The Nostradamus prophecies

22

Sabir found himself ushered, with a certain amount of formal politeness, on to a bench set into the earth in front of and below, the Bulibasha. Yola settled on the ground behind him, her legs drawn up beneath her. Sabir assumed that she had been allocated this spot in order to translate the proceedings to him, for she was the only woman in the assembly.

The main body of women and children were congregated behind and to the right of the Bulibasha, in the position Yola always took in relation to him. Sabir noticed, too, that the women were all wearing their best clothes and that the older, married women were sporting headscarves and prodigious amounts of gold jewellery. Unusually, they were made up with heavy kohl around the eyes and their hair, beneath their scarves, no longer hung free, but was instead put up in ringlets and elaborate braids. Some had henna on their hands and a few of the grandmothers were smoking.

The Bulibasha held up a hand for silence, but everybody continued talking. It seemed that the debate about Sabit was already well under way.

Impatiently, the Bulibasha indicated that the man who had stretched Sabir’s testicles for the knife should come forward.

‘That is my cousin. He is going to speak against you.’

‘Oh.’

‘He likes you. It is not personal. But he must do this for the family.’

‘I suppose they’re going to joint me like a pig if this thing goes against me?’ Sabir tried to sound as though he was joking, but his voice cracked halfway through and gave him away.

‘They will kill you, yes.’

‘And the upside?’

‘What is that?’

‘What happens if things go my way?’ Sabir was sweating badly now.

‘Then you will become my brother. You will be responsible for me. For my virginity. For my marriage. You will take my brother’s place in everything. ‘

‘I don’t understand.’

Yola sighed impatiently. She lowered her voice to a harsh whisper. ‘The only reason you are still alive today is that my brother made you his phral. His blood brother. He also told you to come back here amongst us and ask for a Kriss. You did this. We then had no choice but to honour his dying wish. For what a dying man asks for, he must get. And my brother knew that he would die when he did this thing to you.’

‘How can you possibly know that?’

‘He hated payos – Frenchmen – more even than he detested gadjes . He would never have asked one to be a brother to him except in the most extreme of circumstances.’

‘But I’m not a payo. Okay, my mother’s French, but my father’s American and I was born and brought up in the United States.’

‘But you speak perfect French. My brother would have judged you on that.’

Sabir shook his head in bewilderment.

Yola’s cousin was now addressing the assembly. But even with his fluent command of French, Sabir was having difficulty making out what was being said.

‘What language is that?’

‘Sinto.’

‘Great. Could you please tell me what he is saying?’

‘That you killed my brother. That you have come amongst us to steal something that belongs to our family. That you are an evil man and that God visited this recent illness on you to prove that you are not telling the truth about what happened to Babel. He also says that it is because of you that the police have come amongst us and that you are a disciple of the Devil.’

‘And you say he likes me?’

Yola nodded. ‘Alexi thinks you are telling the truth. He looked into your eyes when you thought that you were about to die and he saw your soul. It seemed white to him, not black.’

‘Then why is he saying all this stuff about me?’

‘You should be pleased. He is exaggerating terribly. Many of us here feel that you did not kill my brother. They will hope that the Bulibasha gets angry with what is being said and pronounces you innocent.’

‘And do you think I killed your brother?’

‘I will only know this when the Bulibasha gives his verdict.’