Andrew Britton - The Exile
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- Название:The Exile
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Saduq believed he understood. Ishmael had no shortage of courage; his problem, rather, was a lack of audacity and vision. It had been like that since they were children-Ishmael willing to be bloodied in fights, but always in reaction. It had left Saduq the clever student to engineer the bully’s fall, as it now left Saduq the trader to give the fighter encouragement. “We’ve gone far along a precarious course. And now the goal is in sight.”
“Yes.”
“Again, cousin, we can speak of things later. In the meantime my advice is to keep your eyes on the short step. Look too far beyond and you’ll stumble. It’s a lack of attention to the small things that trips us up.” Saduq reached for his glass of mixed fruit juice, gulped what was left in it, and produced an audible sigh of pleasure. “I’ll expect you within the hour. Tell our guest I extend my welcome and goodwill.”
Saduq ended the call and gazed out at the field behind his house, the curved stucco walls of its U-shaped court shading him on two sides from the sun, his loafers off so his bare feet rested on the warm granite tiles underneath them. He had built the home near the waterfall above the village, close enough to the Jebel Marra for its rugged volcanic slopes to be easily seen from his bedroom window. Farther back across the dry grass, beyond a meandering stand of flat-crowned acacias, he could see the favorite among his horses ambling tranquilly in its expansive corral.
He had named the white barb Jaleid, after the Arabic word for snow. With its powerful brow, flowing mane, long, straight back, and proud posture, the creature was of rare pedigree, bought from Bamileke horsemen whose stock had a lineage traceable to the nineteenth century. One of the oldest known African breeds, it was loyal, intelligent, and a swift, supple runner for its size, famed for its ability to negotiate the ravines and slopes of its native environment. The ancient horse people of the northern steppes had rendered the steeds in the cave paintings of Hoggar and Tassili. Hannibal’s troops had mounted them in battle against the Romans. Brought to Europe along with other African plunder after the sack of Carthage, they would become warhorses in Julius Caesar’s cavalry a millennium later. Centuries after Rome itself fell to conquest, the Berbers, from whom the breed inherited its name, had stormed into the Iberian peninsula atop their backs. In the First World War German occupation forces would saddle them to patrol Macedonia’s rugged terrain, while decades later Rommel boasted that his soldiers were prepared to ride them through the streets of a vanquished Moscow in a symbolic show of power and triumph.
It was, Saduq mused, one of the few instances in history when the hooves of the ancient warhorse had threatened, and then failed, to drive their pounding thunder into the minds and hearts of an enemy.
Whether or not Rommel had taken a lesson from that unkept promise, it was eminently apparent to Saduq. However confident one was of one’s plans, it was a mistake to declare them in advance. Victory held its own moment for the warrior. Trumpeting its glorious noise before the strike was an error born of pride and arrogance.
Now Saduq reclined in his chair. In a few hours it would become uncomfortably hot and he would have the stallion returned to its stable. For the present, though, both would enjoy soaking in the late morning warmth.
He closed his eyes, relaxed. When his maidservant came out to stir him with the gentlest of touches, he was surprised to realize he must have fallen into a light sleep.
“Yes, Ange?”
“Sayyid, Mirghani has arrived. With another.”
Saduq yawned, checked his wristwatch, sat up. Incredibly, he had dozed for almost an hour.
“Give me a minute and then show them out here,” he said. “We’ll need cold drinks. And something for them to eat.”
Ange bowed her head and turned toward the house. Saduq watched her retreat, then meshed his fingers, stretched his sinewy arms out in front of him, and slipped his feet back into his shoes.
A moment later he rose to meet his company.
“Mr. White…Ishmael. Please make yourselves comfortable,” Saduq said and gestured them toward chairs facing the one from which he’d stood. “We’ll have some refreshments in just a bit.”
White shook Saduq’s hand, looking around the courtyard. The split-level home through which he had passed was relatively simple in design, but spacious and well appointed. The art on the walls was expensive, and its furnishings and fixtures modern, as were the appliances he’d glimpsed while following the young female servant who had met them at the door. Even in the States, it would have been considered upscale; here in Darfur it was lavish beyond most people’s dreams.
Skirting the village along the ungraded dirt road that brought him from the airport, White had seen plenty of its more typical dwellings-family compounds made up of crude, rounded huts with conical thatch roofs and mud foundations grouped together within irregular wooden fences. Each hut held anywhere from eight to ten family members, with some having zarebas, or animal pens, outside for their shared livestock-a few cows, goats, and pigs, a smattering of chickens, some bowed pack mules, and the lean, mangy dogs meant to guard them against poachers. Other flat-roofed earthen structures within the compound were used primarily for the storage of millet, onions, and dried tomatoes, or contained basic farming tools, or held fire-wood, used to provide heat and fuel the cooking pits for the extended family’s common meals. There was, of course, no electricity, with the only available water carried in buckets from the haftir, earthen reservoir tanks built near the beds of the wadis before the winter dry season approached and the streams ceased to flow for long months on end.
Once, when he had known a great deal less about life, White might have been compelled to reflect on the juxtaposition of those impoverished living clusters and Hassan al-Saduq’s very ample surroundings. Might have spent a few silent minutes comparing the thoroughbred horses in their corrals out back of the courtyard-especially the majestic white specimen in the nearest enclosure-to the bowed, underfed mules he had first seen outside the villagers’ huts, and then again on the road, bearing whatever extra eggs, milk, and cheese they produced down to the market for sale or barter. He might have pondered, too, how Saduq managed to exhibit his personal extravagance without engendering hostility among those who owned next to nothing. While it would have been easy to appreciate why they would fear him, their protective allegiance might have been a source of curiosity.
Now Cullen White took it all in matter-of-factly, recognizing the symbiosis that existed between the powerful and the deprived in the world’s most godforsaken corners. It was like the relationship between the shark and the pilot fish. Men like Saduq kept dangerous predators at a distance with their own ferociousness, while allowing their weaker followers to stay close and protected, and feeding them enough to appease their hunger. In return, they would always stay close, attaching themselves to his sides when it benefited him. But he would see they never slept with their bellies full or were left without their critical dependency.
He sat, dropping his pack between his legs as he waited for the other two men to lower themselves into their chairs.
“So,” Saduq said. “How are things in Khartoum?”
“Tense,” White said. He recalled to his frustration reading the newspaper stories on the plane. “I would think you’d have good sources of information about what goes on there.”
Saduq grinned. “One can never have too many,” he said. “I take it this unrest is because of the economic sanctions?”
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