I reached the level rock and approached them, pausing to lay my rifle and my knife on the ground. The Arabic-speaking princeling in his white turban stepped forward and put down his own bow and spears. We had now established an understanding which would pertain no matter how heated our argument became. I was welcomed into their camp. They led me to where Kolya, grinning and still half-mad, said to me in French, ‘Damn you, Dimka, if you don’t like the look of me let them sell me to someone who does!’
I shook my head at this and said to the chief, ‘See, it is true. Allah’s mercy on him. He is possessed. A djinn speaks through him. What is that monkey jabbering?’
‘It is Frank. Perhaps we should take his tongue off,’ proposed the chief thoughtfully, looking around for a blade. ‘That would make no difference to his work.’
I agreed that this might be the short-term remedy but he might as well stay intact for the moment. Suppose the djinn were driven out, then the poor creature would have been maimed for nothing and so rendered less valuable. Kolya seemed relieved by what he could overhear of this.
I next explained how we travelled with little to spare, all we had were a few small measures of good-quality cloth. Perhaps they would accept a foot or two for the madman. The chief smiled appreciatively at this gambit and invited me to squat down on the ground with him. So the serious bargaining began. We made jokes, exchanged insults, acted out a range of emotions from incredulity to despair, shared several cups of bitter tea, reflected on the state of the world, agreed that faith was the only road out of our dilemma and that the Jews and also the Christians were the cause of our troubles (any other analysis tended to shift the blame to God, which was of course a blasphemy). From time to time we brought the conversation back to the issue at hand and began another enjoyable round of bargaining. Sometimes trade is all the desert-dweller has in common with others of his kind and bartering becomes as elaborate a means of social intercourse as it is of arriving at a fair price. Eventually, just after three o’clock on the second day at the Zazara Oasis, I declared that my friends would curse me for a headstrong fool but I would throw in an ornamental dagger with the bale of tartan cloth they coveted. They agreed suddenly and so my friend was returned to me. I believe the tension of the moment had sobered him. He no longer spoke of Wagner but thanked me with his old civility. ‘You are a natural diplomat, Dimka dear. Do you still have all our camels?’
I assured him that I had kept our little caravan together. Although weary, he was cheerful. The water and food offered him by the Gora so that he should be a better purchase had given him the strength to take hold of his senses again. ‘What happened, Dimka?’ He paused for breath as we climbed back towards the ledge. ‘Did the Italian army find you? Are we in need of identities?’
I assured him he was in no further danger. He stopped again to get his breath and stared down at the net and the silk which draped the surrounding rocks. ‘If it isn’t the army, who is it? The Italian air force?’
But I would tell him no more until I had helped him ascend, pretending to curse him and goad him, until he reached the top of the ridge and stood staring in astonishment at the basket and its charming occupant.
Signorina von Bek now wore a pale green frock with dark-blue fringes, a dark-blue cloche and matching stockings. Her shoes were the colour of her dress. ‘How is the poor fellow?’ she asked me over his head.
‘Praising Allah for His mercy, Signorina von Bek, as are we all.’
Their business done, the Gora were already striking camp. I guessed that they were on their way to another outlaws’ rendezvous where they hoped to pick up work. But they would also speak of us.
As Kolya approached, Signorina von Bek wrinkled her nose. ‘Oh, dear! He’d better have a bath, don’t you think?’
I agreed with her. I would also bathe, I said. Meanwhile, she decided, as soon as the slave was rested perhaps he could bring her up some water for her own ablutions. Gladly, I said, but first I must see to my camels. Our poor patient beasts had suffered too long. Leaving the loads near the balloon’s basket, Kolya and I led the eager animals at last to stretch their elegant necks over the oasis. The water was good but had a peculiar taste to it from an old palm which had fallen in at the far side and rotted. The camels sniffed the pool carefully before they drank.
‘I trust you do not seriously expect me to take that girl’s bathwater up to her,’ murmured my friend as we stripped off and waded into the shadowy pond where we could not easily be seen from above.
I smiled at his dismay and said we would carry some up in a fantasse on the camel. ‘Since, dear Kolya, you were not in your senses I had no choice but to fall back on the familiar excuse of congenital idiocy.’
‘It is not a rôle to which I’m much suited,’ he admitted, but he understood my point. ‘The girl I take it is here on government business?’
‘Only in a manner of speaking. Hers is the first one-woman flight for the Italian Geographical Society. I gather Mussolini’s giving a lot of backing to such enterprises at the moment.’ It was only at that second that the inspiration came to me that Italy was the country I should offer my talents to. I could help build the power-plants and machines needed to make that country truly the nation of the future, the New Rome in every sense. They also possessed, I understood, a thriving film industry. Perhaps my meeting with Signorina von Bek had been opportune in more ways than one.
Already Kolya was discussing the next stage of our route across the desert. Now we had found Zazara and the Thieves’ Road, all we had to do was head west on it. Eventually, ‘in less than a thousand miles,’ we should reach Morocco.
By now, of course, I saw my future following a rather different course, but I said nothing. ‘First we must help Signorina von Bek reflate her balloon.’ I stretched in the water. I floated. ‘And then we can be on our way. It is the least we can do, Kolya, since she, effectively, saved our bacon.’
‘By crashing in the desert?’ (I had sketched the story for him.)
‘By trusting us,’ I reminded him. ‘We could be a pair of rogues for all she knows.’
He was offended at this. Surely I had seen how she had already taken note of the man beneath the rags? When he was properly dressed again, he would thank her himself for her timely arrival, though she had not, after all, deliberately helped us. It was merely good fortune that she happened to be there. I protested this was a parsimonious compliment to her aerial navigation, especially since Kolya’s own sense of direction was unremarkable. He was being churlish. He apologised at once. His privations, his nerves, the exhausting fetching of water, had all taken their toll.