The Salt Road (33 page)

Guns. Foreign guns. Stolen foreign guns. And a mountain of ammunition.

She sat back on her heels. Insurrection. The great insurrection. Her thoughts raced. Rebels; rebellion. The Free People – the Imazighen – free no longer. The words spun around her head, and she knew that the war Amastan had spoken of had begun, that he was no longer a bystander; and so, by association, neither was she.

23

‘Where did you go?’

They were lying in their secret place, the hollow between the oleanders down by the river. The frogs were silent now; the water was all but gone, dried up by a sun that burned hotter every day as the earth turned slowly. In her homeland, they would have moved up into the hills by now, where water could still be found in the shady gueltas, or into the lowlands, where the pasturage was irrigated by the harratin who worked for them; but the Kel Teggart were too poor to keep harratin, too weak to stop them deserting to the towns.

Amastan reached up and brushed her hair from her face. Her skin was sticky with sweat as she sat astride him in the darkness, and the mystery of the joining of their two bodies was curtained by the rucked-up fabric of their robes. He ran a finger across her forehead, feeling the ridge of her frown, and considered how they tempted fate every time they did this, making themselves prey to so many evil influences by being out here in the night, without shelter or protection. ‘To the market,’ he said lightly, pressing the frown away. ‘You saw the things we brought back. Think how pretty you will look in the headscarf I bought for you. The shells on it are called cowries: they come from the islands off the coast of the Indian continent, far away to the east. It is said that traders first brought them here in the time of the great pharaohs: imagine that, before the time of Tin Hinan! Who knows, some of these very shells may be even older than your ancestor, older than the Mother of Us All. They’ve been circulating as currency all these years, from the Maldives to Egypt and through the Great Desert into the hands of the most beautiful girl ever born. What a glorious sight they will be, adorning my bride on our wedding day! They are as white as your teeth, as white as the whites of the eyes that are glaring down at me like stars in the night. How they will gleam!’

Mariata bit her lip. She loved it when he spoke like this, spinning words about an exotic world she would never see, but she would not be distracted. She said again, ‘Where did you go? Apart from the market?’ And when he did not immediately answer, she squeezed her thighs so that he winced. ‘Painful, is it, your arm? How did you do it again? Remind me.’

Amastan narrowed his eyes at her. ‘You shouldn’t question your husband so. It demeans my honour.’

‘You are not my husband yet, Amastan ag Moussa. And I do not believe for one moment that you fell from your camel, you who are such an expert rider.’ Pinning his hand beneath her knee, she started to push up the sleeve of his robe, exposing a bandage beneath. He lay there and let her unwrap it, fold by stiff fold, until the crusted dark wound was exposed, the blood rendered black by the starlight. ‘And that looks nothing like a wound caused by falling off a camel.’

‘I gave my word I would tell you nothing.’

‘Because the Kel Ahaggar are traitors?’

Shock stirred him into action. He struggled up on to his elbows, dislodging her. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘Where did you get the guns, Amastan?’

‘I think you must be one of the Kel Asuf. Did you transform yourself into an eagle-owl and glide unseen overhead? Did you send your spirit-self seething up through the rocks in the form of a hyrax? Are you a shape-shifter? Will they open up our tent on the third night of our wedding and find nothing but my chewed-over bones?’ He regarded her with wary respect; or was it fear?

‘Never mind all that nonsense,’ she said impatiently. ‘I heard it all; I know what it means. If there is danger coming, as Tana says, I want to be ready for it. The women of the Tuareg have always been as fierce and bold as their menfolk. Teach me to use one of your stolen guns, Amastan, and when the time comes I will prove that the Kel Taitok are neither collaborators nor cowards!’

Amastan looked at her in amazement. Then he laughed. ‘Kalashnikovs are not weapons for women! I hardly know how to shoot one myself, though when my arm is healed, Azelouane says he will teach me. But when my arm is healed, if you still wish it, I will teach you how to use a rifle.’ He sobered abruptly. ‘But, Mariata, I cannot tell you how it is that we came by the guns: it is too dangerous. If the information fell into the wrong hands it would be disastrous, for all of us. Trust me in this one thing, will you?’

She held his gaze steadily. ‘I will.’

Mariata felt the tension building in her like a thunderhead as her wedding day drew near. She wanted to have it over and done with, to make her union with Amastan public and blessed, as if the legitimizing of it would ward off the evil influences she felt circling. Her impatience was palpable: her muscles twitched and she could not keep still, even when they draped gorgeous fabrics over her to choose for her marriage robe. ‘This indigo cloth came from the market at Kano, and this beautiful green too – see how it shimmers!’

‘Green is unlucky,’ someone said, and they looked to Mariata for her opinion.

Her thoughts were spinning: it took a while before she realized they were all gazing at her, waiting for her answer. They are enjoying this far more than I am, she thought. What is wrong with me? Most girls would be immersing themselves in every tiny detail of the preparations, living every second of the picking over of embroidery styles and jewelled slippers, of bracelets and earrings and henna patterns, with the knowledge that they would treasure these moments for the rest of their life, would look back on them when their own daughters were married; their granddaughters too … But she could not shake off the sense of impending gloom that enveloped her, that made her want to run headlong into her wedding there and then wearing whatever robe she had on, without all this fuss and nonsense. But looking around at the expectant faces, at the eyes brimming with benevolence and delight, it occurred to her that weddings might be more for the benefit of the whole tribe than for the couple who were to be married, that it was an event that brought everyone together in joyful purpose, and that she had better play her part.

‘Not the green,’ she said at last. ‘The indigo is lovely.’

‘And very traditional,’ Rahma added approvingly.

Mariata caught her eye. Well, why not please her mother-to-be? It was a small and easy gift to give her. ‘The indigo, then.’

Now it was veils and slippers and bands of shimmering embroidery, and strings of beads and belts and brooches: an endless succession of little, but crucial, decisions to be made. People argued over minute details; Mariata felt as if she were in a sort of dream, hovering over them all like a shadowy presence, her mind largely elsewhere.

‘More kohl. You need more kohl.’

Mariata squinted critically into the mirror. Her eyes were already startling, the whites contrasting brilliantly with the dark irises and the powdered antimony. They looked huge. ‘How can I need more? I’ve never worn so much in my life.’

Nofa shook her head, tutting. ‘It’s your wedding: everyone will be talking about you. You will be the target for the
tehot
, the evil eye will be upon you wherever you go, so we must apply as much kohl as possible to turn the malign influences aside.’ She twisted the silver wand inside the little pot, removed it again and carefully blew off the excess. ‘Now close your lids and let me do my job.’

Mariata did as she was told: there was no point in making a fuss about it. She had already spent five hours the day before having her hair rebraided and being adorned with the henna that would protect her hands and feet, with the other girls squabbling and falling out over the designs to be used. She had long given up trying to have a say in the process: she was too happy, too caught up in the dream of marrying Amastan at last, at last. And the day before that? She almost laughed aloud at the thought of it. Such a strange contrast to all this primping and preening, this world of women. The day before, in the hour after the sun rose, she had been in the hills with him, resting the long barrel of a hunter’s rifle along a shoulder of rock, learning how to control her breathing so as not to send the shot wide; how to apply gentle pressure to the trigger, how to anticipate the heavy recoil of the weapon when it fired. By the end of the day she had managed to hit two pieces of wood and a shard of pottery that Amastan had set as targets for her; but a moving object was another matter entirely. She had marvelled at Amastan’s speed and skill as he brought down a rock pigeon and then a wild boar they had scared out of the bushes. ‘What will you do with it?’ she had said, gazing down at the strange creature with its wiry-haired hide and its cloven feet. ‘Can we carry it back with us?’ She had prodded its haunch with a toe: it felt impressively solid. ‘There’s a lot of meat on it.’

‘Little heathen! Half the tribe won’t touch it; more than half. Do you not know that pig is forbidden by Islam?’

‘That’s a pig?’ Mariata had never seen one before. She stared wonderingly at its bristly, curled lip, the sharp tusk protruding.

‘A fine boar. Don’t worry.’ He tapped the side of his nose knowingly. ‘It’ll get eaten.’

‘By jackals!’

Amastan laughed. ‘You could call them that.’

In the end he had dragged the carcase into the shelter of the rocks and built a cairn of stones over it to keep the scavengers off. ‘Can’t afford to pass up good meat like that. Don’t worry, it’ll be used.’ And he scraped a series of symbols on to the rock face over the cave wherein the boar lay.

‘Amastan welcomes you to feast,’ Mariata read the Tifinagh script, smiling. She thought of it now, and her smile broadened.

‘See, she is thinking of the third night already,’ Bicha said, elbowing Nofa, whose jogged hand drew a long, black line of kohl almost down to Mariata’s nose as a result, making all the women laugh and whistle.

People had been arriving for the celebrations all week, some with gifts; most without. Mariata was surprised: she knew none of them. Amastan, however, seemed to know them all. She watched the way he greeted them: a subtle adjustment of the veil to show his respect, the brushing of palm against palm, a light touch of hand to heart. They were mostly men, dressed not in finery but in plain and dusty robes, and they looked too solemn to be musicians, for all that they carried instruments with them.

‘Who are they?’ she asked Rahma, but the older woman shrugged.

‘He says they are friends.’

Her
tisaghsar
, her bride-gifts, were gathered on a wide blue rug in the centre of the dancing field: a carved wooden box filled with spices from the men of the tribe, a robe and an amber necklace with beads as large as bird-eggs, a bag of rice and another of millet, her own mortar and pestle, a bunch of mountain thyme one of the old women had picked that morning, a whetstone, a bone-handled knife, a newly made waterskin, some pots, a blanket, a reed mat and a pair of chickens; and these joined the bolt of pure white cotton Amastan had brought from the market at Kidal and the intricate silver veil-weight, as long as a hand and as heavy as a comb, that she would wear as a wife.

She came out into the bright midday sun at last in her shimmering blue wedding robe, her face painted with ochre and her lips and eyes blackened with kohl, her hands and feet swirling with bright henna, huge triangular earrings weighing down her earlobes, silver amulets pinned all over her robes for luck, and a dozen bright bangles clinking on her arms, to find the women of the tribe erecting a bridal tent for her a discreet distance from the one she had shared with Rahma. There were at least forty goatskins in it: how they had managed to gather so many hides together and stitch them without her seeing them engaged in this secret work touched her to the core. The Kel Teggart were not a rich tribe and did not have forty goats to spare; and that they would do this for her, an outsider without family, was so startling that she surprised herself by bursting into tears.

Tadla came bustling over, her usually dour face transformed by an indulgent smile. She wrapped Mariata in a warm embrace, with the experience of decades managing not to displace the amulets or damage, any more than the tears already had, Nofa’s hours of maquillage. ‘There, there, sweet one, do not fret: it is your happy day and we are happy for you. You will bring us all great joy and luck, and strong new blood for our tribe; and you are making my dear friend Rahma a proud and happy woman, is she not, my dear?’

Mariata looked up and there was Rahma, wiping her hands on her robe, the sweat glistening on her forehead from the strenuous business of getting the tent up, grinning from ear to ear. ‘Now, you know you cannot enter until you are wed: it is the worst luck. Leave it all to us. We will make it beautiful for you: you will want for nothing. We have woven a new rug for your floor: see –’ She waved and called to the other women, and they ran off, returning moments later with a long bundle that was proudly unfurled.

‘I chose the colours!’ called Noura. ‘Don’t you love them? The lichen for this wonderful green came from up in the hills: it took ages to gather it, but look, it’s the Prophet’s own colour. And we used indigo for the blue, no expense spared! And the skins of the wolf-onion for this lovely rich red.’

‘And I wove the frogs into the border here,’ Leïla said, pointing out the geometric triangles and dots that decorated the edge. She gave Mariata a wink and they all chuckled: frogs were well known for their fertility, and were a good luck symbol too, given that they lived in water.

‘Make sure the bed is well positioned on this rug and you will give your husband many fine sons!’

There was a great noise of whooping and cheering and suddenly everyone was running. Rahma took Mariata by the elbow. ‘It’s the sacrifice: come and watch.’

A bull-calf had been led into the festival grounds and the young men of the tribe now ringed it, clutching their best ceremonial lances. The bracelets glittered on their forearms; the sun beat down. The calf backed away from one side of the circle, found its way barred and ran madly around, rolling its eyes and snorting with fear, its long legs awkward and ungainly.