The Avignon Quintet (14 page)

“Mirages,” groaned Toby, “and oases.”

“Some people say that it was not Siwa where he was proclaimed God, but Macabru; that is why I jumped at the invitation of Akkad.”

“Romantic,” said Sylvie.

“Not at all,” he said, catching her wrist with a little pleading gesture. “Can’t you see how marvellous history is? The presence of other people whose actions and thoughts seem to still hang about in the air? Don’t tell me you can see the Nile delta without a thought for poor Euclid who obviously worked as a clerk in the Ministry of Waterways? How boring his life must have been. What a hypotenuse everything must have seemed, even love, to a poor civil servant, married with nine children, all isosceles in shape …”

“Enough, Piers!”

Gradually as we advanced the fatidic afternoon relinquished much of its fearful heat, the colour began to fade into evening; objects began to take up new positions in this dying sky as watching silhouettes. This would be most pronounced on the Nile itself – wing of a felucca sailing southward into darkness! But we had to reckon with the part of the sky which hung over the blue-brown sea. “Another mouth, sicking out its alluvial muck,” said Toby, and Piers said rather primly: “Once there were seven mouths, and seven cities built upon them. Now even the ashes of the ruins …” But they were buried completely in silt or washed out to sea. A wild sea drubbed and hummed upon these desolate beaches, beating like a fateful drum or a basoon of sadness. The sand was full of shattered shells and dead crabs, and the colour of dirty flour; our horses sank, and in order to coax them to a gallop we had to look for firm surfaces right at the sealine. Here at least we managed to let our mounts have their heads, but only for half a mile or so. The stout wind precluded all but smiles. Thick fingers of current rinsed back the bays while the undertow noisily macerated the occasional beach of pebbles. Woe to a poor swimmer on these beaches! We passed an old withered man on a mule. He seemed sunk in a trance of fatigue, but he croaked the guide good-day. This seemed to spark off a talkative vein in our own Arab. Coming alongside us with his slower animal he said: “Him very old. You don’t see people very old in Skanderia. Die young, Egyptians.” The observation was a true one, but he did not elaborate; I would have liked to know whether he thought this was due to the climate, the diet, or simply malefic djinns. The latter I presumed for I had been told so.

Now the shore became rocky and firm and we came upon the buried and crumbling remains of what looked like a tidy-sized necropolis, but as it was not marked on Piers’ maps we had no means of telling what it really was. It tilted seaward, sloping like the floor of a theatre, and with open mouth as if it were really a stone quarry. But Toby voted it a hypogeum, I suspect because he liked the word and not because he knew what it meant; no more did I. But exposed as it was to the north it must have been filled with waves and spray whenever it blew a gale. It appeared to consist of corridors, now open to the sky, radiating out from what might have been a central courtyard. Bats flew squeaking up to the echo of the pebbles we dropped, in trying to determine its depth. But there was no time to play about as our guide was fussing about the distance still to be covered before we came to Macabru. There was a ferry to be crossed with these capricious steeds and the white camel – and even I had learned that camels are bad-tempered and inclined to bite when under stress.

When we struck the mouth of a small but violent river we turned abruptly inland and followed its course, sure now to connect with the ford which offered the only link with the further desert and the small oasis which was our destination.

But with every advance the visage of nature changed; Canopus, that desolate city, once erected about the tomb of Menelaus, lay far behind while ahead of us glinted more miles of unbreathable desert where nothing moved save little bands of swallows skimming to and fro. Clambering through the waste in which the sand drifts were in some places blown up into heaps and in others spread out into vast mattresses, where our animals sank a foot deep, and in others again, water-covered and reduced to black mud, we gradually made dogged headway under a changing sky. It had become leaden and dark with clouds in the fading daylight, a sky full of winter tones. An obstinate wind, now turned colder with the dusk, kept up its pressure on the ear-drums, and in this dull twilight the further desert looked anything but inviting. Rather it was dreary and desolate beyond all expression.

But we persevered and when the night seemed not too far off we came to a jutting little promontory with a sad little jetty barely holding its own with the boisterous snarling waters. The river was wide too at this point, and for a while we felt some real doubt as to whether we were going to achieve a crossing. From time to time, in the lulls of the wind we could hear our stirrups clink, or the dull stabbing screams of a gull, or the rasp of a heron. But night was beginning to fall. There was no sign of the ferryman on the opposite bank. We stood our ground, deliberating, while enormous crabs issuing from the holes in the river bank advanced to greet us, frightening the horses. The guide was in an ugly despair. We all shouted and yelled but our calls were swept away in the wind, and no answering voice came to offer us the promise of a passage. We felt half mad with disappointment as we saw our hopes of visiting the oasis withering away. It was in this Stygian situation and mood that I had the idea of firing off my revolver, and surprisingly enough this seemed to do the trick, for a portion of the thick dusk stirred and it was not too long before we heard a voice hailing us. And behold, the ferry boat in all its glory rounded a little spur of sand and came swaying down to us. It was quite an exciting manoeuvre, the whole embarkation business, but fortunately both the horses and the camel behaved with exemplary good sense.

From then on a last village and we advanced into the desert and into the darkness; there was nothing to be seen save the desolate dunes stretching away on every side – and now visibility was foreshortened by the absolute dark. Yet the sky had cleared. We asked the Arab if he steered on a star, but this he did not seem to understand, yet he seemed quite confident of his direction and plodded mechanically on, while I took a reading from my little oil-compass just to see that we were not being guided in circles, or even back by mere accident to the river. No, he was certainly on a course, which was somewhat reassuring.

Another hour or so of this sturdy riding on uneven surfaces and we suddenly found the sky growing much lighter, as if with a false sunrise about to break through the soft horizon line to the east. Objects seemed to define themselves more clearly, and with a soft phosphorescent glow. Later we were to discover that this was due simply to the as yet unrisen moon shining against banks of soft cirrus. Everything seemed to be clearing, and it had become very much cooler. We were out of the wind now, exchanging glances with the stars which began to prickle above us on the dark carpet of heaven. Softly, with the faintest whirr of engines – indeed with far less noise than the average bus – a light aircraft rustled slowly over us with all the lights glimmering in its cabin. It made a slow turn eastwards and began to descend. The guide gave a croak of relieved triumph. The aircraft was Akkad’s and it was ferrying some of his guests; there was apparently an excellent natural landing strip in the desert quite near the oasis. As a matter of fact we had been offered a trip in this fashion but being young and romantic had declined the invitation, preferring to ride. Nor had we anything to regret in the matter. But now our spirits rose in us with the confirmation that our course was a true one.

Insensibly we quickened our speed, and even the horses seemed to feel something of our urgency and began to make an effort to carry us faster. We wound laboriously up a particularly large dune and were at last rewarded by a light – a soft unwinking glow in the desert some way before us. It floated, a warm rosy emanation, upon the tumultuous desert floor, promising a point of fixity in the midst of desolation: a landfall. And so we smiled at each other in darkness (there was a smile in our voices, in our banter) as we hastened over the sand.

Macabru was simply a shadow which dawn’s light would break down into objects and planes; for the moment all one could say was that it was not part of the desert. It hovered on the edges of the warm light, reserving its beauties for the coming moon. But the light as we approached now broke down into many separate points, and we saw that we were approaching something like a desert encampment – the bivouac of some huge army. All was mingled and muddled by the darkness – distances, volumes, angles, objects. But as we came to it it looked not unlike another large Arab city, but this time all lit up against the darkness. It was only when we were on it that we glimpsed a slender tulip of minaret, and a patch of water rippling like a mirror – the size of a lake or the arm perhaps of the river which we had just crossed? We reined our horses on the edges of the nearest light – a fire of straw burning in a field – and here a rider came up to meet us on a great black mare.

“A seneschal,” said Piers, thrilled to the core not only by the word but by the medieval formality of this meeting. I knew that he was thinking of the Crusaders – how often they must have met with this kind of Moslem reception. The tall thin man, face bearded and nose aquiline, asked us who we were in Arabic, but immediately broke into sound French when we announced ourselves, politely dragging off our light but cumbersome Arab burnouses which had been stifling us with heat throughout the ride, but which we now surrendered somewhat reluctantly for the evening had turned cool. Instantly the messenger turned his dancing horse and led us down into the lighted township. Akkad had already described to us most accurately what we would see.

It was not only in the towns and bigger villages that one met with the tombs of holy men, or those who had achieved a posthumous sainthood and conferred it on a place, dignifying it with a yearly feast day. Often, and throughout the country, they stood in deserted and solitary places, and usually had a fountain or small date-grove adjoining, where a wandering dervish might pause to pray and meditate after performing his ritual ablutions: or where indeed the ordinary traveller might simply quench his thirst and enjoy cool shade on a journey. Macabru had begun modestly enough with a shrine and a fountain – but it was a real oasis with a sheet of lake water, crystal clear, where the clouds floated by day or by night. Tall reeds fringed the holy lake.

Around the tomb of the saint had grown up a small chapel consisting of one square apartment surmounted by a dome most handsomely fluted. Outside was a magnificent marble fountain of filigreed workmanship which had been donated by the local pasha, who had also endowed the place so that regular religious observances could be supervised by the three gloomy, pious resident dervishes. How well we were to get to know the curious flat dusty smell of these places, the smell of brackish water on well-washed stone; and the peculiar disorienting effect of churches with no central altar, no point of focus, save only the hanging gonfalons with their grand script invoking the blessings of the Moslem God. And always the same sparse furniture of mat, water-jug, and a coloured chest to receive the donations of the passing traveller. And thus once a year the oasis came to life in honour of the saint. A bazaar sprang up around the central palm-groves where the camels were tethered, streets mapped themselves out, a hasty but useful drainage system was dug in the sand and partially solidified by water. Even a frail system of electric lighting with myriads of coloured bulbs crossed and recrossed the streets which were now lined with multicoloured stalls selling every imaginable thing, for the fair (or
mulid)
as it had developed over the years was half secular and half religious in inspiration. Of course we saw little of all this in detail at our first entry into Macabru – just the thrilling bazaar crackling with life and roaring barter, and the lights which led back in a sweet diagonal shape towards the central chapel, which was one of some consequence. And behind the hum of human voices and the snorting of mules and horses from the dark groves beside the lake we could hear the festive beat of the little drum and the squeak of fifes. Some of the painted stalls were of wood or light wattle, but most were mere tents of soiled and tattered cloth. At the end of the provisional village (for that is what it became for three days every year) we came to a great striped marquee with hitching posts about its entrance where we divested ourselves of our horses and, delighted to find that Akkad had not yet arrived, plunged back into the bazaar which for us was one of the most exciting places we had ever seen.

It was indeed marvellous in its comprehensiveness, our admiration was really justified, for not only were there stalls for sweetmeats, copper ware, camel gear, calendars and so on but the provision market was as handsomely stocked as the big markets of Alexandria – from which I supposed much of this stuff came either by land or water. There was no refrigeration in those days – or at best heavy and rudimentary ice-boxes which were not easily transportable. Provisions were ferried by camel in stout sacks of gunny with blocks of ice packed round them; a herculean task. Once the destination was reached commodities like bottles were sunk down wells by the basketful, or left in the lake to keep cool. But here were exposed various kinds of meat, fresh and dried fruits, vegetables, herbs, fowls, game, fish in abundance, very fine bread, milk and fresh eggs. The country round about produced little or nothing, so that all this sophisticated fare must have come from Rosetta, Alexandria, perhaps even from other villages in lower Egypt. We wandered speechlessly about in a daze of admiration for the colours and the scents and sounds. There was a lot of rough cookery going on, and a good deal of barter for cheap jewelry. There was also a kind of sand-ring where villagers were playing at single-stick, but in mockery, amidst laughter – a version of shadow-boxing: only wielding these huge iron-shod sticks gracelessly, keeping time to music like dancing bears. This sort of sham-fight seemed to be very popular to judge by the crowd. The music however was supplied by the followers of some ladies of easy virtue who had also come no doubt to celebrate the saint’s day in their own fashion. They watched the tournament, seated on horseback, heavily painted in ghoulish fashion and bedizened with feathers, grease paint and necklaces of onions and garlic. The master of ceremonies for this group was a clown who sat back to front on a mule with his face whitewashed. He carried a monkey on his shoulders dressed in a coloured cap and reminded one of the court buffoons of the Middle Ages. His sallies were obviously rather double-edged and provoked roars of laughter.