Fabulous Road

Philip Brebner

Description

The Cook. The Dervish. The Geographer. The Artist. The Jongleur. The Scholar. The Historian. A group of men are imprisoned by their Sultan and await death; they are to be executed for petty crimes. They all have one regret-not to have done the pilgrimage to Mecca. Whereupon, a talking parrot, centuries old, flies into their cell and rebukes them, suggesting they undertake the overland pilgrimage in their minds. So the prisoners imagine the journey, weaving art, history, cuisine, geography, literature, philosophy, Sufism, anecdotes and comic stories, to travel a fabulous road across the breathtaking and punishing landscapes of North Africa. All the while they are accompanied by the convivial parrot and its recollections of the past, whether in the company of the Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton in Tangier, as a mascot in the French Foreign Legion, mingling with the cross-dresser Isabelle Eberhardt, as companion to an English aristocrat in Algiers, enslaved by pirates off Tripoli, as sidekick to the circus strongman Giovanni Belzoni or muse to Gustave Flaubert in Cairo. It's a roller coaster of adventures that prove as colourful as its feathers.But who will reach Mecca, as one by one the prisoners are dragged out of the cell to meet the executioner?Winner of the K Blundell Trust Award.

Informations

• Publié par: eBook Versions
• Date de parution: 29 mai 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781843962793
• Langue: English

Extrait

Published by
Thames Street Press

Copyright © 2014 Philip Brebner

Author s website
www.philipbrebnerbooks.com

Philip Brebner has asserted his
right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988 to be identified
as the author of this work.

ISBN-13 978-1-84396-279-3

A CIP catalogue record for
this ebook edition is available
from the British Library.

Cover design by Andy Fielding
www.andyfielding.co.uk

ePub ebook edition production
www.ebookversions.com

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be
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liable to criminal prosecution.
To Maria Jo o
THE
FABULOUS
ROAD


Philip Brebner





THAMES STREET PRESS
Contents


Copyright Credits

Dedication

Title Page

Epigraph

Prologue

Morocco

Algeria

Tunisia

The Mediterranean

The Great Sand Sea

Cairo

Mecca

Also by Philip Brebner
...in a compaigneye
Of sondry folk,
by a venture yfalle
In felaweshipe, and
pilgrims were they alle...

CHAUCER
PROLOGUE


IN ANY COUNTRY, in any language, the declaration, You are under arrest, calls forth a spiritual cyclone that hurls the accused from one world to another. Armed with this formula, in one spell-caught land, the Black Cobras - a pet name inspired by the hoods of their uniforms as much as the affliction they brought to people s lives - came for the Geographer at night. There were advantages to night arrests. No one would know how many were taken away, and the knock in the silence of the early hours was a rap of terror, after all, at that hour, it was unlikely to be the postman.
That night though there was no knock, and later neighbours asked each other in quaking voices if the Geographer had forgotten to bolt his front door. Such carelessness was characteristic of their resident professor, but that did little to diminish the fact that without a sound the State Security agents had entered, and their unwiped jackboots had marched stealthily through his home.
Wake up! The Geographer had narrowed his eyes against the beam of a flashlight, and half-rising from the warmth of his bed, asked, What time is it? He was confused, he was a child again, and his father had come, bearing the pale fire of a candle, to wake him for the dawn prayer. But a laugh curdled the nocturnal odours in the room. Time has no meaning now. You are under arrest. The Geographer s reaction was a plea like a gnat in the surly air, Me? What for? met by the command, Get dressed. Escape is futile.
Fogged by sleep, the Geographer clicked on the bedside lamp, and for a split second the room seemed buoyant. As was his habit, he immediately made the bed, smoothing the sheets and blanket, pummelling the pillows. A feeble hope sent him to the chest-of-drawers where his wallet lay, and he fished out a paper in a laminated cover. His veins quickened with adrenalin as he reached the living room, to find he had stumbled across a circus. His Egyptian cat, Bubastis, was crouched on the rostrum of a cabinet, spitting between bared incisors. Beneath a police dog tottered on its hind legs, straining at a chain gripped by a ringmaster. A stool wobbled beneath a contortionist examining a light fitting. Springs bounced up from an easy chair as some buffoon slashed the upholstery, and a bruiser lifted the settee as if it were a feather. An acrobat leapt from a sill, his arms outspread and pedalling his feet to land - thud! - on a mat to face the Geographer who said, Here is my identity card, as if he was presenting a ticket for the show. The Black Cobra slipped it in the shirt pocket of his fatigues with the hiss, What use is this to us?
The word Maps! was shouted in triumph, prompting the Geographer to rush to his study. Desk drawers hung open. Papers and letters had been rifled. Books, stacked like bricks, were in the process of being pulled down, flipped through, flung aside or dropped in boxes. A man examined a plan of the port of Quraysh. The Geographer shook. Yes, yes. Maps. I am a geographer. The response was a crash as a china cup toppled, the pieces on the tiled floor writing a notation of entropy.
Get dressed! The Geographer obeyed, scratching the stubble that heightened his hollow cheeks. The baroque furniture of his bedroom, once so solid, now seemed tainted with a falseness. Disquieted, he opened the wardrobe door, to discover he longed to step inside and curl up in the naphthalene-scented darkness. He unhooked a white kaftan and a brown burnous off the hangers, but a Black Cobra had slinked in on his heels. All the worse for you if you wear that, he said, onion souring his breath. A suit and tie, that s what the Captain of Interrogations prefers. The Geographer struggled with his shoelaces. It s a mistake. I can t remember the slightest offence I might be arrested for. In reply the Black Cobra spat, Get moving! Noticing a book on the bedside table, he read the spine and called out, Rabelais!
With trembling hands the Geographer straightened his tie in the mirror, and glimpsed a tragic spirit devour his face. He brushed his crop of hair, noticing the first signs of grey. Silently he said a goodbye to the framed photograph of his wife Najla, dead for so few months it still brought a lump to his throat. This country s cancer she had been spared, if nothing else.
Ready? He was led away, descending through the humidity of the stairwell. Outside, the cicadas creaked, Under arrest! Under arrest! Overhead, the splendour of a new constellation reached earth, but joining the sparkles it formed a pair of handcuffs or a leg-iron, as you prefer. Obliviously citizens slept, alone in foetal or swastika positions, or entwined about a loved one.
A dark object - a bat - swept above him. Blue sirens revolved soundlessly on the roofs of a van and two jeeps blocking the road. The Geographer wished for his heart to be borne away on the breath of the midnight zephyr, but instead he was marched along the pavement where, in just a few hours, children would dawdle to school with songs and easy laughter.
Under arrest! Under arrest! He was prodded into the back of the van. Doors slammed. Voices shouted. The ignition coughed. The siren wailed.
Moving off the pressure of the headlights flayed the skins of darkness. Inside there was a reek of petrol fumes. The prisoner slid about the chamber as it gathered speed over rough roads and lurched round corners where Black Cobras with semi-automatic weapons enforced the curfew beside the glare of bonfires.

THE DESTINATION WAS Anidamla, a palace generously donated by the island s sultan, Shahriman, for the security services to use as a jail. Cool air greeted the Geographer as he was ordered out of the van. Green tendrils of dawn light unrolled from the horizon beneath the fading smile of the moon. The palace walls rose in a cliff suffused with a sentimental tint. As if stirred by the lungpower that shocked from invisible guard-dogs the fans of palm trees fluttered a farewell, but was it au revoir or adieu ? The Geographer was shepherded beneath a semi-circular doorway cut with a motif of interwoven rosettes, which brought to mind snow-crystals. He was frisked and escorted on, into a room two strides by two in which a bench, inlaid with ebony and mother-of-pearl, stood beneath a window laced by a cedar screen.
Left alone, it was the snap of a key turning in the closed door that flicked his numbness into outrage. There were lectures to give at the university and the proofs of a paper to correct. He had published in international academic journals. He had a voice. It would not be so simple to make him disappear.
This idea, true or not, acted as a Valium, cushioning him a little. He peered through the latticework to a courtyard where men filed round in circles.
Interrogation!
The Geographer stood flexing his back. He was taken to a room with a shuttered window, lit by an electric chandelier.
The Captain of Interrogations lolled behind a Napoleon III desk. He opened a notebook, puckering his lips as he judged the contents. Looking up he revealed a cruel, sulky mouth that asked, Are you a plumber?
No I m a geographer.
The response was a guffaw of laughter. The Captain of Interrogations finished quivering with mirth, wiped a tear from his eye, then with a level gaze said, Don t lie to me.
The Geographer challenged the grey eyes with his own, coloured hazel, but it takes a lot to beat steel.
I demand to have my lawyer present.
This is Dar al-Narun, not the European Union.
There has been a mistake. Tell me what I ve been arrested for, and I ll prove my innocence.
Inciting crimes against the internal security of state, came the volley.
That is vaguely worded. What exactly is the charge?
Article 3 of the Penal Code.
Can I see it?
I don t have it, the Captain of Interrogations said, but so saying pushed a sheet of yellow paper towards him: Sign this.
The Geographer stood firm. First let me read the code. Get it from your superior.
He doesn t have it either. You don t need it. Your signature only acknowledges that you have been advised of the code. I am waiting - .
So am I.
The Captain moistened his lips. Very well, I bow to your request. Warder! Show the prisoner the procedures of the Penal Code.
The man he summoned resembled a puma, such was the width of the mouth, and so broadly set and depthless were the eyes. Have we met before? he purred, No? He took the Geographer along a stretch of corridor where the walls seemed to be buttressed by oblique shafts of sunlight breezing down from upper windows. They stepped into an elevator cage wrought with unearthly flowers and insects. An outer gate was pulled