Scales of Gold (76 page)

‘You had no crutch,’ Nicholas said.

‘Yes, I had,’ Umar said. ‘The one I have tried to give you. Understanding, and vision, and peace with oneself. You have to win that war, Nicholas, before you can win any other.’

‘But you would not let me stay,’ Nicholas said.

‘I should not be so bad a friend,’ Umar answered. ‘It is enough to have had what we had. Your departure is the last proof of its worth.’

In return, Nicholas had opened some of his heart. Not more: he could never do that. Never, in any talk that they had, did he speak directly of Gelis and the hopes that he had, or the deepest and most terrible fears. As for his past, Famagusta was still too near, and too deadly. But his wife – his first marriage – that, suddenly he found he could talk of; and the careless ridiculous pleasures of boyhood in the Charetty dyeyard, with Marian de Charetty’s despotic benevolence making everything secure.

‘And then you grew, and she loved you.’ said Umar. After a moment, he said, ‘I did not mean to hurt you. But she gave you so much: you cannot regret it. You must not blame yourself. They are very close, the love of a mistress and the love of a mother. She had both to give, and you needed both.’

It was strange to receive that absolution from Umar, and no one else. As those days drew to an end, Nicholas was conscious of a great relief, as great as the bond he felt with Umar, and a thankfulness as cleansing as the light and peace of the desert. He thought, whatever came, he would be prepared for it.

For the last week of the journey, when the storms seemed to have ceased, and their provisions were fair, and there was only the heat of Hell itself to contend with, the new drovers, too, expressed their relief in the form of languid horseplay and contentious gambling, and burst frequently into long, ululating song as they rode or they walked. The peace of the desert disappeared.

Nicholas said, ‘Can we do as well as that?’ and, heaving a load of peppery air into his lungs, launched into a ditty from Bruges blasphemous enough to earn him a thunderbolt.

Umar joined in. Umar said, ‘I know one worse than that,’ and produced it. They sang a third one together. At the end, Umar said, ‘You did that in fifths.’

‘I know. You’ve too big a range for me,’ Nicholas said. He thought it was obvious. At the next halt, they tried a few more, and then had to stop because their voices had cracked. The next day they continued.

The day after that, walking in front of him, Umar unexpectedly drew breath and sang, alone, the beautiful ‘Deprecamur te, Domine’ that he had sung once before, in the icy snows of the Alps.

He was parched, but the splendour of the great voice was only dimmed. He ended, and the last note sank into the heat, and the camels plodded beside them.

Nicholas said, ‘Now teach me to sing the Koran like that.’

Umar turned his head and considered him. ‘It is to one God,’ Umar said. ‘Listen.’ And he began to sing, very carefully.

Nicholas knew what he sang. Standing troubled in Trebizond, outside the church of the Chrysokephalos, he had tried not to listen to this, the great Akathistos Kontakion, intoned by many voices. He had never heard it since. After a moment, not to seem graceless, he joined his voice to his friend’s.

It was plainsong, its refrains repeated over and over with the subtlest variations. He didn’t notice when Umar ceased to sing, but became aware of his voice stealing in, softly, to merge into a later refrain. Nicholas stopped.

His fellow singer, slowing his pace, fell back to his side. ‘I thought so,’ Umar said. ‘You have a gift being wasted. It goes with numeracy.’

‘What does?’ said Nicholas. Despite himself, he spoke with reserve.

‘You heard that music only once? Let me find something you don’t know.’ Umar half sang the start of an introit, and when Nicholas shook his head, went on singing, beckoning him to join in. It was too high, again. Nicholas tried fifths, was dissatisfied, and began to experiment. He stopped when he found Umar, laughing, shaking him by the shoulder. ‘My voice has gone, and it is time to make camp. You know that is called a descant?’

‘No. Yes, I do. I don’t want this,’ said Nicholas.

The camels had stopped, and so had they. ‘Then you need not have it,’ said Umar, his eyes attentive. ‘Or not in that form.
Anyway, the drovers are becoming impatient. Tomorrow, nothing but coarseness.’

After that they did sing together quite a lot, but always bawdy pieces, or love songs, or drinking songs; and as the moment’s aberration receded, he and Umar settled to talking again, and the last days were long. When, standing in a peony dawn, Nicholas saw a diamond wink in the wastes far ahead, he did not break into the silence with the news that the journey was over.

‘Taghaza,’ said their guide, who was not blind. ‘The arsehole of the world, believe me, but where would all you filthy rich people get your money from, but for places like this? Nothing to see but the salt mines, and the depot, and the places where the camel-drivers and muleteers wait about to rob honest people. If you want mules, I have a cousin who’s reasonable.’

‘That,’ said Nicholas, ‘is unexpected.’

It was the end of the peace. By the time they stopped next, Taghaza had grown to the size of a diamond brooch on the sand dunes; a handful of crystal, crushed beneath someone’s heel. When, finally, they halted to share their last meal, its walls were plainly in sight, and its gates could be seen to be open. Specks emerged: specks which became a troop of armed Tuareg on camels, followed by a stream of running black figures. Nicholas rose.

‘They think you have gold,’ said the guide. ‘Or food. Millet, they hope for. They have a few salty wells, but there is no food grown in Taghaza, and no living soul for twenty days in any direction. If no one brings them in food, then they starve.’

‘They look energetic enough,’ Nicholas said. The riders were almost upon them. They were screaming, and waving their swords.

‘These men are mounted, lord. They can get away when they wish. They are the Mesufa Tuareg who own Taghaza. The blacks are the miners who live here. My lord should wave back in greeting.’

‘This is a welcome?’ Nicholas said.

The black, naked figures were still running. Passing them, the camels arrived and, skidding, were made to stand in a circle, while their riders still shouted. The leader, blue-turbaned, commanded his camel to kneel, and descended. Another did likewise: a portly middle-aged Arab, dressed in the style of the Maghreb.

Nicholas said, ‘Christ! I know who he is.’

‘Be quiet,’ said Umar, but smiling. The fat man walked over to Umar and Nicholas, stopped, and flung out his arms.

He cried, ‘Lords! May Allah be praised! You have arrived! You ask who I am? Lords, I am Jilali, humble brother of your servant Abderrahman ibn Said, here only to welcome and serve you. You
will eat at my house! Good liquor, and rice and fine camel flesh! And then you shall show me what you have brought.’

‘Layer-pasty,’ said Umar, but in a murmur. ‘Nicholas? You promised me layer-pasty?’

Then and in the day that followed, they saw all they wished of Taghaza, place of salt and gold and starvation.

The greatest buildings in it were the bullion warehouses and the caravanserai, and the patched-up walls which surrounded it for security. The other erections were low, for salt collapses under its own weight, and all the dwellings and mosques in Taghaza were formed of salt-bricks, and the flat roofs were covered with camel-skins.

So Taghaza sparkled and glittered and blazed, set upon its acres of empty white sand. And year after year, the caravans arrived and departed, bringing gold and carrying salt to the south for the Negroland people who craved it. And the other caravans came from the north, and took the gold away, and brought back silk for Timbuktu, and pestles and cooking-pots and food for the miners, and sometimes cloth for their tents.

The day they arrived, Nicholas had first set eyes on the tents, thick as cysts, clustered round the black lips of the underground salt mines. And emerging from the caverns at dusk, an ant-crawl of Negroes, each with a basket of slabs on his head. It was not gold which was found in the nests of ants as big as cats; it was salt.

‘It is a sight worth seeing once,’ had said the brother of ibn Said cheerfully that evening, pushing steaming bowls under their noses. Jilali was pleased: Nicholas had brought him a fine gift of civet. ‘But there is no need to return: we who deal here are happy to act for you. There are troubles. You were asked for a toll on the way? The Sanhaja like to charge a ducat per camel: bare-faced robbery. And the slaves you have seen. None but the blacks can work in this heat, but they last only two years. The wind is excessive; the wind blinds them. You are enjoying the drink?’

Nicholas spoke, in the face of Umar’s silence. ‘It is remarkable. I have tasted fermented millet before, but not this.’

‘Rice,’ said Jilali ibn Said. ‘It is good after a long journey such as yours, even if you have to resume it tomorrow. And it puts energy into the miners. It makes them happy, so that they will go and cut the difficult salt, for the white always fetches the best price. You know your Timbuktu merchant will buy five hundred slabs at a time? And if he stores double that, and waits for the price to increase, he can make such a profit! I have known one man make a thousand gold mithqals a season. You brought no gold yourselves?’

‘The katib is not trading,’ said Nicholas. ‘And no, I have none but gold for the journey.’

‘I happened to see,’ said Jilali. ‘But books, that is excellent. Forgive me, but my lord could have brought more books had he not packed so much of small value. The weaving in Timbuktu is naïve, and the carvings remind me of those made by children.’

‘They were made by children,’ Nicholas said. ‘I am desolate to suggest it, but with such a journey behind and before, the katib and I find ourselves in great need of sleep. Would it offend you and your household if we retired?’

‘How could you think it?’ said the merchant. ‘It is the rice wine. And tomorrow we must set forth, for the caravan departs, as I have said. You know I can take you only so far as Sijilmasa?’

‘You have said,’ Nicholas said.

‘But my brother Mustapha will guide you from there. Sijilmasa is a metropolis! It will amaze you! And travelling there, by the grace of Allah, I shall have three good weeks or four in my lord’s company. Such an honour!’

The chamber they were given to sleep in was unlit and full of men snoring, but Umar spoke Flemish to Nicholas. ‘Such an honour!’ he murmured from the next pallet.

Nicholas groaned. ‘Come with me!’

Umar laughed a little, to show he understood. Here at Taghaza was where he turned back. He could not do so at once: there was as yet no caravan travelling south, so he must wait till one gathered. Meanwhile, the camels could rest. All the camels Nicholas possessed were now Umar’s and, sold at home, would bring him the worth of a hundred slabs of salt each. Being well enough off, Umar had protested, but only at first. To continue at once to Sijilmasa was beyond the beasts, worn as they were. It was bad enough that Nicholas had to do it.

‘No. I’m glad,’ Nicholas replied, when he said so. ‘It’s best to be quick. I wish I could see you leaving as soon as you’re ready. There are so few going south.’

‘To Timbuktu,’ Umar said. ‘But if I can’t find a caravan going there, I’ll get one soon enough for Walata. Send me word from Oran.’

‘And you, too,’ Nicholas said. ‘About everything. Will it be another Zuhra?’

‘There can only be one,’ said Umar, a smile in his voice. ‘So where shall I send this word? Where are you going?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ Nicholas said.

There was quietness. ‘I thought you did,’ Umar said.

‘That, yes,’ Nicholas said. ‘I think I want a stake in the world.
The kind of stake that you have. If I couldn’t have it in Timbuktu, then I must find somewhere else to begin.’

‘You have begun,’ Umar said.

‘There is no cradle under my roof,’ Nicholas said. ‘I want the teachers sprung of your line to help instruct the poor fools sprung of mine. I mean to match you, child for child. I think I have become patriarchal in your desert.’

‘I think it began long before that,’ Umar said. ‘You had another and better teacher in worse adversity.’ He broke off.

‘Godscalc?’ Nicholas said. ‘Different, not better. I challenged him to try and convert me.’

‘To what?’ said Umar.

‘To anything,’ Nicholas said. ‘No. I don’t mean that. But the way to Ethiopia, with the best teacher, didn’t do for me what you have done.’

‘Yet,’ said Umar, ‘you are troubled for me, when I turn to Mecca at sunset, and yet raise my voice in praise from the Christian Eucharist. I should like you to trust me in some things. There are many forms of perfection. You and I, we try to attain them. You know how I have failed.’

‘You speak to me of failure?’ Nicholas said.

‘Is that not what we have been speaking of all along?’

‘Yes,’ said Nicholas. ‘I know. I will remember. And this place? You brought me here to see Taghaza, too.’

‘I should have spared you, I think,’ Umar said. ‘One small race exploiting another: there is no solution. But remember this when you are trading.’

‘Trading?’ Nicholas said. ‘You make it sound like the filthiest occupation on earth. Is it?’

‘Yes,’ said Umar. ‘And no. It depends on the trader.’

They parted next day. Umar rode outside the walls with the caravan, and kept pace for a little by Nicholas. Then he leaned over and touched him, and left. Nicholas watched him go.

Umar didn’t look back. He rode directly to Taghaza, where the diamond huts were set sparkling among the empty black holes of the mine-shafts. He sang under his breath as he went.

Nicholas heard it, as he walked in the opposite direction. His beast plodded beside him; the caravan was full of chatter so that his voice, fitting itself into the plainsong, was no more remarked on than Umar’s, for both were half in the mind.

Nicholas wove no descant around it, for the descant stands off from the song. He sang each second line, and Umar’s voice, disembodied, alternated with his, and became one with it in the refrains. At the last, the distant voice was only an echo. Then
Umar went through the gates, still without looking back, and the singing was gone.