Blood & Ink Page 3

  The mayor puffs out his cheeks. ‘Has the army been informed?’ he asks.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And the men are ready?’

  The imam hesitates. ‘They are hunkered down inside the fort,’ he says. ‘They won’t admit it, but they are terrified of Redbeard. And they haven’t been paid these last three months.’

  A long silence follows. We’re done for. Our army garrison is hiding in their camp, and Timbuktu is open for the taking. It looks like Baba was wrong again.

  Monsieur Sanon, the new headmaster, clears his throat. ‘Forgive me,’ he says. ‘Who is this Redbeard person?’

  ‘A preacher,’ says the mayor. ‘The sort of preacher who shakes his fist a lot.’

  ‘His real name is Ould Hamaha,’ adds Imam Cissé. ‘Studied the Qur’an right here in Timbuktu and then in Mauritania. When he returned from Mauritania he visited me at my mosque and asked me to grant him a preaching licence for Timbuktu. At first I was impressed with him. He was a handsome young man and fiercely intelligent. He talked very elegantly about purity and law. But then he began to talk about killing.’

  ‘Killing infidels?’

  ‘Not just infidels. Muslims. He told me that anyone who commits adultery should be put to death, as should anyone who abandons the five daily prayers. I said to him at the time: “If your ideas catch on, Ould, we’ll have to exterminate a third of the population of Timbuktu.”’

  ‘What did he say to that?’

  ‘“Kill a third to reform two thirds.” Those were his exact words. I thought he was joking until I looked at his face. And then I told him straight: “Ould Hamaha, you will never preach at any of the mosques in Timbuktu, as long as I remain Imam.”’

  ‘Was that the last you saw of him?’

  ‘For many years, yes. Rumour had it that he was travelling in Pakistan and Algeria, undergoing military training in special camps, and making contact with Salafist preachers and jihadists. In Mauritania the mujahidin called him Akka, like the letters AK in French.’

  ‘Automat Kalashnikov,’ explains Baba, noticing the school teacher’s blank stare. ‘It’s an assault rifle, favourite weapon of jihadists all over the world.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘By the time Redbeard came back to Mali he was angrier and more dangerous than ever. Well-funded too. He founded a battalion called the Defenders of Faith, and he started touring the villages of the north, preaching and recruiting. He knows our young men are bored, so he offers them excitement and adventure. He knows they are confused, so he gives them meaning and purpose. He knows they are angry, so he gives them an enemy to hate. And he also gives their parents cold, hard cash. Young men are flocking to join his battalion and we can’t do a thing about it.’

  We can’t do a thing about it. Just my luck to be born in Timbuktu, a city of malnourished soldiers and toothless old men. What chance do they have against the youth and passion of the mujahidin? None at all.

  I pick another weevil out of the millet flour and squeeze it between finger and thumb until I hear it pop.

  An hour later the food is ready.

  There are four serving bowls: one for the steaming slabs of millet, one for the baobab leaf sauce, one for drinking water and one for hand-washing water.

  ‘We’ll carry two each,’ Mama tells me. ‘Do your humblest walk, and make sure you curtsy when you set the bowls down.’

  We take the bowls out, place them on the ground in the middle of the circle and retreat to the kitchen.

  Mama shines her torch in my face. ‘What was that?’ she says.

  ‘That was my humble walk.’

  ‘You looked like a constipated duck.’

  ‘Sorry, Mama. I don’t really have a humble walk.’

  ‘You don’t have a humble anything, Kadija.’ She scrapes some leftover millet and sauce into a bowl, and we squat to eat. ‘Don’t look so glum,’ she says. ‘Timbuktu is not going to be attacked.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It’s obvious,’ she says. ‘Now that the rebels have Kidal and Gao, they won’t want to spread themselves too thin. Besides, they would be insane to attack such a famous city. Everybody in the world has heard of Timbuktu.’

  ‘Yes, but most people think it’s—’ I break off, not wanting to upset her.

  ‘Most people think it’s what?’

  ‘They think it’s an imaginary place.’

  There. I’ve said it.

  Mama’s hand stops abruptly on its way to her mouth. ‘Don’t talk nonsense, Kadija. Timbuktu is the best-known city in Africa.’

  ‘It isn’t, Mama. Aisha looked up Timbuktu in her English dictionary, and it just said, “Any far-off place”.’

  Mama’s eyes widen. For a moment I think she is going to cry, but instead her face goes hard and proud. ‘Aisha Diabaté is an ignorant girl. It’s no surprise to me that her book is ignorant as well.’

  She clicks her tongue in her cheek to signal the end of the conversation.

  ‘If Timbuktu does fall,’ I persist, ‘do you think we—’

  ‘Timbuktu will not fall,’ snaps Mama, ‘but I’ll tell you what will happen. All this fear and confusion will drive the price of food sky high. Tomorrow you and I will pay a visit to the tomb of Sidi Ahmed ben Amar. We will dance there and pray for God’s provision.’

  ‘Or we could just buy a sack of millet before the price goes up,’ I say.

  ‘Don’t be impertinent,’ she snaps.

  I’m not trying to be impertinent. And I don’t even mind visiting the tombs of the saints. I just don’t like going with Mama. To see her dance, you would think she was being attacked by bees.

  Wisdom of Timbuktu #2: To receive the blessings of the saints, visit the tombs of the saints. Shrine time is never wasted.

  When the elders have left, we go to the Sidi Yahya Mosque in Independence Square for night prayers. Mama and I usually do night prayers at home, but tonight is different. There is special power in communal prayer, so Baba says.

  Other people’s fathers must have said the same thing because Independence Square is full of families – a million moonlit worshippers flip-flopping towards the mosque.

  As we enter the Sidi Yahya compound, Mama nudges me and points to a closed door on the left side of the mosque. It is an ancient Timbuktu door, like the door of our manuscript vault, but its silver rivets are shaped like crescents and stars. The Door of Heaven, we call it.

  Back in the days when tourists still came to Timbuktu, the Door of Heaven was a big attraction. I used to watch them as they stood in front of it with their rucksacks and their sunburned noses, chortling stupidly and daring each other to open it. But that’s the thing. No one can open the Door of Heaven, however hard they try. There is not even a handle. Imam Cissé says that the Door of Heaven will stay firmly closed until the return of the Prophet Isa and the end of time itself.

  ‘See that, Kadi?’ Mama whispers, looping an arm round my waist. ‘It’s not the end of the world. Not just yet.’

  I kick off my sandals outside the mosque and take my place with the other women at the back of the congregation. ‘Allahu Akbar!’ groans Imam Cissé in the front row, and the ritual begins.

  We stand.

  We bow.

  We lean forward until the crisscross weave of the prayer mat prints itself on our foreheads.

  It’s hot inside the mosque. The sun set two hours ago, but the heat of the day still radiates from the mud-brick walls and columns. As I straighten up from my first prostration, a bead of perspiration forms on the nape of my neck and trickles slowly down my back.

  In the row in front of me, a little girl is praying. She has a special prayer cushion inscribed with the seven sacred verses of Al-Fatiha, but she is having trouble reading from it and kneeling on it at the same time. Back and forth she bobs and squirms, and her prayers are interspersed with little whimpers of frustration.

  After the last prayer cycle, we kneel with our hands on our thighs and recite the Tashahhud. ‘Pea
ce be upon us,’ we say, ‘and upon those who are righteous servants of Allah.’ I screw my eyes tight shut and press my fingernails into the palm of my hand. ‘Peace be upon us,’ I mutter under my breath. ‘Please, Lord.’ By the end of prayer time, I am truly praying.

  Prayer is like that. When you start off, you hear only your own heartbeat. By the end, you hear only His.

  At the end of the service, Imam Cissé hobbles to the front with his prayer beads and his ebony walking stick. When he picks up the microphone, a blast of feedback screams from the amp behind him. There are yelps of alarm all over the mosque. We are on edge and we know it.

  The old imam frowns and steps away from the amp.

  ‘Timbuktu has been invaded before,’ he says. ‘In the course of history, our great city has been invaded six times. It was invaded by the sultan of Mossi, by Sunni Ali, by Pasha Zarqun, by Askia Muhammad, by Sultan Al-Mansur of Marrakesh and by Marshal Joffre. Each time, Timbuktu survived. You know as well as I do that the soul of Timbuktu is not in its city walls, its buildings or its institutions. The soul of Timbuktu is in the writings of its scholars, the tombs of its saints and the worship of its God. People come and people go, but the soul of Timbuktu remains untouched. Remember God, my sons and daughters, and do not let worry gain a foothold. Sleep well and rise for morning prayers with a smile on your lips, whatever the day might bring.’

  People come and people go.

  Imam Cissé means well, of course. He is trying to encourage us. He is trying to help us see things in perspective. But when I leave the mosque, my knees are shaking and I can’t for the life of me remember which step I left my sandals on.

  In the month of April it is too hot to sleep in the bedroom, or anywhere inside the house. My parents sleep in the open air in the middle of the courtyard and I sleep on the flat earthen roof of the house. A tree trunk leaning at forty-five degrees leads from the courtyard up to the roof, with twelve deep notches for steps.

  I fetch a light cotton wraparound from my bedroom and half fill a bucket from the water barrel in the kitchen. I balance the bucket on my head, say goodnight to Mama and Baba and scoot up the tree-trunk staircase two notches at a time.

  ‘I don’t like Kadi sleeping up there on her own,’ I hear Mama say. ‘Maybe she should sleep in the vault tonight.’

  ‘With only one exit and a wall of hay in front of the door? No, my dear, that roof is the safest place in the house. If any fighting breaks out, we’ll go running up there to join her, just you wait!’

  Their voices fade away as I carry my bucket to the far side of the roof and set it down. Squatting naked under the stars, I use a gourd to tip cool water over my head and back.

  I can’t help glancing down into the compound next door, where dark figures crouch round a bowl of food: Uncle Abdel, Aunt Juma, dear cousin Kamisa. Yusuf too. I recognise the sleek curves of his ngoni, still slung across his back.

  I wring the water from my hair, dip my cotton wraparound in what remains of the water, and go to my millet-stalk mat.

  Wisdom of Timbuktu #3: Go to bed with a wet cotton sheet across your body, and rewet it throughout the night. It’s the only way you will get any sleep.

  Some nights I make up songs. With the stars so near, the words and music come easily.

  Some nights I smuggle a manuscript to bed and pore over it by the light of a paraffin lamp.

  Some nights I talk to Aisha on the phone and we whoop and gossip at three francs a minute until our credit runs out.

  I decide to ring Aisha, but neither of us are in the mood for whooping. She is worried about her cousins in Gao. She has been trying to ring them but the phone network there is down.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I tell her. ‘Baba says the rebels won’t harm civilians. The only people in danger are Malian soldiers.’

  ‘OK.’

  There is a long silence. In the stars above me, Ali the warrior brandishes his sword and shield.

  ‘My mother is cross with you,’ I say, ‘because your dictionary thinks Timbuktu is “any far-off place”.’

  Aisha sighs. ‘Right now I wish it wasn’t a real place. No rebels, no fear, no stress, just a beautiful mythical city in the middle of the desert.’

  ‘A city paved with gold?’

  ‘Solid gold. And me, a beautiful mythical Timbuktu princess with tortoiseshell hair extensions and a mysterious tattoo on my shoulder. And you, one of my mythical serving maids, almost beautiful but not quite.’

  ‘Almost beautiful but not quite!’ I burst out laughing. ‘In that case I shall be almost loyal but not quite. I shall run away in the middle of the night with all your mythical jewels.’

  Aisha hoots. ‘See if I care! You can’t sell mythical jewels, girl, and you can’t wear them either.’

  ‘Kadi!’ My father’s voice rises from the courtyard below. ‘Who’s up there with you?’

  ‘Baba, please, I’m on the phone!’ I shout.

  Two rapid beeps and Aisha is gone. My credit has run out and I am alone beneath the stars.

  Midnight, and I still can’t sleep. I sit on the balustrade at the edge of the roof and gaze out over the roofs of Timbuktu.

  Down below me is Askia Avenue, a wide street named after one of Mali’s greatest warriors. It is the oldest street in Timbuktu, with the vast mud-brick ramparts of the Djinguereber Mosque at its northern end and the whitewashed buildings of Independence Square to the south. This time last week, the street glowed with the embers of a hundred charcoal stoves – huddles of men and women drinking sweet tea and telling improbable stories. Tonight there is no glow. The people of Timbuktu are all at home, a-praying in their beds.

  The Sidi el-Beckaye Fort is set well back from the road on the edge of the city. Its walls loom high and impenetrable. Out of the corner of my eye I sense a flicker of movement against the wall.

  I shut my eyes for a few seconds to adjust them to darkness. When I open them again, the shape is still there. It is a man, or maybe a boy, dressed all in black, with a small rucksack high on his shoulders. He scurries along the base of the high wall, moving quickly and quietly on the balls of his feet.

  As I watch, the boy crouches down and reaches into his backpack. He straightens up quickly and wheels his arms as if flinging something high into the air.

  A slither and a quiet clink, and I realise what is happening. I tie my wrap across my body and run to tell my parents.

  ‘Wake up,’ I hiss. ‘There’s someone outside the military camp. He threw some sort of hook. I think he’s going to climb the wall.’

  ‘I’m coming.’ Baba’s voice rises from the darkness. ‘I’ll be right there.’

  By the time I get back to the edge of the roof, the shadow is already halfway up the wall and climbing fast.

  This is not how I thought it would start. I had expected to see flashes of mortar fire on a distant horizon. Not this black-clad boy dangling on a rope before my nose.

  ‘Where is he?’ Baba arrives on my right, his voice tense with adrenalin. ‘Can you still see him?’

  ‘Right there. Near the top of the wall.’

  Mama is running across the roof, arms stretched wide like she’s trying to catch a chicken. ‘Don’t fire!’ she cries. ‘You’re going to get us killed!’

  Too late, out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of ivory and silver. Baba is aiming his musket. A bright light and a bang. A gust of hot gunpowder billows out of the chamber.

  The force of the recoil makes Baba stagger backwards.

  ‘I think I hit him!’ he cries.

  The right side of my face and neck feel like a colony of fire ants are stinging them. I run to the water bucket and scoop handfuls of water over my cheek.

  Shouts of alarm and barked commands sound from the military camp below.

  Baba is rejoicing. ‘I got him!’ he cries. ‘He’s lying in the road. Astaghfirullah! God forgive me.’

  Mama is gaping and wittering at my side. ‘Let me look at you, Kadi,’ cries Mama, shining a torch in my
eyes. ‘Hold still and let me look at you.’

  ‘Turn that light off!’ hisses Baba.

  ‘Aloe vera sap,’ says Mama. ‘That’s what you need.’

  ‘I said, turn that light off!’

  A deafening crack, and Mama throws herself on top of me.

  ‘What was that?’ My voice is muffled by Mama’s jasmine-scented cleavage.

  Another bullet hisses overhead.

  ‘Get off the roof!’ urges Baba.

  We wriggle across the roof, all elbows and bottoms, and slither down the tree-trunk ladder. As I reach the ground, a wave of sudden pressure knocks me sideways. An explosion, not in our courtyard, but very close.

  ‘Everyone down to the vault!’ shouts Baba.

  Mama crouches in the corner of the compound. ‘I’m picking aloe vera!’ she shouts.

  She waddles back to us with a handful of fat serrated leaves and shines her torch into Marimba’s enclosure. He is dashing round like a dust devil, with frightened eyes and pricked-back ears.

  ‘No way,’ I say. ‘I’m not going in there.’

  Baba vaults the gate. He grabs Marimba round the neck and tries to hold him still.

  ‘Go,’ Mama tells me. ‘Go now.’

  I sprint round the edge of the enclosure and dive behind the hay bales. Mama follows. Baba unlocks the secret door and chivvies us down the stairs.

  ‘Only one exit, with a wall of hay in front of it,’ mutters Mama. ‘Isn’t that what you said?’

  ‘Yes,’ snaps Baba, ‘but less risky than jumping around on the roof, don’t you think?’

  ‘Who was jumping around?’ cries Mama. ‘I wasn’t jumping around.’

  ‘We could hardly stay hidden with you shouting and waving your torch about.’

  ‘Stay hidden? You fired a musket, you old goat!’

  Down in the vault Mama breaks the fleshy aloe vera leaves and squeezes the transparent slime into the hollow of her hand.

  ‘Hold still,’ she says, rubbing the cool sap onto my face and neck. ‘God be praised, it’s just a surface burn.’

  A massive explosion sounds above us and a smattering of earth falls on my head from the roof of the vault.