Blood & Ink

by Stephen Davies

  At eight o’clock my phone alarm goes off. Time for Redbeard’s broadcast.

  A ramshackle mechanic’s workshop stands opposite the whitewashed villas, and beside the workshop lies a huge discarded tractor tyre. I sit down on the tyre, rest my AK-47 on my lap, and engage the radio function on my phone. It crackles for a minute and then Redbeard’s strident voice comes on, addressing us with holy zeal.

  Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

  Peace be upon you all.

  Timbuktu has been liberated from the grasp of infidels, and reclaims its rightful heritage as a beacon of Islam.

  We have appointed Muhammad Zaarib to enforce sharia in the commune of Timbuktu. He is well-versed in all aspects of sharia and is not afraid to punish transgressors.

  We advise all residents of Timbuktu to take note of the following laws:

  Do not permit your wives and daughters to appear in public with their heads or bodies uncovered. In Timbuktu, females above the age of ten must wear the veil in accordance with the instruction of the Prophet, peace be upon him. Women who appear in public without a veil will receive twenty lashes with a camel-hide whip.

  Men should wear long shirts and baggy trousers cut well above the ankle.

  Women must not walk or talk with men in public. In Timbuktu, any woman caught consorting with a man will receive twenty lashes with a camel-hide whip.

  Do not smoke harmful substances. The Prophet himself, peace be upon him, said that whomsoever drinks poison, thereby killing himself, will sip this poison for ever in the fire of Hell. Cigarettes are haram. Anyone who sells them in Timbuktu will be punished with twenty lashes.

  Do not listen to music, for it intoxicates the heart and weakens the body. The Prophet, peace be upon him, warned his followers of a day when Muslims would proclaim fornication and the playing of musical instruments legal. Not so in Timbuktu! Anyone who plays or listens to music will receive twenty lashes with a camel-hide whip.

  Do not frequent bars, for they are quagmires of sin. Do not drink beer or other alcoholic drinks, not even at home, for they are haram, forbidden. All bars and nightclubs in Timbuktu must close their doors for ever, and anyone who sells the devil’s brew will be punished with forty lashes.

  Do not wear amulets round your neck. Amulets divert the heart from putting its trust in God. And do not hang amulets on your children, for this creates more fear than it allays. Marabouts who write amulets and leatherworkers who sew amulet pouches will be punished with twenty lashes.

  Do not watch television or listen to the radio. These appliances are a waste of time at best. At worst they are agents of depravation and debauchery. Your mind belongs to God. Stop polluting it with needless chatter and hateful images. As soon as this broadcast finishes, place your radio in a pounding pot and pound it to fine dust. If you own a television, drop it from a rooftop. Break these satans beyond repair and vow instead to pursue purity with all your heart. After this broadcast, anyone caught watching television or listening to a radio will receive twenty lashes with a camel-hide whip.

  Do not steal, for stealing is a crime against both God and man. In Timbuktu, anyone caught stealing will have his right hand amputated at the wrist.

  Do not commit fornication. Anyone who commits fornication will be punished with one hundred lashes.

  Do not commit adultery. In Timbuktu, anyone who commits adultery will be put to death.

  As a service to the commune of Timbuktu, Muhammad Zaarib will enforce these laws. Purify yourselves of all unrighteousness and support the police in their noble task.

  Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

  This is the end of the broadcast. Peace be upon you all. Smash your radios.

  I sit on my tyre and gaze at the sky in the east. Ali the warrior is rising over the rooftops, and with him rises a new era of faith, hope and purity in Timbuktu. I will not smash my phone – I need it for work – but in the morning I will ask Omar to disable the radio function. We are the Defenders of Faith and we must set a good example.

  The coal-black sky turns indigo, then grey. Lying across the tractor tyre, I nurse my painful underarms and watch the vultures passing overhead.

  When my gaze returns to earth, I see a girl sitting on a stool outside the villa opposite. She is wearing a patterned wraparound skirt and her hair stands up round her head in a crown of spikes. She is muttering under her breath as she reads from the manuscript on her lap.

  I hobble across the street on my crutches and a divine aroma greets me: oleander flowers and fresh milk.

  ‘You should be veiled,’ I tell the girl in French. ‘Did you not hear us on the radio last night? In Timbuktu, females above the age of ten must wear veils, and those who appear in public without veils will receive twenty—’

  She looks lazily up from her manuscript. ‘I’m not allowed to talk with men,’ she says. ‘Or boys,’ she adds pointedly.

  ‘This is not talking,’ I say. ‘This is a police matter.’

  ‘Une affaire de police,’ she corrects me. ‘Affaire is feminine.’

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Kadi Diallo.’

  ‘Where is your veil?’

  ‘I don’t own one.’

  ‘That’s no excuse. When the verse of the veil was first revealed to the Prophet, peace be upon him, the women of Mecca tore their skirts in their haste to cover their faces.’

  She laughs abruptly, although I haven’t made a joke. Then she looks at me more closely, studying my features.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I say.

  ‘You’re from the Fulani tribe,’ she says. ‘I can tell by the shape of your nose, and that little gap between your front teeth. I would guess that this time last year you were herding your father’s cows out in the bush, like a good Fulani boy, walking for miles and miles and—’ She cocks her head to one side and frowns. ‘Or have you always been lame?’

  ‘I’m not lame. I’m injured.’

  ‘You should drink milk,’ she says. ‘It strengthens your bones. I can get you milk, if you have money.’

  ‘I don’t need milk.’

  ‘A Fulani boy who doesn’t need milk!’ She raises her eyebrows. ‘What have your Arab masters done to you?’

  She is confident, this girl, and disrespectful too. ‘God alone is my master,’ I tell her. ‘And in public, females above the age of ten must wear—’

  ‘This isn’t public. This is the porch of my own house.’

  ‘It’s the street.’

  She lifts her stool, moves it backwards a metre and grins at me. ‘Now it’s the porch.’

  She thinks she’s clever. She’s laughing at me and at the new regime. Just because I’m roughly her age, she thinks she can get away with anything.

  ‘I’m Fulani too,’ she grins. ‘But I suppose you guessed that already, from the way my hair is braided.’

  ‘Your hair should not be showing at all,’ I snap. ‘Get a veil!’

  I put my weight back on my crutches, and hobble across the street. When I reach the other side of the street, she holds up her book and quotes in a loud voice. ‘“Prince Sundiata was a sickly creature. Even at seven years old, the boy still crawled, spent all his time eating, and had no friends. His mother’s co-wives mocked him. ‘Are you a lion or a louse?’ they asked.”’

  I turn and point the end of my crutch at her. ‘Beware,’ I quote, ‘for the lion will walk and then he will pounce.’

  ‘You’ve read the epic of Sundiata!’ Her face lights up.

  ‘Of course,’ I reply. ‘And that manuscript you’re holding is in Arabic, so it’s clearly not the epic of Sundiata. Don’t take me for a fool, Kadi.’

  ‘Kadija!’ she calls after a long pause. ‘Only my friends call me Kadi.’

  ‘Get a veil,’ I shout back, ‘or I’ll bring you one myself!’

  I swing along the street towards the Djinguereber Mosque, the ends of the crutches digging painfully into my armpi
ts.

  I’ll bring you one myself.

  Why did I have to say that? Just when I was winning, I had to go and spoil it all.

  After two o’clock afternoon prayers, Redbeard summons the whole battalion. He stands on the tailgate of his truck, a black turban loosely wound round his forehead. ‘The Prophet, peace be upon him, cursed ten people with regard to alcohol. Who can list these unfortunate souls?’

  Omar’s hand shoots up. ‘The one who makes it,’ he gabbles, ‘the one for whom it is made, the one who drinks it, the one who carries it, the one to whom it is carried, the one who pours it, the one who sells it, the one who consumes its price, the one who buys it and the one for whom it is bought.’

  ‘Good,’ says Redbeard, and the light of God blazes in his eyes. ‘That means, every son of Adam and Eve in this miserable city is under a curse. They call it the city of three hundred and thirty-three saints, but in truth it is the city of three hundred and thirty-three bars!’

  Titters of laughter.

  ‘When the Prophet arrived in Mecca with his companions, peace be upon them, that city also laboured under the curse of idolatry. How did he respond? Did he speak softly to the people? Did he reason and plead? No! He roamed the streets, he raged against the idols and he smashed them up!’

  Redbeard’s hands thrash the air. Spittle flies from the corners of his mouth. One end of his turban is dangling at his waist, but he neither sees nor cares. This is a man on a mission, a man consumed by love for Timbuktu and hatred of the evils that enslave its people. Under his spiritual leadership, the city of Timbuktu has a glorious future.

  ‘Beer and spirits are the idols of Timbuktu,’ he thunders. ‘Let the blood run hot in your arteries, boys, and rage against the idols. Close down every bar, nightclub, cabaret and liquor kiosk, and smash any televisions or musical instruments that you see on the way. Go in God’s name and clean up this filthy town.’

  He splits the battalion into ten platoons, and appoints a commander for each one. I am to lead Omar, Jabir and Hamza. We sling our AK-47s across our bodies and recite Al-Fatiha.

  ‘You should appoint a deputy,’ Hamza tells me as we make our way out of the compound.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘In case anything happens to you.’ Hamza curls his lip. ‘Like last time.’

  Like last time. I want to grab him by the scruff of his shirt and demand what he means by that. I want to make him admit, loud and clear, that he blames me for his brother’s death. But doing that would shame us both.

  ‘You be my deputy,’ I tell him. ‘You’re brave, like your brother was.’

  Baba Bar on Toumani Avenue is open for business, so we walk right in. The owner cowers behind the counter as we raise our guns, open fire and strobe the liquor shelf from end to end. The air twinkles with flying glass. Forbidden liquids run down the wall and flow in rivulets across the tiled floor. My nostrils fill with the aniseed stench of pastis liquor.

  I love this sound of exploding bottles. It is the sound of purity and wisdom, the sound of God returning to Timbuktu.

  ‘Watch this,’ I tell the others.

  I bend down to a pool of alcohol on the floor and fire at an angle. The muzzle flash from my rifle sets fire to the spirits, and a light blue flame licks across the floor and up the walls. It makes a dry sipping sound, like a Tuareg sucking the last drops of tea out of a glass.

  The owner of the bar emerges from behind the counter and dances to safety across the fiery floor. As of this moment, Baba Bar is closed. Its wooden counter and wicker chairs will burn bright all afternoon.

  The next bar on Toumani Avenue is Calypso. The cattle herders in my village love this place. On market days they come to Timbuktu, and if they succeed in selling a cow or two they come to Calypso afterwards to tip forbidden liquids down Ali their throats. Poor souls! If only Redbeard would come and preach in my village, the herders would repent and join our cause, I know they would.

  There are no forbidden liquids on the shelves, but there are posters of football players all over the walls. Samuel Eto’o, Yaya Touré, Didier Drogba. These, too, are idols. Redbeard says that all those who play or watch football will regret it in the afterlife. Balls of granite the exact size of footballs will fall on their heads from a great height.

  In the sandy yard behind the bar we find a tower of beer crates as high as a camel. Beside the beer crates is a deep hole.

  ‘Nice day for burying beer!’ I call.

  A man and a boy stare up at us from the bottom of the hole. They are holding spades and their T-shirts are damp with sweat.

  ‘Beer is forbidden,’ I tell them. ‘You are not supposed to hide it. You are supposed to destroy it.’

  They climb up out of the hole and start to dismantle the tower of beer crates. They smash the bottles with their spades, and shovel the broken glass into the hole.

  ‘Peace be upon you,’ I say, when the job is done. ‘If another bottle of beer crosses the threshold of your house, you will both receive forty lashes.’

  Our next stop is the famous La Détente nightclub. The name La Détente is famous nationwide; all of Mali’s best-known artists have played here.

  Parked outside the club is a moto-taxi – a Chinese motorbike bolted to a three-wheeled trailer. A boy with long hair is sitting sideways on the saddle, smoking. When he sees us coming, he whips the cigarette out of his mouth and throws it on the ground.

  ‘Got any more of those?’ I ask him.

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Lighter?’

  He hands it over.

  ‘Cigarettes are haram, forbidden,’ I say. ‘If I catch you smoking again, I’ll have you whipped.’

  We go into the club. There are chairs and tables all around, with empty wine bottles for candle holders. An old gas-powered fridge stands in the corner. Black-and-white photos of musicians cover the walls.

  Back in my herding days, I listened to music all the time. I walked behind my cows with my pocket radio pressed to my ear, my spirit soaring to the tunes of Ali Farka Touré, Salif Keita and Kandia Kouyaté. My mind would stray, and my cows would stray too, usually into someone’s millet field. Which meant that my father had to pay compensation to many farmers. Which meant he would beat me fiercely with a birch branch. Last year, when I first heard Redbeard preach about music, I realised straight away how right he was. That same night I put my radio in my mother’s pounding pot and smashed it to a glinting grit.

  Behind the bar I find a dog-eared sheet of paper – a list of names and telephone numbers of musicians who use the club. Troublemakers.

  Jabir comes in and sniffs the air. ‘What’s that smell?’ he asks.

  ‘Dust.’ Omar runs a fingertip across one of the tables. ‘And stale cigarette smoke.’

  And oleander, I think. And milk.

  I wander over to the stage. Like everything else, it is covered with thick dust, and like all dust, it tells a story. The rectangle of a balaphone, the circle of a jembe drum, a smattering of Ali recent footprints. Three people were here not long ago, retrieving musical instruments. The balls of their feet have left clearer impressions than the heels, which means they were in a hurry.

  The only things remaining on the stage are five low stools belonging to the club. How many of my former idols, I wonder, have sat on those stools to weave their magic?

  Former idols. The words stir me. Let the blood run hot in your arteries, boys, and rage against the idols. I take taxi-boy’s lighter out of my pocket, flick it open and light the candle on the table in front of me. In a waking dream, I move from table to table, lighting the other candles one by one.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asks Jabir.

  ‘Closing down the club,’ I say.

  When all the candles are lit, I go over to the gas-powered fridge, disconnect the butane bottle and drag it into the middle of the floor. I can tell by the weight that the bottle is nearly full.

  Omar is the first to realise what I am doing. ‘No,’ he says, rushing over to me. ‘This
is not like those other bars. This is La Détente.’

  ‘Exactly. That’s why we have to make an example of it.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ asks Jabir.

  ‘He’s going to puncture the cylinder,’ says Omar. ‘The depressurised butane liquid will vaporise into a massive white gas cloud, which will then ignite on the candles.’

  ‘You mean, it will explode?’

  ‘Explode isn’t the word,’ says Omar. ‘It will scatter pieces of La Détente across the whole Sahara.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ says Hamza quickly, and we turn to look at him. ‘One bullet is all it will take.’

  It is the first thing Hamza has said all afternoon.

  ‘Wait for my order,’ I tell him, heading towards the swing doors at the back of the club. ‘I’ll check that there is no one out back.’

  In the yard behind La Détente there are more tables, a broken amplifier and a row of tall clay water jars. The oleander scent is stronger here.

  ‘Peace be upon you, Kadija!’ I call.

  She comes out from behind the water jars, clasping a jembe drum in her arms. ‘And upon you,’ she mutters.

  ‘I saw your footprints inside, all three of you. Where are the others?’

  A shame-faced short-haired girl and skinny boy emerge from behind the water jars, with a kora and a ngoni in their hands.

  ‘Musical instruments are forbidden,’ I tell them. ‘They distract the mind and pollute the—Get down!’

  A single shot and tell-tale hiss of gas are followed by an bone-shaking explosion. There is heat and dust and hellish noise and the wall behind me collapses to the ground.

  I am lying on the ground, surrounded by rubble, ears ringing painfully. Kadija is right there in front of me, her hair and face caked with dust. She’s alive, and still holding her drum. If she had been wearing a veil, she would have stayed clean as well. God knows best.

  We lie there looking at each other. Kadija says something to me which I can’t make out. She gets up, wincing, and picks her way past me across the rubble, clasping the jembe awkwardly in front of her.

  ‘Stop!’ I shout. ‘Put that drum down!’