Muezzinland (9 page)
The change had been imperceptible. It was night. One minute hyenas were patrolling around their campsite, the next men with sparkling talismans strung around their necks were staring at them, their eyes luminous, like the beasts. Gmoulaye woke, and, taking Msavitar's dart rifle, tried to shoot them down, but they dodged and shifted like ghosts. In the end she cursed them and gave up. The chuckling wail of the animals rose up to taunt them.
"I'll not have come all this way just to be eaten by hyena men," Nshalla said. "Timbuktu's only a week away."
"There is only one way to fight these creatures," Gmoulaye said. "Hyena men live everywhere—my grandmother told me how to deal with them. You, Nshalla, will have to strip off and entrance them. You must lie down naked before the nearest hyena man, while I hide behind a tree with the dart rifle. I'll pick them off one by one as they stand hypnotised."
Nshalla considered whether this was a plausible plan. It had the ring of tribal authenticity that she associated with Gmoulaye's wisdom, but it was dangerous. Even she, an urban woman, had heard of hyena men.
With gestures, she indicated that Gmoulaye should slink behind a tree. Msavitar, who was something of a coward, trembled by the fire, crouched down, his face concealed by his shirt, and seeing this Nshalla felt she was experiencing the deepest possible contempt for him. She took a kerchief and wrapped it around his eyes, saying, "If I see you looking at me, I swear by Ataa Naa Nyongmo, and by all the holy Gan pantheon, that I will slit your throat and watch until the very last drop of blood sinks into the sand, and then I will cut you up and feed your giblets and your brain to the hyenas. D'you hear me?"
"Yes."
Still she wore the colourful Ghanaian dress. In sight of the slavering hyena men she disrobed, letting the dress fall to the floor. Her dusty, sweaty body lay open to the ogling beasts. She glanced back. Msavitar's face was pressed firmly to the soil.
There was a ping, a hum, and then a hyena man fell to the ground, a dart in his neck. The others seemed not to notice, their rounded eyes locked upon Nshalla's ebony form. Then the darts flew fast, until every hyena man lay on the ground, quite dead.
Nshalla pulled her dress up and across her shoulders, returning to the campfire. She wanted to leave the place, but travel by night was risky. Six hours at least remained before dawn. "We'll stay here," she grunted, "and hope no other packs are around." She glanced at an embarrassed Msavitar. "Poke the fire and throw on some sticks."
He followed her instructions. "By all that's mighty," he said, "that was a brave deed." Gmoulaye agreed. Msavitar continued, "We are destined to make Timbuktu, surely, if even the dreadful hyena men fall before us."
"I did what I had to do. Men are simple to bewitch, or so I've found."
"I am humbled, humbled," Msavitar said.
"Did my scars show?" Nshalla asked him.
"Yes, but—"
Nshalla pounced. He had fallen for her trick. "So you did look! You scum of the dry dust! I told you not to look and you defied me." She grabbed the blade lying upon Gmoulaye's belts and thrust it against his neck. With staring eyes and frozen body he lay below her, petrified, choking. For some seconds Nshalla was sure she was about to murder him, so powerful was the heat of her anger, making her arm twitch, so that she drew blood from the wrinkled skin at his neck. How easy it would be to pull back the knife. He would die croaking, blood bubbling out of his neck, and she would see his life seep into the sand, as she had predicted.
Then she threw away the blade and jumped back. Taking a branch from the fire she swung it at him so that it thwacked across his head. Sparks flew like an exploding halo. He screamed and fell back, grovelling. Nshalla kicked him in the stomach, then in the head. Then she took a few faltering steps backward.
Bloodied and charred, hair sizzling, he crept back. Yet there was anger in his eyes. Revenge.
"Don't look at me like that," Nshalla warned, "or I really will kill you. Don't you vent your anger at me! You deserved everything, you hear?"
He chose not to answer. Wiping his wounds, smoothing down his hair, he retreated, his gaze never leaving her. At the edge of the firelight he sat, pulling his robe around his body and over his head like a damaged animal pushed beyond natural limits. In this foetal position he remained.
Gmoulaye was not convinced by the wisdom of the outburst. She said nothing, but Nshalla knew from the expression on her face that she wanted to reprimand her. Nshalla proudly said nothing, but walked haughtily past her friend, lying down next to the fire.
~
Dogon Mali became harsher as they rode north, forcing them to adopt a slow, meandering style of riding. Even one puncture would be one too many. Food ran low. During the evenings Gmoulaye tried to gather vegetables and wild grains, but little survived the heat, and they were forced to rely on baobab fruits and what little remained in their packs. Timbuktu lay a week away, if not more, for they were slowing as fatigue overcame them.
One evening another storm struck. From the south horizon black clouds rose, infecting the sky like leprosy, until the southern heavens were dark and chill. Stinging rain fell for ten minutes, and then it was over. In the west a fingernail moon set into pale rags of cloud.
That night the baobab saved them. Large, putrid white flowers blossomed in every local tree, attracting swarms of bats. These bats pollinated the flowers. Following the lines of bats, Gmoulaye was able to locate all the other trees. One spoke to her, saying, "I will help your friends." But nothing then happened. Nshalla, however, approached the speaking tree and waited until it dropped a single giant fruit, which she cut into three and shared out. This seemed to kill the tree, however, severing every root so that it could not survive. Saddened, Nshalla shed a few tears into the tangled branches, which then rehydrated into cheese that they were able to eat. But a spark from their fire burnt the branches, turning them into smoke and ashes. Weeping copiously into the ashes Nshalla thought her night of feasting might be over, but then she noticed that the action of her tears upon the ashes had turned them into sweet pear drops, dozens of them, each the size of her thumbnail. These they ate, crunching them until none were left.
In this manner they suppressed the hunger signals from their bodies, using their imaginations as a defence.
Eighteen days had now passed since leaving Ouahigouya. Water from the storm had long since seeped into the ground or evaporated. They rode through the morning, resting at noon, continuing until the sun set. Timbuktu did not appear.
One ray of hope supported them. The marks of seasonal lakes could be seen everywhere; on Msavitar's maps these lay close to the River Niger at a village called Karioume, and so they guessed that their trek could at last be close to a finish.
Next morning they crested a hill and saw the Niger twinkling far below them. Nshalla and Gmoulaye jumped and cheered, Gmoulaye bursting into dance and song, accompanying herself on the djembe drum. Msavitar nodded to himself, happy, but not ecstatic.
The proximity of salvation made them forget their weariness. By mid afternoon they were in Karioume, buying food and taking it down to the river to eat. A small amount of river traffic passed them by.
A local told them, "Canals join Timbuktu to the Niger. If that's where you're bound, I'll take you there in my boat."
They agreed a price and prepared to leave.
"Timbuktu is fifteen kilometres away," the boatsman said. "My plan is to navigate the Niger in what remains of the day then camp on the banks of the canal. Tomorrow we will sail north into the city." This also was agreed.
The boatsman, Nouwouno, seemed thin. He told them that once he had made his livelihood fishing, but now that the Niger stocks were so low, and the fish so tasteless, he had been ruined. That was why he was so grateful to Nshalla. Singing local ballads to the plinking melodies of Gmoulaye's mbira he took them east along the Niger, sails down since they were sailing with the flow, until they saw two stone pillars on the north bank.
There was no lock separating the canals from the river. Much debris and surface pollution had flowed into the canal system. The water, stagnant compared to the river, smelled bad, and they refrained from touching it. As night fell they scrambled upon the bank and made camp. From the boat Nouwouno took nets, setting them up so that mosquitos would not bring them new-malaria as they slept. A few local farmers came to see what was going on, but all of them knew Nouwouno and the party was not troubled.
Their goal lay within reach. Next morning Nshalla stood at the fore of the boat. As noon passed she saw a brown line on the horizon, and soon this resolved into the walls of a city.
Timbuktu!
Chapter 7
Founded in the eleventh century, Timbuktu reached its first zenith a little later, becoming a leading intellectual centre of Islam, and a famous trading place, especially for gold. Sacked by the Moroccans in 1593, it declined, never achieving the political stability of its neighbour cities Djenne and Mopti. After the spread of aether technology from the Middle East during the latter part of the twenty first century, it rose once more to prominence, filled, as it was, with immense cultural resonances. Once more this city on the crossroads, hugging the southern belt of the Sahara desert, rose to cosmopolitan heights, and by the turn of the century only El Qahira, Zimbabwe, and Rasta-Addis-Abeba exceeded it culturally. This sophistication, coupled with an intense aether supported by tens of thousands of rooftop aerials, gave Timbuktu an unbearable colour to those not used to its atmosphere.
This intensity Nshalla felt as she walked her motor bike through the Dyingerey Ber Gate, a massive sandstone structure set in the city's southern wall. Everything seemed too coloured, too loud, and every local smell seemed to fill her nostrils and mouth like a liquid. Fluttering flags left brief symbolic after-images—flocks of tiny sigils—while street music echoed through her head, tugging from her subconscious a symphony of associated musics.
For some time they stood at this gate, experiencing. Nshalla recalled her time in Ouagadougou, understanding again that when the aether's intensity exceeded a certain limit it could modify perceptions independently of human consciousness. In lazy Accra this effect did not exist. Elsewhere, it certainly did.
Eventually they moved on, senses tingling, shock departed. The streets and lanes were crowded, people and animals shuffling in a confused dance, and dust filled the air, making them choke. Bright sandstone lay all around. Many buildings were three or more storeys high, and some had perspex windows. More usually, doors were battered wood mounted with transputer eyes and windows were arrayed with translucent fabrics. The proximity of the people did not bother Nshalla as much as the claustrophobia engendered by the size and height of the architecture. And the fabulous music did not help. Street groups played soca dub through bass-augmented city blasters, a morass of bugarabu, doun roun, and cass cass shakers whose sound seemed to scratch the inside of her brain. Above these rhythms, too-gorgeous melodies were extracted from gigantic balafons and raft zithers; they hung as fluids, resonating in the air through the emotional sincerity of the entranced musicians.
They slipped down a side alley. There, hanging from a pole, was a brown pictsym logo: the Cocoa-Gold Inn. Nshalla decided that here she and Gmoulaye would stay. She turned to Msavitar and told him, "We want to lodge away from you." Pointing to a sign down the alley she concluded, "You can stay at the Goat. We'll pay if you've got no money."
Without a word he walked on, disappearing through the door of the Goat Inn, leaving his motor bike in the porch. Nshalla smiled at Gmoulaye.
Inside the Cocoa-Gold Inn, all was cool and quiet. Nshalla's mind seemed bathed in iced water. She stood in a hall. A door led into the common room, where at a desk she saw a man, youthful and handsome. He greeted her in affected New-Oriental, saying, "Good afternoon! You have suffered a long journey. Do you wish a room each, or a twin?"
"Twin," Nshalla replied.
"I am the owner of this inn, Kemou Dobong'na-Essiene. Please to call me Kemou. This way, thank you."
He led them to the rear of the inn. A large room lay waiting, backing onto a shadowy courtyard in which terracotta pots lay. Through the full-length perspex window Nshalla could see that the pots contained aubergines, horse-eye beans and many herbs. Further back, a single cashew tree pushed up between concrete blocks. Distant echoes of children's voices resonated around the yard. "I like it," Nshalla said. "We'll have it."
"I like it too," Gmoulaye added, with a hint of sarcasm. She handed Kemou her bank ear-ring, which he took to his desk and pushed into a transputer slot.
"Three days to start with," Nshalla said.
He nodded. The transaction was made. Nshalla returned to her room, fell upon her bed, and lost herself to sleep.
~
The Library of West Aphrica was an imposing stone building in Sankore District on the east side of town. Looking at it, imagining that every corner was filled with books and transputer memory, Nshalla still wondered if her task was possible. She might as well look for a termite in a pile of wood shavings.
Just inside the front door a number of clerks sat, awaiting custom. Nshalla had come alone, having risen at dawn and crept out into the cool, shadowy alley. One of the clerks, a short man with greying hair and spectacles, smiled at her and said, "Allow me to assist you." He shook her hand. Nshalla had no idea what this ritual signified. "I am junior librarian Okonkwo."
Nshalla took him to one side. She was uncertain of how to begin her request, so she stumbled over her words at first. "It's a long story," she said, "but an important one to us. I'm here with a friend. You see, we're looking for references to a mythical… or maybe not so mythical country called Muezzinland. It's vital I find out where it is."
Okonkwo nodded. "We shall work together!" he said. "Can you read?"
Nshalla shook her head. "Pictsym."
"Then I shall scour the books here on the ground floor, while you go upstairs to the modern section." He pointed into the building and said, "At the rear you'll find geography. Begin there. In a few moments I'll bring you some coffee."
Impressed by Okonkwo's manners and affability, Nshalla took his hand and shook it. He laughed.
Upstairs, plastic bound volumes stood on shelves. They stretched as far as she could see, tens of thousands of them arranged by subject. Every book was attached to a hook by a chain, each link being a pictsym sigil made from polythene. These symbols could be followed, giving an indication to the contents of the book.
By the time Nshalla had located the geography section Okonkwo was at her side, carrying two steaming mugs on a tray. Fresh coffee. Nshalla greedily accepted a mug.
"You are not local," Okonkwo said, "but I can't place your accent. Are you from Dogon Mali?"
Nshalla smiled, wondering how much to tell him. "Can you keep a secret?"
"Confidentiality is part of every librarian's nature. This is the most comprehensive library in all of the lands, so we have many foreigners here."
"I'm from Accra in Ghana."
He took a pace back. "But that is well over a thousand kilometres away! You've really come to visit us from Accra?"
Nshalla nodded. "On foot and by motor bike."
Okonkwo seemed to swell with importance. "Then I shall treat you like royalty!"
Nshalla turned to hide her amusement. "Where should I begin?"
Okonkwo indicated a shelf, adding, "Start there. I'll set to work downstairs. Farewell for now!" He clattered down the wooden steps. Clutching the mug, Nshalla unhooked the nearest atlas and took it to a chair.
So the morning sped by as she followed each book in turn, seeking out mythical information, checking maps, following the dotted lines of paths, borders, and rivers, always with the Muezzinland sigil at the back of her mind. But she found nothing. Noon came, and Okonkwo brought her a lunch of tomato and black pepper salad on banana bread, with a side dish of dates and paprika. He also had found nothing, but he was not disheartened.
Gmoulaye came to see what was happening, but, when Nshalla offered no news, she drifted away. When the library closed at dusk neither Nshalla nor Okonkwo had once come across a reference to the country.
"Do not fret," Okonkwo said. "This does not mean that your search is in vain, rather that Muezzinland is very far away. Tomorrow we shall continue!"
And they did. Okonkwo took Nshalla to shelves at the rear of the geography section, saying, "These volumes came to us from the north, via ancient trade routes across the Sahara. If Muezzinland is a northerly country, these books may well mention it. Good luck!"
That afternoon Nshalla encountered the first reference. For some seconds she did not dare breathe, half expecting the pictsym sigil to vanish before her eyes. It remained. Though stylised compared with the sigil they had seen in the Golden Library, it was undoubtedly Muezzinland. The reference mentioned the country as a producer of olives. That was all. But it made Nshalla's heart leap.
She called Okonkwo. He studied the reference, then checked the source of the book. "Look," he said, "there are grains of sand between the pages. This book came to us not twenty years ago across the Sahara. I would wager that your Muezzinland is a real place far to the north, perhaps on the opposite side of the desert."
Nshalla felt faint. If that were true, she might as well give up. It was too far. Gmoulaye would never accompany her such a distance. "We've
got
to find out more," she said. And as she did she wondered how Mnada could possibly have heard of such a place in her isolated Accran backwater.
Now Okonkwo helped her. His own search had failed. As dusk approached, he found the first real clues.
"Here!" he called. Nshalla ran over to where he sat. "I have found it. Praise be to Amma!"
"What have you found?"
"This is an atlas from the shifting sands of the north, compiled by Berber nomads. There is a chapter on cultural patterns, and here is an entire paragraph on Muezzinland!" Okonkwo, following the faded pictsym with a quivering forefinger, took a deep breath then continued, "Muezzinland is the unified place of the singers who call out across the metropolis five times per day, exhorting the faithful to prayer." He paused for thought, then added, "This must be the meaning of muezzin, which you thought to imply a singer. Clearly Muezzinland is a country held tight by a religion. That would be either Christianity or Islam, though it might be Hinduism. Also it says here that Muezzinland is to the north and the west of the northerly ergs of the Sahara. Its soils produce dates and olives, and it is a leading intellectual centre."
Nshalla had been holding her breath. "Is that all?"
"That is all."
Nshalla sagged into her chair. "It's not enough. It's too far, I'll never get there." Tears began to flow from her eyes.
Okonkwo comforted her. "If you really have walked from Accra, then I believe the crossing of the Sahara is feasible. Of course, it will be difficult. You will need guides."
Nshalla hardly heard this. All she could think of was the distance. She realised that Mnada herself would still be wandering, trying to locate the land she sought, struggling through sand dunes and across stony plains. Why? Why did she need so urgently to find Muezzinland? Again and again she asked herself the question, trying to recall anything that had happened in the palace, anything that had marked their childhood, anything that could provide a clue.
Okonkwo broke into her train of thought. "I have a suggestion," he said. "I believe you have spirit enough to make the trek. Logically, you should make across the westerly desert, hopping from oasis to oasis. Araouane would be your first settlement, and then maybe Taoudenni, where they mine salt. After that, I don't know."
"Neither do I—"
"But I think you could make the passage."
Nshalla stood up. "The question is whether I want to. For now, Okonkwo, I must leave you. I can't thank you enough for your help."
"The pleasure was exclusively mine! Return to me if you need more assistance."
In gloomy mood Nshalla departed the library and returned to the Cocoa-Gold Inn. Deciding she needed time to think, she told Gmoulaye that nothing had yet been found, a desperate lie that she felt ashamed of telling. Gmoulaye shrugged, as if she had expected nothing more.
That night Nshalla considered her prospects. They seemed poor. She was on the run from her tyrannical mother, chased by a secret agent, allied with the sly Msavitar, and she still knew nothing definite about Muezzinland. One vital thing that she had learned, however, was that Mnada's motive for running away to find it was strong enough to overturn twenty six years of palace training. That in itself spoke of dark secrets.
Next evening, events began to come to a head.
With nothing better to do, Nshalla found herself wandering the western Badyinde quarter, squeezing between telescope-eyed astromancers, dye merchants, and the scores of children engaging in gang fights and trading exercises. Even in the dim evening light, the intensity of the indigo dye worn by every other resident seemed to buffet her eyes. Until she spotted a shock of red cloth in the opposite corner of the square.
Was it cloth? Nshalla blinked slowly and looked once more.
It was hair!
With a thumping heart she leaped forward, but a group of street percussionists danced out of the passage to her side and obstructed her way. Had that been a glimpse of Mnada's hair?
Nshalla ran to where she had seen the red apparition, but it was gone. A couple of old women sat smoking outside their mud house, and Nshalla asked, "Where did she go? The red-haired woman?"
But they did not understand New-Oriental. Grabbing a hank of red cotton from their work basket, Nshalla pressed it to her own hair, then with keen expression pointed to the alleys leading away from the square. "Where? Where?" she shouted.
They seemed to understand. One pointed down an alley. Nshalla ran, her heart sinking, for she was already a minute behind. She clattered into another road. Nothing. Gone. But Mnada had been here, for the old women had recognised her sign for red hair.
So Mnada was still in Timbuktu. That changed everything. Now she could move forward.
It was on the way back to the Cocoa-Gold Inn that she came across the fight. A score or so men blocked the street along which she walked, and when she tried to weave her way through, they stopped her. Curious as to the commotion, she peered through them, only to see Msavitar struggling on the ground with what seemed to be a metal opponent.
"Stop them!" she said.
The man at her side spat a wad of tobacco, then said in thick New-Oriental, "Leave alone. Much money wagered on this!"