David Ball > Quotes

“The flat became more rolling, and the rolling became

hills, and the hills became the Hoggar, its odd volcanic peaks and spires struggling through the almost irides- cent violet haze that seemed to emanate from them. They had never seen such a place, and rode enraptured. The camels stepped tenderly through the rocks, which had changed from smooth gravel to rough cobbles to razor-sharp stones, at first spaced well apart but then closer and hard to avoid. It slowed their progress, and at times the caravan stretched out over two kilometers, a great undulating jumble of humps and baskets and bags and winding through the men, craggy passages and long wadis. The camels groaned as if mortally wounded when they cut their feet, their cries returning in haunted echoes from the rock walls. They shifted themselves in exaggerated motions to favor their feet, sometimes losing their loads altogether or having them slip out of place until their tenders had to stop and ad- just them. In the worst places the men walked, leading their mounts by hand.”
― David Ball, Empires of Sand by David Ball

“A month and a half of siege had dulled the sharp gay edge of Paris. People walked more slowly and talk to more softly, and there was less laughter than before. Even the boys noticed something was different”
― David Ball, Empires of Sand by David Ball

“The babies lay two or three to a crib, the cribs packed three deep along each side of the room. Despite the daytime heat, the children were tightly bound and blankets to keep them warm at night. They lay on their backs like scores of cocoons, waiting their turn for a moment's attention”
― David Ball, China Run

“Are you troubled?" Moussa asked, his voice gentle with concern.

"No," she said. "I was only thinking of my mar- riage." It was true, so she didn't understand why she hated herself instantly for saying it. She thought Moussa's head jerked a little at the words. After that he was uncharacteristically quiet and for the first time in nearly four days they rode in a sad unnatural silence that was as suffocating as the desert heat. Suddenly each stride of the camel seemed interminable, and Daia didn't know what to do. One part of her wanted journey to end quickly, wanted to arrive in Abalessa where all the confusion might end. The rest of her, most of her, wanted their journey to last forever.”
― David Ball, Empires of Sand by David Ball

“Now as he trudged along the path he could already feel some hideous disease burning his lungs. He won- dered whether, if he died, Sister Godrick would be sorry when she heard. Not a chance. She'd probably cross herself in thanks, and lead the class in hymn. He considered leaving a note, so that when they chipped his body out of the ice the gendarmes would know who to blame. But the police would never dare arrest Sister Godrick, not even for murder. As far as he could tell people didn't do things to nuns. Nuns did things to people”
― David Ball, Empires of Sand by David Ball

“But why does she always come back? Why doesn't she just leave?"

"Because she knows me. We are comfortable to- gether. She does my bidding as I do hers. I feed her, she feeds me. I suit her needs today, as she suits mine."

"And if she does fly away?"

"Then she is free," he said, shrugging, "a daughter of the desert once more. She will fly away one day. I will make her, if she doesn't do it on her own. She was wild once, and will be wild again. I have only borrowed her spirit from the desert. She was not born to live at the end of a jess. She is mine only for a season, and never really mine at all. When she leaves I will catch another, and begin again. That is the way of it. I doubt I'll find another like Taka, though.”
― David Ball, Empires of Sand by David Ball

“Bismarck's generals needed little persuasion of their own superiority. They were confident or their troops. For four years, since Sadowa, they had been rearing, preparing, planning. As generals always did, they wanted more time. But when time ran out, they would be ready.”
― David Ball, Empires of Sand by David Ball

“They had both feared as much, but the reality was worse than the fear and it settled over them like an icy blanket.”
― David Ball, China Run

“He remembered the awe of his first desert night, the dazzling web so clear and bright. He had never seen such a sky when he lived in Paris. The lights of the city were too bright. The lights, such lights .. it was six long years since he'd last seen them. Or was it seven now, or even eight? The years ran together and time lost its urgency and sometimes he didn't notice its passage at all. But surely it was a lifetime since Paris. He was happy in the desert yet sometimes longed to be back in the city, to see what it was like now. His memories of it were fond, the bad parts seeming not so bad, the good parts seeming better than they were. But the more time passed, the harder it became to remember at all. No matter how he tried to hold on, the treasures of his past no longer burned so brightly in his memory. The details dimmed and the people grew fuzzy, and he couldn't remember what some of them looked like. He closed his eyes and tried to bring them up, Paul and Gascon and Aunt Elisabeth, but sometimes he couldn't do it. It worried him terribly when it happened. It seemed as if he didn't care. He DID care, he told himself. He didn't want to be unfaithful. He didn't want to lose his other life completely. He asked the marabout for paper and drew pictures of his father with scraps of charcoal. The pictures were crude, but they helped him remember. He promised himself a thousand times that no matter what pron happened to the other faces and places in his mind, he would never let himself forget his father's face. He folded the papers carefully and put them in a leather pouch that hung from his neck, and at night by the fire took them out to look. After he had folded and unfolded them many times the pictures would smear, and he would draw new ones.”
― David Ball, Empires of Sand by David Ball

“Allison slept through it all. She never felt the truck stopping for the roadblock set in the middle of nowhere, never heard the police who didn't care about the rain and dutifully climbed through the rear of the truck, never heard the rustle of papers as they examined the driver's permits and cargo manifest. She never heard the horns outside or the rain or the roar of the Xu Jiang River as they followed its course. She never heard Driver Ming stopping for fuel, never felt the bumps and twists and turns as the road deteriorated and flat farmland became hill country that became mountains.

It was still dark as they began their climb into the Wuyi Shan, the range of mountains that rose abruptly on both sides of the road and disappeared into the high mists, mountains where jungles and steep slopes kept the farmers at bay, mountains thick with bamboo forests in which wild tigers were still believed to roam. They drove all night and all the next day, through Ruijin and Xunwu, their progress slowed at times by traffic, at other times by the rain. Finally it was the horrific condition of the road that stopped them altogether. The highway was an unfinished ribbon of concrete, sometimes one lane, sometimes two. There was no shoulder at all, just an abrupt and treacherous drop-off to the adjacent ground. The roadbed sat so high up that if a wheel were to inadvertently slip off the edge, the whole truck might tip over. Allison had seen more than one vehicle that had done just that as she and Tyler watched the receding countryside through the slats of their crate. In places where only one lane existed, oncoming traffic had to stop and back up to let other traffic through. If there was an obstruction in the road, a goat or a sheep or a cart, all traffic squeezed by single file, although somehow it never seemed to slow. Driver Ming seemed good at it, and when Allison felt him swerve sharply she closed her eyes and cringed, waiting for the inevitable collision. By some miracle he always squeaked through.

Then his luck ran out.”
― David Ball, China Run

“The days when he had taken insults passively had passed, as had the days when he would melt in tears. He had never understood what made the others do it, only that he was somehow apart from them, somehow differ- ent, and that he would never fit in. From the time Serena had first held him after it happened, when he

was only five, his mother had counseled patience. "Ignore them," she said. "Deny them the satisfaction of seeing you rise in anger." She too had suffered this way. "Pay no attention to them. They are only jealous of your noble birth." She had tried to soften their in- sults. "When they call you half-breed you must remem- ber what it really means, that you are the best of two worlds, the best of the French and the best of the Tuareg."

Her advice felt warm and wise while he was on her lap, but evaporated quickly in the schoolyard. His patience only drove his tormentors to greater creativity in their taunts, and then they accused him of cowardice, of being a sissy. If he cried it drove them to new heights of viciousness.

And then one day when Moussa was eight Henri had seen his bruised cheek and asked about it, and Moussa had poured out his sorrow and his dilemma.

"Your mother is right in her way," Henri agreed after listening, "but just now I think they need a good thrashing. You need to teach them a lesson. I wish it weren't so, but they respect only strength." After that Moussa tried hard not to forget his mother's advice, but he found that fists often worked better. At first he lost most of the fights, but a bloody nose from fighting back felt better to him than a bloody nose from doing nothing. And with practice, along with the instruction he received from his father and Gascon, he got better. Before long the students learned to taunt him at their own peril, for even if they might finally beat him, they would pay a heavy price.”
― David Ball, Empires of Sand by David Ball

“The desert madness." He'd never been to Africa, but he'd seen plenty of remote places and what they did to men. "Lots of them get it. They've nothing to do but brood. Time treats them badly. It stretches worse here because the liquor stinks and there aren't any women. The place just uses them up. Even their assholes get raw from the sand."

"I'll never let the desert affect me as it does them," Paul said. "I'll go home first."

Remy couldn't help mocking Paul gently for his naïve enthusiasm. "I think you take it a bit far the other way. Let me see if I understand your point of view. In the market there are clouds of flies competing with swarms of beggars for the pleasure of eating camel shit mixed with rotting vegetables. What they can't stomach the cook picks up. He spices it up nicely with some old spit and smears it on top of a mixture of couscous, peb- bles, and sand. Then he dishes it back to you, at six times the price he'd charge anyone else. You know what you're eating-you watch him prepare it-but all the same you enjoy it, because it's exotic."

"That's about it." Paul smiled. "L'haute cuisine d'Afrique." Remy roared.”
― David Ball, Empires of Sand by David Ball

“Through everything they did ran the strong thread of laughter. It was easy, comfortable, everywhere. They laughed at things they hadn't laughed at before, at things that hadn't been funny until they saw them together at the same moment. They laughed at the antics of the jerboa as it hopped before the night fire, carrying bits of bread to its mouse house, and at the grotesque complaints of their meharis as they were loaded in the morning, and at Moussa's imitation of an abbess he called Godrick- a thoroughly sacrilegious display that Daia only partially understood but which had her nearly in tears.

For both of them, it was a time that passed much too quickly.

All the while she knew he was not courting her, that he realized she was on her way to join her betrothed. There was no pressure on them and so they were able to be free, free to enjoy each other without other eyes or ears nearby to disapprove or to spread gossip, free to be silly and young, free to say whatever they liked, free to be alive.”
― David Ball, Empires of Sand by David Ball

“He was a cobra with its hood withdrawn-- no immediate peril, yet no mistake in the danger.”
― David Ball, Empires of Sand by David Ball

“He spoke with the aunties in the different wards, asking questions and taking notes. He saw stuffed animals piled in corners, and a broken bicycle, and a single brightly colored mobile hanging from the ceiling of one room without furnishings, where young girls played together. They all stared at him as he passed, some with hopeful looks, others haunted, others without expression at all. The older they were, the quieter and more subdued they seemed. There was something not at all childlike about them. He had trouble bringing himself to meet their gazes. The babies had made him want to smile. The older children just made him want to hurry, especially the ones kept off in a room by themselves, with cleft palates or misshapen limbs or the vacant stare of profound retardation. He looked through the doorway at them but couldn't bring himself to go inside. He picked up the pace as he completed his tour, growing more uncomfortable with each room.”
― David Ball, China Run

“He felt the strong impulse to rest, to sleep, but struggled against what he knew was the pull of death.”
― David Ball, China Run

“The food situation grew worse. Stocks of grain were dwindling. Prostitution spread to pay for hunger. Hooves and horns and bones were ground into osseine for soup. Animals from the zoo were sold for slaughter. The chefs of Paris cooked buffaloes and zebras, yaks and reindeer, wapitis and Bengal stags, wolves and kangaroos, and when there was nothing left-Castor and Pollux, the elephants.”
― David Ball, Empires of Sand by David Ball

“Without a family, Ma Lin devoted himself to his work. He continued to shun ideology but occasionally caught himself wondering about the WHY of things he did in his work. Often he felt, and justifiably so, that something he had done had benefited the state or preserved someone's life or safety. Other times, like now, in this room with an old woman who knew nothing important and had curled up to die, he felt old and tired and worn out.”
― David Ball, China Run

“It was a crap shoot, adopting a baby made from someone else's genes, and it worried her sick. "It's a crap shoot giving birth to a baby made from your own genes," Marshall reminded her. She fretted and paced and dreamed and hoped.”
― David Ball, China Run

“I am sorry it is you, Ma Lin," the colonel replied. For the last time, Quan stepped around behind the prisoner. Ma Lin bowed his head. He felt the gun barrel, now hot, against the base of his skull.

An odd thought occurred to him just then.
He had no close family left alive. The state would have to pay for the bullet.”
― David Ball, China Run

“The incline and height of the rocks increased sharply, making his climb more difficult. He needed his other hand totally free, as he knew his pursuers would as well. He holstered his pistol. He'd gotten more than three- quarters of the way to the top when even two free hands were barely enough to continue upward. The steps be- gan sloping on top, so that there was less and less to stand on. His legs pushed, toes searching for holds, arms pulling, fingers clutching, each new ascent more difficult than the last as the steps began to disappear altogether, until he found himself clinging to a nearly vertical slab of granite. Still he pushed upward, his chest and stomach in constant contact with the rock beneath, his hold growing more tenuous each moment. He looked up. Rock walls soared above him on both sides. He prayed there was somewhere to keep going, because he couldn't see it now. Up and up he climbed, every so often finding a small outcropping to grasp, but having to stretch more for each one, his legs almost dangling free as his boots sought purchase in the rock niches. Several times small rocks he tested for support broke free and clattered down the mountain. They fell, hit, split apart, and hit again, until they made a distant thud at the bottom. He shut his eyes, thinking he might sound like that, only softer. If it got any steeper, he knew, he couldn't hold on any longer.”
― David Ball, Empires of Sand by David Ball

“I'm not certain. Something to do with special-needs families getting healthy babies."

Allison caught her breath at that. It was true, one of the regulations of the Chinese government. She had expected a child with some sort of hand- icap a heart murmur, a hernia, or simply an older child, a toddler- something besides a healthy infant. Under Chinese law adoptive parents had to be at least thirty-five and have no other children in order to qualify for healthy babies. Otherwise they qualified only for the special-needs children. But the rule was loose and so many babies needed adoption that somehow everyone in their group had gotten a healthy infant. Of course, no one questioned it and the issue hadn't arisen during their trip.”
― David Ball, China Run

“Over the noise of their voices the survivors in the dinghy heard other sounds, awful sounds: creaking and sighing and popping, and breaking glass, and the muffled noise of massive streams of bubbles coming from compartments and holds beneath the water. And, above that, something else, from near where the forecastle was now slipping beneath the water. They heard the chickens and the ducks making a terrible racket, as, caged and tethered near the bowsprit, they were going down with the ship. Amid all the death and destruction, it was, somehow, a particularly wrenching sound. And then it stopped.”
― David Ball, China Run

“Dianous came up behind him. "What is it, Madani?" "Abdel Krim, Lieutenant. He has shot himself." "Is he dead?"

"No sir. He is a poor shot."

Abdel Krim had passed out. The bullet had only torn a bloody crease in his skull. El Madani bandaged his head. "Take away his weapons," El Madani told another tirailleur, "and tie his his hands."
Slowly the camp slipped back into uneasy exhaustion. Few men slept. The mood the next morning was somber. The omen of the camels had been surpassed by the omen of suicide. The unfortunate man marched alone with his failure, a pariah. Men looked at Abdel Krim with varying degrees of pity for him and fear for themselves. He had been the first to crack, the first to give up. They told themselves they were stronger than he. But no one really knew for sure”
― David Ball, Empires of Sand by David Ball

“He had never known Allison to act so out of character. He'd often ribbed her for being so predictably straight about everything. They'd never discussed it, but he knew she had never considered running away with Mary rather than turning her over as ordered. Other mothers had run. But not Allison. She had trusted Marshall, trusted the legal system to do the right thing. Even when the system failed her, as awful as it was, she obeyed, because she always obeyed. The judge's decision was the law. In Allison's life that was the order of things. The bizarre thing was that she'd had to travel all the way to China to go insane and test her new wings of defiance.”
― David Ball, China Run

“The bile came again, sudden and furious. He curled up on the floor around the chamber pot, gagging and heaving until his insides hurt. Were

When it had passed he felt better. He lay there for nearly an hour without moving, his eyes open but un- focused. He got up and cleaned himself again. He wan- dered around his room for a few moments, unsure of what he wanted to do. Aimless, always aimless. It was still early, just after midnight. Sleep would not come again, not without the bottle. He looked at it on the dresser and reached for it but then stopped. The thought of more made him nauseous. Extraordinary. Even I have had enough. He stopped in front of the mantel, where”
― David Ball, Empires of Sand by David Ball

“Tyler was faster than she was and won nearly every game. Between hands he stirred the canh around on the blanket to mix them up. She taught him how to shuffle properly, and he practiced over and over. "How do you play strip poker?" he asked her once.

In the cramped space he couldn't see her surprise. "How do you know about that?"

"I dunno. I heard it somewhere, I guess. So what is it?"

"You play for whatever the other person has," she said. "The winner gets the loser's things."

"Like what?"

"Oh, odds and ends. Wallets and combs. Things."

"Oh." He dealt them each a fish hand. "I heard it was for clothes."

She supposed he knew more than he was letting on. He was testing her. "Well, some people play for clothes, too. You play until the other per-son has nothing left."

"Why would you want to do that? What would you do with their clothes?"

Allison laughed. Sometimes Tyler seemed old for his years, world-wise and as cynical as a grown-up. But then at other times, like now, he just seemed NINE. "I don't know," she said. "It's just a game.”
― David Ball, China Run

“There are wide boulevards in Paris lined with trees," he told her, spreading his arms expansively. "The buildings are nearly as big as our dunes."

Her eyes widened. "Why on earth would anyone wish to live in such a crowded place?" she asked. "Why would they wish to live in a house built of unmoving stone? Why would they wish a roof over their heads? How would they know the sky? How would they know freedom?" She shook her head. "It is odd that people choose to live in such a backward fashion. It is no better than the harratin who till the soil, forever chained to there are plots of land.”
― David Ball, Empires of Sand by David Ball

“You seem preoccupied," she said. He shrugged. "It is nothing. "Oh," she said, working at her leather. "I thought it might be Daia."

"Well, it is not," he said too quickly. Moussa tried to escape his mother's gaze, but he had never been able to do that successfully. Now he saw no need to pretend. "She is Mahdi's woman. They are to be married. She has said it, and Mahdi has said it." Serena put down her knife.

"And what have you said?"

"That I will not interfere."

"I am not asking of your head, Moussa. I am asking of your heart.".

"It is the same thing."

She smiled at that. "I don't know how you can be so quick to show a camel your feeling for it, Moussa, and so slow to show a woman.”
― David Ball, Empires of Sand by David Ball

“As she worked she felt something stinging her and had to drop her pants and turn to see. Tyler had a better angle. "Right on the but," he commented with thinly disguised glee.”
― David Ball, China Run