Aliyyah Read online

  “How many of them?”

  “You remember nothing of it? Not even before leaving camp?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Two others, I believe. Our man could not be sure.”

  A bitter sorrow came over Haldane. Who were these men? It was his duty to concentrate and remember them. Comrades who had perished while he had lived.

  “I’ll spend the rest of the morning making myself remember.”

  “Do not do that. Your memories will return, all in good time.”

  “I’m thinking the way my eyes are seeing. Everything a little blurred. Like when I was a boy and put on my father’s glasses.”

  Duban clapped his hands. “You spoke about your father. As you lay sleeping.”

  “I did? What did I say?”

  “Oh nothing that made much sense to me. Just murmurs.”

  “Did I speak of anything else?”

  “The war, perhaps. War is a terrible thing, Thomas. Best not to recall it to the waking mind too soon. Wait until you are sufficiently strong.”

  “I saw the lady you mentioned. Outside.”

  “Ah. Yes. Good.”

  “We didn’t speak. I mean, she didn’t see me.”

  “Ma’ahaba is the wife of Deimos, my nephew. You will recall General Deimos when your memory returns. For the moment all you need know is that he is the head of one of the few families in this region in alliance with your army. Thus, you were saved.”

  “General Deimos is not here?”

  “And has not been, my friend, for several years. Nor do we expect his return until this wretched war is over. Most of our kin too are out in the field or working with governments abroad. Though we are not as numerous as once we were, alas.”

  “The portraits in the hall – they’re all of this family?”

  “Military men for the most part. Yes.”

  “But you are not? A military man. Or maybe you once were?”

  Duban smiled. “We each must find what is requested of us.” Then he laughed. “There must be at least one warrior for peace.”

  Haldane did not go straight to his room after breakfast but, at Duban’s suggestion, took another walk in the orchard. This time he set out with purpose, to discover the shape and dimensions of his temporary home. He found immediately, sticking to the side of the house, that it was much grander than he had realised. Until now he had only seen his upstairs room, the corridor and steps and the great chamber where he spoke with Duban. He had imagined that there were kitchens behind somewhere and of course rooms for Duban and Ma’ahaba. But behind that part of the house the building, or rather buildings, stretched deep into the gardens. The stonework looked older the further back he walked. New additions had been constructed, he reckoned, over decades, perhaps centuries. The soldier knew little of architecture, even less in this part of the world, so he had no way of dating the different styles of stone- and brickwork. At the centre the house extended up to a third storey, and above that a narrow tower of creamy stone with arched windows overlooked the entire construction.

  Reaching what looked like the back of the house he kept walking. In this direction the gardens seemed never to end. At first there were more trees, few of which he could name. Apple, more cherry, lemon or lime. One ancient-looking specimen with astounding orangey-red flowers that looked as if it came from the tropics. Given what Duban had told him about the family, there must have been some time in the recent past when the family was grander, with servants and gardeners, and perhaps not so cut off from the world. Before the war. The little channels of irrigation curled off in all directions, their overgrown untidiness making them look like natural springs. Heading straight through the trees, protecting him from the sun above, he saw signs of other small buildings that had either disintegrated through time or had been knocked down.

  He heard the birds before he saw them. A soft whistle at first, then a tapping he knew must be a woodpecker. He glimpsed for a moment a green spark high up on one of the tallest trees, some kind of parrot. As he followed a little stream round a copse he came to a small, thick tree, alive with little white birds with black plumes. Scores of them chattering.

  It took him some time to find the perimeter wall. Behind the barbed wire he saw great mountains in the distance. High and remote and craggy. He felt he recognised them. Perhaps he had been in helicopters there before the last one crashed and brought him here. Staring towards the peaks, he saw a large bird launch itself off the wall and headed out into the silent open space beyond. He thought perhaps it was some kind of falcon. He saw no sign of Ma’ahaba, except once he thought he caught movement out the corner of his eye. A flash of white. But his peripheral vision was still blurry and doubtless it was one of the little white birds, or a blossom swaying in the breeze.

  In his room Duban had left some basic tools and two books. A 1950s history of wireless communication and an old children’s guide to how radios work. Haldane doubted if either would be of much use, but he put the radio on the bed and flicked through the pages. There were diagrams, but of much earlier apparatuses. He managed to take the back off the radio. Certain wires and configurations bore a resemblance to the pictures in the books. He had no idea where to begin but he tinkered a little using the old screwdrivers and pliers Duban had left.

  Tired, he lay out and allowed himself to doze off. But the sleepier he got the more he became aware of aches and pains. His leg throbbed, and still that general pain which now he felt most keenly in his shoulders and neck. His felt as if his head was being forced back, against a hard chair, yet he was lying on his bed. As he drifted towards sleep he dreamed, or perhaps remembered, being in a helicopter. He was thrown around by its jerky movements and the engine made a terrific noise. A man sat in front of him, at the controls. He felt he knew the pilot, but with only his back in view he couldn’t bring the man’s face to mind, or his name. And there was another soldier behind him. They were all laughing. The man behind shouted over the noise and the pilot in front pointed down towards the ground. They all laughed more. Haldane strained to look out the window and saw below the mountains, and amid them the old house and orchard and just visible a woman lying, apparently naked, between the trees. Then the helicopter suddenly jolted violently, and he thought he heard a woman’s voice call out to him.

  “Thomas!” But when he managed to wake fully and make his way out the room it was Duban waiting for him at the foot of the stairs. Haldane descended haltingly and was about to enter the great room when the old man stopped him. “Tonight you are well enough to eat at a table. The captain’s table, aha!”

  He followed the old man out through a door behind the staircase and along a similar corridor to the one above, with more portraits, then into a narrower, older passageway with several doors at either side. They came to another little hallway, almost a replica of the one below his room but lit only from a skylight above. Duban opened a door.

  “Before we go through. Look!”

  Haldane stepped into the room. The library wasn’t large but all four walls were stacked to the ceiling with books and manuscripts and papers. Down the middle of the chamber were more bookcases, some of them modern, basic metal frames, others antiques, rich dark woods. The books themselves, like the orchard, looked like they had once been perfectly ordered and stacked, probably catalogued, but could do now with tidying up and reorganising. Duban looked into the room with unconcealed devotion.

  “There haven’t been many new additions in recent years. But there are wonders here. So many years I have spent in this room and even I still discover books I never knew existed.”

  He closed the door gently as though it were the room of a sleeping child, then led Haldane across the hall into another room.

  The soldier felt he had entered another country: a country he knew better. Down the centre of the room was a long table set about with twelve chairs. The kind of table his mother would have liked. What she would have called up to date. Highly polished with a reddish glow. The far end was set
for three: napkins, glasses that looked like the Caithness glass his mother was also fond of, cutlery and white supermarket crockery, a bottle of red wine.

  “Be seated Captain. Tonight dinner shall be served to you in a way befitting your rank.”

  From a second door into the room appeared Ma’ahaba, carrying a stainless steel hostess tray. She wore a mink-coloured lace top that showed her shoulders, and a skirt to below the knee. Her dark hair was combed now, thick and sleek, looping round her shoulder and down her neck and breast. Haldane thought her very beautiful.

  “Captain Haldane. Forgive me for not introducing myself earlier. Duban tells me that I completely ignored you this morning. Sorry – I was dead to the world.”

  “Please. No problem. Nice to meet you.”

  She smiled and nodded but did not approach him. “Likewise.”

  “You look very charming tonight, Ma’ab,” Duban said.

  “Thank you. One must make an effort for guests. I don’t often have the opportunity.”

  She placed the tray on the table, keeping her back straight and bending at the knee gracefully. “I imagine,” she said, “you might crave some traditional food. Roast beef is impossible in these conditions so I have made curry. Is that still a staple these days?”

  “… there are wonders here. So many years I have spent in this room and even I still discover books I never knew existed.”

  “It is, yes.”

  She served both him and Duban; the best dressed person was serving the still barefoot soldier and the old man in his simple robe. Duban thanked her profusely. She crossed to another cabinet and took out a heavy earthen pitcher. “We don’t have wine here either, but sometimes a little is smuggled in. This, the guerrillas tell me, is from Hanat. It has to be decanted hours before. But I find the lees make a good compost for my herb garden.” She poured a glass for Haldane. “This is our last bottle.”

  “Then please don’t use it for me.”

  Ma’ahaba spoke with perfect English enunciation and Haldane became conscious of his coarser Scots.

  “What better excuse could there be, Captain?” She poured herself a glass, put down the pitcher and poured Duban a glass of rose-tinted water from a jug.

  The curry tasted almost exactly as Haldane remembered it from restaurants back home and the wine, though it smarted a little in his mouth, gave him relief from his aches. They chatted over dinner like colleagues in a canteen. Haldane asked how ingredients that weren’t to be found in the orchard were acquired and was told that allies of the family made deliveries of foodstuffs and other essentials whenever they could.

  “The General organises regular supplies to be sent from the capital.” The General being Deimos, Haldane concluded, Ma’ahaba’s husband.

  “Despite being so remote, we are blessed, and want for little,” said Duban.

  “The General,” Ma’ahaba continued, “sends when he can preserved foods.”

  “Pickled beetroot, ginger jam, preserved lemon, myrtle berries,” Duban explained eagerly. “Though we have here in the gardens pistachio, peaches of the Omani variety, Indian gooseberry –”

  “Usmani quince, jasmine. And aloe wood and ambergris –”

  “To sweeten the burning wax.”

  Only then, looking around him, did Haldane realise that there were no electric lights in the house. So far he had woken when it was light and fallen asleep before nightfall.

  The subject of supplies and General Deimos’s generosity exhausted, Haldane was interested to know about the woman of the house. What had brought her here and what was it like to live with only the old man as company. Ma’ahaba, her eyes glowing with the peppery wine they shared, spoke contentedly. “I miss spaghetti and ice cream. And champagne. Baked beans!”

  “Ma’ahaba studied at Cambridge,” Duban informed the soldier proudly.

  “Only my master’s. I was at Durham. History and politics before a master’s in international relations. Much good it did me. I met the General here, home in the capital seeing my parents before embarking – or so I thought – on a diplomatic career.”

  And now Haldane noticed the faintest trace of an accent in her voice. As she told her story he had the opportunity to look at her more closely. Her brown eyes, groomed dark brows, the swell of her bosom. He tried to find clues in her conversation as to what age she might be. She had the confidence and the full figure of a woman some years older than him. The way she dressed he thought might be old-fashioned, though that could be due to availability of clothes in such a secluded place. But there was not a line on her face, her hair luxuriant, and her conversation and laughter almost girlish. Once or twice he thought she caught him staring at her. If she did, she didn’t seem to mind.

  “My family, unlike The General’s, has a long association with England. I had a ball there. A ball!”

  Duban became uneasy as Ma’ahaba poured a third glass for herself and reminisced about parties, swimming in the sea, public houses and nights out with her student friends. He began to clear away the dishes, interrupting her to ask where she wanted bowls and spice mills put, though he clearly knew the answers to these questions. Ma’ahaba seemed not hear or notice him, prolonging, Haldane thought, what must be a rare night of conversation, and with a stranger. For his part he could think of little to say, his memory still hazy and the wine adding, not unpleasantly, to his blurred thinking.

  That night he experienced the dark for the first time. A lamp was burning in his room though he had no memory of Duban or Ma’ahaba leaving dinner to light it. Its vapour was fragrant, scented presumably with the ingredients they had told him of, and filled the room with a dark leafy glow. Not so bright to obscure the stars outside his open window, flaring in their millions as though straining to be free of the sky. He lay on the bed, cooling in the draft from the window and as he closed his eyes he heard the helicopter engine again and saw the face of the pilot. He remembered his name now. Michael. No memory of a surname, but definitely Michael. Sitting next to him, in helmet and uniform the second flight officer – until she turned round and he saw Ma’ahaba’s face, a smile on her lips. But he was not fully asleep and knew her to be a dream. Wishful thinking, and he laughed. Perhaps a sign of his strength returning? In the glow of the room he thought he could still see her, in the doorway, looking in on him. She was a beautiful woman after all, and surely lonely, cooped up here with an elderly brother-in-law.

  When sleep overtook him again he was with Michael, and the other officer who had been operating the radio. Sam? They were not in the ’copter now but in some kind of makeshift bar with bottles of cold beer and all three of them were talking and smiling. Haldane felt that if he concentrated enough he could make out their words. Michael was speaking, explaining something, but all Haldane could hear was a distant murmur.

  When he woke the murmuring continued. He waited for it to fade like the rest of the dream, or the memory, but it persisted. As he lay there looking out the window, the branches of the fruit tree rippling blackly against the stars, the pilot’s voice was still whispering in the distance. Except now it sounded more like a woman’s voice. And still it didn’t disappear. Until he was convinced he was actually hearing someone somewhere talking, downstairs perhaps, or closer and whispering. Whether Ma’ahaba’s or Duban’s voice he couldn’t tell. The old man had a waferthin voice, highly pitched.

  Haldane got out of bed and made his way, frowning at the pangs of pain, towards the corridor to see if he could hear any better. There could be no doubt, the voice was not a dream. A little stronger than before, and he thought it came from above him rather than from the room below. He remembered that there was a third floor, visible from outside in the orchard, but whether directly above him or not he wasn’t sure. He had never seen any steps leading upwards. Reaching the little upper hall, he caught sight of the portrait that hung there and the face of the family ancestor seemed to censure him. He could see no light shining from the great chamber below. Whoever was talking, he decided, it was none
of his business. His father would have told him that he was being meddlesome.

  So he returned to lie in his bed and let the constant whispering lull him back to sleep. A rhythmic gentle pulsing that quietened the low growl of the helicopter engine.

  In the morning, feeling freshened, he did not go down at once to breakfast but tried his hand again at the workings of the radio. It began to make a little sense to him: a certain pattern to its tiny plugs and sockets and connections. He carried it over to the window so he could inspect it in the light. He noticed for the first time that a section was bent and a little blackened, a missing metal plug here and there, one or two others loose. His eye was caught by something moving in the garden below him. Ma’ahaba, robed entirely in white, head to toe, which surprised him, strolling through the garden a few trees back from the house. He turned back to the radio. Concentration was good. Perhaps if Duban had some wire in the house he could devise makeshift replacements. But would a house without electricity have such a thing? And if there was no power was the entire enterprise a waste of time?

  He was about to don his uniform when he noticed that alternative clothes had been left to him. A pair of loose trousers, a light full-sleeved shirt and a pair of simple leather slippers. Much more practical than his own heavy clothes. There was even a little scarf. He had noticed that both his hosts wore one round their neck, presumably to protect against the sun.

  Haldane put on the trousers and shirt, but left the scarf. Walking downstairs he felt underdressed. He remembered a joke of his father’s: “Disgraceful. I’m quite certain they were naked under their clothes.” Now the soldier did feel naked, and a little vulnerable, under his new regalia.

  Duban was nowhere to be seen. There was a jug of cool cardamom tea, on the table, slightly bitter but refreshing in the rising heat. If they could keep something cool perhaps there was some form of power, a generator maybe? He took his glass out into the garden and headed towards where he thought he had seen Ma’ahaba. But the orchard was confusing, disorienting. Turning back he could no longer see the house, despite its size. He enjoyed the game of finding his way back, his leg giving him less bother today. The challenge reminded him of childhood walks, his father getting distracted by some plant or other, or a butterfly, and leaving young Thomas behind. His father always turned up a moment or two later with some new marvel for the boy.