She seemed surprised by the reference, since few Bedouins are prepared to be compared to anything less than a demigod, but she took my remarks for modesty, warming to me still more. I basked in this angel’s approval! What ordinary man - what man of any kind - could fail to be charmed? I must admit I had no incentive for disabusing her. It had become second nature for me to disguise myself. For all her enchanting qualities I had no reason yet to trust Signorina von Bek.
The Bedouin were respected everywhere in the desert. Even a single traveller was usually left in peace, for he was likely to have blood kin across the whole region. The fundamental point of the blood feud is that it has to remain a credible threat, for it is by this means that men are dissuaded from killing, and Chaos is kept at bay. Dog rarely attacked dog unless desperate or sublimely certain of his superior strength. That was also why, since the Goras were clearly well-fed and watered, I did not expect the conflict to last much beyond another day or two. Now they believed reinforcements had arrived, they would almost certainly choose the better part of valour.
It was with a relatively easy mind that I sat down to tea with the pretty aeronaut while, visible below amongst the palms, the Goras argued over the day’s developments in high, declamatory voices. It was almost impossible to ignore the babble. I was suddenly reminded of taking a sunset supper on the balcony of Kruscheff’s in Kreshchatik, with the busy life of Kiev’s mainstreet going on below. I became nostalgic for my native trams, the colour and warmth of my childhood Ukraine and I would have wept in nostalgia rather than sadness, had it not been necessary to control myself, to remember I was a Bedouin and a gentleman. I still long for that Kiev. But it is a model today, like Nuremberg - an unconvincing Disney lifesize working replica of the great original. In the end, the communists destroyed both cities.
Renis le Juif et tu renieras ton passé.
I no longer worried that I might be hallucinating and lost in the desert. It was clear to me that this was either an elaborate illusion or that I had actually died. I had come, as the Bishop always puts it, to my reward. Yet, although Signorina von Bek’s scent was as subtle as her physical aura, and I was ready to enter any fantasy, I was not sexually aroused. Perhaps sensuality had become an over-familiar and rather horrible language to me. I was in a state of perfect platonic bliss, revelling without lust in the essence of her femininity as much as I enjoyed the quick amiability of her mind. I remained a little withdrawn, however, and as a result we kept a certain formality which was not uncomfortable. Indeed, we became quite cheerful as we discussed the accomplishments of fascism and the likely achievements of a reinvigorated Italian state. She knew my friend Fiorello. He was now a bureaucrat, she said. She apologised for the inadequacy of the shelter. ‘We had simply not anticipated needing it. It’s so hard to keep the sun off one’s arms and face. I freckle awfully easily. Of course, your women have the right idea. I can perfectly see the practicality of their clothes. The flies alone are bad enough. I hope I haven’t shocked you, sidhi, with my costume. I wasn’t really expecting a guest. But soon, of course, it will get chilly.’ She reached for her powder-blue cardigan.
I assured her that I was at ease with the ways of the West and she could rely upon my understanding. It was important, I told her, that mutual respect be established between human beings. The desert made brutes of some - I waved my soup-spoon at the shadowy quarrelling Gora - but it also demanded that, for survival’s sake, we maintain civilised discourse and behaviour.
Signorina von Bek agreed with considerable vigour. Standards were the key to everything. I was increasingly impressed by her quick wits. This woman was a true kindred spirit! We shared a fundamental political philosophy! In everything but appearance, she was a man! Myself! A perfect pal, especially under the present circumstances. As we sipped the claret and studied the agitated congress in the sun’s last rays, it seemed to me that she had adopted a certain coquettish air.
I was flattered by her interest but remained unaroused. The very thought of another’s flesh next to mine was almost sickening. Only Kolya or Uncle Tom had known how to soothe me. Sensing my reserve, she of course took even more of an interest in me. She was lady enough, however, to make only the subtlest hint by word or gesture and I enjoyed a growing sense of well-being. It was a timeless moment. I have never quite experienced the same combination of sensations and circumstance. I knew then that this was reality.
We finished our third cup of the arabien, the delicious scent of mint augmenting the more exotic odours, and I thought I heard again the faint sounds of singing. I strained my ears and peered into the gloom, wondering if it were only the breeze, but I was fairly sure I had caught a few notes of Tristan und Isolde. Even as my hostess chatted on, I cocked the other drum to discover the direction of the song, but the arguing of the Goras in the torchlight drowned everything. They were all looking towards the fissure, the oasis entrance, as if wondering whether to leave or perhaps to attack from another direction. They could see little of our ledge from their own position and could have no idea how many reinforcements I had brought.
She was speaking suddenly of Tokyo, which she had visited a year or two earlier with a League of Nations party. ‘There’s no doubt that intellectually the Japanese are at the head of the Mongol races. And, of course, racial purity is as important to them as it is to white people. Pure blood, as they say, will always triumph over mixed.’
Although only a year or two younger than myself, she was wiser than I. Women often attain maturity earlier. I have regretted not listening at the time more carefully to her ideas. It would have saved me a great deal of inconvenience and danger in later years. But then I was wondering if she had not provided herself with some kind of protective logic: an antidote, as it were, against her sexual attraction to me. For my own part I was almost incapable of innocent conversation. I had become responsive to nuance. I had developed the profound alertness of the hunted animal. I listened to her; I listened to the Gora; I listened to all the sounds of the desert, constantly interpreting yet, relative to earlier states, thoroughly relaxed. I had learned another migrant animal’s trick and took advantage of every secure moment, every chance to rest.
Again I thought I detected a tune on the wind, an aria from Tannhäuser, perhaps. This time I politely signalled to her, listening carefully. I began to suspect I was haunted by no more than a painful memory.
She asked what I heard, but I shook my head. ‘I was listening, I suppose, to the desert,’ I said.
She was impressed by this and for a while said nothing. It was not yet nine o’clock and the Goras had still failed to reach a decision. I was considering firing a burst from the mitrailleuse, to encourage them, when I saw that some of the blacks were coming back into their firelit camp pushing a prisoner, a bearded, wild-eyed creature, barefooted and in the torn burnoose of a Bedouin. His arms were bound behind him and a stick had been wedged in his teeth, tied with thongs to gag him. It was a moment before I recognised Count Nicholai Feodorovitch Petroff. He would, as he had promised, be the first white man to taste the waters of the Lost Oasis!
Now I understood the complexities of the Gora debate.
They were wondering if Kolya could be of any value to us. If so, with a hostage they might be able to barter, save face and regain their dignity before moving on. All that remained was for me to put down my teacup, walk to the edge of the basket, raise a large hurricane lamp and sign a greeting to the white-turbanned chief. ‘I believe,’ I said in my best Arabic, ‘that there has been a misunderstanding.’
Signorina von Bek joined me at the rail. ‘Is that a comrade of yours, Sheikh Mustafa?’
‘A servant,’ I explained. ‘A simple-minded fellow. He wandered off some days ago. He is the son of a Caucasian woman and has a smattering of Russian. Do you speak Russian, Signorina von Bek?’
She admitted to only a few words. This meant I could address Kolya directly.
‘My dear friend, I intend to rescue you,’ I called. ‘But you must play yo
ur part.’
I was pleased to see Kolya nod vigorously, proving he still had some control of his sanity.
Then began the long negotiation with the tribesmen as they attempted, through shouted questions, to get some measure of Kolya’s value to me. I understood they were offering this slave for sale. I was in need, I said, of a strong fellow, but this one looked rather weak. Had he been exposed to the desert? And why was he gagged?
They assured me he was muscular and fit, a veritable work-camel of a creature. True, at present he was a trifle touched by the sun, but this made no difference to his value. He would recover.
By this time negotiations were settling into a rhythm and I felt my friend’s cause would best be served by my pretending a lack of interest. ‘A strong dog is of no use to me if he is mad. Look - he is foaming!’
They responded with shrill denials. That was merely saliva caused by the tightness of the gag. If I was not interested, they would take him to Khufra and sell him there. I remarked that I had come from Khufra and was not aware people were buying crazed outcasts to work their fields. The slave must be possessed, I added, by a djinn. Why else would he be bound and gagged in that way? Better allow the poor creature to wander into the desert where God would look after him.
No, they insisted, he would work. By torchlight they removed Kolya’s ropes. They took the stick from his mouth. He mumbled something incomprehensible. Then, with their spear-tips, they pushed him towards the water and watched as he drank. Next he was forced to fetch skins to the oasis and fill them, which he did with some speed, aware of the importance of playing this game to the full. He hurried back and forth through the firelight. He carried a dozen skins at a time. I began to fear that he would work so hard he would put his price beyond my means.
Signorina von Bek was admiring of my bargaining skills, although I had not as yet made any kind of offer for Kolya. We were still at the stage of agreeing whether he was worth selling or not. As the moon emerged and silver light spread to the horizon, either side had yet to name a price. At length I told them I would say in the morning if I wished to make an offer for their captive. We would all sleep on the question. Kolya did not seem too pleased by this, but I spoke briefly in Russian again, as if calling back to someone in my own party. ‘Be patient, old friend. I will have your release by noon tomorrow.’
That night, after I had bedded down and watered my camels using Signorina von Bek’s reserves of ballast, I wearily wrapped myself in my jerd and prepared myself to sleep on the ground. On the other side of the wickerwork, Signorina von Bek remained awake for some while, reading by the light of the hurricane lamp while out of the darkness came the muffled rendering of some of the more familiar passages from Lohengrin sung against the monotonous rhythms of a Gora drum with which, I think, they were trying to drown him out. Eventually his voice cut off suddenly and I shared the relief of silence.
In the morning I was awakened by the pretty aeronaut in her loose, hooded djellabah offering me a cup which, from its smell, could only hold Columbian coffee. I shook my head in surprised delight and sat up.
‘I hope your poor servant survived the night.’ She offered me the china sugar-basin. ‘He seemed very upset. Is it a kind of Bedouin blues? His singing sounded almost Wagnerian at times. Are you familiar with the composer’s work?’
I explained how the poor creature had for some time been in the employ of a Beiruti gramophone-seller and had picked up snatches of German music from the records he had heard. Like certain other idiots, he had a gift for musical mimicry. He would calm down, I assured her, as soon as he was returned to us. It would be best, however, to avoid the subject of the Master of Bayreuth.
‘He seems quite good-looking,’ she said, ‘under all the filth and sunburn. Was his mother beautiful?’
‘She was a Russian aristocrat,’ I told her truthfully, ‘who became his father’s wife.’
She nodded. ‘The genes sometimes do not withstand the shock. I myself have some of that dangerous old blood. Even mixed with its own kind it can produce mental deficients. My sister for instance is quite raving. It is the same with horses, of course. Would you care for a rusk and a little confiture? It’s all I have to offer for breakfast. The butter went off.’
I agreed to join her as soon as I had said my prayers. It did no harm to show devotion, especially to the Gora, who would expect it from me. Indeed, they would become suspicious if I ignored the morning prayer.
She was peering through a binocular when I came to the table. ‘He seems better rested, your fellow.’ She handed me the glasses. Kolya, a trifle less red-eyed than he had been, was staring up at us in baffled agitation. Then we watched as again he was put to work to display his stamina.
It was probably better that he was occupied. It diverted him from Wagner who, after all, had contributed to his predicament. I think he had begun to realise this and his sense of humour returned. Once he glanced over his shoulder and called in Russian, quite cheerfully, ‘You see, Dimka dear - I promised you we’d find slavers here.’
The problem, as I remarked drily, stroking my Bedouin beard, was not how to find the slavers, but how to lose them. I would guess that the only reason they had attacked the balloon in the first place was because they thought it undefended. Now honour had been restored and decent intercourse begun, they would almost certainly drift back towards the Sudan or whatever god-forsaken wasteland they recognised as home.
‘See!’ said the only Gora who spoke much Arabic. ‘He is good and strong and when he works he does not sing.’
‘But where will I keep him? He cannot work all the time.’
‘Work him hard, then he will be too tired to sing.’
I considered this reasonable logic for a while. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘he seems strong enough. We could perhaps use another ammunition-carrier.’ I took a step or two back, out of their view. When I returned I said that we did not all agree that we required another slave. We broke for coffee. Meanwhile Kolya staggered to and from the oasis with his waterskins.
‘He is very strong,’ said Signorina von Bek, munching a rather inexpertly pickled cucumber, ‘it seems wrong that you should have to bargain to buy your own slave back.’
‘Sadly,’ I said, ‘there are very few circuit judges in the desert. The law of possession carries considerable authority here.’
She took my meaning and smiled. ‘It’s your job to keep what’s yours, eh? That’s the kind of individualism the New Order is encouraging in Europe. They could learn from you.’
‘Oh, I think my people have taught them much already,’ I quipped, almost chiding. She responded to this with a blush. I put out my hand to touch hers, to reassure her that I meant no ill-will. At which she smiled, and I was doubly entranced, yet still in that same delicious, platonically spiritual state where my ordinary senses seemed to quiver delicately on the brink of ecstasy, yet required no physical expression.
After lunch, as Kolya lay panting in the shade of a small palm, I returned to the lip of the rocky spur, Lee-Enfield crooked in my arm, and said that I had been elected to inspect the slave. I began the courtesies of approach and they responded. Carefully I climbed down the path towards where they waited on the far side of the dark water. The heavy limestone overhang, which protected the place from the sun’s rays and had allowed the pool to form, was reflected in the oasis, together with the few clumps of date palms planted here, no doubt, by the civilisation which had abandoned Zazara. Beyond the gathered Gora were their somewhat threadbare woollen tents, some skinny goats and a few tethered camels. These people looked like outlaws, irregular and amateur slavers at best. I had seen the powerful Bedouin slave-masters. They were grandly dressed and heavily armed, with tents, servants, wives and beasts of burden befitting their station. They would only have taken pity on Kolya as their code demanded, and helped him to his destination. Pride would not have allowed them to spend a minute of their time considering his sale. By deigning to bargain I was myself risking losing face, but I mus
t also give these black rogues enough face so that to trade would suffice. They could then leave with all honour. I was certain they had not instructed scouts to come round on us and did not know how few our numbers were. Perhaps they did not want to know a truth they suspected. Ignorant, they would not feel called upon to take violent action, especially since our Gatling remained our chief argument.
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.’