Stories of the Sahara

by Sanmao

  Once her hair was well brushed, Gueiga’s mother brought over some new clothes. Gueiga got into a pleated white dress, then wrapped her upper body in black fabric. Her already plump figure seemed even puffier now. ‘So plump!’ I sighed.

  ‘Plump is pretty,’ her aunt said. ‘Plump is good.’

  After she was all dressed, Gueiga sat serenely on the ground. Her face was really quite beautiful. Her head full of jewellery added radiance to this dim and gloomy chamber.

  ‘Alright, let’s go!’ Gueiga’s aunt and older cousin led her out the door. She was to stay with her aunt for the evening and return home tomorrow. A thought suddenly struck me: Gueiga hadn’t bathed. Was there no need for such a thing even right before marriage?

  On the day of the wedding, there were changes in Hamdi’s home. The dirty straw mats had disappeared. The goats had been chased away. A freshly slaughtered camel hung by the doorstep. Red Arabian rugs were spread all over the main hall. The most curious thing was the goatskin drum set in a corner. It looked like it had to have been at least a hundred years old.

  Dusk arrived. The sun was just dipping below the horizon. The vast desert was stained in blood red. Then the drumming began, a mournful and monotonous sound that travelled far into the distance. If I hadn’t known it was a wedding, these mysterious rhythms might have been a bit frightening. I was walking to Hamdi’s house in a sweater, imagining myself to be in one of those beautiful tales from One Thousand and One Nights.

  The atmosphere took a downward turn as soon as I got indoors. There was a big group of Sahrawi men in the main room. Everyone was smoking. The air was absolutely unbreathable. Abeidy was also squeezed in among the crowd. I wouldn’t have guessed that he was the groom if I hadn’t met him before tonight. In the corner sat a woman who was dark as charcoal. She was the only woman who sat in the midst of this group of men. She wore a large black cape and threw her uncovered head back while banging ferociously on the drum. After a few dozen strikes, she stood up, shook her body and gave a high-pitched roar. This was a primal scream, recalling the war cries of the Native Americans. She was certainly the most distinctive person in the house.

  ‘Who is that?’ I asked Gueiga’s brother.

  ‘She is a slave on loan from my grandmother’s house. She is famous for her drumming.’

  ‘What a remarkable slave.’ I clicked my tongue in praise.

  Three older women came into the house. They began to sing along with the drum, a melody that sounded like crying, with no ups or downs. The men started to clap to this song. Because I was a woman, I had to watch everything from outside the window. The other young women were all crowded out there, faces completely hidden except for their large, beautiful eyes. After close to two hours, the sky had darkened but the drumbeat continued, as did the clapping and the song.

  ‘How much longer will this go on?’ I asked Gueiga’s mother.

  ‘It is early!’ she said. ‘You go home and sleep.’

  Before I went back, I exhorted Gueiga’s little sister to come and wake me in the morning when they were going to pick up the bride.

  The desert had me shivering from cold when I was getting ready to return at three in the morning. Gueiga’s brother and José were chatting and playing with José’s camera. Gueiga’s brother objected when I stepped out in my overcoat. ‘She also wants to come?’ I had to plead with him to take me. He acquiesced eventually. Women have no standing in these parts.

  The street we live on was filled with Jeeps, both new and old. From the looks of it, Hamdi was a man of some prestige among his people. José and I got into one of the bridal Jeeps. Horns sounded incessantly from this row of vehicles as they drove in circles in the sand. With primal cries, the men sped off to the home of Gueiga’s aunt.

  Apparently the custom of old was to fire rifles into the air on camelback before retrieving the bride from her tent. Nowadays, the camels have been replaced by Jeeps. Car horns take the place of rifles. But the clamour and cacophony remain the same. What happened next angered me the most. Abeidy descended from the vehicle and, surrounded by a gaggle of youths, went to the room where Gueiga sat. Without greeting anyone, he grabbed Gueiga by the shoulders and forcibly dragged her out of the house. Everyone was laughing. Only Gueiga was struggling with her head lowered. Because she was plump, Abeidy’s friends had to help him drag her. She started crying then. I couldn’t tell if it was real or if she was faking it, but I was incredibly agitated seeing these people grab at her so boorishly. Despite my indignation, I bit my lower lip and watched to see how this farce would unfold.

  By this time, Gueiga was already out the door. She suddenly reached a hand out to swipe at Abeidy’s face. Several trails of blood appeared on his face from her scratching. Showing no sign of weakness, Abeidy twisted Gueiga’s fingers and bent them backward. Everyone had quietened down. Only Gueiga’s occasional cries resounded in the night.

  As they fought, Gueiga was being dragged closer to the Jeep. I became extremely anxious. ‘Silly girl,’ I called out. ‘Get in the car. You can’t beat him.’

  Gueiga’s brother laughed. ‘Don’t worry, this is custom. If they marry without a struggle, people will laugh at them later. She is being a good girl by putting up this desperate fight.’

  I sighed. ‘If it has to be such a desperate fight, one might as well not get married.’

  ‘She will cry more once she enters the bridal chamber later. Wait and see. It is very interesting.’

  Interesting though it may have been, I didn’t like this way of conducting a marriage.

  By the time we returned to Gueiga’s home, it was past five in the morning. Hamdi had already slipped away, but Gueiga’s mother and younger siblings, as well as friends and relatives, all hadn’t slept. We were invited to the main room to gather with Abeidy and his close friends. Tea and camel meat were served. Gueiga was sent to another little room to sit by herself.

  After some snacking, the drumming began again. The male guests began to clap and moan. I was exhausted from lack of sleep, but I couldn’t bear to leave now.

  ‘Sanmao, go home and rest,’ José said to me. ‘I’ll tell you what happens when I come back.’ I thought about it for a second. The highlight hadn’t yet come, so I decided against it.

  The singing and clapping continued until nearly daybreak before I saw Abeidy stand up. The drumming stopped as soon as he rose. Everyone looked at him. His friends began to tease him.

  When Abeidy entered Gueiga’s room, I became very nervous. My heart was uneasy. I thought back to what Gueiga’s brother had said to me: She will cry more once she enters the bridal chamber later. I felt that everyone waiting outside, myself included, was depraved. Strange that there are some things people won’t change, with tradition as an excuse.

  After Abeidy had pushed aside the curtain and entered, I sat in the main room, my head hung low, for a long time. It felt like centuries had passed when we finally heard Gueiga. ‘Ah—’ It sounded like a sob. Then there was silence.

  I knew custom demanded that she cry out, but her cry was so pained, so real, so helpless and long. As I sat in silence, the rims of my eyes became moist. ‘Think about it. She’s just a ten-year-old child,’ I said angrily to José. ‘So cruel!’ He looked up at the ceiling and said nothing. We were the only non-natives around that day.

  Abeidy came out with a bloodstained piece of white cloth later. His friends started shouting with lewd excitement. From their perspective, the whole point of the first night of marriage was to openly use force and violence to take a little girl’s virginity. That the ceremony had to conclude in such a way was deplorable and ridiculous. I got up and strode out without saying goodbye to anyone.

  The marriage celebrations lasted a total of six days. During this time, guests would arrive at Hamdi’s house to eat and drink tea every day at five in the afternoon. They would also sing songs and beat drums until late.

  I decided not to go any more since their activities were the same each day. Hamdi’s other daughter
came to find me on the fifth day. ‘Gueiga is looking for you,’ she said. ‘Why haven’t you been coming?’

  I had to oblige. I changed my clothes and went to visit Gueiga. During these six days of celebration, Gueiga had been isolated in her little room as usual. Without exception, the guests were not allowed to see her. Only the groom could come and go as he pleased. Since I was an outsider, I cast caution to the wind and went straight to Gueiga’s room, pulling aside the curtain.

  The room was murky, the air thick. Gueiga sat on a pile of rugs in the corner. She was very happy to see me and scrambled up to kiss my cheeks. ‘Sanmao, don’t leave,’ she said.

  ‘I won’t. Let me get something for you to eat.’

  I went out, grabbed a large piece of meat and handed it to her to gnaw on.

  ‘Sanmao,’ she began softly. ‘Do you think I will have a baby soon?’

  I didn’t know how to answer. Her face, which used to be plump, had become so thin in five days that her eyes were sunken in. I felt a pang of sadness and anger as I stared at her.

  ‘Can you give me medicine?’ she asked in a low, urgent voice. ‘Medicine so I won’t have a baby?’

  I still couldn’t manage to shift my gaze from her ten-year-old face.

  ‘OK, I’ll give it to you. Don’t worry. This will be our secret.’ I patted her lightly on the hand. ‘You can sleep now. The wedding is over.’

  Night in the Wasteland

  One day when José got home from work, he didn’t come barging indoors like he normally did. Instead he stayed in the car, honking his horn to sound like Sanmao, Sanmao, so I set aside the calligraphy I was doing just for fun and pranced over to the window to see what was going on.

  ‘Why aren’t you coming in?’ I asked him.

  ‘I found out about a place that’s got little fossilised turtles and shells. Want to go?’

  I jumped with excitement and blurted out, ‘Yes, let’s!’

  ‘Come on then!’ José cried.

  ‘Let me get changed,’ I called out the window as I went to get ready. ‘I’ll also grab some snacks and a blanket.’

  ‘Hurry up, will you! There’s no need to bring anything. We’ll be back in two or three hours.’

  I’m an impatient person to begin with, and since José was pestering, I decided to drop everything and just go. I wore flip-flops and a long cloth dress that draped all the way down to my feet. On my way out, I grabbed the leather flask hanging from the door; it had a litre of red wine inside. This was the extent of my preparation.

  ‘Alright, let’s go!’ I bounced up and down in the car seat, full of good cheer.

  ‘There and back is about two hundred and forty kilometres,’ José was saying to himself. ‘Three hours driving, one hour gathering fossils and we should be home by ten, just in time for dinner.’

  When I heard that it was such a distance, I couldn’t help but look at the westerly sun. I thought about objecting. But ever since José got a car, his latent automobile infatuation complex has taken off big time. Furthermore, he has type O blood, meaning he doesn’t change his mind easily. So even though I didn’t feel it was quite right for us to be travelling this far around sunset, I didn’t utter a word of protest.

  We drove on the highway towards the southern edge of town for more than twenty kilometres. Then, upon reaching the checkpoint, there was no more road. We were about to enter the boundless desert.

  The guard came and looked us over from the window. ‘Ah, you guys again,’ he said. ‘You’re going out at this hour?’

  ‘Not very far,’ José replied. ‘Just about thirty kilometres out and back. She wants a cactus.’ We sped off as soon as he said this.

  ‘Why did you have to lie to him?’ I reproached.

  ‘Because he wouldn’t have let us leave otherwise. Think about it. Would he let us drive so far at this time of day?’

  ‘And what if something happens, God forbid?’ I asked. ‘The distance and direction you told him were all wrong. How would they find us?’

  ‘They wouldn’t come looking. How else did those hippies die?’ He brought up another discomforting subject; we’d both heard about the recent tragic deaths of some hippies out in the desert.

  It was almost six. Even though the sun was low in the sky, it was still piercingly bright all around. The wind was already howling up a bit of a chill in the air. Our car drove quickly over the sand, following the trail of tyre prints from someone before us. The smooth plane of desert, all sand and gravel, stretched out farther than the eye could see. A mirage appeared in front of us on the left, then two more on the right. They looked like lakes surrounded by little bushes.

  All was silent except for the sound of wind. The deathly still landscape was like a grim and ferocious giant lying on its side. We were driving along its quietly outspread body.

  ‘I feel like one day we’ll end up dying in this wilderness,’ I said with a sigh, looking out the window.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  The car rattled as we flew onwards.

  ‘We intrude upon the wilderness day in, day out, taking its fossils, digging up its plants, capturing its antelopes. We leave behind soda bottles, cardboard boxes and dirty things, all while we crush its body with our car tyres. The desert says it’s not happy. It wants our lives as payback. Like this – ooh, ooooh…’ I put my hands out as though throttling someone.

  José roared with laughter. He loved it when I talked nonsense.

  I decided to roll up the windows all the way because the temperature had already dropped quite a bit.

  ‘The mountain maze is coming up,’ said José.

  I looked up at the far-off horizon. In the distance there were some little black points that gradually grew larger. It was the only mountain range within a few hundred kilometres. In actuality, it was a cluster of very tall piles of sand, spread out over twenty or thirty square kilometres of barren land.

  These piles of sand were shaped by the wind, all curved and identical on the exterior. They were like a bunch of half-moons snatched from the heavens by an excavator and set in the Sahara. Even more curious was that these sand piles, each of them about a hundred metres high, seemed equidistant from one another. If one were to wander into this mountain range, it would be all too easy to lose your sense of direction and get lost. I’d named it the mountain maze. It was drawing closer and closer, until finally the first sand pile rose before us.

  ‘We’re going in there?’ I asked softly.

  ‘Yep, another fifteen kilometres to the right of here is where I hear there are fossils.’

  ‘It’s almost seven-thirty. The ghosts are about to come a-knocking.’ I bit my lip, not knowing why I felt there was something off.

  ‘What ghosts?’ José refused to believe me. ‘It’s all super- stition.’

  Not only was this guy bold and brash, he was also stubborn as a mule. So we finally drove into the mountain maze, weaving through those piles of sand. The sun was directly behind us; we were driving to the east.

  The mountain maze didn’t capture us this time. We were out in less than half an hour. Up ahead there were no more tyre prints at all. This area was unfamiliar to us. On top of that, we were driving in a regular car totally unsuited to the desert. Needless to say, I felt a bit spooked. José got out of the car to look around.

  ‘Let’s go back!’ I had totally lost my spirit for fossil hunting.

  ‘No.’ José paid no heed to me. We started up the car with a shudder and went deeper into this foreign territory. After another few kilometres, a lowland appeared before us, its colour a dark coffee brown. A layer of light greyish lavender fog hung above it. Some tens of millions of years ago, this must have been a wide river.

  ‘We can get out here,’ José said. We glided gently downwards on a slope. José parked the car and got out to look around again. I also got out. Grabbing a handful of the ground beneath my feet, I saw that it was wet mud rather than sand. I stood there, perplexed.

  ‘Sanmao, you drive and I�
��ll run ahead. Stop when I give the signal.’

  José sprinted ahead as soon as he said this. I turned the engine on and trailed him, maintaining a short distance.

  ‘You alright?’ he asked.

  I stuck my head out the window to reply, ‘No problem.’

  He got farther and farther from me, then turned around and waved his two arms, telling me to drive on as he ran backwards. Suddenly I noticed that the ground behind José was bubbling. Something wasn’t quite right. I slammed the brakes and yelled, ‘Careful, careful! Stop. . .’

  I opened the car door and ran towards him yelling. But José had already stepped into the quagmire. The wet mud was up to his knees in an instant. He was obviously startled. Looking back, he staggered a few more steps. Quickly the mud rose up to his thighs. He struggled a bit more, looking like he was going to fall over. I don’t know how but he got farther and farther away from me the more he fought against it. There was now quite a distance between the two of us.

  I stood with my mouth open, unable to speak, frozen in shock. I couldn’t believe this was real, but the image before me was undeniably true! All of this had happened within the span of seconds. José could see that the quagmire was swallowing him up and desperately tried lifting his legs up. Just then I noticed that there was a protruding rock maybe two metres to his right. ‘Go over there!’ I cried urgently. ‘There’s a rock there.’

  He also saw the rock and struggled to move towards it. The mud was up to his waist now. I watched helplessly from a distance. I was so anxious that my nerves felt as though they were about to fry. It was like being in a horrible nightmare.

  When I saw him clutch on to that rock in the quagmire, it jolted me into action. I ran back to the car to look for something with which to reel him in. But there was nothing in there besides the flask of wine, two empty bottles and some copies of United Daily News. There was a toolbox inside the boot. Nothing else.