Aliyyah Read online

  He soon spotted the house, from a different angle than he’d seen it before. There was the third storey he’d seen before, set higgledy-piggledy to one side as if it had once been the centre of another house whose lower sections had now vanished. And next to that, nearer his own room, which he recognised by the fruit tree reaching up to it, was yet another bit of construction, like an outcrop. An attic. Ma’ahaba’s living quarters? If so he could easily have heard her voice which would explain last night’s whispers.

  “Tell me about the war.”

  “All wars are the same, Thomas.” Duban sat on a low stool under the canopy of an ancient tree, like a man in a pew under a vaulted church roof. Haldane leaned against the tree trunk.

  “One war leads to another and then another. War breeds war. The offspring bear a great resemblance to their parent.”

  “But what about this particular war, Duban?”

  “No doubt distinguished by its unique weapons, the design of uniforms and medals and flags. Particular massacres, atrocities. It came out of the last war and will lead to the next.”

  Haldane smiled at the old man. “You think a lot, Duban. I didn’t say tell me about war, but about the war. This war. I’m only trying to remember.”

  “Then I am of no use to you, my friend. They are all the same to me.”

  Haldane sat on the grass and kept his back against the tree. “Is war always evil? Doesn’t it show nobility, courage?”

  “Perhaps, perhaps it can. But to what end, I wonder?”

  Haldane thought for a moment and asked: “If each war stems from the last, then there must have been a First War? The daddy of them all.”

  “I think that is possible. A battle so long ago and in so distant a place that we cannot now comprehend who or what started it or what it was about. All we know is, it was never finally won or lost. As no war ever is.”

  “You sound like my father.”

  “By the tone of your voice, Thomas, that is a mixed blessing?”

  “He was a good man. A minister.”

  Duban clapped his hands and laughed. “I thought so! It is your fate, Thomas, to be surrounded by clerics!”

  “I suspected as much.”

  “For what reason, I wonder?! Because I am old and ugly and tedious! Because I tend towards sermonizing, as you have just witnessed, rather than conversation.”

  “No. For the way you tended me, and still do. And all the books.”

  “Your father had books too?”

  “This whole place…” Haldane looked around, over towards the house half-hidden behind leaves and jewels of hanging fruits. “It’s so foreign, mysterious. Nothing is like the way it was at home. Your books look different from his, smell different. I can’t name most of the things I see here. And yet, it reminds me so strongly of the manse, its little garden.”

  “Ah, a house is a house, a room a room, a tree a tree. All things, underneath their little local differences, are the same.”

  But Haldane still stared at what he could see of the building. “That part of the house is higher than that one. But I haven’t seen any stairs up.”

  “Constructed, as no doubt you have calculated, at different times, by men with different aspirations and ideas of home.”

  “But how does one get from the second floor to the third?”

  “There is nothing up there. With only Ma’ahaba and I here, we need less than a quarter of the rooms.”

  “But I thought I heard… Doesn’t Ma’ahaba have her apartments up there?”

  Duban got up and took his stool. “Due I imagine, though I am no architect, to the particularities of the building, sound travels in odd ways. I too have noticed that.” He began walking towards the house. “Tell me. The radio.”

  Haldane followed him. “Doing my best. Working in the dark I’m afraid. You have no access to electricity here?”

  “Oh something can be arranged I’m sure. Even less than an architect I am no electrician. All that reading and I have learned nothing useful! But we can consult our allies here and General Deimos. They have worked wonders for us before.”

  As they came to the door that led directly into the large chamber, Haldane decided to walk a little longer alone.

  Turning round to the back of the house he discovered it was, or at least had been at some time, the front. There was a portico flanked by grand colonnades. On its roof were what Haldane first thought were gargoyles. Coming closer he saw they were depictions of real people. More members of the family, like the painted portraits he had seen inside. They stared back sternly at him. There was a central entrance on a pediment, the doors themselves ancient-looking, distressed and splintered. Haldane looked for a handle but there was none to be seen. He put his shoulder against the wood but the doors remained rigidly shut.

  Stepping back down from the porch he could see, through overgrown trees, the outline of an old path. He decided to see where it led. Fighting his way through branches and thorns he kept to its fading course.

  Eventually the trees and shrubs and weeds thinned out and he was able to walk upright for a distance. At the end of it was a gate. Not the original he thought, approaching it. Heavy, hulking slabs of grey iron, factory made, with barbed wire on top and laced through the metal spokes. He looked through, beyond into the empty, dusty surrounding terrain. There seemed to be nothing between the house and the distant hazy mountains.

  Having gone back to his room to collect the pliers and back to the gate Haldane now busied himself by the window trying to fix little slivers and shards of wire into the minuscule holes of the radio’s motherboard. He cut his finger several times on both the barb and the pliers and sucked the blood away.

  Working at something, even this, unsure of what he was doing or why, helped bring back memories. He still couldn’t remember the pilot’s second name but the other officer – a flight lieutenant – Samuel? No, something like that. And the fact that he himself wasn’t a proper soldier. Not a fighting one. At least he had no memory of ever being in a battle. He had some other duty. And that realisation led his thoughts down a different path.

  There had been a fight. A quarrel. One that he knew preyed on his mind before his memory had been dimmed by the crash. He recognised the feeling of regret, of something unfinished before anything of the dispute itself came to mind. But now it did, fraction by fraction. It had been with his father. A row. Haldane could picture him – only just, not seeing clearly his own father’s features – sitting behind his books, looking despondent, close to tears. He could hear his own voice shouting. Not the actual words but the unmistakable tone of defiance and self-righteousness. And then he could make out a single phrase – though perhaps he was confusing it with this afternoon’s discussion with Duban. “Is it not the mark of a man to fight?”

  Then, somewhere in the garden, he heard Ma’ahaba singing. It sounded like some kind of lullaby, soothing, not too much variety in its melody or expression but soft and sweet and hypnotic. He strained his head out the window to see where she was but there was no sign of her. With the rhythm of the woodpecker and chatter of distant birds Ma’ahaba’s voice sounded like the breeze, as though it were her song rustling the leaves in the orchard and not the breeze itself.

  Dinner that night was in the same room as before, though it took Ma’ahaba some time to appear. Duban and Haldane talked about many things: the soldier’s health, then the old man’s – apparently excellent – the healing properties of certain foods and plants, and finally the war.

  “No news is good news, is that not the expression, Thomas? When you were brought here I was told that the front had moved a good way away from us and that we are safe here for the time being.”

  “Will they let you know when we’re not?”

  “Excepting complications, yes. But we must plan for the worst, no? There is no need for panic, but the sooner we can get you to safety the better.”

  “I am putting you in danger.”

  “We will not be forgiven for harbouring
an enemy. But if the opposing forces reach our gates then we are in big big trouble anyway.” Duban squealed with laughter as if he had cracked a fine joke, and ate his spiced chickpeas with relish.

  When Ma’ahaba came in she did so as if the three of them had eaten together for months like this. No longer dressed up she wore a long embroidered gown that Haldane thought could be either a housecoat or a dressing gown. She had tied her hair up, with pins and little clasps, leaving tendrils of hair around her neck. Her slippers were beaded leather and she shuffled in them rather than walked.

  “What have you been doing today, Ma’ahaba?”

  “You wonder, don’t you? How do I spend my time in this place in the middle of nowhere. Do not worry about me, Captain.”

  “Please. Thomas.”

  “Oh but how often do we have a captain among us! Your name – sorry, but I’m sure you agree – is a fairly common one. Captain has much more of a ring to it. Virile and brave and pleasingly ceremonial!” She laughed and sat back in her chair, crossing her legs. “I have plenty to do. I write. Letters. Lots of them. I tend to my herb garden and then I marinade fruits and spice vegetables, and preserve them in jars. And I read. Exercise. And walk. Make plans. The question is, what do you do all day, Captain Haldane?”

  “I have to admit, compared to you…”

  “Thomas is resting, Ma’ab. Under my strict orders!”

  “He’s a man of action, Duban. And one, I imagine, not used to being by himself.”

  “I’m sorry. Could I be of some use?”

  “Do you feel the world has forgotten you? Thinks you are dead yet goes on about its business merrily.”

  “Our guest is recuperating, Ma’ahaba,” Duban furrowed his brow, a little theatrically Haldane thought. “And we none of us know how severe his injuries are. And he is fixing his radio, aren’t you, Thomas?”

  “Life is what you make it, don’t you think, Captain? We all know it’s possible to be lonely in the crowd. You can live in the busiest part of New York or Buenos Aires and have nothing to do on a Saturday night. Long-married couples feel alone or pass the time actively despising one another. And who was it said the world is full of people who dread death yet are bored on Sunday afternoons.”

  “I heard you singing.”

  Duban filled Ma’ahaba’s water glass then said, “She has a lovely voice.” But Ma’ahaba made no comment.

  Haldane was drinking only water yet felt woozier than when he had been drinking wine. He lost the thread of the conversation – if, indeed, there had been any – until he heard Duban say, “Of course you’re right. The gardens tickle me. So many years surrounded by them, the same trees and channels and plants and birds, and yet I often think I have seen something new.” Duban was talking to him, as though answering a question, though the soldier couldn’t remember asking one.

  “It has almost the opposite effect on me. It is completely new to me yet I sometimes feel as if I know it.”

  Duban gave his little high laugh. “Then perhaps what you heard was a memory, not something new at all.”

  “Your memory is returning,” Ma’ahaba contributed, “but not in the way you expected.”

  “There we have it! Fruitless to look for something which is not there.”

  The old man said it with a note of finality, the question settled. Haldane couldn’t quite say why, but his tone nettled him. “Forgive me, Duban. But didn’t you say you were a priest? Then isn’t that precisely what you do – look for what is not there?”

  Duban did not seem put out in the least, but answered merrily. “Ah, but if I understand your meaning, then there is no need to look. I take it you mean Spirit, or the Divine. Then, my friend, it is most certainly there. Like salt in sauce. You would only notice it were it removed.”

  “Or wouldn’t have missed it had it not been added in the first place?”

  To which Ma’ahaba threw back her head and laughed. “Uncle, you have a feisty one here. You see? A warrior. The minute he senses battle…”

  “And the mightiest warrior,” Duban replied, “is he who conquers himself.”

  The helicopter plummeted throughout the night. He was seated behind the pilot who, when she turned, was Ma’ahaba, hauling at the lever and cyclic, exulting in the noise of the dive. She leaned forward and worked some control on the panel that opened the windshield and the rush of air deafened Haldane and thrust him backwards. Ma’ahaba stood up and yelled for him to do the same. “Hang on to me, Captain!” He managed to get to his feet, his leg aching in the cold. She reached behind her, found his arms, and pulled them round her waist like a pinion rider on a motorbike. She thrust the cyclic and the ’copter pulled sharply out of its dive, turned upwards, so that for a moment they were facing the sky, Haldane hanging on tight to her to stop himself falling over. She feathered the pitch of the rotor blades, straightening up and gaining speed.

  Below, he could see lights and the silhouettes of hills. Hills that looked more like those of his home country than war-torn ridges and rocks. Ma’ahaba’s hair billowed in the rush of air, her body soft and sumptuous under her airman’s uniform.

  She spoke to him but he couldn’t hear her words. Just a murmur, gently repeated, like a prayer.

  He found the front of the house again, the porticoes with statues of the family ancestors, their eyes blank and dead. Although he had dreamed all night – waking at times terrified, at others calmed by images and memories of home and childhood – he felt stronger today. Turning the corner at the far end of the house, its walls here some kind of sandstone, crumbling to the touch, he came across a low wall. Leaning over he saw what must be Ma’ahaba’s herb garden. Straight little rows of green shoots next to yellow leaves and miniature shrubs. At the far end there was a glass-paned door which might, he reckoned, lead to the woman’s living quarters. There was no other way into the miniature terrace, other than clambering over the wall. Haldane was tempted but thought better of it. A single window was closer to this end of the patio.

  Some of the plants had labels on them, written in a neat hand. Ajwain. Myrrh. Indian hemp. At the centre stood the only tree, or large shrub, heavy with pomegranates. Along the side, near the door, were pruners and spades, pots and a bucket, under a tap dripping water.

  He had expected to see Ma’ahaba come out the door onto the patio but instead caught sight of her out in the orchard proper. She was dressed again all in white, a shawl or mantilla over her head. She appeared, between trees, for only a moment, but not so far away that she wouldn’t have seen him, yet she ignored him completely. He called out to her but she didn’t answer. Irritated, he sat on the wall for a moment, looking at where she had appeared, but she never emerged from the copse he had seen her enter. As he got up to go, round the back of the house this time, he saw in through the patio window, and there was Ma’ahaba sitting reading.

  She couldn’t possibly have had time to return to the house, certainly not without him seeing her. Also, she was not dressed in white, but in the embroidered gown, its threads gold and red, she had dined in before. The book lay on her lap and her gown was open at the neck and thigh. He was sure she knew he was there, looking in on her, but she never raised her eyes from the page.

  “There is someone else in this house.”

  Duban busied himself setting a salad of seeds and nuts before Haldane. “In what sense, my friend?”

  “In the ordinary sense, Duban. A woman. There must be.”

  “Are we not company enough for you that you wish more? It is a quiet life we lead.”

  “I saw her. Dressed in white. And I think it was her I heard singing, or talking, the other night.”

  “As I say, Thomas, the zephyrs in the trees, the birds. There are martens and marmots, sometimes a fox. We are never alone,” Duban clapped his hands, “in God’s great creation!”

  “None of those things speak or sing, Duban.”

  “Haha! Do they not?”

  “Nor wear white cloaks with hoods.”

  D
uban looked at him and for the first time Haldane saw sadness, or some kind of solemnness, in the old man’s eyes. “Curiosity is the child’s plaything, Thomas. Becoming a man one must leave childish things behind. Is it not you now who are seeking beyond what is present, or real? It takes great effort to understand what we already know, what we already have.”

  “I don’t understand that. Why shouldn’t I know who is here with us?”

  Duban patted the back of the soldier’s hand. “And why should you? You know so very little of this world, our world. You are here, hopefully for your own sake, not much longer. You know nothing of our allies, who are nearer than you think and frequently attend here. Even less of the insurgents and enemies who may not be much further away.”

  “Perhaps when I manage to remember everything. I must know something about such things. I was – am – a soldier.”

  “Very true. Perhaps you will know more than we do. I imagine your gradual recovery keeps you safe from the information. I cannot explain to you everything about the lives of my niece and I. Furthermore I am not persuaded that it would benefit you, or us, in any way. We wish to see you healed, and returned to your own life. We will do everything in our power to help you, believe me my friend.” He took his hand away. “The radio. Have you done more work on it?”

  Haldane knew there was no point in pressing the matter further. “Whatever my duties were on that helicopter working the radio, or doing anything with the electrics, weren’t part of them. Either that or my memory’s even worse than I thought. But I did notice there is what I think must be a battery, inside the thing. If we could find a replacement, or a way of charging it, then that would be a step forward.”