The Hidden Oasis

by Paul Sussman

  ‘How do you mean?’ he asked.

  ‘Like I said, I can’t really explain. There was just something about him, his manner … I don’t trust him, Flin.’

  ‘Alex did,’ he said. ‘With her life.’

  She shrugged.

  ‘I just think we should … be careful. Not tell him too much.’

  ‘Alex was a good judge—’

  ‘I just think we should be careful,’ she repeated. ‘I don’t like him, he’s dodgy.’

  He held her eyes, then nodded and climbed out of the Jeep. Freya followed and together they walked through the mud-brick gateway into the yard in front of the house. Skirting Zahir’s Land Cruiser with its smashed headlamp, they came to the front door. It was wide open.

  Freya had been harbouring a vague hope that Zahir might not be at home. That his wife would let them in to look at the photograph of the rock formation and that they could find out what they needed without having any direct contact with the man. As it was, Flin hadn’t even had time to knock before Zahir materialized in the corridor ahead. On seeing them his face broke into a broad smile before rearranging itself into the surly blankness that seemed to be his default expression.

  ‘Miss Freya,’ he said, striding towards them. ‘I worried. You disappear.’

  She mumbled an apology, said she’d had urgent business back in Cairo. It didn’t sound very convincing and he clearly didn’t believe her, but he let it go. Ushering them into the house, he shouted something down the corridor behind him. Freya caught the words Amrekanaya and shiy.

  ‘Ana asif, sais Zahir,’ said Flin, ‘I’m sorry, Zahir, but we don’t have time for tea. We need to ask you something.’

  Zahir’s attention switched to the Englishman, the first time he had acknowledged his presence. Although his expression remained unreadable, something in his eyes and the set of his shoulders suggested, if not hostility, at least unease.

  ‘Ask?’ He sounded suspicious. ‘Ask what?’

  ‘About the photograph,’ said Freya. ‘The one in the room at the back of your house. The photograph of the rock.’

  Zahir shook his head as if he didn’t understand what she was talking about.

  ‘Don’t you remember? When I came here before, I was looking for the bathroom and went into the wrong room. There was a photograph there, of my sister standing beside a rock.’

  She motioned with one hand, outlining the shape, the way the rock curled upwards from the desert like an enormous cutlass spearing through the sand.

  ‘It was on the wall above your desk. You said the room was private.’

  ‘We need to ask you about it,’ said Flin. ‘Where this rock is. It’s out near the Gilf, isn’t it?’

  Zahir’s eyes flicked from Freya to Flin and back again. He seemed reluctant to answer. There was a silence, then the Egyptian gave a dismissive flick of the hand.

  ‘First we drink tea. Then talk.’

  He turned into the sitting room with its television, cushioned bench and knife hanging on the wall. Flin and Freya remained in the doorway.

  ‘Please, we need to see the photograph,’ said Flin. ‘We don’t have much time.’

  Zahir turned to them.

  ‘Why you need see this picture?’ he asked, a barely discernible hint of aggression in his voice. ‘Is just rock.’

  Flin and Freya exchanged a glance.

  ‘It’s to do with my work,’ said Flin. ‘I know the Gilf pretty well but I’ve never seen this formation before and I think it might be important, might … have some bearing on our understanding of Palaeolithic settlement patterns in the middle Holocene.’

  If he was hoping to bamboozle the Egyptian with technical speak it didn’t work. Zahir remained where he was, unmoved. There was another uncomfortable silence, then Freya lost patience.

  ‘Please, Zahir, I want to see the photo,’ she said, more sharply than perhaps she intended, but she was exhausted and time was pressing. ‘My sister was in it and I want to know about it.’

  Zahir frowned.

  ‘Sais Brodie say he want know about picture for work. You say you want know because Doctor Alex in picture. I no understand.’

  Freya’s mouth tightened and for a moment it looked as if she was going to lose her temper. Instead, drawing a breath, she took a step towards Zahir and opened out her hands in a gesture of entreaty.

  ‘Please,’ she repeated. ‘For Alex’s sake, if not for mine, tell us about the photo. She’d want you to help us, I know she would. Please.’

  They stood facing each other, the only sound the muffled squawk of geese from outside, Freya staring at Zahir, Zahir refusing to meet her gaze. Everything about him suggested doubt and unease. Seconds passed, then, with a reluctant shrug, he stepped past them back out into the corridor.

  ‘You want see picture, I show picture,’ he said, his tone implying that he wasn’t at all happy about it. ‘Come.’

  He led them along the corridor and out into the yard at the back of the house. Freya caught a fleeting glimpse of his wife and son in the kitchen doorway opposite before the woman moved back into the shadows and was lost. Crossing to the nearest of the doors in the right-hand wall, Zahir threw it open and waved them after him into the room beyond.

  ‘Here picture,’ he said gruffly, walking over to the desk and jabbing a finger at the photograph, spreading his arms as if to demonstrate he had nothing to hide. They took in the huge, curving spire of black rock with its notched sides and the tiny figure standing in the shade at its foot. Flin in particular seemed captivated by the image, leaning across the desk to scrutinize it more closely, his head nodding slightly as if he had suddenly been presented, if not with the answer to some long-pondered riddle, at least with new hope of discovering the answer.

  ‘You took this?’ he asked.

  Zahir grunted an affirmative.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In desert, is obvious.’

  Flin ignored the sarcasm.

  ‘Near the Gilf Kebir?’

  Another grudging affirmative.

  ‘The Gilf’s a big place. Can you be more specific?’

  No answer.

  ‘Northern part or southern part?’ pushed Flin.

  ‘Fi’l ganoob,’ conceded the Egyptian, clearly not appreciating being interrogated in this manner. ‘In south. I no remember exact place. Is very long time ago.’

  Flin studied the photograph for a moment longer, then turned to Zahir.

  ‘Sahebee, I am in your house and so I will show you respect. But you must respect me as well. This photograph was taken within the last five months. See here …’

  He tapped a finger against the image, indicating a thin sliver of silver leaning against the rock beside Freya’s sister.

  ‘This is Alex’s walking stick. She only started using it when she became ill last November.’

  Zahir looked at his feet, shuffling uncomfortably.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to hide,’ continued Flin, trying to keep his voice level, but clearly in no mood for playing games, ‘or why you don’t want to tell us about this photo. But I am asking you as our host and also as a Bedouin to stop bullshitting and give me a straight answer.’

  Zahir’s head came up, nostrils flaring.

  ‘You no speak to me like this,’ he growled. ‘No in my house, no anywhere. You understand? You no insult me or it will no be good for you.’

  ‘Are you threatening me, Zahir?’

  ‘I no threaten you, I tell you. You no speak me like this.’

  Their voices were rising and Freya stepped in before the situation spun out of control.

  ‘Zahir, we have not come to insult you,’ she said, her tone at once both mollifying and firm. ‘We just need to know where the photograph was taken. My sister thought a great deal of you and as I said before, if not for our sake, for hers. Please, tell us where the rock is and we’ll leave.’

  This time Zahir held her gaze. His anger appeared to have dissipated as quickly as it had come, repla
ced by … Freya couldn’t quite pin down what it had been replaced by: a mixture of resignation and apprehension it seemed to her, as though he had accepted he was going to have to tell them what they wanted to know, but was fearful of the consequences.

  ‘Please, Zahir,’ she repeated.

  He was silent for a moment, then:

  ‘You want go this place?’

  Flin and Freya looked at each other, then nodded.

  ‘I take you,’ he said. ‘We go together.’

  ‘We just need to know where it is,’ said Flin.

  ‘Gilf Kebir long way. Dangerous, very dangerous. It no good you go without guide. I come with you.’

  ‘We just need—’

  ‘Long way, long way. You go alone it take three day get there. I come with you, less than one day. I know Gilf, I know desert. I take you.’

  The argument continued for some time, ping-ponging back and forth – Zahir insisting on accompanying them, Flin and Freya insisting that all they wanted was the location of the rock – before at last the Egyptian acknowledged defeat. Slumping into the chair beside the desk, he hugged his arms around him, eyes fixed miserably on the floor.

  ‘You know Wadi al-Bakht?’ he muttered.

  Flin said he did.

  ‘Rock thirty kilometre south of al-Bakht, three-quarter between al-Bakht and Eight Bell. Big cliff there, very high. Rock four, five hundred metre away in desert. You go south from al-Bakht you cannot miss.’

  He looked up, shaking his head as if to say ‘You don’t know what you’re getting into.’ With no reason to prolong the conversation, they thanked him, made their farewells and moved to the door. As they reached it he called out after them.

  ‘I try help you. Gilf very far, three hundred fifty kilometre, only desert, very dangerous. I try help you, but you no understand.’

  He was on his feet again, one hand extended towards them, something almost pleading in his eyes. For a moment they all stood there in embarrassed silence. Then, thanking him again, Flin and Freya stepped out into the yard and closed the door after them.

  Once they were gone Zahir stood for a long while contemplating the photograph on the wall. Then he made his way back through the house to the bedroom, reached underneath the bed and retrieved the rifle he kept there. He sat and balanced the gun on his knees. Running one hand back and forth along the barrel, he fumbled with the other in the pocket of his djellaba and pulled out his mobile phone. He dialled and held the phone to his ear.

  ‘She has been here,’ he said when the call was answered. ‘With Brodie. They know about the rock. They are going out there.’

  A voice echoed at the other end of the line.

  ‘We have no choice,’ said Zahir. ‘It is our duty. You are with me?’

  Another tinny echo.

  ‘Tamam. I’ll pick you up in thirty minutes.’

  He rang off and rose to his feet, the rifle clasped in his hand.

  ‘Yasmin!’ he called. ‘Mohsen! I must go away! Come and say goodbye!’

  The Learjet deposited Angleton at Dakhla airport a little before 1 p.m. and within five minutes he was outside and in the hire car, a lime-green Honda Civic whose best days were clearly long behind it. He’d thought things through on the flight down, consulted the maps, knew exactly where Alex Hannen’s house was located – that’s where they were going to start from, it had to be – and with the local police under instructions to relay any sightings direct to him, there was no reason to tarry. Mopping the sweat from his neck and forehead – sweet holy Jesus it was hot out here! – he started the Honda’s engine, put the car into gear and, tyres squealing on the baking tarmac, roared off across the car park. The guards manning the airport security gate leapt out of the way as he careered past them and out onto the road to Mut.

  It was a curious thing, but from the moment she’d first heard about the Hidden Oasis – was it really less than twenty-four hours ago? – Freya had somehow sensed she’d be heading out into the burning wastes of the western desert in search of it. Although that sense had grown stronger as the hours had slipped by and the oasis had come more and more to dominate events, at no point had it ever been anything more than an abstract notion. It was only now, as they tore along the desert track back towards the mini-oasis and Alex’s house, that the reality of their impending journey fully came home to her.

  ‘Don’t we need supplies?’ she asked, clutching the dashboard as they bumped and slewed on the track’s uneven surface. ‘Fuel and stuff? Three hundred and fifty kilometres is a hell of a long way.’

  ‘It’s in hand,’ was all Flin would say. ‘Trust me.’

  They reached the oasis – its dense, tangled undergrowth feeling considerably less malevolent than it had done when she was last here – and followed the track as it looped and twisted through the trees. Finally they arrived at Alex’s house, skidding to a halt in a billow of dust. Freya wondered if there would be blood inside. If the old farmer’s body would be sprawled on the floor. But the building was empty – cool and neat and ordered, exactly as it had been the first time she had seen it.

  ‘I need you to get some warm clothes together,’ said Flin, pointing her towards Alex’s bedroom. ‘Jumpers, coats, anything like that: the desert gets pretty cold at night. We’re going to need water as well – there should be a couple of containers in the kitchen. Just fill them from the tap, it’s perfectly drinkable. If you can find any food and coffee, great, but don’t go overboard. Hopefully we won’t be out there for much more than twenty-four hours.’

  ‘But Zahir said it would take us three days to get there.’

  She was talking to herself for Flin had already disappeared into Alex’s study.

  She hovered a moment, wondering, rather late in the day, if the Englishman was actually qualified for this sort of expedition and whether they should have taken Zahir up on his offer after all. She dismissed the thought – better someone unqualified, she figured, than someone she didn’t trust – and went into her sister’s bedroom. She found a large nylon holdall underneath the bed. Sifting through the drawers and cupboards, she pulled out a couple of jumpers, a sweatshirt and a heavy woollen shawl; pressing the garments against her cheek, she sensed her sister’s presence in each one, then stuffed them into the holdall. She added Alex’s old suede travelling jacket from the hook behind the door, swung the bag onto her shoulder and was moving out into the living area when she suddenly turned and went back into the room. Walking over to the picture frame on the bedside table, she removed the passport-booth photograph of her and Alex together as teenagers and slipped it into the pocket of her jeans.

  ‘Didn’t think I’d leave you behind, did you?’ she said, patting the pocket.

  In the kitchen there were a couple of five-litre plastic water containers sitting on the sideboard. As Flin had instructed, she filled these direct from the tap before foraging for various other items: a jar of instant coffee, some chocolate bars, a large tin of baked beans, a tin opener. Adding these to the holdall, she lugged the whole lot outside and hefted it all into the back of the Cherokee.

  Throughout all this Flin had remained out of sight in Alex’s study, the clunk of opening drawers and the rustle of paper the only indication that he was still in the house. He emerged now, just as she closed the Jeep’s rear door, holding a chunky black briefcase in one hand and a book and a couple of maps in the other.

  ‘Know where we’re going?’ she asked as he climbed into the Jeep, waving her in as well.

  ‘Pretty much,’ he replied. ‘You get everything?’

  She jerked a thumb towards the holdall and water containers in the back. He nodded and started the engine.

  ‘Gilf Kebir here we come,’ he said.

  He reversed the Cherokee and took them back through the oasis. When they reached the point where the track dog-legged left around a large dirt threshing floor, he swung right onto a smaller track that Freya had not noticed before. It was little more than a glorified footpath and the Jeep was only just a
ble to squeeze between the dense walls of vegetation that hemmed it in, high tufts of grass sweeping the vehicle’s underside with a sharp rasping sound. They jolted along for another minute, rarely getting above 20km/hour, passing a sheep pen and a concrete cistern with water pumping into it before abruptly the undergrowth dropped away. They were right at the edge of the oasis, beside the breeze-block barn where Freya had taken refuge two nights ago. Ahead stretched the flat expanse of sand across which she had sprinted to make her escape, the indentations of her footprints still faintly visible on its compacted surface.

  She assumed that this was it, that from here Flin would simply drive out onto the desert and off they’d go towards the Gilf Kebir. Instead he pulled over beside the barn, cut the engine and got out. Removing the briefcase, maps, book and holdall and asking her to bring the water containers, he went over to the building’s iron door, fished a key from his pocket and undid the padlock. He swung the door open and disappeared inside.

  We must be going in another car, she thought as she lifted the water containers from the back seat and followed him in. The building’s interior smelt strongly of petrol and was awash with light, partly from the window openings set high in the walls, mainly from the gaping hole in the roof where the downdraught from the twins’ helicopter had ripped away a chunk of its palm thatch. A row of 20-litre plastic jerry cans were lined up along the wall to her left, filled with a transparent liquid which, from the pervasive smell, she assumed was petrol. Beside them sat a small orange cool box, a heap of thick woollen blankets and a tray piled with spanners, screwdrivers and other tools. But what really caught her attention – unavoidably – was an enormous object sitting in the middle of the barn and taking up most of the building’s length, width and height. What it was exactly she couldn’t tell for it was shrouded in a heavy canvas tarpaulin, but it certainly didn’t look like any car she’d ever seen before. Any vehicle of any kind.

  ‘What the hell’s that?’ she asked.

  ‘Miss Piggy,’ replied Flin cryptically, squeezing past the mysterious object and moving to the far end of the barn. Rather than breeze-block, this end of the building was walled in by a heavy steel roller-door. Grasping the chain that dangled down from the roller-wheel above, he started to tug. The door furled itself up and around with a clank and a rattle until it was open, the barn’s concrete floor segueing seamlessly into the shimmering yellow carpet of the desert. Again Freya asked what was going on, but Flin simply beckoned her over and, taking one corner of the tarpaulin, indicated that she should take the other. Together they slowly drew it up and over the object, working their way back along the barn until it was completely exposed.