Talitha Koum

Chapter 09

TALITHA KOUM

CHAPTER 09

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So then, they were off.

They steered the car down the gentler slope toward their left until they arrived at the road at the bottom of the valley. On a hunch, they headed toward their left. The terrain was even enough for a car, except for the occasional bump in the road that Mr. Fong had to manoeuvre around…sometimes not so successfully.

“Ow!” Tom bumped his head. “Watch it!”

“Hey!” Mr. Fong shouted back. “Just the road, man! Not me!”

Twenty minutes passed. They made a turn around a bend in the hillside.

Mr. Fong pointed up ahead. “What’s that?”

“Yeah, I see it.” The other two nodded.

At first, it was a nondescript block of some sort that had just popped up in front of them, maybe half a mile down the road. Within a few minutes, however, it had become clear that the structure they were looking at was, in fact, the wall around a small city. As they approached it, they began driving by more and more people that were going into and out of the city via the main gate in the wall.

And not only were there men, women and children going through the gates, there were animals accompanying them as well, often pulling on wagons with goods and other wares that seemed to be good enough to buy.

“It looks like…market day! In China!” cried Mr. Fong.

Tom turned to him and smiled. “Just what I was thinking…!” He shrugged. “Not China, though.”

Mr. Fong brought the car to a stop about fifty yards away, off to one side of the gate. They got out of the car.

And the people stopped.

They stopped walking. They stopped talking. All the noise, except for the animals, died down.

Tom, Julie and Mr. Fong began stepping toward them.

The crowd backed away in droves, like the newcomers carried some disease.

Tom paused and had a good look at the people gathered there. They were all dressed similarly, in long tunics and headdresses. The men were dark skinned, as were their eyes and hair. Tom was no expert in ethnic origins, but he thought they looked Middle Eastern. Iraqi or Iranian, probably.

Julie eased in another few steps and starting talking to one of the men standing closest to them. “Excuse me…”

And that was as far as she got before the man raced off, mumbling something she couldn’t make out.

“Julie…” Tom began.

Julie turned to another man. “Pardon me…”

This one turned and retreated a few steps, but did not run away. He just stood there, ogling her and had a strange expression on his face.

Julie went to address the crowd in general. “Does anybody here speak English?” She turned this way and that. “Anyone?”

The resonance of her voice echoed back from the wall, waves of sound mixing in with the incomprehension washing over her from the faces of the people.

“What’s the matter with them?” Julie turned to the other two. “Do you think they really can’t speak our language?”

“I think that other guy was staring at your legs.” Tom threw a glance over to the man from before.