‘This stuff is gorgeous!’ she said over her shoulder to Salah. ‘Where did she learn to carve like this?’
Salah briefly spoke with the artist, a middle-aged and weather-beaten woman with a thin face and calloused, graceful hands.
‘She learned it from her father. He learned it from his own father, and as none of her brothers survived childhood, he taught her. Her father used to colour such etchings in many colours, but she can no longer find the substances to make the paints, so she paints mostly in monochrome. She misses having the colours and apologizes because the work is not very pretty.’
‘It’s lovely. Can you find out her name for me, please?’
As Desi drew out her wallet, one of the women signalled to her, then opened a bit of cloth to show her something.
A small clay statue of a woman with a large tiara and hair exquisitely moulded in tumbling curls down her back and over her shoulder. She had prominent breasts, and her pubic hair was clearly marked, but her body had been given a dress of paler clay that flaked easily when she picked it up.
Desi examined it curiously.
‘How old is this?’ she asked.
‘“Very, very old”,’ Salah translated for the women.
‘Do you think that’s true? I mean, if so, wouldn’t it be in a museum?’
‘It is unlikely that anyone in this tribe would make a forgery of that kind. They would consider it blasphemous. That is why they have given her a modest cover-up before selling her.’
Forgery or not, Desi was taken by the little figure.
‘How much is it?’
Again a short colloquy. ‘Twenty dirhams.’
Desi blinked. ‘But it must—it has to be a forgery. If it were genuine they’d be asking a lot more, wouldn’t they?’
‘They find such things in the sand as they travel. They used to destroy them, thinking them some sort of witchcraft. Then they learned that foreigners liked them. For them, twenty dirhams is a lot of money, especially for a found item. They don’t understand why tourists like things that are old and broken like this.’
‘Well, I certainly like her.’
When she had paid and everything had been wrapped in rags or bits of old newspaper and put in a very distressed plastic bag, she thanked the women and got to her feet. With many goodbyes they were on their way.
‘Where do they spend the money?’ she asked later, as they headed out over the desert.
‘Taxis sometimes come and take them to town.’
‘What, such a distance?’
He flicked her a look. ‘They are not always camped so far from civilisation. But mostly they buy from the travelling shops—trucks loaded with every kind of merchandise, which service the nomad communities.’
‘But no chance for that artist to buy manufactured paints?’
‘Probably not.’
‘If I found her some paints, would there be a way to send them to her?’
After a short silence, Salah asked, ‘Why do you bother with this?’
‘Because she’s an artist, and art this good has a right to the proper materials. Are you going to answer my question?’
‘If you sent her something, eventually it would find its way to her. Tell me, when did you develop an interest in the indigenous art and antiquities of Barakat?’
‘I do a lot of travelling in my job, Salah. Half the time I don’t get to see anything more than the inside of my five-star hotel and the shoot site. It’s not the art so much as the people. I rarely get to meet real people in a real environment. Those women are lovely people, so friendly, and they look as though they can use the money.’
‘But the goddess is a collectors’ item. Are you a collector?’
‘The goddess? Is that who she is? How do you know?’ Her interest sparked, Desi dug into the bag of goodies and unwrapped the little clay statuette. She held it cupped in her hand.
‘What’s her name?’
‘It depends on where she was found. It’s almost impossible to say with certainty. My father would say, a love or fertility goddess.’
Desi frowned, accessing recent memories. ‘Inanna! Wasn’t she the goddess of love?’
Salah flicked her a look and said gravely, ‘In Sumer. Yes.’
‘Could it be her?’
‘You would have to ask my father.’
‘Oh, but it’s impossible. It would mean this was five thousand years old!’
‘It probably is.’
Desi gasped. A feeling of wonder flooded her, and a strange energy, as if the little goddess’s locked-up power had suddenly been released into her palm.
‘That’s amazing,’ she whispered. ‘But—why…I mean, how is it I can buy something so valuable just like that?’
‘She might be taken away from you at the airport.’
‘Really?’
‘It is illegal to take antiquities out of the Barakat Emirates. It is part of our cultural heritage. We have museums where such pieces belong.’
‘Seems a pretty poor way to manage resources. Wouldn’t it be better to stop the sale in the first place?’
‘We can’t police the entire desert. Instead tourists are searched before they leave, and such valuable items as your little goddess are confiscated. This discourages tourists from making such purchases in future.’
She laughed. ‘So I’ll have to give up my little talisman?’
‘Not everything is found, of course. Perhaps less than forty percent. If you pack it carefully, you might get away with it.’
She looked at him quizzically. ‘What makes you think I would want to “get away with” taking something that belongs in the country’s museums?’
‘You seem to like it.’
‘You think I steal everything I like? Have you noticed me wearing any of the Crown Jewels?’
‘You paid for it. Most people would not consider it theft.’
‘Oh, give me a break! We make love at night, and in the morning you salve your conscience by suggesting I’m dishonourable, is that it? We’ve been there before, Salah, and I got enough of it last time. Can’t you just enjoy the sex for what it is and leave your condemnation in your pocket?’
His jaw tightened. ‘No, that is not it. I apologize. In my work I see many people who consider themselves honest but who are without any conscience at all in this area.’
‘In your work?’
‘One of my areas as Cup Companion is antiquities security.’
‘Say what?’
‘My task is to prevent the smuggling of antiquities to foreign markets. Both West and East have many wealthy men who are interested in the ancient cultures of the Barakat Emirates. Organizers pay what to poor nomads and farmers seems a good price for any artefact they can steal or dig up, then sell them on to unscrupulous dealers for many times more. They in turn sell it on. By the time it reaches the collector, he is paying thousands of times the sum the finder got. Our heritage is in danger of being destroyed by this practice.’
‘Are you saying your personal mission is to stop it? How do you go about it?’
‘In various ways, none of