your arm and then we’ll eat,” she said.
The tent’s flap dropped back, and Max was alone. Flexing his arm, he felt the pain creep up into his shoulder. The nausea persisted, but he was sure he could shake it off. He had to. This place of safety suddenly felt like a cage.
“The wound must not be closed up. So no stitches for you,” Fauvre said as he swabbed the monkey bite on Max’s arm. The wound was looking bad, with veinlike tendrils creeping upwards beneath the skin.
Fauvre now wore a cool, loose-fitting white shirt, and his withered legs were covered by white trousers. Max thought the clothes made him look a bit like a doctor, but that didn’t offer much comfort.
“It hurts?” Fauvre asked as he eased the wound open.
“A little,” Max replied, wishing the probing fingers and stinging antiseptic would stop their pulling and squeezing.
“The infection is still there, and you have some blood poisoning. It might be advanced. I cannot say, but that’s what those red lines are going up your arm. When was the last time you had a tetanus shot?”
“Couple of years ago, I think.”
“Right. Tetanus and penicillin for you. I will also give you a multivitamin shot. Help boost your system. Those injections hurt more than the others; they feel like soup being injected. I hate them, but I give myself one once in a while.”
“Then I’d rather take a pill.”
They were in a small examination room, which Max reckoned Fauvre used for looking after animals. Fauvre turned the wheelchair and reached for a small fridge. Max noticed all the cupboards were at the same height, designed to allow the disabled man to live his life as easily as possible.
“Of course you would rather take a pill. That’s the easy option, and about as useful as sucking a sweet in these circumstances. Besides, handing out pills is not as much fun.” Fauvre smiled. “For me, that is.”
He took the small glass bottles of medicine from the fridge and drew the liquid into the hypodermics. “Animal bites and wounds can be hell,” he said as he unceremoniously jabbed the needles into Max’s arm.
Max winced. He hated injections, and this had been done with less finesse than a vet jabbing a cow.
Fauvre seemed to read his mind. “No nice nurses here, only me. And I don’t have much of a bedside manner.” He cleared the used bits and pieces away.
“That’s all right. You weren’t too bad. Thanks.”
Fauvre seemed amused. “You lie very well, Max. It hurt like hell, the injections felt like snakebites and I have as much compassion as a charging bull elephant.”
“You save endangered species. You can’t be that bad, Monsieur Fauvre.”
“That’s not what my daughter thinks. And call me Laurent. You’ve earned it. Can you drive?” Fauvre asked.
“Yes,” Max replied.
“Then you are my chauffeur this morning, young man,” Fauvre said as he held one more hypodermic.
“What’s that?” Max asked.
“You thought we were finished? No, no. This is the soup. And multivitamin shots go …”
He pointed at Max’s backside. “Drop your shorts and think of England.”
Max eased himself gently into the driver’s seat of the golf buggy. That last jab had felt as though Fauvre were using a screwdriver on him.
“We are feeding some of the animals. So let us go,” Fauvre said, pointing out the direction.
Obviously, Max realized, the “we” meant the staff were feeding the animals. Perhaps it was this autocratic manner of her father’s that Sophie disliked so much.
The golf buggy’s canopy shielded Max from what was fast becoming a very hot day. Fauvre indicated the direction and Max pressed the accelerator down.
The old town looked as though it held plenty of caves, cut deep into the walls. Most of the big cats would be sleeping, but there were obviously many smaller creatures that had both shelter and plenty of room to roam once they ventured out and went down into one of the huge pits that had been torn from the ground. At the far edge of the town, unnoticed at first because of the backdrop of the mountain, was a vast aviary, almost obscured by the irregular shape of the netting. It dipped and stretched, pulled this way and that by jutting support poles. The birds could fly almost as if they were free.
That could be one way of escape. Climb that netting, clamber onto the walls and down the other side. Max knew how to survive in the desert.
“You ask no questions,” Fauvre said.
“Just getting my bearings, I suppose.”
“Like one of my big cats looking for a way out of its pen.” Fauvre smiled. “You are safe here. You saved my daughter’s life. I am in your debt.”
“She’s helped me as well. There’s no debt as far as I’m concerned, sir. I mean, Laurent.”
Fauvre nodded. “Most teenagers I have known either sulk and mumble like a constipated camel or ask endless inane questions that an encyclopedia couldn’t answer. You do neither.”
Max did not like being patronized or having unwarranted praise put his way, but he was uncertain if that was what Fauvre was doing. It seemed to him that Sophie’s dad had very little experience with teenagers, despite having one as his daughter.
Change the subject. Find out more.
“How long have you been here?” Max asked, keeping his eyes on the curving route towards wherever it was Fauvre wanted him to go.
“I started looking for a place fifteen, twenty years ago. I ran the Cirque de Paris. I knew back then what was happening to animals in the wild. Already I was sickened.”
“And you were the trapeze artist?” Max said.
“And ringmaster with my big cats. I trained them.” Fauvre’s hesitation made Max glance at him. “I love them,” Fauvre muttered.
Max guided the golf buggy along the curved pathways. A broken wall gave way to what looked like an old arena. Nothing as grand as a Roman amphitheater, but the tumbled-down buildings around the space had created false tiers, like a small grandstand. Red, compacted dirt and sand made it look like a circus ring, except this space gave the appearance of an abandoned building site. Rusted steel girders lay at different angles, toppled against scaffolding; some lay smashed across old cars. Broken, low walls crisscrossed the space, while poles and ropes took a third of the area over on the western edge of the sand ring. It reminded Max of an army assault course set up for urban warfare. Fauvre indicated to Max to pull into the shade of a ruined building.
Abdullah sat in an overstuffed armchair, a canvas awning sheltering him from the heat as he sipped from a tall glass with sprigs of mint among the crushed ice. A cooler nestled at his side.
Max raised a hand to shield his eyes. A puff of dust alerted him as the shadow that had been absorbed by the side of a wall sprang into life. It was Sophie. Like a marathon runner, she wore well-fitted shorts, tank top and cross-trainers. Dirt and sand caked her sweaty back-she’d obviously been training for some time. She kicked against an oil drum, leapt onto the back of an old donkey cart, flipped in the air and ran with aggressive determination at a rust bucket of a car. Max heard her grunt with effort as she threw her body across the hood, seemed destined to smash into a pile of dangerous scaffolding, but instead twisted her body, caught the layers of pipework in two hands and, with a gymnast’s skill, swung the weight of her body, using the momentum of her speed, to curl upwards and grasp one of the steel girders. She clambered like a monkey, using toes and fingers to grip the edge of the girder.
Ten meters up, the steel beam ended in space. Without hesitation she somersaulted into the air. Only then did Max realize a small hill of dirt was beneath her. After five meters she landed on her feet, opened her stride and raced to the bottom.
Finally, hands on knees, she bent over and sucked her recuperating lungs full of air. Sweat ran from her face,
