Kolya began to blurt something. I spoke in Russian. ‘Are you babbling in tongues again, Kolya, dear? Take her offer! We can be in Tangier within a week!’
‘Or in French Equatorial,’ he said gloomily. ‘You can’t steer a balloon, Dimka. But you can follow a road. At least I’ll know which direction I shall be travelling. Leave her. She’s an attractive and dangerous woman. She lives for thrills. I would have thought you’d had enough of adventures for a while. There are no clear advantages to your suggestion. With our original plan, we know exactly where we’re going.’
‘To Hell, Kolya! The danger’s now unwarranted.’
‘Is he all right?’ asked Signorina von Bek in English.
‘He is afraid to fly in your ship, I think,’ I said in English, then in Russian, ‘There’s nothing for you here, Kolya.’
‘Only a bastard would leave these poor camels,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay.’ It was the argument which won me. I had, myself, been deeply reluctant to desert my beautiful Uncle Tom. Yet her chances of survival on that lawless road were far better than mine. I was experiencing an agony of guilt and could hardly bear the idea of parting from Kolya. Yet survival, at such moments, demands no sentiment. Uncle Tom might find new owners in the desert, even if they proved to be the returning Gora. Her beauty guaranteed she would be well treated whoever inherited her.
‘Come, Kolya,’ I begged my friend the last time for conscience’s sake. ‘Signorina von Bek says the prevailing wind will take us west. She would prefer to go north, she says, but either way we wind up in Tripoli or Tangier.’
‘Or Timbuktu,’ he said significantly. ‘It is you who face unwarranted danger, not I. Go, if you like. Simply leave me my camels and our few remaining goods.’
‘Everything. Gladly,’ I said. My mind was set upon Italy. I was filled with the urgency of idealism, a sense that my true vocation was returning. Oh, Esmé! You saw me fly. My faith in the power of rational science was coming back. I was filled with the Holy Spirit. My whole body quickened. My senses returned, thanks to Allah’s wisdom. I had walked dead into the desert and out of the desert I arose, to live again. My body began to sing at last.
‘You have your passport?’ Kolya seemed ill-tempered suddenly. I was a little put out by his brusqueness. It was I, after all, who had been rejected!
‘Indeed, I have. I will fetch my kit from Uncle Tom.’
‘You have plenty of water?’ He drew a breath of desert air as if to renew himself. He hummed a strain from Tristan und Isolde.
‘Plenty.’
Kolya insisted on coming with me as I parted from Uncle Tom. He helped me lead my lovely creature back up the steep path to the top of the hill where Signorina von Bek waited in the balloon. A strong breeze now stirred her hair and her chiffon scarf was blown upward to frame her head.
‘You are a fool,’ Kolya muttered. ‘I do not fear to fly in that thing - although it’s folly - but I would fear to go with her. She is dangerous, believe me. Return to the desert and its freedoms. You have never known a woman like her, Dimka. She feeds off power. She plays with power and is fated to an early death, as are all her kind. And she’ll take at least one poor devil with her. She’s volatile, like nitro.’
‘This is nothing but jealousy, Kolya. I beg you reconsider your own decision. Do not sink, in your own anxiety, to besmirching a lady’s honour. Signorina von Bek is clearly a gentlewoman. She also has a fine mind. A man’s mind. But she could never come between us, Kolya. We are brothers. I merely express concern for your well-being. Can our few trade goods sustain you all that way?’
My friend responded with a brave shrug. He took Uncle Tom’s halter from my hand. ‘The camels are my chief asset. I have to sell them before I can do anything else. Uncle Tom I will try to keep, I swear.’
‘If necessary, you should get the best price for Uncle Tom,’ I assured him. ‘As soon as you reach the next large oasis.’
‘I will find you in Tangier,’ he promised, ‘and give you your share. After all, you helped get us this far.’
‘Perhaps.’ I gripped his shoulder. ‘Meanwhile you should be more sparing, old friend, in your use of drugs. You’ll have none left by the time you get to a city.’
‘Oh, I’ll not run out.’ We had reached the balloon and he reverted to mumbling mode, handing my valise and other luggage into the basket as I climbed in to help Signorina von Bek stow the bags into the lockers.
I reached over the side and, defying Bedouin custom, shook Kolya’s hand, then drew him towards me to kiss him. ‘Farewell, good friend,’ I said in Arabic. ‘May Allah continue to protect thee and bring thee safe to thy destination.’
‘Your slave really isn’t coming?’ Signorina von Bek seemed disappointed.
‘I have given him his freedom,’ I said. ‘He chose to take the camels and travel the lonely road of the Darb al-Haramiya. God goes with him. At least the camels will be well kept. He has a knack with the beasts. They are of great value to him. You see, Signorina von Bek, he is like me, a man of the desert. Unlike his master, however, he cannot imagine being happy in any other world. So it is. We are made as we are made. It is God’s will and God will protect him.’
There was nothing else I could add. My friend had chosen his path and it was no longer right for me to question his decision.
I believe there were tears in my eyes, however, when I waved goodbye to him. He released our last tethering ropes and we rose rapidly, crying ‘godspeed’ and ‘farewell’. I watched him with pounding heart as he turned, beginning the trudge down to what remained of his fortune. Poor Kolya! I had hesitated to tell him that I had transferred some of our load to my own bags, for safety’s sake, long before I had arrived at the oasis. I had three pounds of cocaine, a pound of heroin and four pounds of hashish, all removed from their hiding-place in the pack camel’s humps. This had depleted the cargo quite considerably, since Kolya had already consumed a large part of his share between Khufra and Zazara. On the other hand I had certainly saved him from himself and there was now far less danger of his being robbed for the remaining drugs.
I hold no brief for ‘dope-dealing’ and would never willingly be involved with it, but I had come unwillingly to the trade so it seemed fair to me I should take some profit from it. There would be no difference, in the end, to its use.
Signorina von Bek was leaning away from me, studying the outer canopy, relieved to see that the repair was holding. Her lips parted in a wonderful smile as she took stock of the horizon widening as we rose, with no sensation of thrust, high into the wide blue Saharan sky. ‘You are clearly a man,’ she said, ‘who cuts his own road through this life.’
I appreciated her recognition of my individuality but I remained cautious, determined not to flunk my chosen part. I could not afford to be discovered. ‘With Allah’s guidance,’ I said. ‘And as Allah wills.’ I looked down at the oasis. I could still make out my friend, a perfect homunculus, scrambling towards the tiny pool, his miniature animals.