Stone Kingdoms (22 page)

‘The truck,' she said, ‘you are in the truck. I saw it leave.'

‘I didn't go, Nadra. I'm going to stay until they come back.'

She shook her head as if she didn't understand, and as she came slowly closer I could see the fear was still in her eyes, so I took her hand and placed it on my hair and she felt it for a second, moving her fingers through the strands until at last she knew the assurance of her own memory.

‘Why did you not go? Did everyone else go?'

‘Yes, everyone has gone. I couldn't go – soon I will explain.'

She nodded her head and then she helped me gather up what was left, taking too the uncleared food from the table.

When we had finished she made me drape the blanket round myself, and then I followed her through the wakening camp to where her mother and sister still slept. I lay down on some matting in the corner and drifted into sleep, but a short while later I was jerked awake by a sound that stabbed the senses and seemed to fill each crevice of the shelter. It was one voice and
many
voices, voices that seemed to come from all around and swoop into each other, inciting themselves to ever higher pitches of intensity and breaking into a remorseless ululating wail.

‘They know that everyone has gone. The news has spread throughout the camp.'

‘It's the same sound the woman made when we told her the baby was dead.'

‘It is the sound of mourning, Naomi.'

I got up and pulled my hair back from my face. ‘I'll go and tell them it's only a matter of time before they come back. There's enough food in store to last everyone until that happens. Nobody needs to starve, Nadra. I'll go and tell them now.' But as I tried to leave she put out both her hands to stop me.

‘You must not go. You must stay here.'

‘I have to go.'

‘No, you must stay here. First I will go and find out if it is safe for you.'

When finally she persuaded me to wait I lay down again on the matting, pulled the blanket round me and this time I fell into a deep sleep. When I woke, Nadra was sitting with her mother and sister, all of them watching me. As I sat up she handed me a cup of the sweet tea they liked to drink. Her mother still wore the dark mask of net over her face and I couldn't read her eyes or even guess at what she said. Nadra didn't speak but nodded her head at me in encouragement.

‘I must go now and tell them,' I said, ‘tell them that there is enough food to last until help comes.'

‘There is no food, Naomi – it's all gone. Everything has been taken. There is nothing left. When they heard the news, people broke into the stores and took it all. There is nothing left anywhere. They take the chairs and tables, everything from the clinic. Soon they will begin to take the building itself.'

‘Then I must go and talk to them. You must help me explain.'

‘
No, you must stay – it is too soon for you to go into the camp. Already there has been fighting. You must stay here.'

She told her sister Rula to fill a basin with water and they both came and sat beside me on the matting, then sponged my face and tried to comb my hair with a wooden comb. Sometimes it caught in tats, and when I cringed they laughed and helped each other to untangle the knots. As they worked their mother started to sing – a low song barely rising above speech that seemed to wander into the past, searching through some better store of memory.

‘When will I be able to go out?'

‘Soon, very soon. I have spoken for you, and many of the women also.'

‘Spoken to whom?'

‘To the leader of our clan. He knows you are not to blame, says you would not stay if the Agency was not coming back soon. But there are other leaders and other clans in Bakalla, and we do not know yet what they will do.'

I stayed there the rest of the day, and in the evening Nadra told me we must go to see the leader of her clan. She made me wear the blanket and a head shawl and then she gave me a netted face mask like her mother wore. I followed her through the pathways of the camp, strewn everywhere with the remnants of what had been taken from the compound. When we reached a bunched cluster of shelters she told me to wait, then walked into an area lit by a fire where a small group of men sat veiled by smoke, with women and children squatting in an outer circle. I recognized some of the women and many of the children, and as Nadra called me into the light I removed the mask and the head shawl. In the faces of the women I saw no hatred or harm. Some of the children ran towards me but were called back by the oldest man of the group. As he stood up and beckoned me forward, I saw over his shoulder, through the open doorway of one of the shelters, sacks of grain piled high.
Some
hens pecked frantically where one of the ripped sacks had left a thin little line.

I stood separated from him by the fire. A small man wearing a green jacket that had come from the clinic. It was too big for him – it might have belonged to Rollins – and the sleeves were rolled into thick folds with his thin shoulders lost inside its breadth. He was older than the others, his hair a skein of white, but his body had a strength and pride and it was clear that those around the circle looked to him with respect. I bowed my head as Nadra spoke to him and he stared at me closely, as if unsure of who I was, then signalled me to sit and gestured for one of the women to bring me tea. With Nadra translating he asked many questions – why the others had left, when they would return, what news I had from the capital. I told him some truths, some lies, and always tried to be positive about the Agency's return. He listened to everything carefully, watching my face as I spoke the words slowly and with as much conviction as I could find. While I spoke I saw for the first time the young men spaced round the rear of the shelters, and the sticks they carried in their hands.

There was one last question. ‘Why did you stay?' asked Nadra.

‘I have no home now but Bakalla. I have no people but your people,' I said, gesturing round the seated listeners. ‘Soon the Agency will return and bring more help. I want to wait here with you.'

As Nadra translated, he scratched his cheek and stared into the fire. When she had finished, there were sudden animated bursts of speech from people in the circle around us. After a few minutes he held up his hand and silenced them before calling Nadra closer and whispering to her.

‘He offers you his protection and his friendship. He knows that in the past you have tried to help his people and he thanks you for that. But you must be careful. There are other clans in Bakalla, and he does not speak for them. When you hear news
about
the Agency or about our country you must tell him, and also tell the Agency that he has given you his protection.'

I bowed my head and thanked him. Suddenly there were cries from beyond the shelters and everyone stood up and ran to where the young men shouted and pointed into the darkness. Someone claimed to have seen members of a rival clan approaching and to have scared them off with his spear, but others shook their heads and said they had seen nothing. Whatever the truth, the incident had shifted attention from me and Nadra took my arm and led me back to her home, insisting once again that I wear the headshawl and the mask. Only when we were sitting outside by the fire that had almost died did she allow me to take it off.

‘You thought I was a spirit when you saw me in the clinic, didn't you?'

She denied it, embarrassed by the question. ‘I thought you were in the truck. I could not understand how you could be in the truck and in the clinic at the same time, that's all. You think I believe in spirits?'

‘What's wrong with believing in spirits, Nadra?'

‘You're a teacher, Naomi. You know science. Teachers must help their pupils leave superstitions behind them.'

I laughed gently at her earnestness. ‘But don't you sometimes feel something else inside your head, like a spirit or a ghost from the past?'

She looked to see if I was teasing or testing her in some way, then asked, ‘Do people in your country believe in spirits, ghosts from the past?'

‘Yes, I think some people believe there are things beyond themselves. They call them by different names.'

‘In my country, many people believe in spirits. My mother, she believes, but she is old. Many believe in the gelid – this is when a helpless person sends his spirit to trouble the person who has done him harm.'

‘Do you believe it can happen, Nadra?'

She
shrugged her shoulders and didn't answer. Somewhere in the camp, voices called out to each other.

‘Why did you not go in the truck?'

I didn't know how to explain. The voices volleyed back and forward across the night with increased urgency. ‘Maybe I have a spirit sent to trouble me. Maybe I thought that staying in Bakalla would get rid of it, make everything right.'

‘You think that someone has put a curse on you, someone you have done bad to? But you have not harmed anyone.'

‘No, perhaps only a little by my foolishness, the times when I believed stupid things.'

‘Then why should their spirits trouble you?'

‘I don't know. Maybe it's only in my imagination but sometimes I think of all the people who have . . .' My struggle for an answer was stopped by the sound of someone running through the narrow alleyway, the pound of bare feet in the dust, the heavy draw of breathing, and as the figure passed us close enough to touch we could see the tight press of fear on his face. Then from somewhere behind came the sound of his three pursuers. Even in the thickening darkness we could see the knives in their hands and as their sandals slapped against the soles of their slathering feet we pulled ourselves into the shadow of the shelter. The dwindling smoke from the fire puffed into our faces and I heard the clatter of other feet on a pavement, the slither and scrape as they kicked the crouching figure in the doorway, knew again that there was something which threads and links through time, as real as the bruised prints in the dust. I felt it then as I felt it on a Belfast street, and I was afraid. And as the pounding feet and the knotted, ragged breathing vanished into the heart of the camp we turned our faces away and went inside for shelter, kicking our own dust over the final stirrings of the fire.

Great fault lines slowly began to open in the camp. Ancient feuds that had lain dormant long enough for some to believe
they
had been forgotten, started to move and shift. A fight at one of the wells, some stolen cattle, a dispute over a sack of grain, the body of a young man found on the river bed with his throat cut. Accusations and counter-claims, funerals and calls for vengeance, the re-formation into tribal enclaves. I watched from behind the mask, moving silently with Nadra's guidance through the areas which were safe for me, and knew that the longer Bakalla went without food and aid, the closer we would slip to disaster.

Sometimes they brought the sick to me and asked for help. Nadra did her best to explain that I wasn't a doctor but they didn't understand, wanting desperately to believe that I had the knowledge that would cure their children, and I touched their heads, a blessing of ignorance, and then they were taken away to live or die. The days passed; the food controlled and distributed by the clan leaders grew more meagre and I watched the children consume it more ravenously. The little I had, I tried to share with the orphans who wandered through the camp begging for scraps and scrambling for cast-offs, but there was never enough. Sometimes they pulled at my pockets, urgency flowing through their thin reeds of arms. Often I turned them away empty-handed and then they would slink off to find shelter from the sun and flies. Most of the people I met were friendly, often offering to share the little they had, but sometimes I met others who cursed me and once as I walked with Nadra from the well, two small children threw stones at me at their mother's prompting until they fled in the face of Nadra's fury.

For a couple of days we tried to organize some place for the children, but we had no equipment or materials and nothing to give them and so the numbers dwindled as they found more immediate attraction in the sense of danger and loosening control that rippled through the camp. Most of their time was spent searching for wood at steadily increasing distances, and
the
long trudge drained them of their energy and concentration. When they filtered through the camp they were constantly on the look-out for anything that might be useful, and then they fought fiercely with other gangs for possessions of such objects. At the sound of an aircraft they would drop whatever they were doing and flood out onto the plain beyond the boundary of the camp, hoping to see food falling from the sky. But nothing came, and as the days passed I too waited and listened.

Sometimes we would go to the wells with the other women and draw water to wash our clothes. Then for a short while at least I would hear laughter, the ripple and gush of gossip and snatches of song. The heads of children bobbed on the women's backs like seals as they kneaded and pumped the dust out of the clothes, twisting them to tight knots and splashing them against stones. They would ask me questions through Nadra and she would apologize for the ones she considered too personal. Was my father rich? What did he own? What age was I and why was I not married? Was it true that in the West women could take many lovers? I answered everything, sometimes enjoying shocking Nadra and making her give replies that made the women squeal with girlish laughter and clap their hands. Most days when the work was over they would sit in a group and one of the older women would start some story she remembered from the old way of life, often decorating it with sprigs of song, and her listeners would follow intently, constantly nodding their heads in affirmation. At first Nadra tried to translate for me but then I stopped her and tried to listen for the meaning myself, remembering my mother singing in Gaelic as my father listened secretly behind a paper or book. Later Nadra would tell me that the stories were of great wedding feasts, beautiful brides and long journeys across the plains in search of water and grazing; of children born on the way and great warriors of the clan who fought off thieves and bandits and saved the herd. When one teller grew
tired
another would take up the tale, passing the telling round the circle like drink or sweetmeats, polishing and elaborating on what was already familiar to all. Even then, even in Bakalla, they would sing, and gradually I came to know fragments of the songs, began to grasp some of the complex rhythms, and they would clap their approval as I joined my voice with theirs.