I insisted that he return the money to the boy and then Julie brought the coffee I had asked her to make and we talked. His name was Moha and he was the chief of a small village at this end of the palmerie. He was a man of some substance, with fifty goats and more than a hundred palm trees, and he had a daughter married to the son of the Khailifa, the Sultan’s representative at Foum-Skhira. He talked about the failure of the date harvest and how a year ago French experts had examined the trees and then the ‘machine like a bird had arrived and covered the date palms with smoke’.
‘And didn’t it do any good?’ I asked.
‘Insh’ Allah!’ He shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
But the smile didn’t extend to his hard, grey eyes. ‘The French officer has told us that it is the only hope for the trees and we believe him because he is wise and like a father to us. But this year I have no dates, sidi. No man is sure any more.’
It was the perfect situation for a man like Ali to exploit. I asked him if he knew that the Caid’s son had returned to Foum-Skhira. He nodded and I was conscious of a stillness about him, a sudden mental wariness. His eyes were hooded by the pale lids and the curved, predatory beak of his nose made him look like an old hawk.
‘Do you know why he has returned?’ I asked. But he didn’t answer. He had finished his third cup of coffee and, according to Berber etiquette, he would now take his leave. ‘You are a friend of Caid Hassan,’ I said.
He nodded, gathering his djellaba about him.
‘We wish to see him tonight. It is important. Will you take us to him?’
‘He is a sick man, sidi.’
‘I know. But we have to see him. Will you take us?’
‘Tomorrow perhaps.’
‘No.’ I said. ‘It must be tonight. At least guide us as far as the kasbah.’
He stared at me, his eyes narrowed slightly. Then he shook his head. ‘He is sick,’ he repeated.
Jan got up then. ‘Ask him,’ he said, ‘whether he was here when Lieutenant Duprez drank tea with Caid Hassan between the lines.’
The Berber’s eyes lit up suddenly as I asked him the question. ‘lyyeh, sidi. I was there.’
I told him then that Jan had been Duprez’s friend, that he had been with him when he died, and he stared at Jan, smiling and bowing as though greeting him for the first time. ‘He has a message for Caid Hassan from Capitaine Duprez,’ I added. ‘It is important.’ And then I asked him again if he’d take us to the kasbah.
He got to his feet then. ‘Very well.’ He nodded. ‘I will take you to Caid Hassan.’
I opened the door for him and he stepped out into the night.
Jan followed him. Julie caught hold of my arm. ‘Do you have to go with him, Philip?’
‘You’ll be all right,’ I said. ‘Ed White will be down from the gorge soon and — ‘
‘It’s not that,’ she said quickly. She was staring up at me. Then she turned away. ‘Well, be careful. This place isn’t like the mountain villages round Enfida.’ She picked up the coffee things and went through into the kitchenette.
I stepped down to the ground and closed the door. The little lit world of the caravan seemed suddenly small and remote, an oasis of light in the desert of darkness that surrounded it. The sky was clear and the bright starlight showed us the shape of the mountains crouched above the camp. The sound of White’s bulldozer came down to us from the gorge. There was no wind, but already the air was cold, with that still, frosted cold of a land where the soil had no humus to absorb and retain the heat of the sun.
We followed the piste down until, looking over my shoulder, the bus was no more than a yellow pinpoint of light in the immense black shadow of the mountains. Then we entered the palmerie and the trees hid even that small indication of human existence. We were alone in a cold, alien world.
It was very dark under the palms and we stumbled along countless small earth banks built to retain the water in the cultivated patches where millet would be grown. But finally we came out on to the bank of a deep irrigation ditch. The path was like a switch-back, but the going was easier. Occasionally a star was reflected below us. It was the only indication that there was water in the ditch. We followed the glimmering white of Moha’s djellaba through a world of almost complete blackness. All my eyes consciously saw was the still, fantastic shapes of the palm fronds standing darkly against the stars. My feet seemed to develop a sense and a feel for the ground. They found their way by a sort of instinct that was quite divorced from the control of my brain.
We came to a bridge of palm trunks spanning the ditch and there our guide told us to wait whilst he went into his village. We could hear him beating on the wooden door of his house and there was a dog barking. Then there was silence again. ‘I suppose you’ve got the deeds with you?’ Though I kept my voice to a whisper, the sound of it seemed loud.
‘Yes,’ Jan said. ‘And Marcel’s letter.’
I didn’t say anything. I was thinking that the only documents establishing his claim to Kasbah Foum were on him at this moment. I didn’t like it. If the guide sent a runner on ahead of us … If Ali knew … I felt a shiver run down my spine. It was cold and very quiet standing there on the edge of that ditch in the palmerie. It was like being in a dead world.
A shadow moved in the darkness. It was our guide, the white of his djellaba almost hidden by the blanket he had wrapped round himself. He led us on along the top of the ditch without a word and soon we caught the faint beat of tam-tams far ahead. The sound was a guide to our progress and as we neared Ksar Foum-Skhira the harsh, — lilting chant of the singers joined the rhythmic beating of the drums. Yaiee-ya Yaiee-ya Yaiee Yai-i… Yaiee-ya Yaiee-ya Yai-ee Yai-i-ee. The chant was repeated over and over again with only slight variations. It was insistent like the drumming of the wind or the singing of a sand storm.
We reached a well with its pole uplifted against the stars and then we were on a beaten track with walls on either side. And when we came out into the open again, the noise of the tam-tams and the singing was suddenly very loud. Aiee-ya Aiee-ya Aiee-yaiee-ya. We were close under the walls of Ksar Foum Skhira now and there were people about. I breathed a sigh of relief. Aiee-ya Aiee-ya Aiee-yaiee-ya.
We crossed an open space and ahead of us, on a slight rise, the darker bulk of the kasbah showed in the darkness. We passed through the arched gateway of an outer wall, crossed an open courtyard of sand and came to the main entrance, barred by a wooden door. Our guide beat upon the wood and the noise seemed very loud, for the kasbah had the stillness of a place that had been deserted for a long time. A kid bleated softly somewhere in the darkness and from near the outer wall came the rude belching of a camel. A light showed through a crack and then the wooden securing bar was lifted and the door was pulled back with a creak of hinges. A swarthy, bearded man, his head swathed in a turban, stared at us suspiciously. He carried a carbide lamp in his hand — an elementary light made of a metal container with a long spout rising from it, at the end of which was a two-inch jet of flame that wavered in the draught.
Our guide explained that we wished to see the Caid. The thick, guttural sounds of the Arab dialect were tossed back and forth between them. ‘My companion,’ I said, indicating Jan, ‘was a friend of Capitaine Duprez. He has a message for Caid Hassan.’
The turbaned porter held the flame high so that he could see us. The light gleamed on his brown, inquisitive eyes. Then he nodded and stood aside for us to enter. The door closed behind us, the wooden securing bar was dropped into place and, with a quick little gesture that was part welcome and part a request to follow him, the keeper of the gate led us into the black cavern of a passageway. From nails on the wall he took two more carbide lights. The place was like an underground tunnel, dank and chill with walls and roof of mud so that it looked as though it had been hewn out of the earth.