Tongues of Fire (31 page)

The barber crouched in front of the second boy. He ran the edge of the blade very lightly over the back of his hand, wiped it again on his robe, and put the steel cap in place. “Don't cry, don't cry.” The second boy held on longer than the first. He was biting his lip so hard that blood had begun to flow from it as well. He began to cry, first in a stifled way, then uncontrollably. From this Paul knew there would be pain to go along with the fear.

Blood fell on the sand. The foreskin went into the pouch. The boy was a man. The crowd cheered. He was carried away.

The barber turned to Paul, wiping the blade on his robe and leaving a red smear. Paul felt the sweat rolling over his ribs, and Bokur's hands gripping his shoulders. “Don't cry, don't cry, we won't sing for you if you cry. Don't cry, don't cry.” The chanting was quieter than it had been for the other boys; there was more at stake. Paul looked at the crowd, saw Hurgas standing with some of the other young men, watching: Hurgas's gaze was not directed at his face, but lower; and Neimy, at the front, a few yards away. He could hear her voice: “Don't cry, don't cry, I won't sing for you if you cry. Don't cry, don't cry.”

The barber squatted in front of him, but Paul was taller than the other boys and he was too low in that position. He rose to his knees and took the steel cap from his pouch. Paul felt the barber's hand lift his penis, felt the steel cap slip onto its head, felt the barber's fingernails on his foreskin, pulling it over the cap. His heart pounded in his chest, not only from fear.

“Don't cry, don't cry.” Now Hurgas's eyes were on his face, eager, excited.

The barber touched his penis with the point of the knife.

“No,” Paul said. The barber's head jerked up; his toothless mouth opened in astonishment. In the tightening of the grip on his shoulders Paul felt how much Bokur had at stake. “No,” he said again, and he heard his voice, calm, as though it was another's: “Give it to me.”

The barber did not move. Paul reached down and took the knife from his hand. Then, holding his penis firmly with one hand, he cut off his own foreskin. The pain was someone else's. He did not utter a sound.

When he had finished he handed the foreskin to the barber, dropped the knife on the ground, and walked away. No one said a word.

For the rest of the morning Paul lay on his bedstead in Una's tent. For a while he was alone; then Una came and started to rub his legs with liquid butter. Outside, Neimy hummed softly as she pounded the strips of beef. Sometimes she tried a few words: “‘No no,' he said, ‘Give it to me,' so brave, so brave.” In the darkness of the tent the pain was no longer someone else's, it became his own. Una's fingers, strong and gentle, probed the muscles in his calves, dug into the crevices of his knees, pressed upwards along his thighs. In his mind he followed the movements of her fingers, and the pain began to go away. Sleepiness came to take its place. But he had no time for sleep.

Bokur's heavy face loomed over him. He felt Una's hands withdraw. “Here,” Bokur said. There was a thickness in his voice. He held up a long spear, and a wide-bladed knife of the kind the men wore strapped to their chests. “No one ever deserved them more than you. Not in the whole history of our people.”

“Thank you, Bokur.”

“You have honored me,” Bokur said quietly. He added: “Mahdi.”

Paul closed his eyes. He was one of them, and above them too, the way he had to be. And he had a penis like his father's. “Bokur.”

“Yes?”

“I need a horse.”

“Any of mine are yours.”

“Today, Bokur.”

“Today? You cannot ride today.”

“Yes, Bokur. I want to.”

Bokur nodded. The look in his eyes was close to love. “Would you like the black mare?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Bokur went outside. Paul heard him say: “Hurgas. Bring the black mare.”

“The black mare? Why do you want her?”

“Don't question me, boy. Run.”

Early in the afternoon Paul rode away on the black mare. He rode north. Although he held the mare to a slow walk, the pain returned. A dark bloodstain spread across the coarse blanket that served as a saddle. Long before he reached the two baobabs by the shallow depression, he was forced to dismount and lead the mare by her bridle.

The sun burned down on his shaved head. He drank often from the goatskin bag he wore over his shoulder. The mare's black coat began to foam. When they came to the baobab trees Paul drew a bucket of water from the new well and filled the goatskin bag. Then he sat in their shade and let the mare go down into the depression and drink from the little pool in its center. While she drank, he tore a strip of cotton from his jubba and tied it tightly around his penis to stop the blood. He closed his eyes. Horseflies buzzed around him. He got up, walked down into the depression, drew the mare away from the water, and went on.

Just before the sun went down he saw the pile of pebbles marking the end of the wadi. He led the mare into the dry riverbed. He thought of everything he would tell his father, and how he would tell it. His father had explained the importance of bravery during circumcision, but what he had done had not been planned. He wanted to tell him.

Night fell. The moon rose, a half-moon that pushed back the shadows in the riverbed. After a while Paul felt too tired to walk. He pulled himself up on the mare's back, and leaned forward against her neck. For an hour or two the movements of her back hurt him with every step. Then he was numb.

“If it doesn't work, it doesn't work,” his father had said. “We'll go back.” But it was working, and he didn't want to go back; now that he had done what he had done. As long as they could see each other every week, and talk and plan, he would be all right.

He came to the railroad bridge. It was very dark underneath. Paul slid off the mare's back and walked slowly forward, under the bridge. “Dad?” he called softly in English. “Dad?” He raised his voice a little: “Dad?” Carefully he searched the darkness along both banks, in case his father had fallen asleep. “Dad? Dad?” He climbed up the bank and onto the bridge. He walked along the ties. “Dad?” Perhaps he had fallen asleep somewhere along the bank and rolled off, down onto the riverbed. Paul went down and crawled through the shadows. “Dad?”

He sat. The wind came up, blowing off the northern desert. It began to blow very hard. He looked to the north and saw a wall of blackness advancing through the night. At first it screened the moon like a thin cloud; then the moon disappeared. The wind tore at his clothing. Blowing sand stung his eyes. He lay down against the bank of the wadi. The mare lay beside him. He huddled close to her belly and shut his eyes. The dust storm howled over his head.

At dawn the wind began to die. The sky cleared. Paul removed his jubba and shook off the sand. The dust storm had kept his father away. He was probably nearby. He would come soon. Paul waited.

He waited all day. And all night.

And the following day. And the following night.

The next morning he mounted the black mare and started riding back toward the camp. He was hungry and had nowhere else to go.

When he came to the depression he saw a few tents raised beneath the baobab trees. They were like the Baggara tents, but smaller and flatter. He asked for something to eat, and was given millet and camel milk. The people looked like Baggara, but their skins were lighter, and they had camels instead of cattle. He thanked them and rode away. As he left he heard one of their women singing softly to herself:

“No,” he said, “Give it to me,”

So brave, so brave, the Mahdi.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

There was a little hole in the sand. After two days a black beetle crawled out of it, skittered over the ground, and disappeared under an olive green bush a few feet away. A lizard with a blue body and an orange head crept out from behind the bush. It bobbed its head up and down. The sun grew hotter, and hotter still. The lizard stuck out its pointed white tongue and flicked it like a tiny whip. It bobbed up and down. The black beetle darted out from under the bush, toward the hole in the sand. The lizard stopped bobbing. For a moment it was completely still; then it sprang, and caught the beetle in its mouth. There was a sound like chewing gum cracking as the beetle's hard body was crushed between the lizard's jaws. The lizard turned its orange head, the broken beetle hanging from the sides of its mouth, and looked at Krebs.

Krebs, tied to the tree, looked back. Because of the horsefly bites his eyes were swollen almost shut, and he saw the lizard through the screen of his eyelashes. He wiggled his foot and it ran away.

He had given up struggling against the nylon ropes. It only made him bleed, and the horseflies liked that. He was thirsty. His tongue was thick and coated with a hard crust that felt rough against the roof of his mouth. He kept thinking of the soda fountain he went to after school as a boy. Every afternoon he had a big Coke. Seven cents. Then it had gone up to ten. He could see the big soda fountain glass with the ice cubes floating on the top and mist around the rim. He used to blow into the straws and shoot the wrappers around the place when no one was looking. He kept thinking about things like that: drinks he had drunk, swimming pools he had swum in; he knew he was getting lightheaded.

He didn't want Coke. He wanted water.

A horsefly buzzed around him a few times and landed on his cheek. He shook his head back and forth. It flew away. And came back. He shook his head. It didn't fly away. He shook his head harder and harder, until his cheeks were flapping against his gums. The horsefly bit. “You fucking goddamned shit,” he yelled. It bit again. And again. He stopped shaking his head. It went away. Blood trickled down his face and onto his lip. He drank it greedily.

At least he was facing north. That meant that the tree shaded him from the afternoon sun. But his skin was red and blistered all the same. He could see that through his eyelashes.

The next day he couldn't. He knew it was day because the insides of his eyelids were pink. His mouth was dry and crusty as sand. His throat made swallowing motions on its own. He tried to stop it, but it wouldn't stop. Horseflies bit. Mosquitoes bit. A few times something else bit, something he couldn't identify. “You fucking goddamned shit,” he yelled. All that came out was breath.

The insides of his eyelids turned black. Suddenly he felt very cold, and realized that he was no longer sweating. That must be bad. He had heard of men drinking urine to stay alive. The Black Hole of Calcutta. He had no urine to urinate; and no way of getting it to his mouth if he had. But he did need to defecate. He had been holding on for a long time, afraid of the flies. Later, during the night, he could hold on no more.

He saw pink.

Ants would finish him off. They had soldier ants here, didn't they? The ants would march up in a column and pick him to the bone. He hoped he was dead before that happened.

Clip-clop. Clip-clop.

Mr. Bennett: That was the name of the owner of the soda fountain. He had blackheads all over his nose. Some of them were as big as moles. Once he had seen Mr. Bennett put a broken cigarette back together with Scotch tape.

Bite. Go on and bite. Less for the ants.

Clip-clop. Clip-clop.

Big Cokes. With ice cubes floating on the top and mist around the rim. Seven cents. After he'd chew the ice cubes, and swirl the cold crushed pieces around in his mouth.

Clip-clop. A man said something. He was very near. He spoke again. Krebs tried as hard as he could to open his eyes. The pink became a shade lighter. “Water,” he said, but he didn't make a sound. He heard a light thudding sound, and footsteps. Something touched his lips.

It was wet. He drank. Water.

The man spoke. Krebs had taken enough instruction in Arabic to know the man was speaking it, but his accent was very different from anything he had heard on the tapes in the language lab, and he could not understand a word. He drank.

Cold metal touched his wrists, the middle of his back, his waist, his knees, his ankles. The ropes fell away. He tried to stand, and failed. He could not move at all.

A wet hand gripped his arm. He felt another against his ribs. He was pulled to his feet and lifted into the air, head hanging down. The pink turned dark red, then white. White spun into nothing.

Clip-clop. He jolted along; coarse hairs scratched his stomach and chest. Sometimes his toes dragged on the ground, sometimes his fingers. The man's feet tramped beside him, close to his head. At first the man spoke to him, usually in brief sentences that sounded like questions. After a while he was silent. Once he laughed, a high-pitched laugh that was more of a giggle, and Krebs felt a wet hand resting on his buttocks.

His right eye opened slightly. He saw hairy donkey legs and chipped donkey hooves plodding along. It was all blurred and out of focus: He realized that his contact lens must have fallen out, or slipped into the corner of his eye.

The donkey stopped. The man spoke. A woman answered him. Wet hands pulled at him, lifted him off the donkey's back. A bony shoulder dug into his stomach. Across his field of vision whirled a woman, naked children, a lone tent by a tree—all upside down. He was carried out of the sunshine and into the tent, and laid on his back on hard-packed, cool earth.

The woman came. She helped him sit up, and gave him water from a tin cup and something warm and pasty to eat. It tasted like rice, but thicker and more starchy. With difficulty he was able to swallow a spoonful. The man said a few words to the woman. She went outside.

It was dark in the tent, and Krebs couldn't see very well. He tried to bring his hand to his right eye to search for his contact lens, but it would not be raised that high. The man moved in front of him.

“Muglad,” Krebs said. He heard how low and hoarse his voice sounded and tried to make it louder: “I want to go to Muglad.”