‘What about the city officials?’ asked Nabila. ‘Or the police?’
‘The Gongan Bu? They cleared out hours ago, even before the rest of the Chinese. They’d been briefed well in advance, you can bet. The officials have gone too.’
‘Who takes their place?’ asked David.
‘I do.’ He said it without pride or self-assertiveness. It was a simple fact. ‘Where there is an absence of power, it’s proper for Muslims to set up their own rule. I’ve already given orders to prevent looting. Some young men broke into the houses left by the Han. I’m ordering their execution. A notice is going up, warning everyone that looting or stealing during the period of the siege will be punished by death.’
He looked at his watch. A few yards away, his escort was waiting, impatient to be on their way.
‘I have to go now,’ he said. ‘Our biggest worry is food. Without it, we can’t survive. And we still don’t know what they want.’
David shook his hand. He watched Osman go, feeling sorry for him. He could have answered his biggest question if he’d chosen: he knew what they wanted, why they’d locked the inhabitants of Kashgar into their own city. But he knew that, if the least rumour was started, the result would be mass panic and who could guess how many deaths?
They set up a trestle table in the courtyard, and laid out a map of the city. David flattened it with one hand. Nabila’s hand grazed his as he did so.
They faced two major problems: how to get out of Kashgar, and how to make their way to a suitable point on the southern rim of the Taklamakan to enter the desert safely. The ring round the city was solid, and over lunch they’d heard of individuals whom desperation had led to try a dash across the fields, where there were no checkpoints. None had got through alive.
‘I can’t come up with anything,’ Nabila said at last. They were sitting in the courtyard, drinking tea. Asiyeh sat ten yards away, sipping black tea with sugar as if her life depended on it, which it probably did. Her daily intake threatened to leave the house with nothing to see it through the siege.
‘If we could disguise ourselves as Han Chinese, we could just walk on out of here,’ said David.
‘What about flying out?’
‘No use. Those tanks carry anti-aircraft missiles.’
They laughed at the absurdity of it.
‘Or we could dig a tunnel to the outside. It would only need to be a couple of miles long and come out in a safe spot.’
David sipped his tea and watched the wings of a tiny bird as it played through the branches of the mulberry tree.
‘We wouldn’t have to go that far,’ he said. ‘If we could start inside a house at the very edge of town, we’d only have to dig underneath the cordon. If we exited when it was dark …’
‘Is it possible, do you think?’
‘I’m not sure. There’d be a lot of digging. If we had help, we could dig right through the day. Even so, it could take a week or two to get there.’
‘We can’t get help.’
‘Are you sure? I’d have thought a tunnel would be some help to Osman and his men.’
‘I’m sure it would. But then it would be their tunnel, and they’d control who went through it. I wouldn’t be allowed.’
‘Well, perhaps ...'
‘No, David. I meant it when I said I’d go into the desert with you. I’m not afraid of that, but I am afraid of sitting here not knowing what might be happening to you.’
‘Can we get help from someone else? I’ve got enough money to pay some boys to dig for us.’
‘That might work. There’s plenty of cheap labour at the best of times. But you’d have to be able to depend on every single labourer. Some of them wouldn’t be above visiting one of the checkpoints late at night and giving them exact details in exchange for a new pair of shoes.’
‘Perhaps we could keep them in one spot.'
‘We’d have to think about it carefully. If only ...' She put down her glass. Cardamom seeds floated on the surface of the golden tea like tiny barrels.
‘Come with me,’ she said, pushing her chair back and heading for the door. David followed.
Nabila muttered something to the guard at the entrance, then shooed David into the alleyway.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked.
‘Officially, to the hospital. In fact, you and I are off to meet one of my neighbours.’
She hurried him through a tortuous maze of dusty lanes, where each turning seemed only to lead into three or four passages, where what seemed a cul-de-sac would suddenly open to reveal a narrow gap between high, windowless walls. However dark and bewildering it all became, she did not hesitate once, or retrace her steps, or dither. She forged ahead as though she could have done it all blindfolded.
They came at last to a high wooden door whose only distinguishing marks were the Chinese character for ‘peace’, and next to it a calligraphic version of its Arabic translation.
‘Chinese?’ asked David, surprised to find any Han this deep inside the Old City.
Nabila shook her head.
‘Hui,’ she said. ‘This house has belonged to my neighbour’s family for over one hundred years.’
The Hui were Chinese in appearance and language, but Muslim by religion. Officially, they formed a separate ethnic group.
Nabila rang a bell, and within minutes they were ushered inside and asked to wait in a little room by the gate. David looked round. Quotations from the Koran, some in Chinese, some in the original Arabic, lined the walls.
The door opened again, and a man in Muslim dress came in, leaning on a cane with a brightly polished silver head. He bowed politely to David, then fixed a pair of mischievous eyes on Nabila. David guessed he was about fifty years old. He was very thin, and his posture suggested some form of wasting illness.
‘Nabila,’ he said. He spoke in Uighur, with a flawless accent. ‘How unexpected, and how kind of you to come to visit me. And to bring a friend.’
She introduced them. Hot tea was ordered, and they all retired to a small shaded room where shadows hung in every corner. Here too, the plaster had been painted with swirling arabesques of Chinese and Arabic lettering, now in red, now in green, now in black.
‘The calligraphy’s extraordinarily fine,’ said David. ‘Was it done very long ago?’
‘Not very ...‘
‘Does the calligrapher still live in Kashgar? If he does I’d like to meet him.’
‘Yes, he lives in Kashgar. But he does not like to meet people.’
Their host was Ma Jenwen. He lived with his wife and his aged father, and Nabila said she had known him all her life, since they were children together.
Seeing David’s puzzled face, Ma Jenwen explained. ‘How old do you think I am? Fifty, fifty-five?’ David hesitated. He was aware that the truth lay outside perception.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘perhaps. I really don’t know.’
‘Jenwen and I were born five days apart,’ said Nabila. ‘Our fathers were close friends. Still are.’
‘I have an illness that kills me very slowly,’ Ma Jenwen said. ‘It’s no more than the same disease that is killing you, killing my beautiful Nabila here. But its signs are less visible on her face. In my case, the disease has not progressed as rapidly as was once feared. But by the time I am forty, I will seem seventy and more. If it speeds up even more, I may not reach forty. Now, I don’t think Nabila brought you here to talk about this. Or to drink tea.’
Nabila put her teacup down and looked at David. Shadows spidered about them, dipped and swerved as the light shifted outside. In a corner of the room, someone had placed a solitary rose, bright red, with emerald leaves.
‘Ma Jenwen is a civil engineer. He qualified at Sinkiang University a year before I did. I won’t recite his biography. But he has worked with sewage construction in several places, and with mines.’
‘I see.’
David ran his hand through his hair. A light dusting of sand was sprinkled through it.
‘N
abila and I have a problem,’ he began.
Ma Jenwen sat listening. Now David spoke, now Nabila, each setting out the difficulties they envisaged in tunnelling out of the city. When they finished, there was a long silence. Sounds came from the alleyway outside. Little boys were kicking a football back and forwards. Someone was playing music on a gramophone, a Uighur pop song whose scratchy words seemed to faint away on the dry air.
‘It can be done,' said Ma Jenwen at last. ‘But it will be very difficult, it will take a lot of time, and it will entail considerable risk. You cannot use street boys to dig: they can’t be trusted. You’ll have to use your father’s men.’
‘I’ve already told you,’ said Nabila. ‘If Osman or my father get one word of this, they’ll lock me inside till the siege is lifted.’
Ma Jenwen looked very hard at her.
‘What makes you think it will be lifted?’
‘Nothing, I ...’
‘Just assumed? I think you assumed wrong.’
‘What makes you so sure?’ asked David.
‘Instinct,’ he said. ‘Sometimes, I feel as though I’m living ahead of time, as though I’m already several years in the future.’
‘You’re not,’ said David. ‘You’re with us now.’
‘My mind goes anywhere it pleases. Believe me, they don’t mean to lift this siege and walk away.’
‘All the more reason for us to get out,’ said Nabila.
‘You want to escape? Perhaps it is all in aid of a little romance? I really can’t help you if that’s so. We would all like to escape, for all sorts of reasons. But no one can claim special privileges. Not even if they’re the daughter of our beloved Sheikh Azad.’
‘Or a very dear friend of yours?’
He hesitated, then shook his head.
‘Nabila, I’ve already explained. None of us can expect special treatment.’
‘I’m not asking for special treatment. I can’t tell you why we want to get out. But you know me well enough. Quite honestly, our lives will be in more danger outside than they could ever be in Kashgar.’
He frowned and ran his hand uneasily along his stick.
‘What about other lives?’ he asked. ‘How many will be put in danger if you are found outside?’
‘I don’t know. None, I hope. But you must believe me, Jenwen - if my friend and I succeed in what we plan to do, a lot of lives will be saved.’
‘How many?’
Nabila did not answer. Her friend’s interrogation was upsetting her. She’d never seen him so serious before. It was David who replied.
‘All of Kashgar,’ he said. ‘Every man, woman, and child. And after that? Tens of thousands more. Perhaps millions.’
‘This is the truth?’
‘I have no reason to lie to you.’
‘Nor has Nabila. But she lied to me before.’
Nabila looked up, shocked.
‘When ...?’
‘When you ate my melon and threw away the rind.’
Her mouth opened and closed again. Ma Jenwen sat facing her, smiling broadly. Nabila’s face turned as red as the rose in the corner.
‘But ... You knew that was me?’
‘Yes. And the time with the yellow plums. And that other time with the seedless grapes I’d bought in the market.’
‘How old were we then?’ she asked.
‘You’d have been eight, I think. I was anywhere between eight and sixteen. But you mustn’t worry, I won’t tell your father.’ He burst into loud laughter, and they joined him. ‘But we must get you out of Kashgar.’ He paused. ‘Nabila, I think there may be an easier way. But I can’t be sure. You haven’t seen my father in some time, have you?’
‘No, but ...’
‘I think you should. And I think we should introduce Ruzi here to him.’
With surprising energy, Jenwen got to his feet and led them out of the room into the house.
It was as though someone had stopped a large clock, and with it frozen parts of time itself. David could not say exactly what gave that impression. It was not a single thing, but a combination of presences and absences. The house had been so constructed that they passed from room directly to room, through open doors. There was nothing modern anywhere, no newness, no polish, just age upon age of dust. No radios, no electric lights, no barometers, no clocks, no photographs. As though the living were not living, and the dead were not dead.
It was a large house. Wherever they went, they encountered the frozen air of a world that had stopped at some point: with the fall of the Ching Dynasty, perhaps. Or the demise of the Republic. Or a small death in the family, it was impossible to say.
At the very last, they came to a broad staircase that led to a wide wooden landing. Ma Jenwen led them up. The wood was varnished and highly polished, like a frozen lake at dawn. They crossed the landing and came to a door on which someone had traced in a very competent hand the characters for "truth" and "eternity".
‘He’s waiting,’ Ma Jenwen said as he opened the door.
They walked inside, and he closed the door behind them. David took Nabila’s empty hand, for they seemed lost in a place not quite of this world, and he was afraid to lose her. It was a large room, filled with shadow and sunshine in almost equal proportion.
They should have known something was wrong almost from the start. Perhaps it was the plainness of the room that lowered their guard, or the incense that covered any smell. The walls were pure white, and the curtains that billowed in at the windows were of white muslin. There was no furniture, except for a bed at the far end.
Everything around the bed was plain. The wall behind it was blank, save for a phrase from the Koran that ran across the head of the bed. The floor was bare of carpets. The bed itself was dressed in the starkest white, with covers that hung almost to the floor.
Nabila thought there was something strange about the bed, but she couldn’t see clearly from where she stood.
‘What is it, David?’ she asked.
He went a step nearer.
‘Flies,’ he said.
There had been a sound from the beginning, but until now it had been impossible to identify it: a low, buzzing sound, the accumulated arousal of thousands of blowflies come to feed. But what were they feeding on?
They walked forward as far as their stomachs could bear it. Slowly, the dense black cloud seemed to lift, as though the flies sensed their nearing presence, or, sated, rose to hover before once again descending. And for a moment they saw the old man lying with his back to the wall, and what had been his mouth wide open and full of buzzing flies, and what had been his eyes wide open, blinded with flies.
Nabila put her hand to her mouth and staggered back, then turned and made for the door. The others followed her. Behind them, the buzzing intensified, and the black cloud fell again on the thing on the bed.
Outside, Nabila leaned for a few minutes against the wall. As she recovered herself, her stomach heaved, and she ran to the corner to throw up. Straightening, she looked at Ma Jenwen.
‘How long?’ she asked.
‘Two days ago. The day before yesterday.’
‘Before the siege?’
‘Yes. He said he sensed something bad coming, said he was afraid to wait for it.’
‘And then he died?’
‘That night. I was alone with him. He seemed to be sleeping, then … I noticed that his breathing had stopped.’
‘Why did you leave him? You realize he could be a health hazard in a city like this? Good God, Jenwen, you’re an engineer, you know about public health measures. What you’ve done is unforgivable.’
‘I had no choice.’
‘What do you mean “no choice”?’
‘He made me promise. He said he was not to be buried in the public cemetery but in the sanctuary of the Abakh Hoja Tomb. I thought I would arrange it on the following day, then ...’ His voice stilled.
‘He has to be buried. Abakh Hoja is six miles beyond the city limits. We can’t take hi
m there. It will have to be one of the sacred tombs inside the city, the Sayyid Ali Tomb or ...’
Ma Jenwen shook his head.
‘It doesn’t have to be. I couldn’t take him, but you can. He knew a way to Abakh Hoja’s Tomb. In the days of Yakub Beg’s rebellion, when the city’s fortifications were strengthened and everyone feared there would be long sieges, my great-grandfather vowed that the people of Kashgar must never be cut off from the tomb of Abakh Hoja. He and his sons and servants dug a tunnel beneath the city walls and out all the way to the tomb. I’m too weak to carry my father there. But you can.’
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
London
Polly Potter, Polly Potter,
Fell off her perch, and Pussy got ‘er.
She clasped cold hands round her steaming cup of coffee. For some reason, the window of the cafe was misted over. She didn’t mind not being able to see out, in fact it quite suited her. It provided further concealment, kept prying eyes away. The old schoolgirl jingles ran through her head like thread in a bobbin. She’d been Polly all those years, and hated every minute of it. Being plain and brainy hadn’t helped.
Polly Potter, Polly Potter,
Potty Potter’s potty daughter.
She sighed, remembering. They’d called her all sorts of names, cruel, thoughtless names and senseless gibes she’d done her best to ignore; but what resources do you have at thirteen? Her years at Dumbarton College had been unremittingly awful. She’d often thought that entering the Secret Service had been an unconscious means of getting her revenge.
Polly Potter, Polly Potter
Never did what she had oughter.
She’d telephoned the service earlier in the day, once she’d got herself set up: some money from her cash machine, a change of underwear, a bit of make-up, a hip flask of whisky, and she felt ready to face the world. Or, if not the world, a little bit of it.
The attack on her flat had terrified the life out of her. Twenty-five years in the service, with a couple of postings abroad, had never put her in a position like this. But the attack had been nothing compared to what had happened since.
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