Aliyyah

by Chris Dolan

  There was still one unknown factor. The radio had its microphone built in. It didn’t look as if it had been damaged. But, though Haldane knew he could now hear his comrades, would they be able to hear him? He switched the apparatus off and stared at it for some time, before getting up and leaving his room deciding, for the time being, to keep his breakthrough secret.

  Haldane stepped out into conditions he had not experienced here before. There were no stars and the darkness felt more than just night. More surprising still was the humidity. Since he had arrived the heat, under sun or moon, had been dry. But now there was warm moisture in the air and his skin prickled and sweat budded under his hairline. A welcome change that somehow seemed connected to being in contact with the outside world. He walked round to the back of the house and found the window where he had seen Aliyyah floating in mid-air. A lamp was lit within.

  “Aliyyah,” he whispered and almost immediately her silhouette loomed at the casement. When, almost as quickly, she was beside him and they stepped together towards the orchard he felt, in the darkness, that it was her shadow he was walking with. Aliyyah guided him towards the fountain of little lions as though it were midday. There, they talked as they always did, little or no pattern or logic to their conversation. Memories and observations, lines of poems and sudden thoughts, flowing as fast and smooth as the stream by their feet.

  Then she took his hand for the first time. Shadow hand on shadow hand, shadow figures intertwining. He could barely see what she had done, but her cool palm, her gentle touch was both encouraging and distressing. The delicacy of her. Hold her too tightly and he feared she might break, too loosely and she may draw back.

  He kept to his decision not to tell her directly of his progress with the radio, but said instead: “Tomorrow, or soon, I will be on my way from here.”

  “That was always so,” she said quietly.

  “It’s best for you that I go. For everyone.”

  “It sounds, Tom, that you have made a decision.”

  Haldane wasn’t convinced he had made any decisions. Events, and duty, and the will of others were shaping his actions. They sat in silence for a long time until they were walking again, slowly, ambling, the soldier like a blind man being led. The darkness began to thin out. No single part of the sky brightened but dawn was approaching, wrinkling the air. Somewhere far off, Haldane thought he could hear singing. Not from the house, and not the voice of either Duban or Ma’ahaba. A low hum, a single voice, male, chanting, as though the coming day was announcing its own arrival. The music was foreign to Haldane yet it reminded him of home, of a sung call waiting for a response.

  At the house soldier and girl parted company. In the now pearl-grey light he could make out her features, but only just, like she were a ghost and her sad smile wishful thinking.

  “I will tell you when.”

  She nodded and turned, disappearing, in her white robe and shawl, into the mist of daybreak.

  Haldane made his way to the door of the great chamber, and was surprised to see Ma’ahaba there, reading what looked like letters by the window in the soft light.

  “Has the bugle called already?” she asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Reveille. Soldiers rise early. All systems go.”

  There was water on the table but Haldane, refreshed now by the cool morning, decided not to drink. He sat across from her and stretched.

  “I think I might be able to contact my unit soon.”

  “Well done, soldier. And what will you say? ‘Mayday, Mayday.’ Or is that not said anymore?”

  “If I manage to get them to hear me, I’m not sure how I’ll describe where I am.”

  “They’ll find you. Once they know you’re alive.”

  “And you can finally get rid of me.”

  “Captain, believe me, you have been a most pleasant distraction.”

  “I could ask, if they come and get me, for a Puma. Big enough to rescue all of us.”

  Ma’ahaba laughed, “Aliyyah told me you feel you need to be rescued.”

  “They could take a number of people. If any of your allies, out there, are in danger…”

  “I think such a plan would put them in more danger, not less.”

  “If Aliyyah decided to come with me, would you try to stop her, Ma’ahaba?”

  “Have you asked her?”

  “I’m not sure I should, if you set yourself against it.”

  “You overestimate my power, Captain.”

  “Would Duban?”

  “Of course.”

  Then she went back to her reading. Haldane sat for a moment longer deciding he should get some rest, shower in the fountain, freshen up for the moment when he’d try to speak to his superiors. As he was getting up Ma’ahaba held up the page in her hand. Haldane could see it was written, in a script he didn’t know, by hand.

  “Did you know, Captain, that some very clever people think that, mathematically, a single universe is impossible? We are, if I understand it right, in just one of many multiverses. I like the word! It sounds like a long song, perhaps a ballad. And if the very clever people are correct it doesn’t really matter what you – or I, or Aliyyah, or Duban – decide to do. If you go alone in this world, in another world, very like this one, one or more of us goes with you.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I think it’s a wonderful idea. Comforting, don’t you think? In another world, every bit as real as this one, you died in that accident. And there is no war. And I am not here but in Cambridge, and Aliyyah is with her mother and father at court.”

  Haldane got up wearily. “I’m not going to pretend to understand what you’re talking about.” But at the door he stopped and smiled. “Though my bet is, in every one of those worlds, there is a Duban, guarding the gate.”

  He lay naked on his bed, the heat of the day intense and broiling his dreams. Not fully asleep he tried to stem, ashamed, visions of Aliyyah in his arms, kissing him, her body revealing itself to him in glimpses through the folds and pleats of her robes, her skin touching his, her lips exploring him. But falling into real sleep the visions took over and entangled themselves with those other memories and apparitions that had haunted him nightly. Aliyyah’s sighs became the sound of the dying engine. Her warm lips mouthing the gunner’s words: “Scare them spitless.” As their bodies merged they seemed to fall together, floating down, rocking, hot. The dream of Aliyyah became like a dream within the dream, fading in the uproar, her body desiccating in the heat, her cries ever more distant.

  Every so often he would jolt awake with a shout but the heat and the fierce light from the window sent him back quickly into his dreams again. And soon the shadow of Aliyyah came back, and in force, changing, in fits and starts, into another form. Until in his arms was not her at all but Ma’ahaba, in the younger girl’s clothes, throwing her head back, laughing as she’d done with the unknown soldier in the campfire. The bigger, bustier woman, was stronger, heartier and more direct in her lovemaking, grappling with him and holding his eye, her confidence outgunning his. Still they were plunging and as they spiralled down, wheeling in the air, bumping back up every so often as if caught in a pocket of turbulence, Ma’ahaba’s laughter turned from joy to defiance and finally something almost like malice, wild eyes glaring at him as though he were to blame for their fall. When she spoke it was with Duban’s voice: “You take nothing from this house!” Behind her he saw Aliyyah, slumped in the gunner’s seat, and he knew she was dead even when she lifted her bloodied head and spoke, in his father’s voice: “The dead will not be resurrected.”

  Finally awake, the horrors silenced, Haldane lay sweating and weeping in the unforgiving heat of the sun.

  Later, leaning against the barbed wire of the fence, he felt wearied and discouraged. Over and over again he tried speaking into the radio microphone, adjusting the one control it had. He gave up on his formal tone and what he thought might be correct protocol, resorting to hellos and “Can anybody hear me?�
�� He might have drowsed for a while, and thought at first he was dreaming, but he heard a voice that seemed to be addressing him directly.

  “Unknown station. Verify.” The radio operator was clear if faint.

  “Captain Thomas Haldane. RRS. 274000.”

  “Break-Break. Come, in Captain. Your position? Ready to copy.”

  It was all so simple, so formal. As if they had been expecting his call. Exactly what more was said he couldn’t remember even moments later. All he knew was that the deed was done. Connection had been made. They knew who, and where, he was. And that he’d better smarten up quickly now. The communication over, Haldane stared out through the wire to the distant mountains. They stared back at him as blankly as ever but everything had changed. Somewhere beyond those arrogant hills, tanks were rolling, their turrets turning, surface-to-air missiles wheeled into position, knives sharpened, visors lowered. Captain Haldane’s world was about to storm into life.

  He’d imagined Duban would have been happier about the news. The old man listened and nodded his head.

  “Do you think they understood where you are, Thomas?”

  “On the second call they seemed to have worked it out. Though I’ll have no way of knowing until they get here. If they get here.”

  “And when might that be, my friend?”

  “Tomorrow night.”

  “So soon? And at night?”

  “Security I imagine. A covert mission, not least to protect the whereabouts of your house from the enemy.”

  “Ah. The enemy,” and Duban’s brow furrowed. “A pity it is to be so soon.”

  “And here I was thinking you couldn’t get rid of me quick enough, Duban.”

  “A paradox, I agree,” and for a moment the old man’s face lit up again. “It is best you go, though none of us desires it. What the Pythagoreans called Dyad, I believe.”

  “You will be happy to spend more time with your books, instead of arguing with me, or changing my bandage!”

  “So we should celebrate these last days together. Here, cardamom tea, let us drink the way we did that first morning. And let us talk all day and through the night!”

  Haldane accepted the cup, and it tasted as reviving as ever.

  “You once called me a teacher, Thomas, and though I denied it, I was flattered. Flattery is to be smelt not swallowed. The matter of understanding is so deep it is available only to those who already have it. I do not claim to be among them.”

  “Ah yes. I remember that argument. The gift of Faith. You can’t get round that one. And it’s not just you pious folk that use it. Guy in my unit got out of every political argument by saying that the rest of us had false consciousness.”

  Haldane lowered his eyes. “A shadow has passed over you, Thomas. Was he one of your comrades you lost in the accident?”

  The soldier did not reply. Duban allowed a moment to pass, then said, “It is true. I have taught you so very little.”

  “Probably, I’m just a bad student.”

  “On the contrary you are an ideal one! Forever asking, then disputing!”

  “And Aliyyah?”

  “As a student? Precisely the same!”

  “Duban. You do not really believe in this curse.”

  “Think of it, rather, as an affliction. Would that help you to understand? You believe in genetic disorders.”

  “I know there are sicknesses that are passed on from generation to generation. But I doubt there is a gene for depravity.”

  “It is possible.”

  “Is it? I don’t know. But I’m not going to worry about it until someone discovers it.”

  “That is a dull answer, Thomas.”

  “We’re back to looking for what isn’t there. Doesn’t it frustrate you, Duban, this going round in circles?”

  The old man ignored the question. “You only believe in what you can touch, possess, and what your high priests tell you.”

  “Just as well I’m leaving.”

  “A shame. I am only beginning!” Duban laughed and broke the mood that threatened to sour between them. “But I ask you one last time. Consider it possible that an old man with too much time on his hands knows something that you do not. Here is a proposition. Desire makes slaves out of kings; patience makes kings out of slaves. When your men arrive, leave with them alone. You know where we are. Let Aliyyah consider, without pressure. Should she choose to join you, and preferably at a time when the war is abating, send for her.”

  “I am putting no pressure on her whatsoever, Duban. In fact I haven’t broached the subject with her.”

  “Then please do not now.”

  “But I think returning is unlikely.” Haldane got up and crossed the floor to sit next to the older man. “I want you and Ma’ahaba to come with me too. My unit will find a way of getting Ma’ahaba to General Deimos in the capital. From here she has no chance. All of you will be stuck, until the war draws closer. All of you need to leave!”

  Duban looked hard at Haldane for several moments. “With you, Thomas, everything is one or the other. Presence, absence. Leave, stay. Black and white. You see how little I have managed to teach you? You refuse to consider us. You have been here with us, but you have remained apart. Your soldierly discipline. You judge everything by what you can touch. You only know how to ask how, but are ill-equipped to ask why.”

  Upstairs he got ready. It didn’t take long. With an old cloth he cleaned his boots as best he could. His uniform had not been worn since the day he first woke up here. And though he had tumbled out of a burning helicopter in it, it was perfectly presentable now. He kept running, to and fro, from his quarters to the radio by the fence, checking that the power and signal were still strong, that the whole rickety contraption was still working.

  His leg felt better and he decided he should take off the bandage. He had never inspected the wound himself, had no idea even where the injury was let alone how bad. It took longer than he’d thought – Duban had a system of binding that seemed to leave no loose end. Eventually he had to cut and tear it off, using the little wire cutters.

  He could see virtually no sign of damage. Redness on the back of his lower leg and knee, but that could have been caused by the bandage itself. Perhaps the injury was internal, a broken or fractured bone. Pacing his room, however, his leg felt fine, better than ever. And he realised that the ache in his neck had gone too. He smiled – good old Duban. He might talk in riddles but he clearly knew something about nursing. The soldier felt firm and strong, vigorous for the first time since his arrival. He was ready for whatever the coming hours would bring.

  He made his way to the clearing where Aliyyah was already waiting for him. The blurriness of his vision had gone and the trees and plants around him didn’t flare as they had seemed to nor did the sun hurt his eyes. Aliyyah, too, looked different to him. She was very pretty, that was sure, but he saw as she sat, playing with a flower in her hand, that she was a simply dressed young woman, her hair roughly cut, and in her still bright-green eyes a nervousness. Haldane felt he was fully in this place now and could see and understand better. And he loved Aliyyah all the more for seeing the real, apprehensive woman she was. He took her hand and they set off for their fountain.

  “Tomorrow evening, not long after sundown, a helicopter will be here. You know I’d like you to come with me. I’d like you all to come with me.”

  “Ma’ahaba will not go.”

  “You’ve discussed it?”

  “I think she is very tempted, but she thinks it will end badly for her.”

  “The minute we get across the frontier, we will contact General Deimos, and arrange to fly her directly to him.”

  “I’m not sure she wants that. And if she left here and did not go to him… But, really, I think it’s because she is content here. She likes arguing with Duban. She gets her letters. There is company every now and then when villagers pass by. She thinks perhaps it is best to sit out the war here rather than in an army camp, or the capital where we hear there
is often trouble.”

  “Does she think that is best for you too?”

  “Ma’ahaba gives me no advice. I must do what I think is best.”

  “She’s right, Aliyyah.”

  “I haven’t normally considered what is best just for me.”

  “Do you feel you would be deserting Ma’ahaba?”

  “Ma’ahaba says I am young. It’s what Duban says too – but by that he means I should stay.”

  “We’re all giving you advice. I’m sorry. But I genuinely believe you should leave here. But please be clear, Aliyyah. It isn’t just because I want to be with you. I do. More than I know how to say. But you will be a free woman when you leave, free to decide what you want to do. And whatever that is, I am certain it will be better than staying here. Until the war knocks on your gate, or the rebels are defeated. Or General Deimos loses power. Or Duban dies.” Aliyyah flinched only at the last one. “I’m sorry. But I think you have to be logical about this, think through your options.”

  “I have done nothing but, for quite some time now. I’m not interested in your freedom – if I go with you it is for us to be together.”

  He put his arm around her waist. “Thank god for that,” he laughed. “I couldn’t bear to leave you. Not here, or anywhere else in the future. My commission is nearly up. If it’s too long for you to wait, I’ll find a way of getting out. We’ll go travelling, in safe and beautiful places!”

  “To the milky city you spoke of, with the books and the hills and the temples?”

  “Did I mention temples?” he laughed.