Laforche says, ‘A walled city is worse in summer. It becomes Rimbaud’s city of black roses.’
‘Your English is very good,’ I say. ‘Better on some occasions than others.’
‘It’s the Arabic way,’ he says. ‘I know how much that infuriates you Americans.’ He spits out a grape seed. We watch it land in a minute puff of dust on the red earth. He says, ‘You sit in your offices on Hafid Street. Or the Hilton on Haussman. Anywhere there is air-conditioning. And a mini-bar behind the wood panelling in the bedroom bureau.’ He smiles. ‘The CIA quarter. We all know it.’
I pretend to rub dust off my cuff. It is no pretence. There is dust on my cuff. Even though there is no wind that I can detect.
I ask Laforche what else is on the second level.
‘The patients’ rooms, you already know,’ he says. ‘The dry goods storeroom, the recreation rooms. Then, on what you Americans call the ground floor, my office, the infirmary, the winter kitchen, showers, laundry, generator and mechanics’ workshop. Below ground are the nuns’ cells, the summer kitchen, the well and water storage, the pantries. We only get supplies once a week at most.’
Ahead of us, the stone turret rears. This stone is a different red to the rest of the Asylum.
‘Built in 1890, when Rimbaud came to stay,’ says Laforche. ‘Built for him, they say.’
Rimbaud came up the coast of the Western Sahara and Morocco, Laforche tells me. Riding with the caravans of the North West Africa Company. They said he travelled with a dog, a cat, a chimpanzee and a hyena. This was after his years of teaching, his time in the circus, the time spent working for a coffee company. He was older; it was nearly twenty years since he had written his last poems. He was running guns by that time and hunting. He traded the leather and ostrich feathers for tea, sugar, cloth. Being a Frenchman, he had to be careful. Tensions were running high. The Spanish were trying to take over the caravan routes, fighting bitterly with the French whenever they found them. Forts were being built all along the coast: Cap Juby was half finished, Villa Cisneros was being constructed. The soldiers were hot, restless, bored. They would frequently leave their forts and go on hunting parties; hunting for enemies.
‘Everyone hates the French,’ I say.
‘Yes, in Africa we were like the Americans are now, everywhere,’ says Laforche. ‘When the air routes to South America were opening up, and the Germans were competing, they would give the locals Mauser rifles to shoot at French planes.
‘We are a nation of solitaries,’ says Laforche. ‘Of travellers. The French are made so that nothing contents us. Not standing still is a form of survival. Writers, con-men. André Gide, Pierre Loti. Men who travel dressed as women like Michel Vieuchange. Women who travel dressed as men like Isabelle Eberhardt. Restless spirits.’
‘Suicides,’ I say.
‘People who cross the frontiers are always fools and madmen. They are drawn to the desert. The desert is the shape of their death. It is the death they carry inside them. One addiction among many others. To sex, to kif and other drugs. To the dice.’ Here, he pauses. ‘They could turn back at any time but they never do. They go on towards the mirages. Towards death, to cheat death. Rimbaud said that he wrote to outwit the evil clock of time.’
‘Did he?’
‘No,’ says Laforche. ‘He got an ulcer in the leg which turned to gangrene. He was carried to Marseilles in agony. His body eaten from within, trying to find a way back.’
‘Back home?’
‘Back to peace of mind. To poetry. To feeling. Because he had become fire shut up in stone.’
Below, a nun dawdles across the courtyard, followed by three women in robes and hoods. They carry platters covered by muslin cloths. The smell of hot chocolate and bread drifts up. The women talk, peer into the dry pond, pull up a thistle.
They see me and make signs in the air. One spits. They say nothing yet there is an aura of furious words around them, like grasshoppers swarming.
‘They think you are American,’ says Laforche. ‘The Asylum had a certain reputation during the Algerian uprisings. It was used by the French military. Sometimes the CIA. They needed a discreet place.’
‘Torture,’ I say.
‘Yes. And not just for foreigners. The locals were sent here, too.’
It is 6.30 am. I have been here for twenty hours and accomplished nothing. I have a moment of anger so intense that I feel dizzy. I grasp the stone wall. It would be fatal to be too direct. Laforche is obviously the kind of man who likes to fence, who has nothing else in the world but time to talk.
I want to shout, A woman’s life is at stake. The effort of not shouting takes as much energy as doing it. I lean heavily on my hands, slow my breathing, pretend to look at the Massif. Sand grates under the sweat on my neck. If he says the wrong thing, I tell myself, I am going to punch him.
Dirty tattered chickens are moving across the cracked courtyard. From here I see the faded mosaic of a lion on the bottom of the empty fountain, coloured in weak yellow and traced in chipped black.
Laforche says, ‘Animals have always been our others, no matter what the Church instructs. In battle, wherever you saw lions rampant on silk parasols, you saw a king.’ He gestures at the courtyard. ‘Once this was a garden with fabled greenery, an oasis in the desert. Did you know that a garden appears in nine hundred of the one thousand and one stories of the Arabian Nights?’
He looks at the dry plain, his eyes half closed. ‘They say there were oceans filled with fish. Then savannas with animals. The gardens of Abu N’af ran in terraces all the way down to a vast lake. Orchards to the horizon, with the finest apricots and dates and oranges.’
‘Fresh water?’
‘Fresh water.’
We are silent, awed by the richness of the image. Near the shadows of the chicken, I see paws moving under the dirt.
‘In the desert,’ says Laforche, ‘there is no greater wealth than water and flowers. Loss of the oasis is banishment from the garden paradise. Homelessness.’
‘But this isn’t home.’ I rub my neck. ‘It’s dust.’
He turns quickly, the fastest I have seen him move. ‘It is an entire country underground. Everything in the desert buries itself to survive: animals, plants, people.’ He puts down his coffee. ‘We have always buried our art: relics and statues, the locations passed down from father to son. We buried libraries in the sand. Any person could pick up a handful of sand and feel knowledge trickling through their fingers. There were families who, even though they had nothing, walked with the arrogance of those who were rich in treasure.’
He raises both arms, as though he is holding the desert and the sky. ‘Returning travellers fell to their knees and kissed the earth. They knew the desert is a secret life waiting to be found.’
‘I don’t have time,’ I say. ‘Don’t you understand?’
His arms drop. ‘Maybe it is beyond your control. Maybe you don’t have the right to make decisions about – ’ He pauses.
‘About her?’ I step forward. ‘And you think you do?’
‘Take off your tie, Monsieur,’ he says. ‘That would be a start.’
The generator begins its steady thudding beat. Laforche shakes his head irritably but somehow, in between the dulled strokes, I am more aware of the silence of the desert, how far we are from the city, from Mitch’s bullet-point memos and deadlines. Even the word “silence” is misleading. I hear whispers inside the sky; I imagine the wind pressing down on lost civilisations, solitaries, map-makers. Criminals.
The Asylum has ten patients, Laforche says, all women. Six novices at the most, instructed under Sister Antony. ‘This from a century ago, Rimbaud’s time, when a hundred, two hundred, would be cared for here. Travellers, leprosy sufferers, French soldiers with the usual desert sicknesses: syphilis, opium addiction.’
He takes out an immaculate white handkerchief and pats his face although there is no sweat that I can see. I shift uneasily; my shirt is sticking to my back.
‘
The good Sister thinks prayers will be enough to save the Asylum,’ says Laforche. ‘The Church, of course, hears so many prayers it has become immune. “Asylum” is not a friendly word.’
‘Sister Antony will go?’
‘To a bed in a less desirable convent. She made enemies thirty years ago with her criticism, her attempts at improvements. True solitaries are always feared. And the Church has a long memory. She will be working until the day she dies.’
We walk through the archway, climb two circles of broad stone steps and come out into a hexagonal room. There are narrow windows set in every wall. Light pours in yet the stone keeps the heat out, so far. The shutters are clipped back and here, finally, is the wind. It flows across the room, pressing sand flecks into my cheek.
There are two long desks piled with books and papers, a feathered pen in an inkpot, a decanter filled with red liquid, a half-full glass, more books in an open chest on the floor. A smaller table with three chairs, a rug, a chunky wooden bureau with an ornate silver lock. A low divan in the corner is covered with an unexpectedly rich sapphire blue velvet quilt and long silk cushions embroidered with flowers and peacocks.
‘This is where he wrote,’ says Laforche. He points at the divan. ‘And lay there, for times of reverie. Not the same divan, unfortunately. Although we let people think it is.’
A book with a cracked red wooden cover is open on the nearest desk, its yellowing pages covered with large meticulous writing in ink. The date at the top catches my eye: Abu N’af. September 30, 1890. I read:
When I was lost in the desert, among sands the colour of saffron, I raised my head and saw on the horizon, monks moving in the spaces between the dust spirals. These travellers were frail, their robes full of wind. By their presence, you see the wind. They walked backwards against the furious air, their heads down. Clouds swirled around them, the sun glinted off the metal crosses of the novices, the gold cross of the abbot. I thought they were a mirage until I came to Abu N’af.
A silverfish or some creature has crawled across the right-hand page and expired. Its body is long gone but there is the faint spiky outline of brown bones pressed into the yellowing paper.
‘Rimbaud wrote in English?’ I say.
Laforche grins. ‘You would be astounded, Monsieur, how few of our tour groups ask that question.’
‘So this is – ?’
‘A translation,’ he says smoothly. ‘For display, since the late 1970s.’
The page has scorch marks, as though made by a candle. I touch the skeletal stain with my finger. ‘The silverfish is a nice touch.’
‘Sister Antony is very dedicated.’
‘Sister Antony did this translation?’
‘Sister Antony did all our translations. She could already see the benefits of the never-ending curiosity of the English tourist.’ He half-bowed in my direction. ‘And American, of course.’
‘Of course.’
I turn the page, reading at random:
Entering the desert is like entering the ultimate book, in which the voice is that of ourselves, alike but different, a radical stranger . . . In the desert madness is an asset . . . It is tedious when a journal is filled with doom and premonitions. Who’s to say that gaps weren’t left in the beginning and filled in later, to retroactively forecast momentous events, national disasters? There’s no point spinning elaborate scenarios about loneliness and rage and revenge. Just say it plainly. Just say: I frequently dreamed that my hair was a cold flag of rain and my hands were coated with tomb dust.
‘Your tour groups would appreciate it more if they couldn’t touch it,’ I say. ‘Human nature.’
‘That is why,’ says Laforche, ‘reluctantly we show them this.’ He goes to the bureau, takes out a large key and fits it into the silver lock. He lifts out a silver box studded with small rubies. The hinged lid is elaborately patterned. Laforche raises it and carefully takes out a book wrapped in ivory silk. On top are two gloves of white kid leather. Putting on the gloves, he delicately opens the book.
The cover is made of black leather, cracked now in places but still supple enough to show it is of the finest quality. The pages are almost translucent. I am reminded of onion skin; there are faint lines running through the waxy surface.
‘Wax weave pressing,’ says Laforche. His voice has a hushed quality as though he is speaking in a church. ‘A very old process. Very slow. Traditional.’
I bend. The pages are covered in black ink. The writing is in French.
Laforche says, ‘Arthur Rimbaud’s diary.’
‘He left it here?’
Laforche hesitates. ‘It was gifted to us, by a relative of the last owner.’
‘And the English one, the one translated by Sister Antony, is an exact copy?’
He hesitates again. ‘Yes.’
I point at the French writing. ‘Does he write about his journey across the Sahara?’
‘He writes about everything, Monsieur.’
The writing is bold, impatient, forward-leaning. ‘I can’t read French,’ I say.
Laforche turns the translucent page, slowly, and reads in English:
To be born intelligent is one thing. To be born reckless and stubborn is too close to madness. In the desert, madness is an asset. Once your mind has split and peeled backwards, once the smallest sounds thundered in your ears, you can cope with the nothingness of it all. I see the long line of events beginning with the muddy-kneed boy in the farmyard shouting at his mother, see all the way to this magnificent blasted land. In the end I had to come to the desert. It was perverse. It was inevitable.
‘That sounds like you,’ I say.
‘But not you.’
‘Never me.’ We look at each other and laugh.
He touches the page, lets the tip of his white glove rest there.
‘Why do you like Rimbaud so much?’ I ask. ‘A guy who failed as a poet, couldn’t hack the competition, who ran away.’
‘Rimbaud left the map,’ says Laforche. ‘In his writing, he was a true explorer. All writers are explorers and guides. But he changed the world. No-one could enter his country afterwards without acknowledging his footsteps.’
‘His country?’
‘Poetry.’
‘Poetry.’ I sigh, suddenly weary. ‘There is too much poetry in my life. I never wanted it. What is it good for anyway?’
‘Compression,’ says Laforche. ‘Communication. Reality. Intensity.’
‘I have a problem with intensity already.’
‘We noticed. Yet you say you don’t care what happens to Madeleine.’
I kick the briefcase. ‘Don’t call her that.’
‘Madeleine is the symbol of France.’ He shrugs. ‘The woman, then.’
‘Laforche, there is no big conspiracy. She has information, she needs to share it. Then she can disappear back to wherever she came from.’
‘Back to the desert,’ says Laforche. ‘You want to punish her.’
I try not to think of the gun in my briefcase. I say loudly, ‘I just
want the information.’
‘Or?’
‘It will screw my career.’
‘And this is so important?’
‘It’s all I’ve got.’
The doorway darkens. It is the thin woman who had been talking to the pilot. She looks me up and down and puts her hands on her hips. There are blue inked flames curling around her wrists. She says to Laforche, ‘M’sieur, you must come.’
I step forward. ‘Is it the sick bay?’
She ignores me. ‘A message from the city,’ she says to Laforche.
He looks at the two books on the table.
‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘I’m not interested in your precious French book.’
Laforche takes off the kid gloves. ‘Be careful,’ he says to me.
The minute they have gone, I take the camera out of my briefcase. From the top of the steps, I hear Laforche’s voice, receding.
I set my watch for two minutes and go to th
e book of French writing, leafing through it as quickly as I can, looking for anything that seems relevant: to the woman, to Sicily, to Koloshnovar. I try to be delicate. God forbid I should tear a page. But there are only fragments of writing with dates, words clumped in lines, sketches of camels and lumpy mountains and men on horseback. I want to find a map. It would be a solution of sorts.
I see nothing. I leave it and turn the pages of the English book.
I try to absorb whole paragraphs, to commit them to memory.
By the very act of walking, the sand under our feet changes. Reaching for a book is like walking into the desert: we are surrounded by alien voices, the voices of ourselves. The way ahead seems clear and fixed but that is a mirage. Instead, we are going deeper into ourselves, deeper into our own long-buried subversions. The white page is the desert; the words are trails of our own lives.
Ramblings. I am impatient.
On the third night, I see a light far away as though a candle is held above a night sea. After a while the light moves. Bedouin travellers maybe.
I turn pages, faster.
Look at the soft edges of mirages, nothing is finite. The opposite of our cities, all those hard lines, those sharp edges which confine us but never touch our soul. Your mind is unfettered in the desert. You go out into the void and the void goes into you. The void is in yourself. We are made so that nothing contents us.
I stop. Now I see where Laforche gets his ideas from.
I am like the great writer who, when he was sick, called out for a fictional doctor, the character in one of his books. I call out for mirages to save me and in the end the desert did. But only when I began to believe.
A noise outside makes me go to the window. A woman is draped across a balcony on the second level. The red stone under her dark robes makes it look as though she has already fallen, is bleeding. One of the younger nuns is trying to coax her back.
I turn pages faster, feel them tear at the binding, have to slow down. I turn and turn, stopping every now and again, an ear to the stairway.
In my delirium, I saw antiquities in the sand: the giant hand of the Assyrian god of war clawing out of the desert; nearby, the dagger from the great statue at Ur used in the King’s battle with the panther beast.
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