Stone Kingdoms (29 page)

‘Why do you ask these questions, Naomi?'

‘I don't know . . . maybe it's because I don't know what you're thinking. Like when we hid in the field of sunflowers, or last night.'

‘And that is why you ask about my dreams?'

I nodded my head and watched her hold her face up to the sun.

‘Dreams are the worlds where spirits live,' she said, closing her eyes and tilting her face upwards. ‘Dreams are where spirits talk to us, where they come to visit us.'

‘You said once that spirits were superstition.'

‘Yes, superstition, only in dreams can they live and move.'

I went to say something else, but she stood up and beat some of the dust from her clothes, slapping out little puffs into the air. ‘We should go now,' she said. ‘Will you be able to walk?'

‘I'm fine. Will we keep following the river?'

‘For a little longer. There is smoke in the distance. Maybe someone there will help us with food and water, but we must be careful.'

And so we set off again, hugging the edge of thicker scrub and pausing for a few seconds before we ventured across open ground, trying all the time to subdue the desire for water. Keeping my eyes fixed on the slow drift of smoke, I found comfort in the hope of what might be found there. I walked a
few
steps behind her, listening to the quiet ripple of her song, trying to keep pace with her steady stride. Eventually we broke out from the bush and across an open grassy plain, walking through a shock of green grass which fanned around our legs and felt cool to the senses. Little eddies of breeze vibrated across it, and butterflies like painted brooches lingered on the tips of grass or lazed into tremulous flight. Beyond the plain we found a path leading through thick corridors of thorn and we followed it, getting closer all the time to the smoke. Nadra wanted us to get a look at the place before we made ourselves known, but as we moved along the path we heard the startled voices of children and their flight through the undergrowth as they raced ahead of us to warn of our arrival, and so there was nothing we could do but walk on and take our chances.

It looked as if the whole village had turned out to witness the strangers' arrival. A dog barked round our feet as we approached the straddle of shelters, all of which were built with mud bricks and grass, some strengthened with bits of wood or coped with sections of tin. In a makeshift corral some goats and a few thin cattle were grazing. As we came closer to the group of people it was obvious which was headman, and I followed Nadra as she bowed and spoke to him. His face was grained and ridged with age and his eyes were full of suspicion. As he listened, the women and children fanned round me, unable to restrain their curiosity. Some of the children touched me then pulled away again, as if frightened to let their hands linger too long. I smiled at those staring at me but their faces registered only caution. I didn't know what story Nadra was telling but it felt like she was struggling for a response and once she held up her empty hands in a gesture of poverty, showing that we had nothing to give them for the help we sought. When she had finished the headman turned his back on us, and there was an animated discussion with those closest to him.

‘What did you tell him?' I asked.

‘
That you work for the UN and they will get a big reward if they help us.'

‘And does he believe you?'

‘I don't know. They are frightened of trouble. He wanted to know why we were walking in the bush, why we were on our own.'

‘And what did you say?'

‘That our jeep broke down, that we got separated from the others. I have told him that many people will look for us, and if they help us they will be given American dollars and food.'

But it was clear there were other considerations to be taken into account, things about which we could only guess, and the length and animation of the discussion made it clear that there were conflicting ideas about what their response should be.

When at last the headman turned to us it was to say that we could have food and water, but then must leave the village again. We were grateful even for that, and we sat in one of the shelters where they gave us bowls of something that looked like porridge, and ate it ravenously. A group of women looked after us, bringing a basin of water for us to splash our faces in, and milk to drink. They fussed about us, shy but curious, keen to show us kindness. When some of the younger girls giggled behind the screens of their hands one of the older women silenced them sharply. I wanted to repay them, but there was nothing I had to give them except my thanks through Nadra. They bowed their heads solemnly in response and then for the first time seemed to relax and chatter openly amongst themselves. Nadra told them about my feet and one of the women inspected them, clicked her tongue against her teeth, and ordered fresh water to be brought. With it came glossy funnel-shaped leaves, and she broke and squeezed their sap into the water then gently eased my feet into it, rubbing and kneading my skin with the tips of her fingers. She made me sit for a while and I saw her looking at my white legs and ankles with their red tracery of scratches, and when her eyes moved to my face I
smiled
at her but she looked away, happier like the others to study surreptitiously. Then she lifted my feet from the water, knelt in front of me and patted them dry with a piece of red cloth the size of a handkerchief. One of the other women took a wooden box from a corner of the shelter and, opening it carefully, took out a glass phial, opened the top and poured out a small drop of scent on my feet, then rubbed it into my skin. As she rubbed, the sweetness of the scent spread through the whole shelter, and again I felt the urge to give something in return, but could only sit and receive.

A little girl slipped her way through the adults to stand and stare. Her mother called her back, but I held out my hand and after a second's hesitation she took it and I reeled her closer. Through Nadra, I told the mother that the child was very beautiful and asked her name. When I tried to pronounce it they laughed and the little girl repeated it again like a teacher, nodding when I eventually got it right. They made me drink more milk, but just when they started to ask questions about the country I came from, two men came into the hut and told us that we must leave. None of the women spoke. They looked down at the earthen floor as we walked out into the brightness of the morning, and then they joined the other villagers to watch our departure.

We were given a guide who would lead us to where a road ran in the direction of the coast. He was a young man and he looked at us impassively, shrugging his shoulders when Nadra tried to speak to him, as if he didn't understand her. When we set off he walked ahead, never looking back at us or checking that we were keeping pace with him. Before we had gone very far there was the sound of running feet and we looked round to see the little girl pursuing us. The light caught something in her hand as she ran, and when she reached us I saw it was the little phial of scent, which she handed to me. I waved back to the group of women, but no one raised a hand, and we turned again to follow our guide. He wore a green shirt and a
patterned
macawis, and his body was held stiff and straight as he led us along narrow paths and into the bush. We passed a couple of boys herding goats and they raised their sticks in the air, but he gave them only a cursory glance then fixed his gaze on the way ahead.

Gradually we left all traces of the village behind and turned in a direction which took us towards higher ground, through a series of rises and ridges, and beyond it stretched the blue, glowering shape of mountains. Soon we had left the grasslands behind and begun a slow climb, winding our way upwards along a single track which led through a series of gullies, the steep sides flecked by grey swathes of stone and groves of aromatic shrubs. And as the climb became steadily steeper we struggled for breath, but there was no slowing in the pace of our guide, and only the dark stain of sweat shadowing his spine revealed his exertion. Once Nadra called out to him, but he ignored her and so we walked on until finally she took me by the arm and we plumped down on some rocks. She shouted angrily and he finally stopped and turned to stare at us. For a second I thought he was going to shrug his shoulders and leave us, his face a mask of disdain, but after a few minutes he came towards us and sat a short distance away.

‘Ask him his name.'

But she shook her head. ‘We must ask nothing of him. As soon as we know which direction to go we must get away, travel on our own.'

‘You think he means us harm?'

‘Maybe. I do not know, but we should not trust him. Soon we must send him back to the village.'

He crouched in the shade of an overhanging rock and watched us, making no attempt to disguise his gaze.

‘Ask him how much longer the journey will take.'

Reluctantly she turned and asked him the question, and the answer came back that we must walk the same distance again. Then he asked her what we would give him for acting as our
guide.
When she told him that we had nothing he shook his head in disbelief, pointing to me. He said the way ahead was very dangerous, that he was the only one who could lead us, and for that he must be paid. It seemed wiser to have that argument when he had taken us to where we needed to go, so I nodded my head to appease him. Then, as I loosened the laces of my shoes, he suddenly came to where we were sitting and stood over us, looking down but saying nothing. I looked up at him with what I hoped passed for indifference, but then he turned his eyes on Nadra and uttered something that came out as a low rush of air. And immediately Nadra hissed a reply.

As he walked back up the path I asked her what he had said. She hesitated at first, but I made her answer.

‘He says that the foreigners make our women into servants and then into whores.'

‘What did you say?'

‘I told him it was he who wanted the foreigners' money, not Nadra.'

We scrambled off the rock and hurried up the path, following him as he started a new climb. He walked ten metres ahead, never looking back to check if we were with him or making any allowances for the increasingly difficult terrain. After about an hour we started to drop into a long stretch of ravine, shaded from the sun by gnarled and twisted trees leaning out from the stony sides and terraces. Great swathes of thorn bushes and yellow-barked acacias meshed through each other and looked as if at any moment they might tumble and slip over the top of us. On either side of the narrow path we were brushed by tall, tawny-coloured grass, and as we pushed deeper into the ravine most of the trees appeared dead, their rotting branches jutting out at crazy angles and dripping with moss. The path was no more than a step wide and curved round the outcrops of rock and vegetation before straightening out again. We walked one behind the other, our approach startling birds and starting up little flurries in the undergrowth. Above
us
the sky was squeezed into a sliver of blue. I wanted to talk to Nadra but there was a stronger surge of silence flowing about us, broken only by the rustle of the grass or the sudden beat of wings.

We entered a series of tight little curves and then, as we broke into a straighter stretch of path, we saw that there was no one in front of us. Where he had been was now empty path and on either side of it the lazy fanning of tall grass. We stopped and stared along the way ahead, listening for footsteps that no longer existed, searching the emptiness for the little puffs of dust made by the slap of his sandals, but there was only the tremble of grass.

There was nothing we could do but walk on. Going back was not an option: our only chance seemed to be to follow the path and hope that it would lead us out of the ravine. We could only guess at the length of it, trying to remember what we had seen as we dropped towards it from higher ground. There could have been a mile still to travel, maybe more. We tried to tell each other that he had grown tired of his burden and, rather than lose face in front of us, had simply doubled behind and was making his way back to the village. Perhaps he accepted that we really had nothing, and to journey any further with no prospect of reward struck him as an act of foolishness.

We walked close together through the shoulder-high grass and thorn, and past clearings where stumps of trees stuck up out of briars. At first we tried to speak as we walked, but our voices seemed too loud and intrusive and so we fell back into silence, scanning the dense curtain of growth on either side of the path. We had only gone a short distance when we both knew that he had not returned to his village. We knew he was there. I felt his presence close and real, and I knew she felt it too. I saw it in the sudden stiffness of her body, the hesitancy in her step, the way she flicked her head towards every new sound. He was close and he was watching us, watching from the shelter of the grass. A bird took off suddenly towards the narrow slice of
sky
and we hesitated for a second then kept on walking, but each step we took only seemed to lead us further into his power. It felt at first like a power game, but I knew that soon it would not be enough for him. We walked on, forcing out each step, trying to hold our heads straight, and all the time watching for what was going to happen. Perhaps he wouldn't have the courage, perhaps we could shame him with an outward display of strength that would send him scuttling back to his village, where he would hurt us only in his dreams or in the shared laughter of young men sitting round a night fire.

We walked on, beginning the climb again up the far side of the ravine, sometimes passing under arches of thorn or the dead branches of trees which were smothered with wiry grey moss. As I looked up I felt suddenly dizzy, made faint by heat and thirst, but I walked on, too frightened of being separated from Nadra to pause or slacken my pace. And suddenly in a blur of movement he was there ahead of us, dropping on to the path from some rocks, stumbling a little as he searched for his balance, and as he straightened we saw the knife he was holding, its bronze-coloured blade angled across his chest. For a few seconds we did nothing but stare at each other and wait, then Nadra spoke to him and her voice sounded as if she were pleading with him, promising him whatever it was he wanted.