Caravan

by Dorothy Gilman

  Apparently they were people who made things, and later I walked to the edge of the tent and in the distance, quite removed from the camp, saw a new cluster of tents, three in number and small. I was curious: this at least was something new and I needed things to think about, my life being so confined and domestic. I wondered, too, about the black boy, for the others with whom he'd arrived had copper-colored skins. It needed another day for me to learn why they were regarded with uneasiness, and much to my surprise the word repeated over and over about them was ettama, the same that had been applied to me.

  Well, well, I thought, we have something in common, then, and I must find out what magic they use to be so feared.

  The next day when Marsaya, Fadessa and the child visited friends in a tent not far from the camp of the enaden I wandered after them, trying to be inconspicuous. It was as if the boy had been waiting all this time for me, because suddenly he was at my side.

  Beaming, he pointed to himself. "I," he said.

  I looked at him in astonishment. "You?" I said stupidly.

  "I Bakuli, Jesus-boy."

  "You speak English?" I gasped. I could scarcely believe this.

  "Yes, Missy, most good, and Jesus-boy, too."

  "A Christian?" I said blankly. "But—how is this?"

  He thought a moment and I despaired that I might have heard the last of his English, which hearing was like a miracle. But he had more to say and had only needed time to find the words. "White Jesus-man my friend, he die of sleep sickness," he said. "In my village." Turning he pointed south across the lonely desert. "When he die, Bakuli stolen by bad men. Many moons we walk, Missy, to North Star, and many die. One day I choose better to run and die but the good Jesus save me." He pointed to the tents of the enaden. 'They find me all dead in desert and give water." He thumped his chest triumphantly, grinning his huge and radiant white smile. "I, Bakuli, live."

  I smiled back at him. "You live, yes—and speak English. You were stolen by slave-traders?"

  "Yes, Missy."

  I shivered. "Then are you happy with the—the enaden, Bakuli?"

  He thought about this and at length his face grew somber. He said simply, "I grow sick for trees." He glanced up at me. "And thou, Missy?"

  Abruptly someone from the tents shouted, "Bakuli? Bakuli!" With a last glance at me, filled with meanings I couldn't read, he turned and ran back into the enaden encampment to leave me standing there homesick, astonished and lonely at having heard English words spoken. Before the day ended I couldn't believe it had happened and I began to measure time by how long it would be until I could speak to the boy again. It was not easy. Certainly it should have been, because I caught glimpses of him every day, but I had to conclude that desert people, surrounded by empty land, never found it comfortable to be alone.

  But there was so much I wanted to know, and he was the only one who could tell me.

  It seemed that he was as curious as I, for when at last we met again six days later—an eternity of waiting—he looked at me with a troubled face. "Missy," he said, "you have magic munwe?"

  "Munwe?"

  "Bemba word," he mumbled, and scowled; holding up one finger he stared at it. "Ah—finger!" he said, and looked at me. "Missy, what be this? You tell?"

  From the pocket inside my barracan I drew out Mr. Jappy, and when I placed him on my finger he shrank away from me. "lyo, iyo, " he gasped, "you be ndoshi? Oy Yesu!"

  "Bakuli, not to fear," I protested, quickly removing it. "It's called a puppet—for fun, for play."

  "Not magic?"

  This I did not want to deny, but I insisted he touch Mr. Jappy, which he did reluctantly, and only out of a wanting to know me, I could tell, and then I placed Mr. Jappy on my finger again and talked to him, telling him he was meeting Bakuli, with whom I wanted to be friends. Mr. Jappy nodded and spoke back in a different voice until Bakuli laughed excitedly, no longer afraid, the child in him responding.

  It was now that I learned from him why I had been spared, for he spoke enough Tamahak, their language, to have asked questions as to who I was. I learned too that these Tuareg came from the Hoggar Mountains in the middle of the Sahara and that months ago they had assembled a caravan of camels to trade and sell in Ghadames, where prices were higher than among the Turks; it was in Ghadames they'd heard of a small rich caravan due to arrive soon—Umar, I thought darkly—and they had decided to further enrich themselves by raiding us.

  "And that is it," said Bakuli. "That is all."

  "No, tell me about the people you live with, the—they're called enaden?"

  He nodded, and I was silent as he searched for an English word to explain. "Smitts," he said at last, and stretched out both his hands, turning them over for me to see.

  It was my turn to shrink away, for the palms of his hands were filled with raw ugly blisters, and scarlet from bums. "Oh, Bakuli!"

  "Much fire to make spears," he agreed. "Me, I learn hard."

  "Blacksmiths, then," I said, and nodded. There had been gypsies from time to time in the carnival and the enaden seemed much like them in the carelessness of their dress and a certain independence that was different from the others. But I wished I knew a way to heal his terrible burns. "Why are they feared?" I asked.

  "Oh, they know magic. Missy. Make spells, give amulets."

  So that was it, they could put spells on people: desert magic.... It was time to part before we were noticed but I had one more question to ask. I said, "Bakuli, when Marsaya sings of an evening she often sings the word tinanin. What does it mean, do you know?"

  He laughed and gave me his former radiant smile. "That be lady, Missy, big mama of all Tuareg, she be Queen Tin Hinan—white lady from north like thou, Missy." He added mischievously, "Ataka and Bukush think thou art her spirit come back in new body."

  "She's dead then?"

  "Oh yes. Missy, long, long ago, her grave—" He stretched out his arms to the desert and shrugged.

  Not a word, then, but a person, and a queen at that. I felt more kindly of my captors for having a queen, although I found it surprising. As for Bakuli he had given me much to think about, which I had needed; best of all, I felt I might have found a friend in this fellow-exile, and this too I had badly needed.

  All that night camels kept arriving in the camp, and although I didn't stir from my mat, as Marsaya and Fadessa did, I slept little from the noise. When I woke from a last fitful nap it was to a silvery predawn light, and sitting up I saw the shapes and shadows of couched camels where once there had been empty desert. Creeping out of the tent I heard shouts from the north and saw more camels on their way to us, all of them heavily loaded, and as this last group drew near I saw Jacob's mahari among them. The men were returning.

  All day the ensuing bedlam lightened my boredom until I learned that on the next day we were to break camp and leave, and at this my heart sank. My one terror at hearing this, a greater fear than the unknown into which I must plunge next, was that the enaden might be left behind and I never see Bakuli again or hear English spoken. Recklessly I ran to where he was helping unload the camels, and asked.

  He beamed at me. "We go, Missy, much big work not done. We go, yes."

  Relieved, and filled with a pleasure that surprised me, I returned to the tent to help with packing, and that night when the sun had set in a blaze of lemon and orange, many fires were lit and sheep were killed for a feast, or a tafaski as Fadessa called it. Marsaya made music, her face strong and dark in the light of the fires as she picked out sweet melancholy notes on her amzar, but it was after the feast that I learned what magic the enaden possessed, if what they did could be called magic, for it was painful to see. Into the fire went shapes of iron, and when they shone nearly transparent from heat and fire the men took them into their hands and with a weird half-dance of twists and turns they held the flaming piece of iron against their bodies without flinching and then against their heads until smoke rose—and they were not burned.

  I had seen swords swallowed and
fire eaten at the carnival, and both were dangerous enough, but after overcoming his retching a man could safely swallow a sword once he learned the right path into the esophagus; as for fire-eaters, the moistness of their mouths was protection for them, and for so long as they slowly exhaled their breath the flames would not be drawn into their lungs to explode. This was a new kind of magic to me, however, I was seeing it for myself and there were no explanations possible. For many days I would think about this, slowly agreeing with my first instincts that a strange kind of Mind-knowledge had to be involved to inure them to pain.

  There was real power there, I thought, and wished I might learn it.

  In the morning the tents were struck, the tent poles and mats tied up with palm lacings, beds taken apart and loaded on baggage camels, pots and gourds tied to saddles, and guerbas filled. Prayers were made by a withered old man called a Marabout and after interminable delays the stream of camels and people set out, and I among them, sometimes on the donkey, sometimes walking, occasionally seated behind Marsaya on her camel, and knowing only that 1 was moving farther and farther away from Ghadames and Tripoli and deeper into the desert.

  8

  What can I say now of our crossing of the Tassim n' Ajjer mountains? Like strong brandy thrust on a child for medicinal purposes, the effect at the time was searing enough to bring tears to the eyes and to burn the throat but what lingers to this day is the memory of what my eyes saw, and no longer the terrors or hardships.

  Picture if you will a great and towering wall of rock, rising out of the sands like an impregnable fortress with seemingly no way to penetrate that unforgiving stone until, drawing near, there is a seam that has been stripped open by erosion and storm, a cleft strewn with rubble and so narrow that its passage admits only one camel, one person at a time. A whole caravan climbs skyward in single file, on a winding trail over heights where a miscalculation could send man and beast crashing to their death. There is no water except what is carried in a goatskin bag, no food except what can be eaten while walking, and everyone walks. The camels labor, they groan, a camel slips, stops, his load must be shifted and everyone waits. The climb goes on all day until suddenly a corner is turned and like a mirage—but not a mirage—there is a valley in the heart of this massif, a long green valley holding in it like a jewel a pond of water as blue as the sky, with bright primroses along its banks and an enormous ancient cypress tree beyond it. Over it stand walls of rock that must still be climbed before reaching the great plateau at the top, but here is a paradise of color and softness—and there are birds.

  I had forgotten the miracle of birds. And of cool clear water to drink, unflavored by goatskin or tar. Into this paradise we descended. Loads were dropped from the backs of the camels and left where they fell, the camels turned loose to drink and graze, a fire built and tea set over it to boil. As the sun's rays sank toward an unseen horizon, they flooded one wall of the cliff with a brilliant gold that slowly faded into lemon, changed into mauve and deepened into purple until night arrived as abruptly as a cloak flung over the valley. With our surroundings obliterated we became only a tiny circle of bright fire under a ceiling of stars.

  I slept deeply that night, waking at dawn to cliffs flaming with color again: peach, apricot, pink, gold. I had begun to notice how gently the Tuareg treated their camels; we were to linger here for a few hours to rest them, to treat their saddle sores and examine their soft padded feet for cuts from the rocks. Seizing upon the moment to gain privacy I wandered off among the rocks, drawn to a shadowed opening among them beyond which I could see splinters of sun. Climbing over rubble I entered this narrow passage and emerged into an open space to gasp in astonishment. Behind me, following, Bakuli said, "Missy?" "Look!" I cried. "Look, there are drawings on these rocks." I counted a gazelle, a giraffe and an ostrich, all rendered in joyous lines of ocher.

  Whistling softly through his teeth he clambered over rocks to touch the lines with his hands. "Oooo, many peoples here."

  "No, there are only animals so far as I can see." He shook his head. "Peoples, Missy, thou feel them?" I looked at him curiously. "What do you mean, Bakuli, ghosts?"

  He didn't recognize the word and walked back to me, thinking deeply. "No, Missy, spirits. Myeo." He lifted his arms in a gesture that encompassed the cliffs, the sky and the earth. "There be spirits in trees, in stone, in mountains, and sky. These stones speak, thou not hear?"

  I admit that in my arrogance I nearly laughed. Recovering I said solemnly, "And what do the spirits here tell you, Bakuli?"

  But he must have sensed my amusement for he only shrugged. "They be very dead now, long ago. No speak."

  I looked again at the gazelle leaping so gracefully across the surface of the cliff, every line in motion, like a song, but the only message I drew from it was that someone had once been very happy here, and I sighed.

  Bakuli said anxiously, "Missy? Thy eyes sad, thou not feel good?"

  I turned from the drawings and we exchanged a thoughtful glance, examining each other very seriously, with no falseness, weighing the matter of trust between us, two captives of different age, race, country and culture. For a long moment it was in balance and then I said simply, "I want to escape, Bakuli."

  He laughed uncertainly, not sure whether I was joking or not.

  "I want to go home" I emphasized.

  Politely he said, "Where be home, Missy?"

  "The United States."

  "Is this far?"

  It was my turn to laugh, but it was a bitter laugh. "Very very far."

  "I do not think good, Missy, there be one big desert to kill thee."

  "I was hoping you might want to escape too, Bakuli."

  He looked shocked. "Oh, Missy, Bakuli want to stay live, this Jesus-boy almost die once in desert." He shook his head vigorously. "Bakuli no."

  "Very understandable," I admitted with a sigh, "but still I have to keep hoping it's possible, except without a compass—"

  "What be a compass?" he asked.

  "It's a—" I could find no words to describe it so I applied a stick to a bed of sand between the rocks and drew a large picture of one. "It always points north and south, to keep a person heading in the direction they want."

  "But there be stars, Missy."

  "Yes," 1 said, "but they shine only at night."

  'This big shape work in sun?"

  "Yes, but not big," I explained, and made a circle with two fingers. "Like this."

  He nodded, frowning and regarding the drawing with surprise. "Corn-pass," he repeated, and then, "Best go now, Missy, or they beat me."

  I felt a sadness to hear this for at least no one had beaten me, not yet, and compared to his lot mine was easier. But I could not find any comfort in what lay ahead of me, for my disadvantage lay in knowing better, in remembering cities and streetcars, books and trains and such things as would find me called a madwoman if ever I tried to describe them.

  I stopped him between the two rocks through which we'd entered the cleft. "You will not speak of this to anyone, Bakuli?"

  "No," he vowed, and made the sign of a cross. "Thou be friend, Missy."

  I took one last glance at the strange pictures on the rock wall and then returned with him to the camp where I was given sharp glances and where Bakuli was beaten, but not for long because the camels were nearly loaded and it was time to go.

  It was wise that I'd renewed my sense of purpose, having never had a purpose all my own before. A part of me knew that escape was impossible but another part of me knew that without hope I might not survive either; it seemed a matter of weighing different kinds of death. It was wise, too, because the journey now grew harder: when we left the fertile green valley it was to climb higher and higher over more rocks and shards, until we reached a sheet of black hammada as slippery as glass. Here was lost a camel; it fell, breaking one long slender leg, and had to be killed with the ruthless thrust of a knife, its blood spurting out sickeningly. We ate its flesh that night, the second meat I'd eaten
since 1 was captured.

  It was in the morning during the usual bedlam of loading the camels that Bakuli suddenly appeared at my side. "Missy?" he whispered.

  The camel meat had not gone down well and my stomach was still queasy, so I didn't understand why he was holding out one hand to me. 'Take," he said, beaming at me.

  I looked into his hand and gasped in astonishment. "Bakuli, where on earth—this is a compass!"

  He nodded proudly. "They throw to desert, Missy, they not know. My peoples take to hide." He beamed at me. "When you draw picture, Bakuli know."

  I kept staring at it, telling myself that all compasses looked alike, and yet the dull pewter-silver of this one—I turned it over and saw why it had seemed familiar, it was Jacob's compass with his initials engraved on the back: JLB.

  I turned from Bakuli so he wouldn't see my face, which I knew was suddenly convulsed from remembering Jacob, remembering Tripoli and Mohammed with his Marcus Aurelius, while beyond this waited memories of Mum and Grams, the carnival and even Miss Thistlethwaite's School.

  "Missy?" Bakuli sounded anxious.

  I bit my lip and turned back to him. "It's all right, Bakuli, it's just that I knew the man who owned the compass. He died back there in the desert."

  His eyes were soft. "Thou love man?"

  The instant sympathy in his face made me honest and I shook my head. "I was careless," I said. "No." I took a fleeting glance back at that Caressa who had been so careless, and did not like her much.

  Bakuli looked sad for me. "Jesus-boy full of love. You know Jesus, Missy?"

  "I've heard of him," 1 said cautiously, thinking it just my luck to meet a missionary's convert.

  "No read Bible? About God—Jesus's papa—and Little David and big man named Go-lie?"

  I had to shake my head, feeling just plain godless and obviously reduced in Bakuli's eyes, so I picked up some smooth stones and palmed them, causing them to disappear and reappear just to reassure myself that I was still Caressa Horvath, or Jacob's widow, or whoever I was. Except that whoever I was had begun turning into a puzzle, because to be stripped, as 1 was, of accustomed clothes and background, shorn of all that was familiar—name, language, people, family—was a shattering attack on identity. Who was I, now that I was thousands of miles from home and sleeping in a Tuareg tent pitched on a desert under a blazing sun, the desert white at noon, silver at night, eating dates and tikamarin and millet? Only my youthful optimism could preserve me but since it was precisely that youthful optimism that had seen me marry Jacob and arrive in this situation, I felt it very suspect, and had to wonder how this would end.... In this I was thinking of Grams, who used to say that everyone's life was a story but it was clear to me now that some stories could end early and violently, as my father's had ended, and Jacob's, and who was I to expect more chapters when no one knew where I was, or even that I was alive? This latter thought had not occurred to me before, but I saw that of course news of Jacob's death would eventually reach Tripoli and then Boston, too. With only bones—and all those Bibles—strewn across the sand who would know that I wasn't dead, too? I was no more than a ghost, a wraith ... 1 no longer existed.