Hostage Three (26 page)

— An Arab man and a Somali woman, a long time ago, he said. Pale and dark, only the other way around. The man was called Darod, which means
stranger
in Somali, so I guess that wasn't his real name. The woman was Dombiro. The man, he was thrown from a ship and he swam to the beach, near here.

— Why was he thrown from a ship?

— He was the youngest prince, and had many older brothers. He came from Al-Hejaz, from Arabia. When his father died, the other princes told him he would be exiled to stop him from competing for the throne. And that is what they planned, but instead the captain of the ship threw him overboard, and took his belongings and his money. At first, Darod was very afraid. This land he found himself in was hot, hotter than Arabia. And there were none of the trees and the birds he was used to. Only bushes and dust. He could find no shelter from the burning sun, and feared that he would die. He knew that to drink seawater could drive him mad. Farouz pointed to the land. Imagine washing up on that beach alone, he said.

I looked at Somalia, an even blacker outline in the darkness.

— Scary, I said.

— Yes. But it was all right, because when he crawled up the beach and into Somalia, Dombiro found him. She was a beautiful woman of the Dir clan, tall and with long, loose limbs, large dark eyes, long hair like the night, falling around her face. She was the chieftain's daughter, as he was a prince. He was Arab and she was African; they spoke no words in common. But when their eyes met, something happened, some music in the air. She sheltered him in an oasis, brought him water to drink and figs to eat, which were
beirda
in her language, and
tinata
in his.

— And they fell in love?

— And they fell in love. And he taught her about Mohammed, while she taught him how to live on the arid land and raise cattle there. She taught him to find water for her goats, which she was tending. He taught her writing, culture, religion. She taught him how to dig a well, how to find berries safe to eat, how to recognise the tracks of a hyena, where to cut a goat's throat – not to kill it, but to get a little blood for mixing with milk for strength.

— Yuck, I said.

— You would not say that if you were starving. I told you –

— All your stories are stories of hunger. I know. I rolled my eyes at him.

— You are a good student, he said condescendingly. Like Darod.

— I'm Darod, in this story? I should be Dombiro, the beautiful girl.

— No. You are the pale stranger who knows nothing about surviving in our land.

— OK, yes. Fair enough.

— At first, Farouz went on, Dombiro's family were not pleased to see Darod when she finally showed him to them, after keeping him in the oasis for many months. But eventually they welcomed him, as is the Somali way. He never returned to Al-Hejaz. And their descendants are the people of Puntland, to this very day.

— That's lovely, I said.

I liked that idea – that they had come from different cultures, but fallen in love all the same.

— Yes, he said. It is probably not true. But it is nice.

— A lot of things are like that, I said.

— Yes, he replied.

Farouz fell silent then, and I did, too.

I looked up at the stars sparkling above us. I remembered Mom talking about black holes, and supernovas, and how there were a hundred billion stars in our galaxy and a hundred billion galaxies, and how that should have made her feel small, but it didn't – it made everything seem more meaningful.

I didn't know what she meant then, but now I did.

I also remembered, as I lay there in Farouz's hard arms, Mom telling me about the music of the spheres. It's an old idea from philosophy. It was Pythagoras who came up with it first. He knew that there was a mathematics behind music. Take an octave: every time you go up an octave, all you're really doing is doubling the frequency of the note. Middle C is 261 hertz, or 261 vibrations a second. The next C up on the keyboard, or fretboard or whatever, is 522 hertz. Even chords are in harmony; they go up in mathematical steps. If you want a major chord, the ratio of the frequencies is 4:5:6.

But Pythagoras thought it didn't stop with music. He saw the planets, spinning around in their orbits, and he noticed what he thought were some regularities in their distance. He decided that the spaces between the planets in the solar system must be like notes in a chord, must be following some kind of grand harmony. That planets must make notes by spinning, and together a symphony; that if you could stand in the right place, if your ear was big enough, you would hear their music.

Oh, Mom, I thought, remembering how she told me this on a cold November evening on the loneliest beach in North America, looking up at the stars. How she got excited and made lots of gestures to try to explain what she was talking about, spreading her hands for the distance between the stars, dancing around to show their spinning. How she babbled as she tried to convey how exciting it was, even if it was wrong, the idea that the stars and music were somehow the same.

I miss you so much, I thought.

Suddenly, lying there with Farouz, I didn't mind so much that Mom said
stardust
like that in her note to me. Now it was OK. I was thinking about what she said, about all things being linked, about us all being stardust, and I wasn't angry about it like I was before. I was thinking about the music of the spheres, too. Because I loved that idea, I really did. And I knew why she loved it.

Because things might be meant to happen.

Because an order might exist, under the chaos.

Because the universe might be playing a tune.

This is what I was thinking, when there came the sound of footsteps leading up to the door on to the deck.

Someone was coming out.

And I was in Farouz's arms.

Heart racing, I tried to move away – but not quick enough, as Mohammed opened the door and stepped outside.

For a moment, he stayed completely still, looking at us, then a smirk began to spread across his face. Very slowly, very deliberately, he closed the door behind him.

— Ah. Hostage Three is . . . whore, he said.

Farouz jumped to his feet, but Mohammed pushed him back down. He said something to him in their language, something contemptuous.

Oh god, this is worse than a fine, I thought. This isn't just a thousand dollars.

I started to run towards the door.

Mohammed grabbed my top and it tore, so he grabbed my arm instead and spun me back towards him, yanking the breath from me. He clasped my hand in his. His other hand held his AK-47; I could feel the coldness of the metal against my back. He shook his head: no. I didn't try to run again. His hand moved up my arm. Then his fingers splayed and he stroked my skin. It seemed to contract at his touch, shrivelling away from him – the sensation of him brushing against me was like sloe berries in the mouth.

He barked something at Farouz.

Farouz shook his head.

Mohammed shouted and his spittle landed on my face.

A hardness came over Farouz's expression.

— He says since you have already been touched by a coast guard, it will do no harm for another to touch you, said Farouz in a blank voice.

— No, I said.

Mohammed laughed.

— You not die, he said. He tapped his head. I not idiot. We want money.

— Farouz! I said. Farouz, please . . .

— I am sorry, said Farouz. I am sorry. His voice was hollow, scooped out, like an eaten avocado.

— Yes. Good. Now, said Mohammed, with his sour voice, his black-stained khat-teeth, his fat revolting tongue. Now, quiet.

He was close to me, his breath a physical thing, leaping out from his mouth.

The yacht tilted on some awful secret axis that I had never known was there. I found myself praying, silently, even though I had not prayed for years and years, and I wasn't even sure how any more.

Mohammed undid his belt buckle. He unbuttoned my All Saints top.

He put his gun down.

He pushed me down,

down,

down,

on to the sunlounger.

I've told you about the sound
when a gun goes off next to you. But I can't describe the feeling of it – the feeling of a man looming over you one moment, scarred face lowering down, unstoppable, and then half his face is gone, blown away in bloody rags, and his body falls on to you, meaty, heavy, and his blood is hot on your face, and somewhere behind all that, like lightning becoming thunder, a crack loud enough to be the world breaking.

Energy, violence, heat, and, to begin with, no sound at all.

It's a bit like a heavy blankness, a bit like this:

(

 

 

)
.

Followed by a boom that shakes your inner ears – only you have to imagine that all of it is red, blood-red, and weighs a hundred kilos.

Then I screamed.

There was sticky stuff in my hair, a smell of burning, of cordite, I guess, and my head felt like it had been inside a big bell when someone struck it. I scrabbled at Mohammed's leaden corpse, trying to get it off me, still screaming for all I knew, for all I could hear. My leg was trapped – oh god, my leg was trapped – but then it popped out, and I kind of half-fell, half-crawled off the sunlounger on to the deck. I realised I could taste blood in my mouth, metallic, and I thought for a moment I had bitten my tongue, before it hit me that this was Mohammed's blood, his blood, in my
mouth
.

Farouz's hand was holding his pistol, and it was smoking from the barrel. I didn't realise they actually did that. He was standing in, like, a lozenge of light from one of the portholes, and there was a smile, or what looked like a smile, on his face.

He shot him, I thought dumbly.

I glanced at him again, and his smile was gone. Maybe I imagined it, I thought. Yes, I must have imagined it. He saved me, yes, and that meant killing Mohammed. And I was sure he hadn't enjoyed it.

Wasn't I?

When the yacht had stopped spinning enough for me to get to my knees and look up, Farouz was already dressed. I didn't understand how he had done that already. There was a look almost of surprise on his face. I started to button up my top, but he shook his head.

— No, he said. This looks better. The tears, too. His voice came at me like underwater speech.

With trembling fingers, he took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, then a lighter. He lit a cigarette. I watched the whole sequence, like it was the only thing I had ever seen. The tap of the packet. The cigarette falling out into the other hand, the faint
pop
when the lighter thrust out its little flame. The first deep drag, right down into the lungs, the smoke drifting out again through his nostrils.

— Jesus, I said, looking at the dead man.

— No, said Farouz, his face not moving, save for the wisps of smoke still curling from his nose. That is Mohammed.

I kind of half-laughed, but at the same time, I didn't know if I would ever be able to stand up again.

— You were alone out here. He tried to rape you, said Farouz, as if explaining something to a child. It was lucky I came out for a cigarette.

— He . . . Right, I said, yes, as I understood that Farouz was creating our cover story.

That was it, that was all the time we had to prepare, because then Ahmed appeared, a look – of what? terror? anger? – on his face. I could see him taking in the whole scene, his eyes flicking from Mohammed, his head haloed in blood, bits of brain and skull scattered on the sunlounger, to me, in my torn top, my hands clutching at myself, to hold myself together, to cover myself. And to Farouz, standing there with the gun.

— Did he . . . ? Ahmed began.

— No, said Farouz. I came in time. Then he added something in Somali.

Ahmed nodded. Even then, I don't know if he really believed it. In his face, there was no emotion at all. But what was he going to do? Secretly, he was probably pleased with the result. I'd seen him roll his eyes behind Mohammed's back. The man had been imposed on Ahmed by people with influence, that much was obvious. He came closer to me.

— Are you OK? Ahmed asked.

— No, I said truthfully.

— I mean, did he . . . hurt?

— No, I said.

— Good, good. You precious, said Ahmed's mouth. We do not want hurt.

Ahmed's eyes, though. His eyes said nothing at all.

— No, I said again. No, he didn't hurt me.

Ahmed nodded slowly.

— You don't speak now. With Farouz. Never alone. Understand?

Something gripped my throat, something with long thin fingers.

— Yes, I said in a low voice.