A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar (33 page)

–

The rocks were cragging, leaning. They rose up above us on all sides. The precipitous narrow road was only a couple of feet wide but the ponies seemed sure-footed. Snow-topped spikes touched the sky, some black, some grey, a Vatican of endless spires. We kept moving as night fell because we could not risk being caught if the weather changes. As we headed upwards I was worried for Ai-Lien. She was breathing, and drinking her milk, but she seemed too still. The smiling Kirghiz boy offered to carry her and I agreed – though I didn’t want to let her go – because as we embarked upon an even steeper passage, I could not cope with her weight. Next – there was a terrifying stretch, a grey blank cliff on one side, a sheer drop on the other. I talked to myself to calm the nausea: do not look down. Look ahead, at Mr Steyning, at his back, his steady pony marching, amazingly, up the narrow path.

Fear for Ai-Lien tasted foul.

My legs ached. Occasionally a loose boulder crashed down behind us, dislodged from its timeless place by our presence. Then, just before nightfall, Mr Steyning said, ‘Look’. Behind us there was an awe-inspiring panorama: purples, shades of lilac to violet to dusky black, and such impressive beauty in the jagged shapes that my eyes actually devoured the scene before me and the exhaustion and aches and dizziness faded.

But we continued, as the darkness came closer, and at each twist in the path I thought this must be it: the flat pasture area for camp that Mr Steyning said was just beyond. I came to hate the treacherous shadows, and oh dear me, the ache in my legs. There were eternal twists of the road and as dusk engulfed us, various birds of prey, including vultures and at least one eagle, hovered above. We rounded a sharp corner and the pathway dropped, it began to descend but this was worse – the rubble and stones dislodging and rolling around the pony’s shaking bumping hooves – on, to another sharp turn until we emerged into the shock of a plain. Vast flat land, with soft grass, so that, if it weren’t for the difficulty of breathing properly, one would not think that one was up at such a height, already well on our way up into the Thian-Shan mountains.

–

We are in the inn but it is clear that they do not want foreigners here. This is Karashahr, ‘the Black city’, once a Buddhist centre but it is now Turkic, very much so.

‘I shall just go and see what the disruption is,’ Mr Steyning said, leaving Ai-Lien and me here alone in a cluttered, cushioned room.

We entered the city through the Chinese area, which is surrounded by a wall and a ditch. Wanting to keep our presence unknown to the Chinese, we made our way to the primitive gateways. Along the mud wall were Turk-shops and the usual towers, with their pagoda-like roofs and at one of these a number of men watched us. They were young, but they did not look friendly; their faces were glowering and intimidating.

We are very much used to being stared at, but there was something different about the atmosphere here and now, it seems, these men have begun jeering and throwing stones at the innkeeper’s windows and doors. It started several hours ago and when Mr Steyning went to unload some of our luggage he returned to report that their number is now approximately twenty.

‘Who are they?’ I asked Mr Steyning when he came back.

‘Young Mohammedans. They resent us being here.’

‘Why?’

‘This is an ardently Turkic town.’ The landlord came at that moment, an elderly man, with hands twisted like sarkaul roots. He peered at us through his watering eyes and spoke fast, in dialect, to Mr Steyning.

‘They are throwing bits of earth, shouting. He fears the numbers are growing.’

‘We are being hounded?’ It seemed unimaginable that they would do this: we had done nothing to them.

‘He insists that we leave,’ said Mr Steyning. ‘Let me talk to him.’ He took the ancient innkeeper by the arm and they are in the courtyard, talking now.

Later: there was no choice. We were forced to take the road that leads to the famous freshwater lake, Baghrasch kol, in the early evening and to shelter where we could. In the end, we slept in a cluster of poplars, each of us taking turns to sleep or remain awake. All night I fancied I could hear the crack of a step or see the glimmer of a young man’s dagger.

–

We are high in the mountains again, up on a plateau. Today we are in a beautiful, golden camp, in a deep valley. The air is colder, the snow-peaks seem closer, but they are welcome after the intensity of the recent heat. The grass around us is golden, the mountains in the distance are blue–golden and there is even a supply of clear spring water. Still, I cannot enjoy it as Ai-Lien is most definitely ill. She is hot and she cries constantly, only stopping to fall into an unnervingly deep sleep. Mr Steyning examined her but admits he has no medical training. It is his associate in Urumtsi who is medically trained.

‘The best thing we can do is get to Urumtsi as quickly as possible.’

‘But it is the travelling that is causing the trouble.’ I am sure that all she wants to do is sleep, still and calm, rather than being jolted around. Mr Steyning took my hand.

‘If you should prefer to stay here,’ he said, ‘we will do.’

It was kind.

‘But we need a doctor,’ he said.

My baby: not eating properly, and there was blood in her stools. I held her flat against me, willing her peace, but she did not stop crying for such long periods of time. Then, when exhausted, she fell much too still. Nothing has prepared me for this powerful urge to protect her, and the helplessness I currently feel. I rocked her for hours until Mr Steyning came to me.

‘Go and lie down for an hour, we are going to start soon and you have had no sleep. I shall watch her.’

I stretched out on the rug and listened to Mr Steyning as he attempted to soothe Ai-Lien. I had travelled this distance half-believing that Mah would kill me (although I realise now that his desire to be paid would powerfully outweigh his wish to do me harm). The relief of being with Mr Steyning instead is profound. Even in the midst of worrying about Ai-Lien, the sense of security is great. Mr Steyning’s company is like being tucked in, covered in blankets, safely. If Lizzie were here I could tell her and I do believe she would understand. There is a calmness to him, a stillness that I have – I realise now – been looking for. Perhaps this is what Lizzie felt with Millicent? It occurred to me that if I were to love a man, then a man like Mr Steyning would be the sort of man I would, indeed, love. This is a confusing thought, and even more, it is tangled with memories of tenderness for my delicate, lost sister. I must have absolute confidence in him. Ai-Lien could not possibly die under his surveillance.

–

Ai-Lien has been crying and vomiting. I have had no more than one hour or so of sleep over the past few nights. When I do sleep there are nightmares: Millicent holding crows, empty suitcases left on platforms, Lizzie lost and looking for me, Mr Hatchett presenting my book proposal to a board of croaking toads, a walnut-cased clock from an elsewhere place called home.

–

We met with a doctor in a tiny native mountain town with hardly any Chinese or Russians. The paths zigzag endlessly up. It took an age for us to reach the town and it is an unwanted diversion from our course. We saw fires in the distance. As soon as we arrived Mr Steyning went to find some local men about a doctor and soon they arrived with an elderly man and a severe-looking woman who is his daughter. This woman took Ai-Lien in her arms and began to examine her; the old man asked Mr Steyning a lot of questions.

Initially I was hopeful as she pulled down Ai-Lien’s lip and stared professionally into her mouth, then peered at her eyes, all the time talking in a harsh yammering clamour, but then she went away and before long returned holding a foul-looking concoction in a bowl. I asked what it was but they would give no answer. I looked at Mr Steyning with frustration. They left and I whispered to him, ‘I will not give that poison to her.’

He rubbed his palm against his black beard in a weary manner. It was the first time he had sighed in such a way at me, making clear the extent of my troublesomeness, and instantly the illusion of blankets and safety fell away. I held the concoction closer so that he could see for himself.

‘I think you are right.’

‘Where have they all gone?’ Little Ai-Lien was still and pale, wrapped up in her cottons, though breathing.

‘They are organising a ritual now to trick the Gods into not taking her,’ he said.

‘What?’ I said. ‘They think she is going to die?’

‘It is a possibility.’

‘What does this ritual involve?’

He told me: they intend to place Ai-Lien on a funeral pyre and pretend that she is dead in order to confuse and trick their vile idols. I was flabbergasted and refused immediately, exasperated with all the hocus-pocus, but even Mr Steyning, whom I had taken to be a practical man, simply knelt down to pray as if he had given up on Ai-Lien’s survival and wished to ensure she passed to the other side safely.

My anger solidified into a clear state of mind, petrifying thoughts and vision into a brightness. I examined Ai-Lien’s pale, sweet face – again, that twist of love; the preciousness of her, delicate sculpture of the finest bone and skin. I decided that practicality must out, that I must be calm and decipher the symptoms. Her stools were bloody and her breath was tight which could possibly mean dysentery. I ploughed through my memory to remember what she would, as a consequence, need and decided: lots of fluids and lots of sleep.

It was difficult, but I managed to frequently get sips of boiled and cooled water into her mouth. I massaged her, remembering Rami’s hands – wishing that I had Rami’s knowledge now – wishing, in a strange way, that Millicent were here; she might know what to do. I rocked her and sang her to sleep.

–

She was a little brighter when she woke. Mr Steyning did not comment, but smiled and I read in his fingers as they moved over his moustache that he truly believed that his prayers had been answered. His useless prayers! And by the end of the day we agreed to push on to Urumtsi as fast as possible now that Ai-Lien seems slightly better.

I wrapped Ai-Lien tightly into her sleeping bag, put it on to my back and it was a joy to feel her small hands wriggling about, her fingers twining about my hair. I still fear for her, desperately, and too many eagles seem to hover overhead.

–

The roads have been good and flat and yesterday we decided to ride through the night, both anxious to reach Urumtsi as soon as possible. A messenger arrived over the dune, a brown-skinned Kirghiz wearing a decorative coat on a small pony, with news that riots and uprisings have even reached this side of the mountains. He described a group of Moslem soldiers in sheepskin trousers with knives hanging from their belts, looking to avenge their mistreatment. It is very unsafe for us still.

The messenger accompanied Mr Steyning and me as we travelled by moonlight through a pass. The tall cliffs on either side sent eerie shadows across the narrow path and as we rode through I examined the outline of Mr Steyning’s back in front of me. He is a big man and his expansive frame brings to mind shelter from storms and unhappy dreams. I have not forgotten his weakness regarding Ai-Lien, but watching his back as he rode ahead was reassuring, but also new and strange and it combined with the unusual atmosphere of the pass through which we travelled.

Thoughts such as these collided – I don’t know why – with images of my sister running to the bottom of the garden at Pavilion House and putting her hand on the bark of the handkerchief tree. Thoughts of her come unbidden and leave a stamp of brokenness. Soon, we will reach Urumtsi, the greatest city of Sinkiang. I have been travelling so long to this place that it has taken on an element of the fairytale castle, and unlike Lizzie, I have always disliked fairytales.

32.
Eastbourne, Present Day

Sunnyside View B&B

The water was as hot as it could possibly be. Frieda lowered a foot and the sting of the heat made her make an involuntary sound, like zzzzaaaah. Light-headed, she watched her submerged skin grow bright pink and she pulled her foot out quickly.

She sat on the edge of the bath with her feet balanced at the opposite side. There were rosebuds on the towels, lilies on the shower curtains. In fact, most items in the B&B bedroom were covered in stamen and petals and other elements of floral reproduction. The steam clouded her glasses so she took them off and surrendered to the blur. The taps became silver non-shapes suspended against whiteness.