The Animal-Lover's Book of Beastly Murder (3 page)

It was the edge of a windstorm, not the storm itself, Mahmet saw. He patted Djemal’s head briefly. Mahmet was thinking that the other camels and their drivers were in the worst of the storm, since the gloom lay in the direction of Souk Mandela to the north. Mahmet was hoping they’d all be seriously delayed.

Mahmet was wrong, as he discovered on the seventh day. This was the day they’d been supposed to finish the race. Mahmet started at dawn, when the sand was so whirling around him, he didn’t bother trying to prepare coffee; instead he chewed a few coffee beans. Mahmet began to think that the storm had moved down to him, on his direct route to Khassa, and that his competitors had perhaps not done too badly by stopping at Souk Mandela for water, then resuming a direct course to Khassa, because this would put them at the northern edge of the storm, not the middle.

It was difficult for Djemal to make good progress, since he had to keep his nostrils half shut against the sand, and consequently couldn’t breathe well. Mahmet, riding on his shoulders and leaning over his neck, flogged him nervously to go ever faster. Djemal sensed that Mahmet was scared. If Djemal couldn’t see or smell where he was going, how could Mahmet? Was Mahmet out of water? Maybe. Djemal’s right shoulder became sore, then bleeding from Mahmet’s whip. It hurt worse there, which was why Mahmet didn’t try the other shoulder, Djemal supposed. Djemal knew Mahmet well by now. He knew that Mahmet intended to be paid somehow for his efforts, Djemal’s efforts, or Mahmet wouldn’t be putting himself to such discomfort. Djemal also had a vague notion that he was in competition with the other camels he had seen at Elu-Bana, because Djemal had been forced to do other “races” in the form of running faster than other camels towards a group of tourists which Mahmet had spotted half a mile away.

“Hay-yee! Hay-yee!” Mahmet cried, bouncing up and down and wielding the whip.

At least they were getting out of the sandstorm. The pale haze of the sun could be seen now and then, still a long way above the horizon. Djemal stumbled and fell, tossing Mahmet off. Djemal got a mouthful of sand inadvertently, and would have loved to lie there for several minutes, recovering, but Mahmet flogged him up, shouting.

Mahmet had lost his transistor, and went scrambling and scuffling about for it in the sand. When he found it, he kicked Djemal hard in the rump to no immediate avail, then kicked him unmercifully in the anus, because Djemal had lain down again.

Mahmet cursed.

Djemal did likewise, blowing his breath out and baring his two formidable front teeth before he gradually hauled himself up with a slow, bitter dignity. Stupefied by heat and thirst, Djemal saw Mahmet fuzzily, and was exasperated enough to attack him, except that he was weak from fatigue. Mahmet whacked him and gave him the command to kneel. Djemal knelt, and Mahmet mounted.

They were moving again. Djemal’s feet became ever heavier, and dragged in the sand. But he could now smell people. Water. Then he heard music—the ordinary wailing music of Arabian transistors, but louder, as if several were playing in unison. Mahmet whacked Djemal again and again on the shoulder, shouting encouragement. Djemal saw no reason to exert himself, since the goal was plainly in sight, but he did his best to walk fast, hoping that this would make Mahmet ease up on the whip.

“Yeh-yah!” The cheers grew louder.

Djemal’s mouth was now open and dry. Just before he reached the people, his eyesight failed him. So did his leg muscles. His knees, then his side hit the sand. The hump on his back sagged limp, empty like his mouth and his stomach.

And Mahmet beat him, yelling.

The crowd both moaned and yelled. Djemal didn’t care. He felt he was dying. Why didn’t someone bring him water? Mahmet was now lighting matches under Djemal’s heels. Djemal barely twitched. He would have bitten through Mahmet’s neck with pleasure, but he hadn’t the strength. Djemal lost consciousness.

With fury and resentment, Mahmet saw a camel and its driver walk across the finish line. Then another. The camels looked tired, but they were not playing dead-tired like Djemal. There was no room for pity in Mahmet’s mind. Djemal had failed him. Djemal who was supposed to be so strong.

When a couple of the camel drivers jeered at Mahmet and made nasty remarks about his not having given his camel water—a fact which was obvious—Mahmet cursed them back. Mahmet threw a bucket of water on to Djemal’s head, and brought him to. Then Mahmet watched, grinding his teeth, as the winner of the race (a fat old swine who had always snubbed Mahmet in Elu-Bana) received his prize in the form of a paper check. Naturally the Government wasn’t going to hand out that money in cash, because it might be stolen in the crowd.

Djemal drank water that night, and ate a bit also. Mahmet did not give him food, but there were bushes and trees where they spent the night. They were on the edge of the city of Khassa. The next day, having taken on provisions—bread, dates and water and a couple of dry sausages for himself—Mahmet started off with Djemal across the desert again. Djemal was still a little tired and could have rested for a day with profit. Was Mahmet going to stop somewhere for water this time? Djemal hoped so. At least they weren’t racing.

Near noon, when they had to rest under shade, Djemal’s right front leg gave under him as he was kneeling for Mahmet to dismount. Mahmet tumbled on to the sand, then jumped up and struck Djemal a couple of times on the head with his whip handle.

“Stupid!” Mahmet shouted in Arabic.

Djemal bit at the whip and caught it. When Mahmet lunged for the whip, Djemal bit again and got Mahmet’s wrist.

Mahmet shrieked.

Djemal got to his feet, inspired to further attack. How he hated this smelly little creature who considered himself his “master”!

“Aaaah! Back! Down!” Mahmet yelled, and brandished the whip, retreating.

Djemal walked steadily towards Mahmet, teeth bared, and his eyes big and red with fury. Mahmet ran and took shelter behind the bending trunk of a date tree. Djemal circled the tree. He could smell the sharp stink of Mahmet’s terror.

Mahmet was snatching off his old djellaba. He pulled off his turban also, and flung both these things towards Djemal.

Surprised, Djemal bit into the smelly clothes, shaking his head as if he had his teeth in Mahmet’s neck and was shaking him to death. Djemal snorted and attacked the turban, now unwound in a long dirty length. He ate part of it, and stomped his big front feet on the rest.

Mahmet, behind his tree, began to breathe more easily. He knew that camels could vent their wrath on the clothes of the man they hated, and that was the end of it. He hoped so. He didn’t fancy walking back to Khassa. He wanted to go to Elu-Bana, which he considered “home.”

Djemal at last lay down. He was tired, almost too tired to bother putting himself in the patchy shade under the date tree. He slept.

Mahmet prodded him awake, carefully. The sun was setting. Djemal nipped at him, missing. Mahmet thought it wise to ignore it.

“Up, Djemal! Up—and we go!” said Mahmet.

Djemal plodded. He plodded on into the night, feeling the faint trail more than seeing it in the sand. The night was cool.

On the third day, they arrived at Souk Mandela, a busy market town, though small. Mahmet had decided to sell Djemal here. So he made for the open market where braziers, rugs, jewelry, camel saddles, pots and pans, hairpins and just about everything was for sale and on display on the ground. Camels were for sale too, at one corner. He led Djemal there, walking himself and being careful to look over his shoulder and to walk far enough ahead so that Djemal would not bite him.

“Cheap,” Mahmet said to the dealer. “Six hundred dinars. He’s a fine camel, you can see that. And he just won the Elu-Bana to Khassa race!”

“Oh yes? That’s not the way we heard it!” said a turbaned camel driver who was listening, and a couple of others laughed. “He collapsed!”

“Yes, we heard you didn’t stop for water, you crooked old bastard!” said someone else.

“Even so—” Mahmet began, and dodged as Djemal’s teeth came at him.

“Ha! Ha! Even his camel doesn’t like this one!” said one old beard.

“Three hundred!” Mahmet screamed. “With the saddle!”

A man pointed to Djemal’s beaten shoulder, which was still bloody and on which flies had settled, as if it were a serious and permanent defect, and proposed two hundred and fifty dinars.

Mahmet accepted. Cash. The man had to go home to get it. Mahmet waited sullenly in some shade, watching the dealer and another man leading Djemal to the market water trough. He had lost a good camel—lost money, even more painful—but Mahmet was damned glad to be rid of Djemal. His life was worth more than money, after all.

That afternoon, Mahmet caught an uncomfortable bus to Elu-Bana. He was carrying his gear, empty watersacks, spirit lamp, cooking pot and blanket. He slept like the dead in an alley behind the restaurant where he often ate couscous. The next morning, with a clear vision of his bad luck, and the stinging memory of the low price he had got for one of the best camels in the country, Mahmet pilfered one of the tourists’ cars. He got a plaid blanket and a bonus beneath it—a camera—a silver flask from the glove compartment, and a brown-paper-wrapped parcel which contained a small rug evidently just bought in the market. This theft took less than a minute, because the car was unlocked. It was in front of a shabby bar, and a couple of barefoot adolescent boys sitting at a table in the sand merely laughed when they saw Mahmet doing it.

Mahmet sold his loot before noon for seventy dinars (the camera was a good German one) which made him feel slightly better. With his own cache of dinars which he carried with him, sewn into a fold of blanket, Mahmet now had nearly five hundred. He could buy another camel of sorts, not as good as Djemal who had cost him four hundred dinars. And he would have enough to put something down on the house he wanted. The tourist season was on, and Mahmet needed a camel to earn money, because camel driving was the only thing he knew.

Meanwhile, Djemal had fallen into good hands. A poor but decent man called Chak had bought him to add to his string of three. Chak mainly hauled lemons and oranges and did other kinds of transport work with his camels, but in the tourist season, he gave camel rides too. Chak was delighted with Djemal’s grace and willingness with the tourists. Because Djemal was so tall, he was often preferred by the tourists who wanted “a view.”

Djemal was now quite healed of his sore shoulder, well fed, not overworked, and very content with his new master and his life. His memory of Mahmet was growing dimmer, because he never encountered him for one thing. Elu-Bana had many routes in and out of it. Djemal often worked miles away, and Chak’s home was a few miles outside of town; there Djemal slept with the other camels under a shelter near the house where Chak lived with his family.

One day in early autumn, when the weather was a trifle cooler and most of the tourists had gone, Djemal picked up the scent of Mahmet. Djemal was just then entering the big fruit market in Elu-Bana, carrying a heavy load of grapefruit. Huge trucks were being loaded with boxes of dates and pineapples, and the scene was noisy with men talking and yelling and transistors everywhere blaring different programs. Djemal didn’t see Mahmet, but the hair on his neck rose a little, and he expected a blow out of nowhere. He knelt at Chak’s command, and the burdens slipped from his sides.

Then he saw Mahmet just a camel’s length in front of him. Djemal got to his feet. Mahmet saw Djemal also, took a second or two to make sure he was Djemal, then Mahmet jumped and stepped back. He pushed some paper dinars into his djellaba somewhere.

“So—your old camel, eh?” another camel driver said to Mahmet, jerking a thumb towards Djemal. “Still afraid of him, Mahmet?”

“I never was afraid of him!” Mahmet came back.

“Ha-ha!”

A couple of other drivers joined the conversation.

Djemal saw Mahmet twitch, shrug his shoulders, talking all the while. Djemal could smell him well, and his hatred rose afresh. Djemal moved towards Mahmet.

“Ha! Ha! Watch out, Mahmet!” laughed a turbaned driver, who was a little drunk on wine.

Mahmet retreated.

Djemal followed, walking. He continued to walk, even though he heard Chak calling him. Then Djemal broke into a lope, as Mahmet vanished behind a truck. When Djemal reached the truck, Mahmet darted towards a small house, a shed of some kind for the market drivers.

To Mahmet’s horror, the shed door was locked. He ran behind the shed.

Djemal bore down and seized Mahmet’s djellaba and part of his spine in his teeth. Mahmet fell, and Djemal stomped him, stomped him again on the head.

“Look! It’s a fight!”

“The old bastard deserves it!” cried someone.

A dozen men, then twenty gathered around to watch, laughing, at first urging one another to go in and put a stop to it—but nobody did. On the contrary, someone passed a jug of red wine around.

Mahmet screamed. Djemal now came down with a foot in the middle of Mahmet’s back. Then it was over really. Mahmet stopped moving, anyway. Djemal, just getting his strength up for the task, bit through the exposed calf of Mahmet’s left leg.

The crowd howled. They were safe, the camel wasn’t going to attack
them
, and to a man they detested Mahmet, who was not only stingy but downright dishonest, even with people whom he led to think were his friends.

“What a camel! What’s his name?”

“Djemal! Ha-ha!”

“Used to be Mahmet’s camel!” someone repeated, as if the whole crowd didn’t know that.

At last Chak burst through. “Djemal! Ho! Stop, Djemal!”

“Let him have his revenge!” someone yelled.

“This is terrible!” cried Chak.

The men surrounded Chak, telling him it wasn’t terrible, telling him they would get rid of the body, somewhere. No, no, no, there was no need to call the police. Absurd! Have some wine, Chak! Even some of the truck drivers had joined them, smiling with sinister amusement at what had happened behind the shed.

Djemal, head high now, had begun to calm down. He could smell blood along with the stench of Mahmet. Haughtily he stepped over his victim, lifting each foot carefully, and rejoined his master Chak. Chak was still nervous.