Girl. Boy. Sea. Read online

  I swam off again but not too far, and took the chance to pee and to put a hand into my shorts and under my armpits to scrub myself.

  I swam round the boat in circles.

  Then: ‘Help me,’ I said, holding out a hand.

  She hesitated. I realised we hadn’t actually touched before, only when I pulled her into the boat, and she’d been out of it then. I held my hand out, till she grabbed it and pulled, enough for me to get a grip on the gunnel and climb over.

  Aya gabbled something in Berber or Arabic, all angry. The aman-maker shook. The knife fell off. I made it right again then sat in front of her, dripping and grinning.

  ‘That’s the best swim I’ve ever had. You go.’

  She stared at the floor of the boat, at the sea. Anywhere but at me.

  I backed away a bit.

  ‘Go on,’ I said.

  ‘Non.’

  ‘C’est bon. Trés, trés, bon.’

  ‘Um… er… non.’

  ‘Go on.’

  She looked over the side, then dipped a hand in the water. She sighed.

  ‘You,’ she said, twirling a finger in the air. ‘Look away.’

  I did.

  The boat wobbled, followed by a soft splash. Aya sliding into the water.

  Why had she not wanted me to see? There was no way she was going to undress. I turned. She was swimming, her dress clinging like a second skin.

  She swam further – way further – than I had gone.

  ‘Hey. Not too far!’ I called. When she was far from the boat I felt afraid, worried. But I didn’t know what for, only that the boat was our home and we were connected to it and being a distance away – either of us – just felt wrong. She swam back and I helped her into the boat.

  We took turns after that. We got braver; swam further and dived deeper.

  I swam under the boat. I dived to where the water got colder and opened my eyes. It was fuzzy. Light blue around me, but endless dark below. I was immersed in the cool light, exploring nothing. Diving and holding my breath till my lungs ached and my ears hurt.

  And saw—

  I panicked, swam and surfaced, gasping.

  ‘Help!’ I shouted, grabbing her hand and tumbling in. I searched the blue.

  ‘You see something?’ said Aya.

  ‘Yes, I saw something. It was big, moving…’

  ‘Qu’as tu vu?’

  ‘I don’t know. But it was bigger than the boat!’

  *

  Was it bigger than the boat? A huge fish maybe, or a dolphin? But one word, one image, swam through my mind.

  Shark.

  I looked over the side, wanting to see it, and not wanting to see it. To know and not know.

  When the sun sank and the air cooled, we ate. One tin of tuna, one of rice pud.

  It wasn’t enough. It was never enough. We tortured ourselves talking about eating imaginary food. Steak and chips for me. A stew for her.

  ‘We have one dish, it is name tagine, and it sits on the fire, like this.’ Aya mimed a huge circle of a stone pot, and the lid, tapering to a chimney that sat on top of it. ‘When the fire is low, the pot sits and inside tomatoes, aubergine, many spice. The smell, I wish you could smell this, it fills the tent. And we have small bread and yoghurt from the goats to eat. We all share this food, everyone. Some tagine so big it can feed ten people. More! Then, after, my uncle he tells a story.’

  We tried to distract ourselves, thinking about the food. About anything other than what I’d seen in the water.

  ‘I wish I could brush my teeth, instead of rubbing them with a finger and swilling sea water,’ I said.

  Aya looked over the side, then at me, then over the side again.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ I said.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It’s gone,’ I said. ‘Whatever I saw, it didn’t hang around.’

  Aya nodded, and sat, with folded arms and her legs tucked in.

  ‘It’s gone,’ I said, and wished I could believe it.

  It was a long time before I stopped looking.

  ‘It’s strange.’

  ‘What?’ said Aya.

  ‘We’re somewhere off the coast of Africa, the Canaries too. There are shipping lanes. There should be boats, plane trails, litter in the water. But here? There’s no planes, no boats. Nothing.’

  ‘Strange,’ she said. ‘Yes.’

  x

  A star blinked into the sky, right over the sinking sun.

  ‘Un.’ Aya raised a finger.

  ‘One?’

  She pointed. ‘One other star. Three… there, four.’

  It was a game: spot the next star. We reached twenty before they appeared so fast we lost count.

  ‘I wish I had my telescope,’ I said.

  ‘What is this?’

  I explained.

  ‘You see more stars?’ she said.

  ‘Thousands more.’

  ‘No, not thousands.’

  ‘Yes. Lie down, look up. Stare at a patch of sky. Then you’ll see more.’

  She did lie down. She stared a long time.

  ‘Yes. I see. The light of the stars.’ She pointed. ‘Very, veeerry far away.’

  ‘The light of some of those stars has taken thousands of years to get here. With some telescopes you can see stars that don’t even exist any more.’

  ‘It is impossible. If you see, then it is there.’

  I tried to explain. The speed of light. The unimaginable distances. The expanding universe all coming from a single point. The Big Bang.

  ‘Each star has a story,’ she said. ‘It is not told with words but light, and with your telescope you read this story.’

  ‘Yes, I guess so.’

  ‘The Big Bang. If this is the beginning of the story what is the end?’

  ‘The universe expanding forever. Till there’s no heat, no light, no life. That’s one ending. The most likely.’

  ‘I do not believe this story. It is not the end.’

  I asked how she knew that, but she didn’t explain.

  When stars littered the night we drank aman.

  ‘Water is life,’ said Aya. ‘Each day is one day we live. Like Shahrazad. You know?’

  ‘Sharzad?’

  ‘Not Shar-zad. Shah-ra-zad.’

  ‘Okay. What’s Shah-ra-zad?’

  ‘No what. Who. Everyone know Shahrazad.’

  ‘Not me.’

  Aya rolled her eyes and laughed. ‘Story you know? Story of Sind-bad, story of The Donkey?’ She reeled off the titles of more stories as though I’d know what she was on about. I shrugged.

  ‘Shahrazad tell story to make life one day more. Really, you do not know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’

  I waited. I thought she’d maybe tell me one. And I wanted it to be better than the story of Pandora. But she didn’t offer. So after a while I said: ‘Tell me.’

  ‘You do not like. Just a stupid story.’ She imitated my voice. Too well.

  ‘Sorry. I’m sorry I said that. I was… you were right, I was angry.’ I didn’t add: and afraid.

  ‘I am no storyteller. I try but… My uncle, as I tell you, he is a storyteller. Everyone love him. When we live in village, in market day he tell story. Everyone sits and listen. Not only children, all peoples, I—’ She caught herself, and stopped.

  ‘Do you remember these stories?’

  Aya bit her lip, thinking.

  ‘Oui.’

  ‘Then please,’ I said, ‘tell me one.’

  I wanted the distraction. I needed something more than thinking about rescue, (or not being rescued), the endless blue desert around us. And that shadow in the water. I needed something other than heat and hunger and thirst. I could hardly bear my own thoughts any longer.

  Aya chewed her lip. ‘Okay. Pourquoi pas? I will try. But, my English is not…’

  ‘Good?’ I suggested.

  ‘No, I do not mean this. Like we do not have food, you say word before?’

>   ‘We don’t have enough food?’ I said.

  ‘Yes. I do not have enough English.’

  ‘Try. Please.’

  She thought about this, with my notebook open, tapping the pen on the paper.

  ‘Please,’ I said again. She put the notebook down and took herself to the aft, sitting where you would steer, above the hold. She tucked her feet beneath her, and perched, balancing, feet flat on the seat, and her knees under her chin.

  She held her hands out and spread her fingers and with every sentence made a picture with gestures. She used English and French, and words I didn’t know, so I had to guess what they might mean. When language stopped working she mimed. She got me to pass the notebook and drew pictures.

  I had to ask her to stop and I had to think, a lot, to get what she meant.

  It was slow. But it worked. And it was fun.

  If I told it exactly how she said it, it wouldn’t make much sense. Not without Aya sitting in front of you, singing the words and painting pictures with her hands.

  But the next day, in my notebook, I wrote it down as well as I remembered it. This is the story. At least my version of it. It was longer. There’s detail I know I’d forgotten overnight. And maybe I added stuff too. I don’t know. But this is more or less what she told me.

  The Tale of Shahrazad

  Once, there was a wonderful country. The wheat in the fields moved like the sea in the wind, the rivers ran with crystal water. There was honey and saffron and many fine things to eat and drink. The tribes in this land were happy and at peace. Nobody was hungry. In the evening there was music and dancing and the telling of stories.

  On the edge of this country there was a great desert, a place of heat and death. And beyond the desert there lived a king. He was a cruel man with a cruel army. His army took for his honour every city and land he wanted. They took diamonds, silver, crops and silks. Where this army went they left a road of bones, a path of ruins and tears. And many widows.

  Yet the more the king had the more he desired.

  The king heard tell of the country across the desert. His hunger grew and his greed made him brave. He travelled over the desert, though it took weeks and many of his men died. When he came to the country he put the land and the people under his sword.

  The tribes fought hard for their freedom, but they were not soldiers. The king took the land, and made slaves of many people.

  The king now had all he could desire but for one thing. He had no bride.

  His army searched villages, hills and valleys. They looked for the most beautiful girl in the land.

  One day they found her. Her smile shone more than jewels. She laughed and sang like a bird. She was joy like a spring morning. Everyone loved her.

  But her beauty was the seed of her death. The king believed all men wanted her. And it is possible he was right! So each night he locked her in his room. She was only let out in the day for a few hours, and only ever with the king or his guard. And she could not speak with men, without the king’s permission, nor could she look any man in the eye.

  The king was not her husband, but her jailor.

  Each day the light of this girl shone less, till one day she was a star that had no more light.

  She hated her life. She climbed from her window. Though it was high and dangerous she escaped and ran, far and fast. But the soldiers had dogs and horses and they found her. And the king had her killed.

  *

  Aya pulled a finger across her throat, like a knife.

  ‘Hachhhhh,’ she rasped. I imagined it was exactly the sound of a blade sawing through flesh. I shuddered. Aya mimed the head of the girl thudding to the floor of the boat. Then picking it up.

  ‘Thud, thud! Her head was put on a, um, long knife?’

  ‘Spear? Spike?’

  ‘Yes, spike. Like this.’ She mimed the grisly act. ‘But the king had taken nothing from the girl. She was already dead…’ Aya’s hands drew in to her chest, ‘in her heart.’

  I waited for the next bit. But Aya just perched there, like a massive crow.

  ‘That’s the story?’ I said.

  Aya shrugged. She had told it so well. Her eyes had flamed, her voice had filled the night. I was there. My mouth had watered when she described the honey and grapes. I could see the villages and fields of wheat, and the army of soldiers dressed in black, riding out of the desert, waving their curved swords, shouting war cries. I’d seen and heard it all.

  ‘It’s a pretty grim story, Aya. But… stories have happy endings, don’t they? And it ended so suddenly.’

  Aya’s shoulders sagged.

  ‘But… I still liked it,’ I said. ‘I liked it a lot.’ And I had, because it had taken me away from the boat and the sea and my hunger. And the shadow beneath. ‘So the bride,’ I said, ‘she was Shahrazad? But you said Shahrazad cheated death?’

  ‘It is true.’

  ‘Oh, then…’

  ‘Yes. It is only beginning of the story. What could the king do now?’

  *

  He took a new girl. But after one night he made the soldiers kill her. In this way he knew no bride would run from him again. He did the same the following day, and the one after that. And outside the city walls, there were many heads on spikes, and the ground was a river with the blood from these girls.

  The king took the women of the land as he had taken cities, one by one. When soldiers came, mothers hid their daughters in barns and in wells. They sent them to forests and mountains to hide. But still the men found the girls.

  Like the sun in the dawn taking the light of the stars, the king stole beauty from the land.

  After three years there were not so many young women.

  But there was one man, close to the king, a vizier, who had two daughters. Before the daughters had been safe, but now the king said to this courtier he must give him one daughter.

  The vizier loved his daughters, Dinarzade, the beauty, and Shahrazad, the learned one. He could not refuse his king, yet how could he choose?

  Dinarzade begged her father for her life. But when she saw that her sister Shahrazad was listening, she saw her tears, and was ashamed.

  ‘Take me, Father,’ said Dinarzade. ‘What is the happiness of one day? All girls must be wives of the king, and all will die.’

  ‘No,’ said Shahrazad. ‘I cannot bear it if you should die.’ The sisters held each other and wept. ‘Take me,’ said Shahrazad, through her tears.

  ‘No,’ said the vizier. But his voice trembled, for he knew one of the girls must go to the king.

  ‘Have you not taught me well, Father?’ said Shahrazad. ‘The lesson of the philosopher, the gift of song, the truth of the poet, the way of alchemy, the paths of the stars and the magic of numbers? I shall use all these, to save my own life and the life of my sister and all the girls of our land that still live.’

  The soldiers came. Shahrazad went with them, and the vizier did not try to stop her.

  ‘Where is the beauty?’ said the king when Shahrazad was presented to him.

  ‘She awaits your honour, my king,’ said Shahrazad, kneeling before him. ‘But wed me first, I beg.’

  It was no matter to the king. He would take her sister as soon as Shahrazad was killed.

  Shahrazad lay with the king. The night was hot. The king could not sleep. And Shahrazad was afraid of the morning, knowing she would face death with the rising sun. Unless she could find a way to cheat death.

  With all her lessons she knew there must be something she had learned that could save her life.

  But she could think of nothing. And as the king slept, she saw light in the east.

  The king woke. He opened his mouth to call the guard.

  But Shahrazad spoke then.

  ‘Once, O great King, in a land so far away there lived…’

  She wove words like thread in a cloth, one by one, making it rich and bright.

  The king was amazed.

  And soon it was dawn. But Shahrazad had not finished
her tale. The king now had a thirst for the story like a thirst for wine, like a hunger for gold. He begged her to finish.

  ‘But,’ she said, ‘I have no time.’

  The king demanded: ‘Finish the story or die.’

  Shahrazad said: ‘But when I have finished the story you will kill me all the same.’

  So he gave her one more day.

  *

  ‘And did she finish the tale?’ I said.

  ‘Tale was part of a story, like a drop of aman is part of the sea. In this way Shahrazad save her life.’

  ‘So, what was the story Shahrazad told?’ I pleaded, like the king.

  ‘Je suis fatiguée,’ said Aya. ‘I tell tomorrow.’ She slid her knees from under her chin and, in one movement, slipped onto the deck, shoving me out of the way and lay down, using the cloak as her pillow.

  ‘You can’t end it there,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. I am like Shahrazad. Ha!’

  Aya’s breathing steadied and she fell asleep, leaving me alone.

  When she had told the story, she’d been alive. She wasn’t just Aya, or even Shahrazad. She was the king, clenching his fists, spitting and grimacing. She was the bride, scared and running.

  We’d eaten our food and drank water and I’d listened to a story. It was as if I’d been drunk on those things.

  I lay beside Aya, head to toe. Hunger returned and gnawed at my insides. Thirst rasped my throat. The skin on my arms stung with burning.

  I tried to think about the story to distract myself. But it didn’t work. All the bad things from Pandora’s vase came back and sat inside me. Hateful hunger, hateful thirst and tiredness. I counted stars until I fell asleep too.

  xi

  Aya’s cry cut through my sleep.

  ‘Ala!’

  She was asleep, but moaning.

  She raised a hand and cried again: ‘Ala!’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I whispered.

  She calmed for a while. But then: ‘Ala!’ as if she was in pain. She sobbed in her sleep, mumbling words I didn’t understand. I grabbed her shoulders and shook her.

  ‘Wake up.’

  Her eyes shot open, seeing terrors. ‘Non,’ she said, ‘non.’

  She grabbed my arm and dug her nails in, and pulled, and grasped, as though I was a ladder she had to climb to get out of her nightmare.