Well. At least he wasn’t dead. Or in a police hospital. One had to look on the bright side.
When next he awoke it was night-time. Just before opening his eyes, he became aware of a presence beside him. He pretended to be asleep, and allowed his head to loll to one side. Then he cracked his eyelids and tried to pick up whoever was sitting there in the darkness without her being aware of his look. For it was a woman – of that he was certain. There was the heavy scent of patchouli and some other, more elusive smelt, that reminded him vaguely of dough. Perhaps this person had been kneading bread?
He allowed his eyes to open wider. Samana’s sister was perched on the chair at his bedside. She was hunched forward, as if in prayer. But there was the glint of a knife in her lap.
‘I am wondering whether to kill you.’
Sabir swallowed. He tried to appear calm but he was still having trouble inhaling and his breath came out in small, uncomfortable puffs, like a woman in childbirth. ‘Are you going to? I wish you’d get on with it then. I’m certainly not able to defend myself – like that time you had me tied up and were going to castrate me. You’re just as safe now. I can’t even raise my hand to ward you off.’
‘Just like my brother.’
‘I didn’t kill your brother. How many times do I have to tell you? I met him once. He attacked me. God knows why. Then he told me to come here.’
‘Why did you wink at me like that?’
‘It was the only way I could think of to communicate my innocence to you.’
‘But it angered me. I nearly killed you then.’
‘I had to risk that. There was no other way.’
She sat back, considering.
‘Is it you that’s been treating me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Funny way to behave to someone you intend to kill.’
‘I didn’t say I intended to kill you. I said I was thinking about it.’
‘What would you do with me? With my body?’
‘The men would joint you, like a pig. Then we’d burn you.’
There was an uncomfortable silence. Sabir fell to wondering how he had managed to get himself into a position like this. And for what? ‘How long have I been here?’
‘Three days.’
‘Jesus.’ He reached down and lifted his bad hand with his good. ‘What was wrong with me? Is wrong with me?’
‘Blood poisoning. I treated you with herbs and kaolin poultices. The infection had moved to your lungs. But you’ll live.’
‘Are you quite sure of that?’ Sabir immediately sensed that his effort at sarcasm had entirely passed her by.
‘I spoke to the pharmacist.’
‘The who?’
‘The woman who treated your cuts. The name of where she worked was in the newspaper. I went to Paris to collect some of my brother’s hair. Now we are going to bury him.’
‘What did the woman say?’
‘That you are telling the truth.’
‘So who do you think killed your brother.’
‘You. Or another man.’
‘Still me?’
‘The other man, perhaps. But you were part of it.’
‘So why don’t you kill me now and have done with it? Joint me like a sucking pig?’
‘Don’t be in such a hurry.’ She slipped the knife back underneath her dress. ‘You will see.’
19
Later that same night they helped Sabir out of the caravan and into the clearing. A couple of the men had constructed a litter and they lifted him on to it and carried him out into the forest and along a moonlit track.
Samana’s sister walked beside him as if she owned him, or had some other vested interest in his presence. Which I suppose she does, thought Sabir to himself. I’m her insurance policy against having to think.
A squirrel ran across the track in front of them and the women began to chatter excitedly amongst themselves.
‘What’s that all about?’
‘A squirrel is a lucky omen.’
‘What’s a bad one?’
She shot a look at him, then decided that he was not being flippant… ‘An owl.’ She lowered her voice. ‘A snake. The worst is a rat.’
‘Why’s that?’ He found that he was lowering his voice too.
‘They are mahrime. Polluted. It is better not to mention them.’
‘Ah.’
By this time they had reached another clearing, furnished with candles and flowers.
‘So we’re burying your brother?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you haven’t got his body? Just his hair?’
‘Shh. We no longer talk about him. Or mention his name.’
‘What?’
‘The close family does not talk of its dead. Only other people do that. For the next month his name will not be mentioned amongst us.’
An old man came up to Yola and presented her with a tray, on which was a wad of banknotes, a comb, a scarf, a small mirror, a shaving kit, a knife, a pack of cards and a syringe. Another man brought food, wrapped up in a waxed paper parcel. Another brought wine, water and green coffee beans.
Two men were digging a small hole near to an oak tree. Yola made the trip to the hole three times, laying one item neatly over another. Some children came up behind her and scattered kernels of corn over the heap. Then the men filled in the grave.
It was at that point that the women began wailing. The back hairs on Sabir’s head rose atavistically.
Yola fell to her knees beside her brother’s grave and began beating her breast with earth. Some women near her collapsed in jerking convulsions, their eyes turned up into their heads.
Four men, carrying a heavy stone between them, entered the clearing. The stone was placed on top of Samana’s grave. Other men then brought his clothes and his remaining possessions. These were heaped on to the stone and set alight.
The wails and lamentations of the women intensifi ed. Some of the men were drinking liquor from small glass bottles. Yola had torn off her blouse. She was striping her breasts and stomach with the earth and wine of her brother’s funeral libation.
Sabir felt miraculously disconnected from the realities of the twenty-first century. The scene in the clearing had taken on all the attributes of a demented bacchanal and the light from the candles and the fi res lit up the undersides of the trees, reflecting back off the transported faces below as if in a painting by Ensor.
The man who had presented Sabir’s testicles to the knife came over and offered him a drink from a pottery cup. ‘Go on. That’ll keep the mules away.’
‘The mules?’
The man shrugged. ‘They’re all around the clearing. Evil spirits. Trying to get in. Trying to take…’ He hesitated. ‘You know.’
Sabir swallowed the drink. He could feel the heat of the spirit burning away at his throat. Without knowing why, he found himself nodding. ‘I know.’
20
Achor Bale watched the funeral ceremony from the secure position he had established for himself inside the shelter of a small stand of trees. He was wearing a well-worn camoufl age suit, a Legionnaire’s cloth fatigue hat and a stippled veil. From even as close as three feet away, he was indistinguishable from the undergrowth surrounding him.
For the first time in three days he was entirely sure of the girl. Before that he hadn’t been able to approach close enough to the main camp to achieve a just perspective. Even when the girl had left the camp, he had been unable, to his own entire satisfaction, to pinpoint her. Now she had comprehensively outed herself, thanks to her conspicuous mourning for her lunatic brother’s immortal soul.
Bale allowed his mind to wander back to the room in which Samana had died. In all his extensive years of experience both inside and outside the Foreign Legion, Bale had never seen a man achieve the seemingly impossible task of killing himself whilst under total restraint. That old chestnut of swallowing the tongue presented insurmountable physical difficulties and no man, as far as he was aware, could think himself to death. But to use gravity like that and with such utter conviction? That took balls. So why would he do it? What had Samana been protecting?