mindedness. I want us all to walk soberly in the light of God. I want bars closed, cigarettes banned, women veiled and schools reformed. I want Timbuktu to become what it used to be: a light to the nations, a centre of scholarship, piety and jihad.’

  ‘Amen,’ I whisper.

  ‘Timbuktu is already a Muslim city,’ says the imam. ‘Don’t make me lecture you in history, Ould.’

  ‘Leave your Qur’an unopened on the shelf,’ replies Redbeard, ‘and termites will devour it from the inside. Timbuktu looks Muslim from the outside, I grant you, but here at its heart there is nothing but rot.’

  ‘I agree, we have work to do,’ says the imam. ‘We must encourage our people in the path of piety.’

  Redbeard shrugs his shoulders. ‘If the blind lead the blind, they will both fall into a pit.’

  ‘Ould Hamaha!’ splutters the mayor. ‘How dare you insult our religious leaders?’

  ‘Your religious leaders are practising a false religion,’ Redbeard fires back. He moves across to the mayor’s table and thumps it with both fists. ‘Let me tell you, Monsieur Mayor, what I saw on my way here tonight. Three women at a mud-brick tomb, praying to a saint for food: “For daily salt we beg thee, Sidi Ahmed ben Amar…”’

  ‘Visiting the tombs of the saints is a common—’

  ‘Did you not hear me?’ cries Redbeard. ‘They were praying not to God himself but to a pile of bones! Are you so blind that you cannot see what these flab-chinned imams have done to your city? Their idolatry is a stench in God’s nostrils!’

  ‘I disagree,’ says the mayor. ‘Sidi Ahmed was a wonderful—’

  ‘Damn you!’ Redbeard seizes the plastic flowers from the mayor’s table and hurls them at the wall. ‘Sidi Ahmed was a man, and nothing more. A walking, talking, eating, sleeping, farting son of Adam. And if any imam in Timbuktu teaches his people to pray to Sidi Ahmed, I will throw him from the minaret of his mosque and leave his body in the street for the dogs to eat.’

  A line has been crossed, and everybody knows it. The whitebeards are staring at Redbeard in horror. Omar and Jabir across the room from me are gaping like snapper fish. But our master is right to use strong words. Nothing in this world is more despicable than idolatry.

  ‘Let us not fight,’ says Redbeard, smiling suddenly. ‘Since Imam Cissé obviously distrusts me, I would like to prove my good faith by accepting one of his daughters in marriage.’

  There follows another awkward silence, and I have a sudden urge to laugh.

  ‘Are you serious?’ asks the mayor. ‘You threaten our imam with death and then you ask to marry his daughter?’

  ‘Any of your daughters,’ beams Redbeard. ‘It makes no difference to me, provided she is a virgin. Now that I have come back to Timbuktu, I feel obliged to—’

  ‘You have not come back to Timbuktu!’ cries Imam Cissé, jumping to his feet. ‘Timbuktu has seven gates: tolerance, honour, dignity, generosity, hospitality, honesty and justice. Gunpowder and grenades are not gates to Timbuktu. You want to marry an elder’s daughter? You would more easily swallow the moon.’

  Red
beard looks at the old man and smiles. It is a strange sort of smile, involving the lips but not the eyes. ‘I did not expect your love,’ he says, ‘but neither did I expect insults. Thank you, Imam Cissé. You have given me occasion to follow the example of the Prophet, peace be upon him. He was insulted, cursed and struck with fists, but he never once—’

  ‘Don’t talk of him!’ cries the imam. ‘Do not sully his name. Go back to the desert and to your camels, you hideous, stragglebeard son of a—’

  The imam’s rant is silenced by a soft metallic click. Redbeard has flicked off the safety catch of his AK-47.

  ‘Good night, old men,’ says Redbeard. ‘I had hoped to discuss with you some of the changes that will be introduced by the new regime, but I see you are not ready. You will hear them on the radio tonight, along with everybody else in this wretched town.’

  Redbeard turns on his heel and leaves. In single file we follow him outside.

  ‘It is early days,’ he tells us. ‘Those old men are blinded by their fear and pride, so they cannot recognise the beauty of our ideas. But soon they will understand, and Timbuktu will shine again like a jewel in the desert’s crown.’

  Occupation needs organisation, says Redbeard. He gives a task to every member of the battalion, and entrusts the Ninjas with night patrol. We are to walk the streets of Timbuktu from sunset to sunrise, quashing rebellion and enforcing sharia.

  Askia Avenue is mine. It is a long dusty street which stretches from the Ahmad Baba Library in the north all the way down to Independence Square in the south. Near the top of the street is the Djinguereber Mosque with its rose-red ramparts and minarets. Further down towards the square stand two elegant villas with whitewashed mud-brick walls, arched entrances and sculpted balustrades.

  After sunset prayer at the military camp, I start my patrol. The avenue is deserted, save for some stray dogs snarling and scrapping by the west wall of the mosque. Up and down, up and down, I hobble on my crutches, until my underarms are as sore as my ankle.