filled by a spirit, a vengeful, ravening thing possessed of supernatural strength. An animal noise came out of her, rough and guttural as she bucked and twisted. Her right arm came free and she shot out a wild elbow that caught Rhossi full in the mouth. Everything stopped.
Mariata fought herself upright, dragging her robe back around her ankles. From her treasure chest beside the bed she took the little dagger and held it out in front of her breathing hard, ready to use it.
Rhossi’s eyes were huge. He touched his face. The hand came away from his mouth covered in blood and he stared at it as if both hand and blood belonged to someone else. When he spat, a tooth fell out on to the beautiful bedcover, spotting it with a different shade of red. He looked at it in disbelief, then transferred his gaze to Mariata. A little whimper escaped him, and then he started to cry. He hurled himself to his feet and ran from the tent.
Mariata stared after him. Then she moved methodically around the tent, collecting the things she would need.
She arrived at the harratin village an hour later.
‘Tell no one that you have seen either Rahma or myself,’ she instructed the headman carefully. ‘And make sure everyone in the village – even the children – say the same thing. They will punish you if they know you have helped us.’
She gave him the rice and flour and tea she had stolen from Dassine’s tent. Then she took Rahma by the arm and led her out to where two of the fine white, fully laden mehari camels that had once belonged to Rhossi ag Bahedi stood waiting complaisantly for them under the light of the three-quarters moon.
6
Had I forgotten to take off the amulet when I went to bed that night? You’d think it’d be a hard thing to forget, as massive as it was. But I was wearing it when I woke up the next morning.
As I swung my legs out of bed, I had the sense that I was in two places at once, but never fully present in either. And when I threw back the curtains it seemed to me that the London sun that shone in on me was dull, as if someone had changed a hundred-watt lightbulb for a low-energy equivalent.
On the tube as I travelled in to work I was aware for the first time in years that millions of tons of stone and earth and sewers and buildings were pressing down upon the tunnel through which we passed at unnatural speed. Trying to divert my attention from this uncomfortable thought, I cast my gaze around the carriage. An advert for holidays in Egypt, a line of camels silhouetted against dunes and pyramids; cheap flights to Marrakech … A knot of foreign women got on at Knightsbridge and stood swaying with the movement of the train, only their heavily kohled eyes visible in the slit black fabric of their niqabs. One of them looked right at me, said something to her companions and they all stared at me.
Disconcerted, I picked up a discarded Guardian and opened it at random. Under world news a paragraph leapt out at me: ‘Four hostages, employees of the French nuclear company Areva, have been kidnapped by a splinter group from the Niger Movement for Justice, a group of so-called Tuareg freedom-fighters.’ Tuareg : the word snagged my eye. It was foreign, unknown, yet somehow familiar. I had the sense I had come across it recently, and that it held some weighty significance, but I was unable to dredge up the relevant connection from my fuzzy memory. ‘A spokesman for the group said the four captured hostages were “in good health” and being held in the Aïr, the conflict zone in Niger.’ With sudden vivid force I remembered my mother talking about the huge reserves of uranium that had been discovered in what was then the French colony of Niger, a discovery that had enabled France to become a nuclear power. Ah yes, Niger. In my mind I heard her languorous accent playing over the two long, foreign syllables: Neee-jhair . My maternal grandfather had made much of his sizeable fortune there and elsewhere in the French
Mariata fought herself upright, dragging her robe back around her ankles. From her treasure chest beside the bed she took the little dagger and held it out in front of her breathing hard, ready to use it.
Rhossi’s eyes were huge. He touched his face. The hand came away from his mouth covered in blood and he stared at it as if both hand and blood belonged to someone else. When he spat, a tooth fell out on to the beautiful bedcover, spotting it with a different shade of red. He looked at it in disbelief, then transferred his gaze to Mariata. A little whimper escaped him, and then he started to cry. He hurled himself to his feet and ran from the tent.
Mariata stared after him. Then she moved methodically around the tent, collecting the things she would need.
She arrived at the harratin village an hour later.
‘Tell no one that you have seen either Rahma or myself,’ she instructed the headman carefully. ‘And make sure everyone in the village – even the children – say the same thing. They will punish you if they know you have helped us.’
She gave him the rice and flour and tea she had stolen from Dassine’s tent. Then she took Rahma by the arm and led her out to where two of the fine white, fully laden mehari camels that had once belonged to Rhossi ag Bahedi stood waiting complaisantly for them under the light of the three-quarters moon.
6
Had I forgotten to take off the amulet when I went to bed that night? You’d think it’d be a hard thing to forget, as massive as it was. But I was wearing it when I woke up the next morning.
As I swung my legs out of bed, I had the sense that I was in two places at once, but never fully present in either. And when I threw back the curtains it seemed to me that the London sun that shone in on me was dull, as if someone had changed a hundred-watt lightbulb for a low-energy equivalent.
On the tube as I travelled in to work I was aware for the first time in years that millions of tons of stone and earth and sewers and buildings were pressing down upon the tunnel through which we passed at unnatural speed. Trying to divert my attention from this uncomfortable thought, I cast my gaze around the carriage. An advert for holidays in Egypt, a line of camels silhouetted against dunes and pyramids; cheap flights to Marrakech … A knot of foreign women got on at Knightsbridge and stood swaying with the movement of the train, only their heavily kohled eyes visible in the slit black fabric of their niqabs. One of them looked right at me, said something to her companions and they all stared at me.
Disconcerted, I picked up a discarded Guardian and opened it at random. Under world news a paragraph leapt out at me: ‘Four hostages, employees of the French nuclear company Areva, have been kidnapped by a splinter group from the Niger Movement for Justice, a group of so-called Tuareg freedom-fighters.’ Tuareg : the word snagged my eye. It was foreign, unknown, yet somehow familiar. I had the sense I had come across it recently, and that it held some weighty significance, but I was unable to dredge up the relevant connection from my fuzzy memory. ‘A spokesman for the group said the four captured hostages were “in good health” and being held in the Aïr, the conflict zone in Niger.’ With sudden vivid force I remembered my mother talking about the huge reserves of uranium that had been discovered in what was then the French colony of Niger, a discovery that had enabled France to become a nuclear power. Ah yes, Niger. In my mind I heard her languorous accent playing over the two long, foreign syllables: Neee-jhair . My maternal grandfather had made much of his sizeable fortune there and elsewhere in the French
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