The Colour of Heaven (12 page)

‘And now you are alone?’

‘I live only in memory.’

‘And that keeps you alive?’ asked Paolo.

Yusuf stood up, as if the conversation were at an end. ‘We must live for love if we live at all.’

‘I have not known such desire.’

‘Love is not the same as desire,’ Yusuf replied, ‘but I cannot tell you more until you know something of which I speak. Have you ever felt anything of love?’

‘I do not see well. One day a woman might take pity on me for that, but there are times when love seems too much to hope for.’

‘And will you ever see more clearly?’

Paolo thought for a moment. ‘I cannot imagine such a thing. But I do want to know what it is to see into the distance and discover where I stand in the world, living life in all its fullness, able to look as others look, living with a greater knowledge of what is close and what is far, understanding what matters and what does not.’

‘I am not sure you need eyes for that,’ Yusuf replied.

They were no more than a month away from Badakhshan but it was already early autumn. Salek warned that the mountain passes would soon be frozen and blocked by snow. ‘It is not good here,’ he muttered. ‘There is a wind that lasts one hundred and twenty days. Fully laden mules are carried away like leaves. Is stone worth death?’

Jacopo was adamant. ‘We must have courage now that we have come so far.’

After two more weeks they tracked the course of the River Kokcha, fringed with willow, wild cherry, hawthorn, and poplar. At times they could trace the route of those who had gone before, following the fluffs of cotton caught on the mulberry bushes. To the south lay a range of mountains, rising in terraces and covered with dark forests. The climb became steeper, and eventually debouched onto a green plateau, where the animals could graze. A pale-blue mist hung low between the peaks, shrouding the valley and path ahead. The colours separated and reformed, as if the mountains had become a prism of quartz through which light divided and conjoined, the landscape forever recreating itself, endlessly chameleon.

Salek fretted. He told them that he had heard of a man from these parts who had made a profit by claiming that he could capture souls, stealing them from people while they were still alive. He would then either demand a ransom for their return or sell them on to criminals and sinners, terrifying his victims with the claim that they would never be able to live after death without his aid.

It was best to trust no one and move swiftly through the mountain passes, making good ground when it was possible, and sheltering at the base of the hills when it was not. Salek was adept at anticipating the weather, urging his companions to stop and settle even when they complained that the skies were clear. He knew of the winds, the speed of change, and the dangers of adventure.

Paolo wondered whether they would ever reach Badakhshan and how they could tell which of these mountains might contain the stone. He was saddle-sore, his calves and lower back ached, and he feared that his companions might turn on him at any moment, blaming him for this part of the journey.

The landscape appeared empty and foreboding, as if it had been abandoned after futile attempts to tame it long ago. Tribes of settlers had moved on, unable to find sustenance from the barren rock.

But then, just as the men began to fear that they might be lost, Salek noticed four black figures, blurred shapes on horseback, riding through the valley towards them, holding their spears aloft.

‘Women,’ he observed. ‘All of them.’

‘Are they attacking?’ asked Jacopo.

‘Wait.’

The women were dressed in pleated
chadri
, long ochre robes which blew back in the wind, and their legs were bound with strips of grey cloth. Blocking the path ahead, they pulled up their horses and asked the men where they meant to travel.

‘East,’ replied Salek. ‘Through the hills.’

‘Follow.’

They turned, expecting immediate obedience. The men steered their mules up through a narrow pass and approached a settlement of eight large tents at the foot of the mountain. They had been placed in front of a cave which had been crowned with antlers and god-like images wedged into the crevice of the rock. It was surely a sacred doorway, the entrance to a series of further dwellings.

Six women stood behind a row of flame, holding shallow bowls of water.

‘You must pass between the fires.’

The men were shown how to purge themselves through a gate of flame, scattering water into the air as libation and obeisance to the sun and the winds. They were then led to the main tent.

‘This opening faces south,’ said a small woman as she folded back the entrance. ‘Sit to the west.’

Paolo hardly dared believe that this might be Sar-i-Sang, the mine in the mountain, the heart of Badakhshan. Why else would the women be so guarded and the cave so protected?

In the darkness he could make out a hearth under a smoke hole where a cauldron boiled on a trivet. The floor was covered with straw and animal skins.

‘What would you have with us?’ It was a woman’s voice.

Salek asked if the women followed the code of the hills, giving refuge to travellers regardless of their lineage. They were tired and would be grateful for shelter.

‘If you come in peace then you are welcome.’

The rest of the women began to enter the dwelling and sat on the matted floor. They seemed suspicious, as if waiting for guidance.

‘What is happening?’ whispered Jacopo. ‘Where are the men?’

‘Wait,’ urged Salek.

A young girl poured mint tea into small pottery cups. As she handed the drink to the men they sat in awkward silence. Paolo looked at the group of half-veiled women. ‘What do we do?’ he whispered to Salek.

‘We wait,’ he repeated.

Salek lit his pipe. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

A woman emerged from the darkness into the light. ‘I am Aisha. These are my people.’ She was taller and darker than the other women, and was dressed in a long ochre chador. Paolo watched as she walked towards them, slowly and gracefully, accustomed to authority and obedience.

Jacopo was unable to restrain himself. ‘Where are your men? Are they hunting?’

‘There are no men.’

‘No men?’ asked Salek and, at that moment, Paolo knew they had come to the place Yusuf had described.

‘Only boys. The children that survived. This is the valley of widows.’

‘There was a war?’

‘Two winters ago,’ the woman replied. ‘This will be our third. Our only hope is for the children to grow and replace the men we have lost.’

‘Why did they not take you as wives?’ Salek asked.

‘They took our stone. It was more precious.’

Paolo leaned forward, trying to look at Aisha more closely. He could see her dark hair fall onto her shoulders beneath the scarf.

‘Those that survived swore they would return in the spring,’ she continued. ‘They stole our food. They killed our men. And we are all that we have left.’

‘I have heard tell of this stone,’ Paolo said quietly.

‘It is a curse,’ Aisha replied. ‘No matter how far we travel with it, or wherever we hide it, we cannot escape the bloodshed it brings.’

‘What happened?’ asked Paolo.

‘They had gunpowder. We did not. Dujan, my man, rode into their fire. We watched from the mountain, men riding hard at each other, their swords held high, gleaming in the light of the valley.’

She paused as if this was already the end of the story.

‘When they fell I could feel my own life falling. It happened so quickly and yet it is slow when I recall it. I think of it every day, and each day it lengthens. Sometimes the memory will fill an entire day and I will be able to think of nothing else. Perhaps this is what it is to grieve.’

‘Please. Continue,’ said Salek.

‘After our enemies had left we walked through the remains of the battle. Such wounds. Bright blood against bone. Dead horses. The men were so heavy. We washed them by the waters. When they had been cleansed, we built great fires, higher than any of us had ever seen. The children gathered wood, plants, and roots, anything that they thought would burn, crying as they did so, but quietly, because they were frightened by the rage of their mothers. Some women even pulled down their homes because they could no longer see any purpose in living. They ripped them apart, piece by piece, carrying walls and roofs to the fire. Shirin, my sister, set the pyre ablaze.

‘It takes so long for bodies to burn. I did not know this before. I wish I did not know it now.

‘Then we mourned. We sang the songs our fathers had taught us, through the night, until the sun rose again. The pyre burned into the next day. It was only after the sun had fallen again that the fires were quiet and our men were no more. We waited until the ashes were cool. The ash of our men and the fires in which they had burned would return to the earth.

‘I took a handful and could still feel the heat in the ash, as if it were the heat of my husband against me. In the madness of grief I thought the heat was his life and that I might create him again, and I could cry out to the gods, “Make him anew! You, who made him once, make him once more. Do not leave me without such a love. You, who can shape a life and change destinies, you, who know what miracles can be, do this now for me. Turn this ash once more.”

‘But the gods were silent.

‘And so we took the ash to the stream, handful by handful, and we let the lives of our loves fall away from us. I do not know how long this lasted. Perhaps it was night again. The stream became a river. It raged as we did. We thought we might stop it, dam it with ash, but the force of the water was strong, like blood.’

She looked at Paolo. ‘It used to be sweet. But now when we drink from the stream, we know that we are drinking the water of our forefathers. We remember that day. We drink the water so that we never forget them.’

‘May your men be blessed,’ said Jacopo, ‘and may they have found peace.’

‘So this is why the stone is a burden. And if you wish to see it then you must prove worthy of it,’ Aisha replied.

‘We have money,’ said Jacopo. ‘We can trade.’

‘And what if we do not want your money? What if we do not need to trade?’

‘Everyone needs to trade.’

‘I will decide what we need and what we do not.’

Paolo realised that even though they had arrived, the sight of the stone might yet be withheld from them.

‘Now you must sleep,’ Aisha was saying, suddenly distracted, ‘and in the morning you must tell me why you want to see our stone. Tell us why you think you are so worthy of it.’

‘It is not a question of worth,’ said Jacopo.

‘Do not lie to me.’

‘I will tell you now,’ said Paolo, but Aisha cut him short.

‘In the morning. Now rest,’ and as the men rose to be shown to a tent where they might sleep, she added: ‘They say that some men can never love again once they have seen the blue of our stone. After the sight of the mountain their life elsewhere means nothing.’

Paolo was unafraid. ‘We would see that stone.’

They were shown to a small tent with simple matting on the floor. The women gave them sheepskin blankets and gestured that they should lie down. As soon as they had left, Salek told Jacopo and Paolo that even though they might be prepared to risk their lives in pursuit of the stone, he was not. ‘It is too dangerous,’ he insisted. ‘And I do not trust them.’

‘I have never bargained as that woman proposes,’ said Jacopo. ‘Why must we prove ourselves worthy? Why can she not trade like anyone else?’

‘Because it is a treasure,’ said Paolo. ‘Perhaps it can only be given, never bargained.’

‘Those men took it soon enough,’ said Salek.

‘But why have they not returned?’ Paolo replied. ‘Perhaps some terrible fate has befallen them.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Jacopo. ‘It is because no one wanted to buy the stone from them. Perhaps it is only painters who want such a stone. Everyone else is content with turquoise. We should never have come.’

‘We cannot stay,’ said Salek.

‘At least let me talk to her,’ said Paolo. ‘Now that we have come so far.’