They are watching, Zena thinks, moving carefully, for now with each gesture she tinkles like a bell. They know that I danced for him. They know that last night I didn’t sleep outside.
Chapter Seventeen
The morning that Zena tucks into the first meal she has had in months that consists of more food than she can manage, it is well over twenty years before Sigmund Freud will be born in the Austrian town of Pribor. In fact, Freud’s mother is not yet even a twinkle in her own father’s blue eyes, and as for Carl Jung, his genius is a good forty years off seeing its first light of day. So it is true to say that nobody – not one single soul – in the whole wide world, has any particular idea why Kasim and Ibn Mohammed, the most renowned slavers in the whole Peninsula, hate it so much when they come back to Muscat. This should be, after all, why they undergo the privations of the long slaving trips – the triumph of making money enough for a luxuri ous home, endless feasts with their friends, a host of slave girls, a harim of submissive wives, a nursery of children and all the material goods a man can desire. Thanks to their dedicated barbarism in the stealing of what, over the years, has been thousands upon thousands of souls, Kasim and Ibn Mohammed are among the richest men in Oman and the regular tributes they pay the soultan for the privilege of being his subjects would keep the population of the whole country lavishly in couscous and roasted goat for a year.
Mickey sends a message with Rashid, a couple of hours ahead of his arrival. He wants to announce himself. When he reaches Ibn Mohammed’s compound, the boy is waiting outside under the shade of a plain, pale, canvas awning that runs along one side of the house. Rashid, constitutionally unable to make any kind of effort that is not strictly necessary, crouches by the door and rises to his feet only as Mickey is directly before him.
‘You delivered my note?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he say anything?’
Rashid shakes his head.
Mickey is concerned that the men are too lately arrived and will be too busy to help him, but if anyone can find out what happens beyond the wadi and across the jabel out on the sands it is Ibn Mohammed and Kasim. Both have a well-earned reputation as hard men who are as un forgiving as the harsh desert itself, and they boast a network of contacts, spies and informants that will make the job of locating Jessop and Jones and negotiating their release considerably easier. The Bedu that Mickey is hoping to engage for the job will come on board more easily if Ibn Mohammed and Kasim give their names to the mission. Ever the broker, Mickey is in the habit of seeking as much help as possible for any job he undertakes and when matters are as tricky as this one, he is certainly wise to do so. Finding Jessop and Jones will not be an easy business and freeing them will take real skill.
He is standing at the heavy, studded door and has smoothed his robe and told Rashid to smarten up ready to knock for entry when, unexpectedly, Kasim trots briskly towards the house, alone on an ornately bridled black stallion, his saddle trailing intricate weaving work and long red tassels that look particularly impressive against the animal’s black, glossy flanks. In a black robe and a long, dusky kaffiya, Kasim is a vision of darkness with a small monkey perched on his shoulder like a familiar. As he reaches the gate he pulls on the reins, raising a cloud of pale dust as the horse’s hooves stop dead on the parched ground. Kasim dismounts fluidly next to Mickey with the little monkey still clinging to him. His lavish robe swishes behind, making the whole action rather balletic and, with his chocolate eyes lowered, he bows respectfully.
‘Salaam aleikhum.’
‘Aleikhum salaam.’
The men, knowing each other of old, kiss lightly three times on alternate cheeks.
‘They sent for me when they received your message,’ Kasim explains with a flash of his milky teeth.
‘You were at home?’ Mickey is all politeness.
Kasim gives only a slight shake of his head. ‘I went to the wadi,’ he says, aware that camping in the valley outside town is hopelessly eccentric when he owns a lush compound of his own and could stay with any number of good friends inside the city’s walls.
Kasim does not know why they call Muscat the Jewel of Arabia. He values the open air and excitement of the chase and the city feels like a dungeon to him whenever he returns. He behaves as evenly as he can towards his slaves, servants and wives while he is constrained within Muscat’s high, white walls but he longs to be free no sooner than he has greeted his relations and checked his stockpiles of gold. He considers the place hot, dirty and tiresome, the round of hospitality expected of him feels like pressed labour and why most men prefer to stay in the city rather than adventuring on the high seas or the mountain trails, he does not know – a view he expresses publicly from time to time, much to the shock of Muscat society. By contrast, Ibn Mohammed hides his loathing of the capital and does what everyone seems to expect of him on his return though, had Dr Freud been born some years earlier and already embarked on his career, he might have noted that Ibn Mohammed beats his slaves ferociously when in residence in his Muscat compound while on his slaving missions he is known as the more gentle one (this of course, given the nature of the men’s business, is a relative term and does not hold true on those occasional moments when Ibn Mohammed loses his temper).
These days, Kasim and Ibn Mohammed do not personally run or capture shipments of day-to-day working slaves – the recent outing in Abyssinia was for habshis and they had, in fact, hoped to find more of the unusual or rare in the villages they raided. Like most wealthy and successful slavers, they have several managers, great brutes of men who undertake regular forays into Africa on their masters’ behalf and bring out cargoes of negroes to ship all over the region and beyond – for sidis make up the majority of the trade even though they are worth only a few dollars each. The advent of the British anti-slavery blockade is a case of mere strategy to both Ibn Mohammed and Kasim who will simply find a way around the new rules to allow them to continue to make money by selling the people they steal. When he heard that the British had banned the trade and their ships would block all traffic, Ibn Mohammed commented drily that the wind blows in both directions. He claims for himself the authority of one to whom Allah has gifted personally the right to sell others if not in one geographical location, at least in another.
Now in their late thirties, the men have been trading together for some years, since they set out on their first travels on a whim fresh from the schoolroom and unsure what they wanted to do with their lives. It was only when, quite by chance, they had the opportunity to raid an encampment that things fell into place. Now they are specialists – epicures and collectors – as much as businessmen. Kasim has already started to plan his next foray into the Heart of Darkness – he has heard tell of Zigua eunuchs in the hinterland of Somalia – and he only hopes he can convince Ibn Mohammed to leave the charade of Muscat life soon. Eunuchs, like virgins, are the holy grail of slave trading in the Middle East – a fine, black eunuch most of all – there is a demand for that kind of creature from Turkey all the way to India and they are sure to fetch three hundred and fifty silver dollars each, sometimes more. The Zigua are known for their long limbs and fine teeth. Kasim can hardly wait to be off. That very morning, while bathing in a shallow water hole up on the wadi he was bitten by a camel fly. The insect’s tiny mandibles, like daggers, left a thin trail of blood down his thigh. He squashed the creature between his fingers and felt, he realised, curiously satisfied, for he is a man who does not mind pain in the slightest. Now he is dry again and dressed, he feels the sting on his skin and decides that, failing an early departure by mashua, he will camp in the wadi for as long as he can without raising the ire of his wives who seem to want to look after him for some reason. He feels uneasy, some might say guilty, about refusing to allow them to do so, but he does not really wonder why. In the meantime, Ibn Mohammed, without the escape valve of the wadi, will act so viciously towards his servants, slaves, wives and children that his whole household will breathe a sigh of relief when
Kasim finally convinces him they have spent enough time in Muscat and can once more respectably depart for the African coast. Just the thought of it makes Kasim’s heart pound. He can’t wait to get away.
Kasim pats his horse’s neck and surveys Mickey. He cannot help but notice each time he comes home that more and more of his contemporaries have become fat and complacent and this fills him with a horror for which he has no explanation. Now, when they return to Muscat, normally five or six weeks out of the year, each day feels like a month and he shuns this kind of thing as much as he can. He has only come so he can tell Ibn Mohammed about his plans to return to Africa. Up until now they have considered an exploratory trip to capture some Circassians in the north, but Zigua eunuchs, now he thinks upon it, make far more intriguing game and capturing Circassians might only enrage the Turks who are more difficult to deal with than ill-educated tribal chiefs in the hinterland of the Dark Continent.
‘Thank you for returning to town so swiftly,’ Mickey bows, unaware of just what a trial it is for Kasim to make the short journey from the wadi. ‘I need your help.’
‘For the white men? The infidels?’ Kasim knows all of Mickey’s interests and is not one for beating around the bush. His tone is dismissive.
‘Two went on a foray into the desert some weeks ago and have not returned. There are rumours they are being held by the Bedu.’
Kasim shrugs. Mickey, he notes, has greyer hair than the last time they met, over three years ago now. At the side of the cloth trader’s face there are strands that are almost completely white.
‘You look well, my friend,’ he lies nonchalantly, for he can think of nothing else to say – certainly nothing about the subject of Mickey’s concern. The white men are nothing to Kasim – you can sell the women but the men make poor slaves and in any case, their capture causes ructions. Europeans demand their male soldiers and sailors back if you steal them fairly in a fight. Besides, if these two missing Nazarene have been taken by the Bedu, he knows the men must have perpetrated some hideous crime against the emir. The Bedu can be mercurial but something must have happened, they would not have taken the white men for no reason at all.
‘What did the pale-skinned ones do?’ he asks.
‘Allah alone knows.’
Without looking, Kasim strikes the door of his friend’s house to call the servants. ‘Come,’ he says.
He is here now and has, after all, nothing better to take up his time. Besides, Mickey has been a good customer over the years and has a fine reputation. The bonds of brotherhood are strong across the Peninsula and influential men help each other as a matter of course. He might as well, he reasons, hear the story before he can get Ibn Mohammed alone and enchant him with the idea of not one Zigua eunuch but perhaps a clutch of them with children – yes, very small Zigua children, that can be dressed in feathers – to frame the eunuchs when they present them for sale to their private, most wealthy clients.
‘Let’s go in. We will drink together and share a pipe. I have an appetite. We will see what we will see about your ajamiyah friends.’
‘Thank you, Kasim,’ Mickey bows formally.
The two men enter the shady courtyard, Kasim pulling the reins of his big black stallion behind him as the red tassels bounce lethargically against the animal’s shining, black hide and Ibn Mohammed’s slaves rush to welcome their master’s important guests.
Chapter Eighteen
Farida has never discussed with her husband the proprieties of a good Arabic wife, but then she is not Arabic and she knows that Mickey will forgive her anything. Some time ago, after three long, if largely enjoyable, years of marriage and at the grand old age of twenty-three, she finds that she does miss the world a little. The freedom of it. She has looked down on the street from a distance one time too many from her bulchur-scented chamber and now she thinks, Feck it!
It does not occur to her that she might ask to go out. Even if she receives permission she will have to venture into the city in a covered litter and most likely will have to think of a damned purpose to setting foot (or gilded wooden frame) over the door. Farida likes her life in Muscat, but still, in County Cork, a young girl is accustomed to being able to walk into town and see what she can see. She rummages to find herself a black burquah that will hide everything – her status most of all. Plain black is for poor women or the very, very old and she wants to defy notice.
‘Like the bleeding dowager herself,’ she smiles as she disguises herself. She finds that her heart is pounding as she pulls the dark veil over her pale hair and stains her hands and her feet with a few drops of walnut oil. It is, she thinks, like obliterating herself. Wiping out her unique, white-skinned beauty and disappearing.
Knowing the rhythm of the household, it is easy to slip down the back stairs like a maid meeting her midnight lover or a woman who has been sequestered for three, long years stepping out into the light. It will be brief. She has perhaps an hour before anyone will come to tend her, to bring minted water or scented oil to the bedchamber where normally she reads for most of the day. And so, that first time, her heart racing like she is set to win the Derby and she only a slip of a girl with the frisson upon her, Farida sneaks into the souk.
In life there are few things that remain thrilling and even the most profane pleasures pale with repetition, but Farida finds that her heart still thunders to this day when she leaves Mickey Al Mudar’s household on the sly. After seventeen years of careful espionage, no one suspects a thing. She is always restored and calm, as if nothing has happened, before anyone can wonder where the master’s favourite wife has gone. Farida indulges this guilty pleasure with circumspection, perhaps three or four times a year – but she relishes each outing, drinking in the street scenes like a woman driven mad with the thirst.
She wanders wherever her feet will take her, past a corral of donkeys dusty from their trip to market or two men haggling over the price of anything from a brace of fowl to an ornate, cedarwood screen with inlaid, brass edging. The stalls selling copper and diorite always have an exciting clamour. The sound of life outside the silent rooms of Mickey’s mansion is like babbling music to her and the smells fire her up so she feels like dancing, floating almost, a black spectre greedy for more. A woman in a burquah does not raise a glance on the city streets, and she finds that when no one can see your eyes, you are free to look where you please and in Muscat there is plenty to command Farida’s attention.
The market quarter is one of the biggest in the whole Peninsula, second only to Sur. The confines of Muttrah stretch for a good mile and what you can’t find in the maze of its streets and alleyways isn’t worth owning. A hub of trade from the east coast of Africa to the west coast of India and north as far as Turkey, you can buy anything from a Nubian slave to a pocketful of diamonds, a bolt of silk to a herd of white goats and the place teems with men of all creeds and colours.
Farida drinks it all in – the exotic dress and the barefoot children, grubby in their poverty, sometimes on their way to classes at the mosque, carrying the shoulder blade of a camel in their hand, for that is what they use in this strange place instead of a slate. She wonders at the outlandish reptiles in cages and the cinnamon scent of almost everything baked and drizzled in a gloss of honey. Over time she comes to recognise individual stalls and shops – the familiar scribe who sits, always still, his quill and ink shaded by a tatty, maroon canopy as he waits for his next commission to walk out of the throng – the important business of an amulet to be written to protect a much-loved son, perhaps. The stall that sells the ornate silver casings is a few steps up the street and the fellow does a brisk trade in portions of the Quran to fill them. Then there is the turbaned, Indian ancient with his stall of colourful cotton jubbahs and dishdash tunics, conducting what always looks like a most convivial tea party with an array of men haggling over the quality of the cloth and the cut of the sleeves as they sip their aromatic, mint tisane and try on hauza turbans. There are goats tethered in bells so they cannot escape w
ithout raising a clatter and then, oh, then there are the fine Arab horses. The first time Farida sees one she is overcome by a desire to touch it. A bay roan, it is a gorgeous buff pink and led by a Bedu who is taking his mount beyond Muttrah, away from the souk. For the girl from Rowgaranne it is a jaw-dropping sight. Farida knows her horses. Her father was stableman to a duke and he always swore that Arabs are the prettiest breed. Still, this desert steed makes His Lordship’s finest stallion, the pride of her father’s stable, look like a carthorse from Yorkshire. She puts out her hand to touch the animal’s hide.
‘Gorgeous,’ she murmurs and she wishes her father could see it.
Once, she follows Rashid when she catches sight of him buying almond fancies. She trails him to the small house that Mickey uses as an office.
Ah, so it’s here, she thinks.
Once she has found it, Farida returns again and again. It feels good to walk by and think wickedly, My Mickey is in there and I am here outside and off to see some fine horses that are for sale in the souk this afternoon.
Farida treasures these outings. She moves like a dark spirit along the thin streets, watching Muscat, raising her eyes to the windows of the upper floor of the houses where, shielded by cotton awnings or wooden shutters she sometimes catches a glimpse, the tantalising shimmer of a woman like herself. The wife of a wealthy man who, unlike Farida, is content to remain sequestered from the world, gilded in taler necklaces, pregnant half her life and tinkling wherever she goes.
Secret of the Sands Page 10