Blood & Ink Read online

  The words pour from me like water from Sababou. I am a thing possessed. If the ceiling of the cleaning cupboard were to fall on me this second, every drop of my blood would be inscribed with the words of the Oath.

  ‘God grant me the wisdom of the horse, the stubbornness of the ox and the cunning of the rabbit. God hide the manuscripts from every evil eye, and reveal them to every seeker of truth. From this moment, let wisdom be my only treasure and the legacy of the saints my only true delight. And this covenant now made on earth, may it be ratified in heaven.’

  Never in my life have I seen Baba cry, but his tears are flowing now, streaming over his craggy face and salt-and-pepper beard and dripping on the mat.

  Mama strokes his hair. ‘Peace, peace,’ she says, as if comforting a small child. ‘The manuscripts are safe with Kadi.’

  ‘Good night,’ I say. ‘I will come again tomorrow, inshallah.’

  I go out into the dark corridor, and then poke my head back in.

  ‘Baba,’ I say. ‘Do you have a telephone number for Tijani Traoré, the ferryman?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Baba. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m going to need a boat with a cargo deck big enough for all five hundred trunks.’

  Manuscript 8736: the tariq of Abu Alkassim Attouatti

  Abu Alkassim Attouatti was an imam of the Djinguereber Mosque. He lived right next to the mosque and devoted his life to God and to scholarship. Imam Abu’s pockets were the deepest in Timbuktu. He had many Qur’anic students and he lavished them with dates and bread. No matter how much he gave to one student, he always had enough for the next. And no matter what time of day it happened to be, the bread he gave them was always hot and fresh. No one ever found out how the freshly baked bread got into the imam’s pockets.

  One day, Imam Abu and his students went to the mosque to pray. When they straightened up after Tashahhud, one of his students noticed that the saint’s robe was dripping with water.

  ‘Imam Abu,’ cried the student. ‘When we began to pray, your robe was dry, and now it is wet through! What happened?’

  ‘I have been on a journey,’ said Imam Abu. ‘A boatful of fishermen capsized in Lake Débo just now, and the fishermen began to drown. One of them called out in the name of God and his saints, so God sent me to save them. Don’t look so scared, my friends. The fishermen are fine. They are home and fed and sitting by the fire to dry out.’

  ‘But Lake Débo is more than two hundred miles from here!’ protested the student. ‘How were you able to travel so far, so fast?’

  Imam Abu smiled a peculiar smile. ‘In God’s world,’ he whispered, ‘there are many mysterious things.’

  ‘There must be a spare key for that door up there,’ says Redbeard. ‘They let themselves out and they took the manuscripts with them.’

  ‘Impossible,’ I say. ‘We would have seen their tracks.’

  ‘Perhaps they covered their tracks.’

  I can’t help smiling at that. If my master were Fulani he would know how hard it is to cover tracks.

  Redbeard clenches his fists. ‘Are you laughing at me, boy?’

  ‘No, master.’

  We walk around the vault for a fourth time, shining the torch on every inch of earth. We run our hands over the walls, feeling for a crack, a lever, anything.

  Nothing.

  We drag the bookcase away from the north wall, and shine the torch into the gap. One loose manuscript folio has fallen down behind the bookcase – mislaid months ago, judging by the thick dust on it – but there is no trap door or tunnel, nothing to shed light on the mystery at hand.

  ‘It’s the fire that bothers me,’ says Redbeard, poking the ashes with his foot. ‘Why did they lay a fire?’

  ‘I don’t know, master.’

  ‘Come on!’ he cries. ‘Why do people build fires?’

  ‘To destroy things,’ I say. ‘Or to cook on.’

  ‘Yes, what else?’

  ‘To keep warm on cold nights. To make charcoal. Or to dry out after getting wet.’

  To dry out after getting wet. I stare at the soot-blackened wall above the fire and think of all those nights I spent on patrol. All those hours sitting on my tyre, gazing at two whitewashed villas with identical arched entrances and identical balustrades. Two brothers in two houses, each built to the same design …

  ‘I know why they made the fire,’ I say at last. ‘They made it to dry the wall.’

  Redbeard looks at the wall and then at me. A slow grin lights his grizzled face.

  We hurry to the bookcase and lean it slowly back until we are carrying it doors-up. On the count of three we accelerate across the floor of the vault and ram it hard into the soot-blackened wall.

  A section of the wall collapses with a loud crunch, and a shower of rubble patters down into the space beyond.

  ‘Allahu Akbar,’ Redbeard breathes.

  I was right. The two villas were built to the same design, not just above ground but below as well. Two villas and two vaults, separated by a mud-brick wall. A wall plastered with mud to resemble solid earth.

  We grab our guns and clamber through the hole.

  The second vault is an exact reflection of Kadija’s, and it is empty, except for a muddy hoe on the ground.

  ‘Look,’ says Redbeard. ‘That’s where they mixed the mortar to repair the hole.’

  I run up the earthen steps, but there is no door at the top, just a forest of cobwebs and a solid mud-brick wall. This vault has been blocked off for a long, long time. So how did they get out of here?

  Confused, I head back down the steps.

  Redbeard is standing in the middle of the vault, his torch pointing up at the ceiling.

  ‘Look,’ he says. ‘Look there.’

  Directly above my master’s head I see a square trap door. Alhamdulillah!

  The trap door is the final piece of the puzzle, and in an instant I see how the trick was done.

  I see them using table legs to smash their way into the vault where now I stand. I see Kadija shinning up a rope through that trap door to summon her outlaw friends. I see a small army of workers coming down to help them, passing manuscript trunks through the hole in the wall and hauling them up through the trap door on some sort of stretcher. I see them gathering up the rubble, mixing a wet mud mortar, and blocking up the hole in the dividing wall. I see Kadija taking off her kora string necklace and setting a tripwire on the steps to punish the first intruder.

  And then what? When you build a mud-brick wall in the open air, the hot sun dries the mortar in minutes. Underground, however, mud stays wet for ages. The repaired area would be darker than the rest of the wall and I would have spotted it straight away. So they set a fire against the wall, using the table and chair legs and a litre or two of petrol. Adding the shoes and veil would have been Kadija’s idea – a shocking addition to the scene.

  The finishing touches must have been tricky, of course, and delicately done. I see Kadija slipping her slim arm through the one remaining slot, and using wet fingers to smooth the plaster on the other side. I see her drawing back her hand for as long as it takes to light a match, then reaching through again to drop the flame onto the fuel-soaked wood.

  I see Yusuf slapping mortar and plaster onto one final brick and thrusting it into the waiting slot. I imagine him turning to Kadija in the darkness and looping his arms round her waist.

  We Fulani always end up marrying our cousins. It’s what Fulani do.

  The night is dark. I perch with Cousin Yusuf on the roof of Al Haji’s cattle truck. The driver has picked a winding off-road route behind the Cemetery of the Three and far out west beyond the nomad camps. Out here in the bush, there won’t be any checkpoints, inshallah.

  ‘I still don’t get it,’ I tell my cousin. ‘Don’t your parents know there’s a vault beneath your house?’

  ‘Of course they do,’ says Yusuf. ‘I remember my father telling me once, when I was very small. But the doorway to the vault was blocked up many generations ago and
he never bothered to unblock it. He never needed to.’

  We turn and judder south across a rocky plateau, the truck’s suspension creaking and clanking under the weight of five hundred metal trunks. I can’t wait to reach Kabara Port, to get these manuscripts on the river and away from here.

  ‘What about the trap door in your room?’ I say. ‘Do your parents know about that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why did you dig it?’

  ‘Curiosity, I suppose. Come on, Kadi, you’d have done the same. A secret underground cavern where you can think and dream and—’

  ‘And spy on people through a termite hole.’ I can feel myself getting angry.

  ‘I like watching you read. What’s wrong with that? You always look so solemn and pretty when you’re reading. Sometimes I try to guess what you’re reading just by the expression on your face.’

  ‘That’s weird,’ I tell him straight. ‘I’m sorry, Yusuf, that’s just creepy.’

  ‘It saved your skin this afternoon,’ he mutters. ‘As soon as I saw him kick that manuscript I ran over here to help you – you could at least be grateful, Kadi.’

  I am grateful, of course. More grateful than he thinks.

  Grateful that he left his spy-hole when he did.

  Grateful for what he doesn’t know – that I kissed Ali first.

  We drag the bookcase below the trap door. I clamber up it, breathe a prayer and jump, relying on the trap door’s wooden frame to take my weight.

  Alhamdulillah! I hold on tight and pedal thin air, breathing heavily.

  ‘Well done, son,’ says Redbeard.

  Three little words, that’s all, but they impart peculiar strength. With one explosive bicep curl I pull myself up and through the hole.

  Redbeard throws me the torch and I shine it around. I am in a stale-smelling bedroom. The mud-brick walls are covered with posters of minstrels and musicians. In a corner stands a brand new ngoni, and here by the trap door are the ropes they must have used for hoisting trunks.

  I drop a rope for Redbeard, and he clambers up.

  A hole has been bashed through the west-facing mud brick wall, in a great hurry by the looks of it. We step out through the jagged hole and find ourselves in the open air. A vast sandy plain stretches away towards the grass-mat domes of the nomad camps and the dunes beyond.

  I shine the torch on the sand around my feet, and yes, it’s as I thought. A crowd of people were here not long ago, and they were carrying heavy loads.

  There are huge tyre tracks too, with a well-defined tread. A cattle truck, perhaps.

  Redbeard dials a number on his phone.

  ‘Zaarib, I need the Ninjas,’ he barks. ‘In fact, I need the whole platoon. Scramble the vehicles. Meet me in the square.’

  ‘Shall I go on ahead?’ I ask. ‘I could take the horse.’

  My master beams and thumps me on the back. ‘Ride like the wind, Ali. Don’t let them get away.’

  Redbeard hoists me up onto the roof of Kadi’s house. I run across it and drop down into the horse’s pen beyond.

  On a hook on the wall hang the bridle and reins. I make a tutting sound to calm the horse and lift the harness over its head. As for the saddle, I don’t have time.

  The torch is in my mouth, my AK-47 is strapped across my body. I hop onto Marimba’s back, and guide him out into the dark deserted street. I steer him gently down the alleyway between the whitewashed villas and finally emerge onto the plain where Redbeard stands.

  ‘Allez!’ I cry, and kick my heels, and give the horse his head. He lunges straight away into a gallop so fierce I have to grab his mane to keep my seat. We fly across the plain beneath the stars, and through the nomad camps and out the other side.

  The lorry tracks lead in a sweeping arc behind the Cemetery of the Three, behind the Sababou vegetable gardens, and on into the dunes. Camel grass and acacia trees flash by on either side. There are no roads here, and no checkpoints either.

  Clever Kadija. You know what you are doing, don’t you?

  But I know what I’m doing too, and this terrain is a stallion’s dream. Up a dune, along a ridge and down, Marimba ploughs the powdery sand like an avenging djinni. Foam from his mouth flecks my face. I lean down low across his mane and whisper strength into his pricked-back ears.

  The lorry tracks continue west for about ten miles, then curve towards the south. One thing I know for sure: hooves are faster than wheels on this surface. I am gaining on them with every stride.

  Kadi hates her father’s horse already. After tonight she’ll hate him even more.

  Ten miles further south, Marimba is nearing the limit of his strength. He is trying to climb another dune, but his head is rolling from side to side and his haunches are starting to sag.

  ‘You can do it, boy,’ I whisper in his ear.

  I cannot, must not, let her escape. If she succeeds in spiriting those manuscripts away, our work today will all have been in vain. Those dangerous books will work their magic even from afar, enthralling desert souls for years to come.

  Marimba staggers over the brow of the dune, and what a view unfolds in front of us! A swathe of deep meandering black, and lines of tiny lights, some true, some shimmering.

  Of course. Kabara Port.

  I came here once as a child and watched the trade rafts being loaded up with spices, salt and strong green tea. I remember the olive-brown water, the cobblestone embankment and the infinite marsh grass. More than anything, I remember the noise: the hammering of boat wrights, the sawing of salt slabs, the toing and froing of porters and the cries of roving traders.

  The smell of water lends the horse one final burst of strength. He lurches down the dune and in amongst the fishing huts, his sweat-slick flanks heaving and shuddering between my knees.

  The minstrels back in Goundam have a song about this place.

  ‘Kabara, Kabara,

  Where camel meets canoe,

  The Gate of the Sahara,

  Since time itself began.’

  Even now, at three o’clock in the morning, the port is a termite mound of activity. Platoons of porters hoist their sacks and crates down to the cobblestone embankment. Fishing canoes and trading rafts jostle for space in the marshy shallows. The reflections of a thousand lamps and torches shimmer on the water.

  Hundreds of travellers doze on plastic mats or sit in groggy cross-legged huddles, waiting for their calls to board. I knew that people were fleeing Timbuktu, but I never imagined crowds like these.

  The lorry tracks lead down onto a tarmac road and there, annoyingly, I lose them. There are a dozen trucks and lorries parked along the road in various stages of loading and unloading, but not a manuscript trunk in sight.

  I ride on down to the bank of the river and trot along the rows of bobbing rafts, examining the merchandise. Over here are crates of carrots and cabbages from the Sababou vegetable gardens. Over there are sacks of coal and bundles of salt. I sweep my beam of light across the hurrying porters – more vegetables, more coal, some baskets of salted fish. And then, momentarily, in the beam of my torch, the glint of a diamanté veil.

  With a metal trunk on top.

  I know that veil. It belongs to Kadi’s stupid short-haired girlfriend.

  ‘Aisha!’ I shout.

  She stops and turns towards me.

  ‘Put down that trunk!’ I loom towards her on my horse.

  She puts it down.

  ‘Take off your veil!’

  She bobs and cowers. ‘It is forbidden,’ she says, in a funny voice. ‘In Timbuktu, females above the age of ten must—’

  I don’t have time for this. I reach down, snatch her veil away and shine my torch full in her face.

  It is not Aisha. It is not even a girl. It is Yusuf, Kadija’s skinny cousin, the one who tried to kill me in the vault.

  Impaled on the beam of my torch, his pupils shrink to tiny dots. He panics, grabs the trunk and scampers off along the waterfront.

  There is no way he can escape, of cour
se. He is on foot with a heavy trunk and I am on a horse. I spur Marimba into one last trot, draw up beside the fleeing boy and leap onto his back, slamming him face first into the mud.

  I hear Marimba trotting off, but I don’t care. I have my man.

  ‘My nose,’ moans Yusuf, pinching his nostrils to stem the blood. ‘I think you’ve broken it.’

  ‘Open the trunk,’ I tell him. ‘Tamba-tamba. Fast-fast.’

  ‘It’s padlocked,’ he says. ‘I don’t have the key.’

  ‘Where are the other trunks? Where are you loading them?’

  Yusuf squints up at me, still cradling his nose. ‘Let’s do a deal,’ he whines. ‘You set my sister Kamisa free, I’ll lead you to the boat.’

  ‘I don’t have the authority to free anybody.’

  ‘Call your master, then.’

  The manuscripts will get away unless I find them soon. He knows it. I know it. I switch my phone to speakerphone, and make the call.

  ‘Deal,’ Redbeard says, when I’ve told him where I am and what is happening. ‘I’ll ring Zaarib and arrange it straight away. Tell the boy his father will call five minutes from now to confirm the girl’s release.’

  ‘You’ve got what you wanted,’ I say. ‘Now take me to your boat.’

  The horse is nowhere to be seen, so we go on foot. Yusuf hoists the trunk onto his head and leads me west along the riverbank.

  Five minutes downriver from the port we arrive at a hidden inlet. Here there is no cobblestone embankment, just a mass of marsh grass sloping down into the river. We wade among the grass, ankle-deep in murky water.

  ‘There,’ whispers Yusuf, pointing.

  I see the silhouette of a colossal boat a hundred paces east of where we stand, slumbering low in the water. By the faint light of the moon, I can just make out the lettering: Compagnie Malienne de Navigation.

  I know the Comanav ferry well, as does everyone on this river. For as long as I can remember, this hulking paddle steamer has plied its trade between Mopti in the east and Gao in the west, with Kabara in the middle. From July until January, it rumbles back and forth, its bottom deck stuffed with cargo and its upper decks thronged with people. A few years ago, the steam turbine was replaced by a diesel engine, but they left the massive paddle wheel as a reminder of the olden days.