INCARNATION

by Daniel Easterman

  ‘You wouldn’t know it. An old Uighur song about men, and how they’re always deceivers, and the revenge a young girl takes on her unfaithful lover.’

  ‘Oh? What does she do to him?’

  ‘There are two versions. I was humming the one we young Uighur women sing in private. In the polite version’ - she held up the needle and thread - ‘she sews his private parts to the tail of a mad camel. But in the version I was humming ...'

  ‘I don’t think I want to know. And I’d appreciate it if you put that needle away. Am I right in thinking the sun has come out? And the storm has gone?’

  ‘How clever you red-blooded Anglo-Saxon men are. If you’d care to follow me outside, I’ll show you all there is to see.’

  She put her sewing away, and stood up. Outside, the world had turned to sunshine. David stood in astonishment, willing himself to believe it was all real. From the sun downwards, everything looked just like a film set. He imagined it all being rolled back on rubber wheels, revealing raw concrete underfoot, and white lines marking the contours of the dunes.

  Nabila’s voice broke into his reverie.

  ‘Over here, David. Please, it’s important.’

  He stumbled through the sand towards her. As far as he could see, the high dunes were still in their original places, even if their shapes had changed. Navigating back might not be that difficult.

  Nabila was bending down beside one of the camels. Doris, as far as he could tell. The poor beast was buried to her neck in sand.

  ‘Is she … ?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve checked,’ said Nabila. ‘I looked at the others earlier. They’re all right, but they’ll need watering quickly.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘Doris? It’s hard to say. How long did the storm last?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘God knows. Three or four days at least.’

  ‘Yes, that sounds about right. She’d already gone without water a couple of days before that. Even for a camel, that’s stretching things a bit in these conditions.’

  ‘And you say the other two are OK?’

  ‘So far. But if we don’t find water for them soon, they’ll die as well.’

  David looked round at the acres of sand that had been tossed and sifted by the wind, then set down softly again. The routine they’d followed so far for finding water the camels could drink had been to keep a sharp eye out for the tell-tale patches of white salt that betrayed the presence of moisture beneath the sand. The water, when it could be found, was five or six feet down and brackish; but it served the camels well, and saved the fresh water.

  They roused the other camels and headed off, following a bearing taken with David’s compass. Using that and the general contour of the dunes, they were sure it would take less than an hour to meet up again with Mehmet and the main caravans.

  Two hours later, there was still no sign of them. Their own camels were weakening rapidly. David was sure they had been over the original camp site, but however closely he looked, he could see no sign of the missing man or his beasts, not even hoofprints.

  ‘He may have gone to look for us,’ said Nabila.

  ‘Surely not while the storm was still at its height. Look, if this was the site, then he and the camels must have left during the storm, not after. Does that make any sense?’

  Nabila frowned, then nodded.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said. 'I’ve heard of men being driven half insane by the karaburan and setting off to walk home while it was still blowing. Mehmet must have been on the edge already, with the pain in his wrist. He could have just taken the camels off in an attempt to get out of the storm.’

  ‘Then they could be almost anywhere by now.’

  ‘Yes - within reason. In practice he can’t have got far.’

  ‘We need those camels, Nabila. They have our water, our equipment

  ‘Why don’t you climb that dune there and see what you can make out?’

  ‘Right. Where are my binoculars?’

  Nabila dug into one of the saddlebags and whipped out a tatty pair of army surplus glasses she’d picked up in Korla many years earlier.

  ‘You lent yours to Mehmet, if you remember. But you can have these if you like.’

  He took them from her.

  ‘These aren’t exactly high-performance.’

  ‘I liked them very much when I bought them. I thought they were the smartest thing.'

  ‘Well, hardly ...' He broke off, sensing she was hurt. ‘I only meant ...’ he started, then broke off again.

  ‘In Kashgar we have a saying: However highly polished your spectacles, you will see through them only what you want to see.’

  He laughed.

  ‘Who made that nonsense up?’

  ‘I did. And it isn’t nonsense. Remember you’re in the desert. It’s easy to be misled by a mirage.’

  ‘I’ll do my best to keep out of their reach.’ He bent and kissed her. ‘Don’t leave this spot, for God’s sake. We can’t afford to get split three ways.’

  ‘I’m staying put whatever happens. Haven’t you noticed the tamarisk bush over there? I’m going to dig down. There might be water.’

  ‘Good luck.’ He kissed her again and started up the dune.

  The sand, softer than ever after the storm, made every step of the climb a torture. The dune must have been close on four hundred feet high. Each time David placed a foot on the slope ahead of him, it sank down, giving him little purchase. His legs ached intolerably before he’d gone fifty feet. The sun was high, not far short of noon, and the heat that blazed down on him from behind threatened to bake him dry. He kept his head down and plodded on, one hand on his stick, the other in free air, defying gravity, or so it seemed.

  At the top, he looked behind him, all the way down the flank of the dune. A long diagonal trail of blurred footprints marked his passage. His eye flicked over it, then down to where Nabila and the two camels waited like insects.

  The dune was high enough to give him a vantage point from which to see for several miles in most directions. Again and again, he swept his eyes over the deceptive landscape, a uniform carpet of ochre full of hollows and hummocks and great sweeping hills. He almost thought that, if he could strip it away, another landscape would be revealed, of green fields and gentle slopes and small river valleys. Nothing moved. No birds straddled the sky. No gazelles raced between the dunes.

  Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of something. A series of black marks against the sand. It was hard to tell if it was moving at all at first. He raised Nabila’s glasses and started to sweep. Where the hell were they? He altered the focus several times, but still the marks eluded him. Again he tried with his bare eyes. The marks were still there, but only just: in a moment they’d have passed out of his line of sight behind a dune.

  This time he got the glasses in line and found what he was looking for. There was no sign of Mehmet, but the six camels disappearing from view were unmistakable.

  He waved his arms and shouted at the top of his voice.

  ‘Mehmet! Mehmet! Over here! Look up, Mehmet!’

  But there was no answering cry, no waving figure acknowledging him.

  He gave up at last and started back down the dune, bumping and sliding and skiing his way down ten times faster than he’d gone up.

  Nabila was waiting for him.

  'I heard you call. Did you see Mehmet, or were you just trying to get his attention?’

  ‘He was down there. I didn’t see him, but I caught the tail end of the caravan moving in line. He must be at the front. We’ve got to act quickly, otherwise he could be lost for good.’

  ‘Which direction’s he heading in?’

  ‘That’s the funny thing. They were going due south.’

  ‘He’s taking the most direct route out of the desert, then. He must think we’re dead.’

  ‘He has no reason to think otherwise. Look, I’ll take one of the camels and try to head him off.’

  Nabila s
hook her head decisively.

  ‘No point. You’ll get no speed out of either animal.’

  ‘But Mehmet

  ‘You’ll have to go on foot. But if you do that, I want you to make completely sure I can follow you. Wait.’

  She went to the first camel, a gangly creature David had named Elvis. It took her a while to find what she was looking for, rummaging through the huge packs while Elvis snorted protests and moaned softly at the lack of water.

  ‘Here,’ she said, triumphantly pulling out a loosely wrapped bundle of thin wooden sticks that turned out to have Chinese flags glued to one end.

  ‘Stick one in every five hundred yards or so, always well within sight of the one before. And pick them up again on your way back.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better if you followed me? Most of the camels are over there with Mehmet.’

  ‘Then you’d better get a move on. I’m staying here.’

  She thrust the flags at him. He took them and kissed her, then turned to go.

  He had walked about six feet when her voice stopped him.

  ‘David ...’

  He turned round and looked at her. She seemed small and tired. Her skin had dried, making it look as though she’d aged years since the storm started.

  ‘Make sure you come back to me,’ she said. ‘Do you hear me?’

  ‘I won’t be long. I promise.’

  He set off, skirting the tall dune and coming out into more open country. He’d memorized the terrain that he’d seen from above; but here on the ground, it all seemed confusingly different. He began to wonder if he would, after all, be able to find Mehmet and his charges.

  The flags stood up reasonably well in the soft sand. The sticks were made of light wood, and the flags themselves were of flimsy material. David found himself glad that Nabila had had the foresight to bring them in the first place. Looking back the way he had come, David realized that even a moment’s inadvertence could cause him to lose the way.

  He thought he recognized the dune ahead. It was white, with a row of camel-thorn bushes bristling across one side. He made a turn at it, praying he was making better speed than Mehmet. When he looked round again, the view back to his starting-point was blocked. If another storm came, he would never make it back to Nabila.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  Suddenly, some distance ahead, he saw them - a curving line of tired-looking camels plodding stoically across a burnt landscape. Their foreshortened forms shivered in and out of focus in the waves of heat that bounced off the hot sand. David focused his glasses on them. Mehmet was walking at the front, hunched and weary, his damaged arm dangling by his side like a lump of dead wood.

  Glancing round quickly, David saw that he could reach them much more quickly if, instead of pushing on along the trail they’d left, he were to climb the dune on his left and slide down the other side. That way, he’d come out more or less facing them. It was a monstrous mistake, but there was no way he could have known it at the time.

  His legs were still weak and rubbery after his recent climb, and they bore him to the top with great reluctance. When he got there, he found himself thoroughly out of breath. Looking down, he saw Mehmet and the camels at roughly the position he’d expected to find them in. They were heading for a clump of tamarisk bushes in the middle distance, probably with the intention of digging for water. David was facing them: the dune had brought him round ahead of them.

  David thought at first of calling, but he still felt too winded to do more than pant for air. He started to slide down slowly, less anxious now, and aware of the danger that lay in spraining or breaking a leg or an ankle. He wondered if Mehmet could see him yet.

  At the bottom, there was still some little distance between himself and the front camel, while the cut of the dune had placed David at an angle to his quarry, with the result that he was approaching them from in front rather than behind. He walked slowly towards them, knowing there was now no way Mehmet could miss him.

  The first tamarisks came in sight. Even here, the heat haze lay over the ground, twisting everything into false and deceptive shapes. David squinted for a first sight of Mehmet.

  Suddenly, there he was, a black figure walking unsteadily towards him, now visible, now concealed by the flank of the camel he walked beside.

  ‘Mehmet! Mehmet! It’s me, David! I’m over here! Can you see me?’

  The camel-driver did not respond at once. He just kept trudging on. Then, as David’s voice grew more insistent, he raised his head and opened his eyes, shading them with his good hand. When he caught sight of David, he leapt into the air and called out exultantly. Next thing, he was haring towards him with as much speed as his tired limbs could muster.

  David glanced around with satisfaction. He’d found Mehmet, and it looked as though he’d found a substantial reserve of water at the same time. He started to walk forward. They were about two hundred yards apart. David waved again, and Mehmet, suddenly animated and full of energy, ran as fast as he could across the flat bed of the little arroyo.

  What happened next was so frightening and so unexpected that David refused at first to believe it was happening at all. He blinked and looked again.

  One moment, Mehmet was clearly visible, the next, it was as if he had slipped or fallen to his knees. David squinted, then lifted the glasses to his eyes.

  Mehmet had sunk to his waist in a bed of quicksand. He was struggling to regain his balance in the hope of being able to swing back to the firm ground he’d just left, but the more he struggled, the more he was pulled down. Had he fallen with his good arm facing back to solid land, he might - just might - have succeeded in pulling himself back to safety. But his left arm, with its swollen and almost useless hand, would not give him the thin purchase he needed so badly.

  David started to run towards him, then stopped. He’d just realized it would be the height of stupidity to blunder forward in a straight line without knowing where the pool of quicksand ended. The edge might be only feet away from him. There was no point in killing himself along with Mehmet, and leaving Nabila to die alone. Her words echoed in his head: ‘Make sure you come back to me.’

  He started walking more slowly, using one of the flags to prod the ground a couple of feet ahead of him. Mehmet was screaming now, yelling at the top of his voice for help, now calling on David, now on God, now on his mother. David reckoned he was the nearest, then remembered his own mother reading from the Koran when she prayed: ‘God is closer to you than your neck vein.’

  The stick sank suddenly into something very liquid. David almost overbalanced headlong into the waiting pool, then caught himself by executing an awkward twist at the hips that left him sprawling on firm ground. He struggled painfully to his feet and checked the distance between Mehmet and himself. Fifty yards at least.

  Mehmet was up to his armpits.

  ‘Try not to struggle, Mehmet,’ shouted David. ‘I’m coming round to get you.’

  But how wide was the pool? For all David knew, it was irregularly shaped, with side-pockets extending on either side of him. Would he be faster going to the left or to the right? Did tamarisk bushes grow on dry land or quicksand? Or both?

  He headed right, prodding to the side and front in the hope of telling where the quicksand began and ended. Mehmet was babbling rather than screaming now. David was glad he was too far away to see the man’s face. Every time he looked, the camel-driver was in deeper than before.

  'I'm coming, Mehmet,’ he called, ‘just hang on!’ But he didn’t know how he was going to get the man out, even if he did reach him in time. And his progress was so slow, he was beginning to doubt whether he could make it in time.

  Mehmet responded with a series of frantic cries. David trained the glasses on him and saw he was already up to his shoulders. Not much more than three or four very short inches separated the sinking man’s mouth from the surface of the quicksand.

  David quickened his pace, desperate to get to Mehmet before he was wholly engulfed. Th
e thought that he might be late by a matter of minutes or seconds lent urgency to his efforts. Urgency and a touch of recklessness.

  He’d reached the side of the pool and was free, or so he thought, to head directly for Mehmet. He started to run, forgetting to use the flag to test the ground in front. Just as he came within range of Mehmet, the sand beneath his own feet gave way. There was a sucking sound, and David found himself dragged down into something that felt like wet porridge. There was a second slurping noise, and when he looked he saw that he was already up to his armpits in the stuff.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  He’d given her a direct hit of cocaine in the taxi, making up the solution with mineral water he’d taken from her bedside table. By the time they reached their destination, she was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and madly in love with Calum and his wonder-drug. She hadn’t felt as good as this in years.

  ‘Well,’ he drawled, smiling at her, ‘well.'

  She looked at the red mark on her forearm and grinned.

  The cab left them in a cul-de-sac behind Paddington Station. Calum had an old friend there, a Hibs fan called Malcolm who allowed him to put up on his floor any time he was in London.

  He let them in with a front-door key. This was where he always stayed whenever he was in London. He’d slept there the night before, and breakfasted heartily before setting forth for Knightsbridge. The living room was as he’d left it, the sofa-bed open, spilling sheets and a thin duvet on to the floor. His friend was the house DJ at a small club two streets away. He didn’t have a girlfriend, just a string of nubile one-nighters, all aged about twelve, all spaced on E and wide open to his blandishments.

  Calum glanced at his watch. Almost four o’clock. He wouldn’t expect Malkie back for another hour or two.

  ‘C’moan in, hen. It’s no’ the Ritz, but the way you feel, it’s no’ the Ritz you’re after, is it?’

  ‘Fuck the Ritz. Mother’s always going there. Stupid place. Not as nice as this at all.’

  He led her in, holding her lightly by the hand as though she was a precious substance he’d found and brought home. In her way, that was exactly what she was. He didn’t plan to let her out of his sight until he had her tucked away safe and sound at their final destination. Given several more doses of cocaine, she’d never leave his side, not as long as he controlled all access to the drug. And where they were going, he’d be the only medicine show in town.