Blood & Ink Page 10

  ‘And who are you praying to?’

  ‘Tamba-Tamba.’

  ‘Stop,’ I tell her straight. ‘The crock of bones inside this tomb is even deafer than you, old crone, and blind and mute as well.’

  ‘What’s that you say?’

  ‘Pray to God!’ I shout. ‘No one else. And if it’s water you want, my friend’s water bottle is hanging on one of those rodier branches right in front of you.’

  She turns and shuffles off. I must tell Redbeard that some of our sentries are letting people into the camp to pray to Tamba-Tamba. It’s not just idolatry, it’s a security breach as well.

  At nine o’clock, my phone rings. Not that stupid rap song – I deleted that – but a harmless, natural ringtone, the whirr of insect legs.

  It’s Kadija.

  ‘Foofo,’ she whispers. ‘How’s your back?’

  ‘Fine. We should not be talking.’

  ‘I’ll keep it short. I just wanted to tell you’ – she hesitates, then seems to change her mind – ‘I can’t believe they lashed one of their own.’

  ‘I insisted,’ I say.

  ‘You insisted?’

  ‘All right, a boy called Hamza insisted. But he was correct. Sharia applies as much to us as it does to you.’

  She tuts. ‘Baba says you don’t care about Islam. He says this whole thing is about money and power.’

  ‘He’s wrong, Kadija. People call us terrorists and monsters because they dare not believe that we are acting out of love. We advocate sharia because sharia keeps society healthy. It is a blessing on us all.’

  ‘I see. And is your back feeling blessed tonight?’

  ‘My friend just put some honey on it.’

  She laughs her sweet mannikin laugh, then blurts out what she has been leading up to all this time, her big confession. ‘You do know it was me who changed your ringtone, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You’re not angry?’

  ‘Not any more,’ I say. ‘Were you watching when it rang?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I was hoping that your Arab master might leap to his feet and do the Loppa-Loppa dance.’

  ‘Have some respect!’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Her apology takes me by surprise. Perhaps I’m getting through to her at last.

  ‘Ali,’ she whispers. ‘Is someone replacing you on patrol tonight? It’s just that I’m scared of looters. If no one is patrolling, what’s to stop them breaking into our house and—’

  ‘Trust in God,’ I tell her. ‘God is replacing me on patrol tonight.’

  ‘All right,’ she whispers. ‘Pass the night in peace.’

  Omar unrolls his mat and lies down next to me.

  ‘I need your advice,’ I tell him, ‘and don’t say there are two schools of thought or I’ll break your nose. Is it wrong for a boy and a girl to talk on the telephone?’

  Omar whistles through his teeth and begins to recite in Arabic. ‘Al-Ahzab thirty-two,’ he says. ‘Be not soft in speech, lest diseased hearts should be moved with desire.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means, phone her if you need to, but don’t talk about soft things.’

  ‘Soft things?’

  ‘Feelings. Desires. Needs.’

  ‘Can we talk about books?’

  ‘You can talk about the Holy Book,’ says Omar. ‘The Book is not a soft thing. But other books are mostly soft.’

  We lie in silence for a long time. I turn my head and watch my namesake rising in the east, imparting strength to my torn, bruised body. The stars and the honey will work God’s will. Tomorrow, inshallah, I shall be well.

  ‘One more thing,’ says Omar, jolting me awake. ‘If a boy is thinking about proposing marriage to a girl, he is allowed to look at her unveiled – to help him decide, I mean.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘When Jabir ibn Abdullah, peace be upon him, was considering marriage, he hid in the girl’s garden every evening for a week to catch a glimpse of her.’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re telling me this. It’s not like I’m considering marriage.’

  ‘I know you’re not. I’m just saying.’

  ‘Ali!’

  I jolt to instant wakefulness. My hand flies to my knife.

  ‘What is it?’ I cry. ‘Omar, is that you?’

  I lift myself up on one elbow and light my paraffin lamp. As the flame flickers into life, Omar’s face looms in front of me, yellow and bloated. He is wheezing painfully, trying to speak again. His frightened eyes stare horribly from their sockets.

  ‘Omar!’ I cry. ‘My God, what’s happening to you?’

  He tilts his head back and his mouth gapes open. His tongue is blocking his airway, huge and purple like an aubergine. He can’t breathe.

  ‘Help!’ I shout. ‘Master! Anyone! Come and help!’

  I push Omar down onto his side, hook my finger into his mouth and pull the tongue clear of the airway. But still he cannot breathe because his throat is swollen too.

  ‘Master!’ I yell.

  I put my hand on Omar’s heart. The blood is slow and weak.

  ‘Omar, stay with me,’ I plead. ‘Whatever you do, don’t die. Redbeard is coming, Omar. He’ll know what’s wrong with you. He’ll know what to do.’

  My father opens his eyes and sits bolt upright before I even say a word.

  ‘Kadi, what’s wrong?’

  ‘There is no one patrolling our street,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve been watching for a whole hour, and there’s nobody at all.’

  ‘Good girl.’ Baba reaches for his plastic kettle and splashes water on his face. ‘You told your uncle that you wanted to do some creeping around at night. Well, now’s your chance.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ mumbles Mama, half asleep.

  ‘Unlock the vault,’ Baba tells her, ‘and light the lamps.’

  ‘What about me?’ I ask. ‘What shall I do?’

  He takes a notebook from under his pillow and thrusts it into my hands. ‘Take that,’ he says. ‘There are three telephone numbers on the back page. Ring them.’

  ‘And say what?’

  ‘Say it’s time to gather the horsemen of the sun.’

  Baba puts on his turban and a long white robe. He hurries to and fro with bit and bridle, stirrups and saddle. I ring the numbers one by one, conveying the cryptic message.

  ‘Who needs the radio when we’ve got the Timbuktu Telegraph?’ grins Baba, yanking tight Marimba’s stomach strap and fastening the buckles. ‘Each of those three people will phone three other people – and each of those in turn will phone three people. That makes forty heads of family with an average of twelve people in their compounds.’

  Genius. In five minutes flat we have five hundred men, women and children all around the city, dressed and ready for action.

  Pucci naange, horsemen of the sun, are big orange ants. In hot season you see long columns of them out in the bush, carrying their treasures on their shoulders. That’s exactly what we are going to do tonight.

  Five hundred volunteers are lined up outside the Ahmad Baba Library. It is rare to see a queue in Timbuktu, but tonight my father has insisted on it. ‘Tonight, we are an army,’ he says. ‘We must be orderly, and fast.’

  Aisha and I stand arm in arm, awaiting our turn. When we arrive at the front of the queue, Uncle Abdel thanks us solemnly and hands us dark blue treasure trunks. We raise the trunks onto our braided heads and traipse the length of Askia Avenue.

  The lofty Djinguereber Mosque regards us as we pass. Baba regards us too. Up and down he rides on his white stallion, supervising the horsemen of the sun. There are twenty manuscripts inside each trunk, many of them priceless.

  To tell the truth, I’m worried for Baba. Looking after two thousand manuscripts during this occupation has made him stressed and jittery. How will he cope with twelve thousand?

  ‘Look, no hands,’ whispers Aisha, as soon as my father is out of sight.

  ‘Stop that, hold
it properly,’ I hiss. I, too, am feeling the strain.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ she says. ‘Let’s take our boxes down the road to the port at Kabara, hire a canoe and travel upriver to Bamako. We can sell the manuscripts to a collector and use the profits to visit Switzerland. Think of all the chocolate we could buy.’

  Aisha is always going on about Swiss chocolate, ever since we read that ‘Taste of Paradise’ article in my Jeune Afrique magazine. Neither of us has tasted chocolate, of course, and probably never will.

  ‘Don’t even joke about selling the manuscripts,’ I tell her.

  ‘Listen to yourself,’ she mutters. ‘Anyone would think you were a Guardian already.’

  We turn into our courtyard and stack the trunks in the open air.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ says Aisha. ‘How is this more secure than the library?’

  ‘Baba knows what he’s doing.’

  Only seven people know about our secret vault: Baba, Mama, me, Uncle Abdel, Aunt Juma, Cousin Yusuf and his little sister Kamisa. We have to keep it that way. As soon as the horsemen of the sun have gone, the real work begins.

  We form a chain to move the five hundred trunks down to the vault. Baba and Abdel are above ground. Yusuf and Aunt Juma are on the steps. Mama, Kamisa and I are in the vault itself. Mama is wearing her organizing face and her prattle is constant and reassuring. ‘Come on, carefully does it, let me help you, well done, girls.’

  My cousin Kamisa is only eleven, poor thing. Her eyes are big and tired, and the weight of the trunks makes her stagger, but she is determined to work as hard as the rest of us.

  ‘Kamisa, take a rest,’ says Mama. ‘If you continue like this, your arms will drop off.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Kamisa groans. ‘This is the most fun I’ve had in ages.’

  Mama frowns. She is trying to work out whether her niece is being sarcastic.

  By the time the call to prayer rings out over Timbuktu, the vault is packed from floor to ceiling, with only a narrow aisle down the middle. I walk along the aisle and the dark blue trunks tower above me on either side like walls of standing water. I imagine I am the Prophet Musa parting the Sea of Reeds, leading God’s people from slavery to freedom. How does it go again? So We revealed to Musa, ‘Strike the sea with your staff.’ And it split in two, each part like a towering cliff…

  Our family’s manuscript collection has grown sixfold in one night. The thought of all those manuscripts makes me giddy with pleasure, and Baba giddy with anxiety.

  I go to see Tondi at first light. She has run away from her husband and is back in her parents’ house. I am not worried for her. It is traditional for a new bride to run away a few times in the first month. It stops her being taken for granted.

  I arrive to find her milking a black and white cow. Its calf has a rope round its neck, which Tondi holds fast between her teeth.

  She takes the rope out of her mouth to greet me. ‘Hello, Kadi. You look terrible.’

  ‘Not much sleep,’ I say. ‘How’s marriage?’

  ‘Not much sleep,’ she grins. ‘I wish I didn’t have to keep escaping.’ She puts the rope back in her mouth and carries on milking the cow. The calf can smell the milk and is straining to get closer.

  ‘That thing is going to pull your teeth out,’ I tell her, taking off my veil. ‘Here, let me help you.’

  Tondi holds the calf tight and I crouch down in her place. I put the wooden pail beneath my knees, then carefully palm the teats and start to squeeze. The first squirt lubricates my hands, the rest is for the pail.

  ‘Have you heard the news?’ says Tondi. ‘Tamba-Tamba has returned to save us.’

  Her dark eyes shine as she tells the story. At sunrise she was carrying a pail of milk past the military camp and found the Defenders in disarray. The sentry told her that one of the boys died in the night, right next to the shrine of Tamba-Tamba.

  My hand slips on the teat, causing the startled cow to flick me with its tail, right in my eyes.

  ‘Which one?’ I ask, trying to sound casual. ‘Which boy is dead?’

  ‘No idea,’ says Tondi. ‘They all look the same to me. Black shirts, black turbans, beautiful teeth. Where are you going, Kadi? There’s still milk in that udder!’

  I fling my veil back on and hurry away from Tondi and the cows.

  It’s him, I think, breaking into a run. It’s him and he’s died of his injuries and it’s all my fault.

  I head towards the military camp with phone in hand, squinting through tears as I scroll through the A’s.

  Adama, Ahadu, Ahmed, Aisha, Ali.

  His phone rings for an age, and then, praise be to God, he answers. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is that you, Ali?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I heard there was a death in the camp. I was afraid it might be you.’

  ‘I wish it had been.’ Ali’s voice is brittle and he sounds younger somehow. ‘It was my best friend.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Omar.’ His voice trembles, then cracks. ‘He wasn’t even sick!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I repeat. ‘Ali, where are you?’

  ‘The other boys are out of their minds with fear. They’re saying Saint Tamba-Tamba killed him.’

  ‘Where are you, Ali?’

  A long silence, then finally he answers. ‘Same place as always. On the tyre outside your house.’

  Sure enough there he is, sitting on his tyre in the early morning sun.

  I cross the street and whisper a greeting. ‘Peace be upon you, Ali. How’s your back?’

  ‘Fine,’ he says, not looking up. He is writing with a quill on an oblong board.

  ‘You don’t usually patrol during the day,’ I say.

  ‘I missed last night. I must make up the hours.’

  Looking at his board upside-down, I recognise Al-Fatiha, the opening verses of the Qur’an.

  ‘In the name of God, the Compassionate and Merciful.

  Praise be to God, Lord of all the worlds.

  The Compassionate, the Merciful, Ruler on the Day of Reckoning.

  You alone do we worship, and You alone do we ask for help.

  Guide us on the straight path,

  The path of those who have received your grace;

  Not the path of those who have incurred wrath, nor of those who wander astray.

  Amen.’

  ‘Have you buried your friend?’ I say.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘May he drink the water of Paradise.’

  Ali is supposed to say ‘Amen’ to that, but he doesn’t. He scowls up at me with sudden hatred in his eyes. ‘You know who killed him, don’t you?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t know anything. You said that Tamba-Tamba—’

  ‘Rubbish. That’s what the other boys are saying, but they’re wrong, aren’t they? Omar was murdered by one of your people masquerading as an old woman.’

  He’s mad, poor boy. His grief has sent him mad.

  Ali babbles on, his fingers tense like claws against his writing board. ‘It’s easy to don a black veil and to fake a croaky voice, isn’t it? Easy to talk your way past a sentry and slip something evil into a water bottle hanging on the wall. Which one of you was it, Kadi? That drummer with the long hair? Or that other boy, the one who’s not your boyfriend? Oh, your veils make fine disguises, don’t they? I’ll bet you’ve all been having a good laugh about it.’

  I reach out and lay a hand on Ali’s shoulder. He shakes it off.

  ‘The water bottle was hanging on the shrine right next to me. Was it me you meant to kill?’

  ‘No!’

  He takes a ragged breath, then frowns. ‘Oleander,’ he whispers. ‘Of course.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was you, wasn’t it, Kadi? You put oleander in Omar’s water bottle!’

  ‘No!’ I back away. ‘Don’t be stupid!’

  ‘It was!’ His hand shoots out and grabs my ankle. ‘It was you, and I’m going to prove it!�
��

  He pulls my flip-flop off my left foot, throws down his writing board and hobbles away towards the military camp, out of his mind with grief.

  I sit on the tyre and wait for him. There’s nothing else to do. I imagine him crawling around the shrine of Tamba-Tamba with his nose to the ground, searching for a flip-flop print that matches mine. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

  A key scrapes in a lock. Our heavy front door creaks. Mama and Baba emerge from the archway and step out blinking into the light.

  ‘Kadi!’ exclaims my mother. ‘We thought you were still sleeping. How did you get out?’

  ‘I didn’t want to wake you,’ I tell them, nodding towards the sycamore tree in front of our house.

  They look up at the balustrade and the slender upper branches of the tree.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, before they can tell me off.

  ‘Don’t do it again,’ says Baba. ‘Listen, Kadi, I’m going to the town hall and your mother is going to the market. Why don’t you go along with her?’

  ‘I can’t, I’m waiting for my flip-flop.’ Even to my own ears this sounds an odd excuse, so I add, ‘It’s being mended.’

  My parents accept this without question. I guess they have a lot else on their minds. Baba strides off up the street, and Mama follows at a safe distance. It’s crazy, but even husbands and wives have been warned against walking together in public.

  I sit down on the tyre and wait for Ali to return.

  Here he comes, poor creature, hobbling painfully. He comes right up close without a word, then kneels down in front of me and tries to slip my flip-flop on.

  His fingers brush against the side of my foot.

  I’m sure he didn’t mean to touch me, but all the same, girls have been lashed for less. I bend forward clumsily and he stands up just at the wrong time. The top of his head hits me in the mouth.

  ‘Sorry,’ he mumbles.

  I raise the back of my hand to my mouth. My lip is bleeding, but not badly.

  ‘Find anything?’ I ask.

  He clenches his jaw and nods. I wait for him.

  ‘A scorpion,’ he says at last. ‘One of those stupid see-through ones, lying there squashed on Omar’s sleeping mat. I didn’t see it before. Redbeard reckons that’s what killed him.’

  ‘No way,’ I say. ‘A scorpion sting can’t kill you.’

  ‘It can if you’re allergic, Redbeard says. If you’re allergic, your throat swells up and your blood slows down and you die.’ He picks up his wooden writing board and clasps it in both hands.