The Salt Road (56 page)

‘Tana told me you would come.’

‘How could she know that?’

‘You know Tana: better than I do. She knows so much.’ A pause. ‘Do you know, I have carried you with me all these years, in my heart, over my heart.’ She unpinned a silver brooch that was fastened to the centre of her chest and unwound the leather binding that held it closed. From within she took a scrap of indigo cloth tinged with rusty brown, folded small. She gazed at it fondly for a moment, then let it flutter to the ground between them. ‘That came from your sleeve, when they tore me away from you. I thought it bore the last of your lifeblood, until I realized I carried your child inside me.’ The smile she turned on him was luminous. ‘Did you not recognize our girl when first you met?’ She chuckled. ‘Fancy abducting your own daughter!’

He shook his head. ‘How could I know? I did not even know there
was
a child, and making a connection like that, in such circumstances …’ He let the sentence trail off. It was absurd. ‘Of course not.’ He paused, thinking. ‘And yet, you know, there was something about her. Something of you.’

‘I knew her at once. I would have known her amongst a thousand women. She has your eyes.’

Amastan felt moisture gather in his own. He dashed it away with the back of his hand: the asshak demanded that you did not show weakness, even to your wife. But the tears were too strong for him, and at last he let them run down his face, into the cotton of the tagelmust. ‘She has your chin,’ he managed at last.

Mariata reached a hand to his cheek. ‘Let me see you. Let me see your beautiful face.’ She drew the veil down and gazed at him, taking in greedily every muscle and pore of him, every line and wrinkle. ‘I do not care about the time that has passed between us: it means nothing. You are the same as ever. You are my Amastan; and I am your Mariata. Never leave me again. Promise me.’

He found he could not say anything, so instead he simply nodded, and folded her hands against his heart.

Two years later

The desert sun, striking down out of the pale blaze of the sky, cast its light upon a group of figures in an encampment set at the foot of the mountain. The scenery was spectacular: on one side jagged, volcanic peaks rose to pierce the horizon; on the other a dramatic sea of sand lay unmoving, its crests and troughs caught as if frozen in a moment of time. In a pasture near by – vivid emerald against all the red – camels grazed or sat staring patiently into space, their jaws shuttling contentedly from side to side. Down by the silver strip of river a herd of black goats tumbled neatly from rock to rock. Play-fights broke out between some of the young males, and the bellows of the rams upbraiding this precocious behaviour echoed off the red walls. Across an enclosure on the far side of the camp, beyond a number of dusty vehicles, a knot of children had gathered outside one of the long, low-slung tents, listening intently to two men who were robed and veiled in the traditional fashion. The older man had a strong, craggy profile and watchful eyes. At present these were trained on the younger man, who gestured enthusiastically, and then bent and traced great looping lines in the sand at his feet with the aid of a pointed stick. He stood back to survey his handiwork, then walked quickly away and came back some moments later with the skirt of his robe full of stones. Beneath the robe he was wearing jeans, well cut and narrow-legged in the French style. He cast the stones down and a great cloud of dust rose up and made the nearest children sneeze and shout. The older man said something and they all laughed, so that even the harsh planes of his face for a moment gave themselves up to a less fearsome expression. The young man placed one round, red stone upon the path of one of the ellipses he had drawn, then another, larger and lighter in colour, a little further away. More stones were set amidst the whirling, concentric lines. The children looked on fascinated but bemused. He talked with great animation, pointing first to the stones, then up to the sky, then to the desert, and finally made a grand, expansive sweep of the arm that drew them all into the pattern he had made.

Two women sat apart from all this lively education, looking on with a mixture of tenderness, pride and amusement. In profile they could be mirror images of one another, for the sun’s lavish attentions had erased the wrinkles on the face of one and hazed the detail of the other. If it were not for the contrasting colours – silver and black – of their braided hair, they might have been sisters, or maybe cousins. They both wore blue robes, loosely draped, cool in this heat, coloured head-wraps, silver jewellery and kohl that outlined their dark, expressive eyes; one wore a watch, but it was no kind of status symbol, being plastic, digital, uncompromisingly cheap and functional. She consulted it, stood up, pressed her hands into the small of her back and stretched as luxuriously as a cat, then walked towards the class. The other woman patted an amulet – a massive, four-square chunk of etched silver embellished with glowing red discs – that was displayed proudly upon her breast, then pushed herself to her feet, threw the long tail of her head-wrap back over one shoulder and followed.

‘And what is this?’ The young man pointed to a white pebble and the children craned their necks.

‘
Tellit?
’ one of them questioned, turning to the older man and regarding him solemnly.

Amastan beamed. ‘
Tellit
,’ he confirmed.

‘The moon,’ echoed Taïb. ‘
La lune
.’ He touched a piece of rose granite sitting on the next of the elliptical rings he had inscribed in the sand. ‘And can any of you remember what this is?’

A girl with her hair in half a dozen braids said something in little more than a whisper. Taïb cupped his hand to his ear and she repeated it timidly.

‘The red star, yes, exactly that: Mars. Well done, Tarichat.’

He got them tracing their own ellipses and placing planets and their attendant moons in suitable positions, asking and answering questions in a mixture of English, French and Tamacheq. And then someone trod on Venus, fell over and knocked Earth out of its orbit, and suddenly everyone was laughing and adding new stars and asteroids where there had never been any before. At that moment a great shadow fell across the sand, and they all turned to see what had caused this phenomenon.

One of the boys laughed and shouted something out and Amastan grinned, his teeth startling white in the tan that showed between the black folds of his tagelmust. ‘He says you have caused a solar eclipse!’

Taïb walked over and placed an arm around the newcomer’s expanded waist. ‘How are we to teach them their place in the universe when my giant wife comes and bestrides an entire solar system?’

Izzy punched him affectionately on the arm, which for some reason the children found hilarious.

Mariata shook her head. ‘You men, always so concerned about your place in the world. We women have other things to concern ourselves with.’ Her bright black eyes sparked an affectionate challenge; Amastan gave her his little half-smile. She held his gaze for a long heartbeat, then leant over and placed a hand on her daughter’s bump. ‘So, have you decided yet?’

Izzy flashed warning eyes at her mother, but Mariata carried on regardless.

‘Where you will give birth?’

‘There is no question. She will go back to Paris to have it,’ said Amastan, all smiles gone. ‘My daughter will give birth in a clean, modern clinic where there can be no mistakes.’

Beside him, Taïb looked equally fierce. ‘Absolutely. Izzy, we talked about this! You can’t have the baby here, it would be madness.’

‘Madness!’ echoed Amastan.

They stood shoulder to shoulder: two halves of the same bean. Izzy caught the phrase in her head, turned it over and examined it, amused. Didn’t she mean ‘two peas in a pod’? Sometimes she found herself using sayings she’d never used before, knowing things she shouldn’t have known, given her upbringing. It was weird; but at the same time quite normal. She was almost getting used to it.

‘Look, I know all the arguments, I’m aware of the dangers; but you know women have been having babies in the desert for thousands of years! No – don’t say any more: I haven’t decided yet. But don’t forget that Jean and Anne-Marie will be here.’ These were the two French travelling doctors paid for by the trust Taïb and Isabelle had set up with Izzy’s redundancy payment and the money from the sale of the two London houses. Taïb’s thriving trade in commissioned artefacts for the American and European collectors’ market was also a source of revenue; Tana had passed many of her inadan skills on to the younger generation, though not without keeping many of her secrets back, and the results were striking and much in demand.

Mariata gave her daughter one of her looks out of the corner of her bright black eyes, sly and amused at the same time. Izzy knew what it meant: it meant, make your own mind up and take no notice of the men – what do they know of these things? We are desert women and we take our chances with the desert. Knowing the argument would eventually be won, she cunningly changed the subject. ‘And what will you call her, have you decided on a name?’

‘Are you so sure she’ll be a she?’ asked Amastan, only slightly belligerent.

Mariata’s lips curved beatifically. ‘Oh, yes, I have no doubt of that. I’ve read the signs.’

Taïb shook his head. ‘You always know without us saying a word. I don’t know why you ask. Izzy and I discussed it and came to an agreement last night.’

‘No matter how long I live, women will always remain a mystery to me.’ Amastan gave a mock-sigh. He regarded his wife solemnly, perhaps even a little reverentially; a lingering glance passed between them.

Forty years
, thought Izzy. Even after two years she had not got used to the idea of finding herself the daughter of such parents. It was like borrowing someone else’s life, stepping into a world of fairytale – though a fairytale from a far more benevolent universe than that of Perrault or the Brothers Grimm. Would she and Taïb still be so vitally connected, so alive to one another, after such a time, she wondered. The concept was unreal, absurd, but at the same time quite delightful.
Think how old we will be then!
She laughed at the image thus conjured and looked up to find her husband watching her in an intent way that caused a warm flutter in her abdomen. Or perhaps it was just the baby kicking. Yet again.

‘Lallawa,’ she said softly, laying her hand across the swell of her belly. ‘I feel I owe the world a Lallawa: for the old one who gave her life to the desert; and for the girl who never had a chance to grow up with that name.’

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