The Fury of Rachel Monette (20 page)

“I see your bribe was acceptable,” she said. “But you are crazy to come here. If they find out we'll all be in that stinking jail. You have no right to do that to us.”

“I'm sorry,” Rachel said firmly. “I need Rashid. Not for long, but I need him now.”

“Why? You weren't satisfied with the guard?”

“Don't be a fool.” Rachel turned to Rashid. “I want you to take me to see the man you mentioned in the note.”

“Tonight?”

“It's the only time I've got,” Rachel said. Rashid looked at Madame Ratelle.

“If you go, you don't come back,” she said.

“Madame Ratelle, please. A boy's life may depend on it.”

“What about Rashid? He's a boy too.”

“Shh,” Rachel whispered fiercely. “I'm talking about a five-year-old boy. And if you cared so much about Rashid you wouldn't tell him not to come back.” Madame Ratelle had no answer. Her eyes went to Rashid, and they seemed to want him to say something. But he kept silent. “Please don't make it difficult,” Rachel went on. “I can give you both money if you want.”

“No,” Rashid said. “Some things I do for free.”

“Shut up,” Madame Ratelle told him. She turned to Rachel, holding the candle in front of her breasts the way nuns do in processions. “How much money are you offering?”

“I don't know. Five hundred dirhams.”

“Make it a thousand each.”

“I don't know if I have that much in cash. I can sign some traveler's checks.”

“That's very funny,” Madame Ratelle said. But not enough to make her laugh. “What happens to us when we cash them?” She snorted. The haggling improved her mood. “How much cash have you got?”

“About thirteen hundred dirhams.”

“Very well.” She held out her hand.

“It's in the jeep.”

“Go get it.”

“There isn't time,” Rachel said impatiently. “The jeep is outside the town. You have my word that I will give the money to Rashid before I leave.”

“I won't take it,” Rashid said.

Rachel gripped his bare shoulders very hard, digging her nails into the flesh. “You will,” she said quietly. “You can solve the problem of what to do about your pride some other time. Now let's go.”

He got out of bed and searched about the floor for his clothing. Madame Ratelle bent over him extending the candle. Huddled together their naked bodies looked defenseless, but in some way suggested to Rachel that their relationship had a better basis than she had first suspected.

When Rashid was dressed Madame Ratelle hugged him and kissed him on the mouth. “You are a stupid boy,” she said. He turned to Rachel.

“I'm ready,” he said.

In the eyes of each of them Rachel saw fear. They were afraid of loneliness, poverty, each other, Moutassim, the caid, the west, the east. And of her. She was struck again by the predatory feeling that had come to her as she smoothed the sand over the well.

Rachel left the hotel door open to avoid risking a second squeak. Rashid saw the Land-Rover parked in front of them. He put his mouth very close to her ear and spoke in a voice so light that the words seemed to bypass her auditory passage and enter her mind directly.

“You lied to us.”

She shook her head and cupped her hands around his ear. “I have another jeep,” she said, reaching inside the Land-Rover for the spare gasoline can. They took turns carrying it into the desert.

Rachel was worried that she might not be able to find the jeep in the darkness, but her steps led her directly to it. It was much closer to the town than she had remembered.

“This is Professor DePoe's jeep,” Rashid said suspiciously. Rachel did not respond. “How did you get it?”

“He lent it to me.”

“When?”

“Tonight, of course.” She sat in the driver's seat and glanced at the luminous dial of the dashboard clock. It said twelve forty-eight. “Get in. We haven't got much time.”

Rashid refused to budge. “I don't believe you,” he said stubbornly. “Why would he do that? He is a friend of the caid.”

“I thought they just met last week.”

“That's what he wants people to think,” Rashid replied. “But when he arrived I took him to the caid's house. They looked at each other in a very strange way. They had met before.” He said it with certainty. “So how did you get the jeep?”

“I stole it,” Rachel said impatiently. “The keys were in the ignition and I didn't want anyone to wake up in the night and wonder where mine had gone.”

“I still don't believe you,” he said.

“You wouldn't believe the truth either.”

“Give me a chance.”

“No, Rashid. It wouldn't do you any good to know, and it might do you a lot of harm.”

He sighed and got into the car. “Drive north,” he said. “Toward the hills.”

The temperature continued to fall and the open car gave little protection. Rachel adjusted the heater to its maximum, but the warm air barely had time to touch their feet before the cold wind reached in and blew it out the back.

“Tell me about this man,” Rachel said.

“There is not much I can tell you. After they took you to jail I was very angry. I went to Zagora and talked to a friend of mine. He is a school teacher, and knows the history of this region. He said he has an uncle who once told him a story about that place.”

“What story?”

“He didn't say.” Rashid paused. “His uncle is not an educated man. I don't think my friend takes him seriously.”

“He hasn't seen what we saw.”

The rounded bulks of the hills seemed to float on the plain like icebergs on a calm sea. Rachel slowed the jeep.

“Over there,” Rashid said. “Where the tents are.”

Rachel saw no tents, but she steered in the direction he pointed. After she had driven a short distance her eyes were able to separate two low shapes from the shadows of the slope.

“Stop here,” Rashid said. They left the jeep and approached the tents on foot. A sharp voice called to them in a language Rachel did not recognize. Rashid quickly responded in a placating tone. Rachel heard a rustling sound and two robed men stepped forward from the shadows. Both carried rifles. When they came closer Rachel saw they were no older than Rashid. He spoke to them for a few minutes. She did not understand a word he said, but the polite soothing way he said it was unmistakable. One of the men grunted and turned on his heel. Rachel and Rashid followed him to the nearest tent. The other man followed them.

The first man lifted a flap in the tent wall and went inside. Rachel heard a brief, muffled conversation. The flap reopened and a line of women, children, and babies paraded out and walked to the second tent. The man behind them nudged them forward with his rifle.

Inside the first man had lit two oil lamps that looked like they had been handed down by Aladdin: the smoky flickering light illuminated the worn rugs overlapping on the floor and the goatskins and sheepskins lying in little piles where people had been sleeping. On the edge of the thickest rug was a powerful overseas radio. Sitting beside it was the man who liked drawing pictures in the sand. Rachel smiled at him. He smiled back, but without a hint of recognition. He raised his fine hands above his head, palms up, and lowered them slowly to the rug. Everyone sat.

“Tell him why we are here,” Rachel said to Rashid, “but don't mention what we found in the well.”

Rashid spoke to the man in a questioning tone. He answered, talking rapidly and making vigorous gestures, most of them toward the south. Rashid turned to the two younger men and said something in a language that sounded different to Rachel. One of the men shook his head.

“Is something wrong?” Rachel asked.

“He speaks a dialect of Berber I've never heard.”

“Can you understand what he says?”

“Most of it. I don't recognize some of the words. His grandsons speak Arabic, but he does not. He has no education.”

Rachel had supposed they were his sons. While he and Rashid talked she watched his face. Like the caid's it did not betray his age.

After a few minutes Rashid turned to Rachel. “He says that he comes from far away, deep in the desert. Many years ago there was a very bad summer. The wells went dry. People died. He took his family and camels and came north. It was a hard journey. His first wife died, and a baby. He slaughtered a camel and the rest of his family drank its blood to stay alive. They reached the lower Draa, which is always dry, and followed it toward the source. One night they camped within sight of that rock in the circle of dunes. He knew there would be water nearby—he smelled it, he says—and before dawn he got up to have a closer look.

“There were two buildings near the rock. One was very low, and had no windows. The other was smaller and had windows. He saw two sentries so he hid behind a sand dune. They wore gray uniforms and had very fair skin, the fairest he had ever seen. He says that he had never seen a European before that time.”

“Does he know what year it was?”

Rashid asked the man a question and he nodded eagerly and replied.

“It was the year his youngest son was born,” Rashid said.

“How old is he now?”

Rashid and the man exchanged a few words. “He died the same year.”

“Tell him I'm sorry.”

Rashid did. “It's the will of Allah, he says. Do you want to hear the rest?”

“Yes.”

“He says that while he watched the sentries he heard the sound of an airplane. He had seen them before, flying over the desert. He heard it long before the sentries did, and wondered if they were deaf. The airplane landed on the plain and rolled to the buildings. The two sentries went into the small building and he didn't see them again. Three men with rifles came out of the big building. They were fair-skinned like the others, but wore black uniforms. The door of the airplane opened and some steps were lowered. Many women, more than a dozen he thinks, got off the plane. They wore robes but were also fair-skinned. The three men in black marched them to the big building. Out of the small building came two men wearing khaki uniforms. He did not know at the time, but realized later, that they were French. He knows because they wore the képi. One of the men was tall, the other quite fat. They went into the airplane, the door closed and it flew away to the north.

“Was the fat one also bald?” Rachel interrupted. Rashid translated. The man said something and slapped his thigh. He began laughing. He repeated what he said to his grandsons. They smiled politely. He made a little bow to Rachel. He seemed to recognize her now.

“What's so funny?”

“He says how could he see if the fat one was bald? He was wearing a képi,” Rashid replied. The man looked at Rachel expectantly, but she didn't play along. He stopped laughing and assumed a somber expression.

“After the airplane left a man in a white coat came out of the big building. He walked along the line of women. He looked at them very closely, making some of them open their mouths or lift their robes. The old man was very impressed by their pink nipples.” Rashid seemed suddenly embarrassed. Rachel knew he was thinking of Madame Ratelle.

“And then?”

“They all went into the big building—first the man in white, then the women, then the men in black. After a while the two sentries came out of the small building and began patrolling again. He didn't like it. He went back to his camp and led his family west. They stayed for many years near Tarfaya, by the ocean. When they returned he went back to the rock and found only the pile of cement. He told one or two people what he had seen, but no one was interested.”

“That's all?”

“Yes.”

“Ask him if there were any markings on the plane.”

Rashid asked. Rachel could see right away how much the question pleased him. Not like the one about the bald man, but it was a good question all the same. He nodded happily.

“Tell him to describe them.”

The man extended a lean forefinger and traced a rectangle on the rug. Then he divided it in thirds with two vertical lines. He pointed to each section in turn, each time saying a different word.

“What did he say?”

“Blue. White. Red.”

Rachel drove back across the hard sand. The clock said six minutes before two. There were almost three hundred miles between her and Marrakech.

“Stop here,” Rashid said. “I'll walk the rest of the way.”

“Are you sure?”

“It's safer. No one will hear me.”

“All right.” Rachel put her hand on his arm. “When you get back you have to forget this night ever happened. Don't do anything about the Land-Rover. And tell Madame Ratelle to bring food to the jail for me in the morning.”

“Professor DePoe is dead, isn't he?”

Rachel reached in the back for her handbag and counted twelve hundred dirhams. “Here. Don't make a fuss.”

“I don't want it.”

“It's not for you. It's for her. We made a bargain.” Rashid took the money and got out of the jeep. “Come here,” Rachel said. He walked around to her door. She put her hand around his neck, brought his face close and kissed him on the cheek.

“I hope you find the boy,” Rashid said.

Rachel drove away. She headed straight north until she reached the track that joined Mhamid with Zagora. She stopped the jeep and got out. Behind the back seat she found a coil of thin rope and a tire iron. She knotted one end of the rope to the tire iron and walked underneath the single telephone wire that sagged from pole to pole along the track. She swung the tire iron like a pendulum until it gained momentum and let it go. It cleared the wire by inches. Both ends of the rope hung from the wire. Rachel untied the tire iron and looped the ends of the rope around the rear bumper. She maneuvered the jeep until it was perpendicular to the wire, and then ran it forward. The wire gave with little resistance. It fell writhing in a shower of sparks, like a fiery severed snake.