by Sanmao
This sentiment of mine became something of a joke among the people I knew. I often said I wanted to cross the desert, but nobody took me seriously. The friends who knew me better thought I wanted to go because of disillusionment or self-exile, a trip with no return… But this wasn’t quite accurate either. Good thing that other people’s judgement never bothered me in the least.
Eventually I organised myself and prepared to live in the desert for a year. Besides my father’s encouragement, I had only one friend who didn’t mock me or try to stop me, let alone drag me down. He quietly packed his things, went to the desert ahead of me and found work at a phosphate mining company. He settled down and waited for me to come to Africa all alone so he could take care of me. He knew I was a stubborn woman of singular will; I wouldn’t change my mind.
When this person went to the desert and suffered in the name of love, I knew in my heart that I wanted to roam to the ends of the earth with him. This person was my husband José. All this is old news, already two years past.
After José went to the desert, I tied up all my loose ends. I didn’t even say goodbye to anyone. Before getting on the plane, I left a letter and rent money for the three Spanish girls with whom I shared an apartment. When I stepped out, I was also closing the door on a familiar lifestyle, rushing towards the desert unknown.
Once the plane touched down in the makeshift airport of El Aaiún, I saw José for the first time in three months. That day he was wearing a khaki military-style shirt and very dirty jeans. He gave me a great big hug. His hands were extremely coarse, his hair and beard covered in yellowish dust. The wind had chafed and reddened his face; his lips were dry and cracked. In his eyes was a glimmer of hidden pain.
I felt an ache of astonishment, seeing how he’d undergone such a drastic transformation in such a short period of time. Only then did I think of the life I was about to face. This was my reality now, a major test rather than just an abstraction about which I had romantic and childish ideas.
My heart was beating fast. I had a hard time stifling my excitement. A lifetime’s homesickness, and now I’d returned to this land. I didn’t know how to feel any more.
Deep down inside, the Sahara Desert had been my dream lover for so long. I looked around at the boundless sand across which the wind wailed, the sky high above, the landscape majestic and calm. It was dusk. The setting sun stained the desert the red of fresh blood, a sorrowful beauty. The temperature felt like early winter. I’d expected a scorching sun, but instead found a swathe of poetic desolation.
José was silent. I looked at him.
‘Now you’re here in the embrace of your desert,’ he said. I nodded, my throat constricted. ‘Let’s go, stranger!’
José had started calling me this years ago. It wasn’t because Camus’ novel was just getting popular, but rather that ‘stranger’ felt like a very accurate name for me. In this life, I’d always felt I wasn’t a part of the world around me. I often needed to go off the tracks of a normal life and do things without explanation.
The airport was deserted. The few other passengers had long since gone. José hoisted my suitcase onto his shoulder. I strapped on my backpack, picked up my pillowcase and walked off with him.
There was quite a distance between the airport and the home that José had been renting for half a month already. We walked very slowly because my suitcase and backpack were extremely heavy. Occasionally a car would pass us on the road. We’d raise our arms and try to hitchhike, but no one stopped. After forty minutes of this, we turned and walked down a hill and onto another road. Finally we saw some signs of habitation.
‘See there,’ José said to me against the wind. ‘This is the periphery of El Aaiún. Our home is down below.’
In the distance there were dozens of tents riddled with holes, as well as little bungalows made of iron. A few Arabian camels and herds of goats stood in the sand. This was the first time I’d seen the locals in the dark blue fabric they always like to wear. To me it was like walking into a fantasy, a whole new world.
The wind carried aloft the laughter of little girls playing a game. An indescribable vitality and joy can be found wherever humans exist. Even this barren and impoverished backwater was teeming with life, not a struggle for survival. For the residents of the desert, their births and deaths and everything in between were all part of a natural order. Looking out at the smoke ascending to the sky from their homes, I felt that these people were almost elegant in their serenity. Living carefree, in my understanding, is what a civilised spirit is all about.
Finally, in the waning light of day, we reached a long street with square houses made of concrete blocks scattered on either side. My eye was immediately drawn to the last tiny home at the end of this row, which had an oblong arched doorway. I knew instinctively that this was mine. Sure enough, José walked in that direction. Sweating profusely, he put my suitcase down on the doorstep. ‘We’re here,’ he said. ‘This is our home.’
Directly across from the house was a landfill. Farther ahead was a wave-shaped sand dune, and beyond that still was the vast sky. Behind the house was a high hill of stones and hard soil, not sand. I didn’t see people in any of the neighbouring homes. There was only the ceaseless wind blowing violently through my hair and long skirt.
Once José opened the door, I let down the weighty backpack from my shoulders. A short, dim hallway emerged before my eyes. José picked me up from behind. ‘Let me carry you into our first home,’ he said. ‘From today forward, you will be my wife.’
This was at once plain and profound. I had never been passionately in love with him. At the same time I felt incredibly lucky and at ease.
José took four large steps forwards and reached the end of the hall. I glanced around and saw a big square hole in the middle of the wall. The sky outside was pigeon grey. I struggled to my feet, threw down the pillowcase in my hands and went to examine the house further. There wasn’t much to see. I could take it all in just standing by that hole in the wall. The larger room faced the street. I walked its width in four large steps, its length in five.
The other room wasn’t big enough to fit anything besides a big bed. There was only a bit of space left at the doorway as wide as my wrist. The kitchen was about the size of four spread newspapers. Besides a cracked yellow sink, there was a cement block for a counter. In the bathroom, there was a flush toilet with no tank, a washbasin and the shocking sight of a white bathtub. It was a Dadaist work of art – if we didn’t use it, it would just be a sculpture.
It occurred to me to check out where the stone staircase outside the kitchen and bathroom led to. ‘No point,’ said José. ‘Upstairs is a shared rooftop. I’ll show you tomorrow. I bought a doe a few days ago and put it in with the rest of the landlord’s herd. We’ll have fresh milk in the future.’
Upon hearing that we owned a goat, I felt an unexpected surge of glee. José worriedly asked about my first impression of the home. I heard myself give him a forced, nervous answer. ‘It’s great. I really like it. Really. Let’s fix it up, little by little.’
Even as I was saying this, I was frantically sizing up the whole place. The cement floor was uneven; the wall was the dark grey of the concrete blocks and hadn’t been whitewashed. The cement that had been used to seal up holes hung dry and naked.
I looked around, noticing the tiny bare lightbulb that hung from the ceiling. A dense swarm of flies clustered on the electric wire. The wind continued to howl through the hole in the corner of the wall on the left. When I turned on the tap, a few drops of a thick green liquid came out, but no water. The roof above our heads looked like it might collapse.
‘How much is the rent?’ I asked José.
‘Ten thousand pesetas, not including utilities.’
‘Is water expensive?’
‘An oil drum full of water is ninety. Tomorrow I’m going to apply for water delivery from the city government.’
Speechless, I sat down on my suitcase in despair. ‘Alright, let’s go into town to
buy a refrigerator and some groceries. We need to figure out our basic needs right away.’ I grabbed my pillowcase and headed out the door with him again.
On the road we passed other homes, sandscapes, a cemetery and a petrol station. We didn’t see the lights of the town until the sky was almost entirely dark.
‘This is the bank. That’s the city government. The courthouse is on the right. The post office is below that. There are quite a few shops. Our company’s main office is that row of buildings. The one with the green light is the hotel. The building painted amber is the cinema—’
‘Who lives in that row of tidy apartments? The big white homes with trees and a swimming pool. There’s music coming through the white gauze curtains of that building. Is that also a hotel?’
‘Those apartments are dorms for senior staff. The white house is the governor’s home, so of course it has a garden. The music you hear is the Officers Club.’
‘Aiya, there’s a Muslim palace, José, look—’
‘That’s the four-star Hotel Nacional, not a palace. It’s for government dignitaries.’
‘Where do the Sahrawi live? I’ve seen so many of them.’
‘They live in town, out of town, all over. We live in the Cemetery District. If you call a taxi in the future, that’s the address you should give them.’
‘There are taxis?’
‘Yes, and they’re all Mercedes Benzes. Once we buy our things, we’ll take one home.’
We managed to buy a tiny refrigerator, a frozen chicken, a gas stove and a blanket all from the same store. ‘I would have taken care of these things sooner, but I was afraid you wouldn’t like what I bought,’ José said sheepishly. ‘So now you can have your pick.’
But what was there to choose? There was only one fridge in the store. All the gas stoves were the same. I lost all vigour thinking about the gloomy home we were renting. When it was time to pay, I opened up the pillowcase. ‘We’re not married yet,’ I said. ‘So let me pay for some of this.’ This was an old habit of ours, splitting things evenly.
José didn’t realise what I had been toting around this whole time. He freaked out when he got a closer look. He clutched the pillowcase close, dug around in his own pockets and paid the entire bill.
When we got outside, he said to me quietly, ‘Where did you get so much money? How could you store it all in this pillowcase and not say a peep?’
‘It’s from my dad. I brought it all with me.’
José sulked silently. I stood in the wind, staring at him.
‘I think. . . I don’t think you’ll get used to desert living for the long haul. Once you’re done travelling, I’ll quit my job and we can leave together.’
‘Why? Have I complained? Why do you want to quit?’
José patted the pillowcase and gave me a strained smile. ‘You came to the Sahara because you’re stubborn about your romantic ideas. You’ll get tired of this place soon enough. With all that money, you won’t be living like others do here.’
‘The money isn’t mine, it’s my father’s. I’m not using it.’
‘Alright then. Tomorrow morning, we’ll deposit it in the bank. You. . . From now on, we’ll live on my salary alone. We’ll make do, at any rate.’
I almost became angry, hearing his words. We’d known each other for so long. He knew I’d travelled alone through many places. But in his eyes, because of this bit of money, I was ultimately just a shallow and useless woman. I wanted to say something back to him but kept my mouth shut. I would prove my potential in our days to come. Right now it would be a waste of breath.
That first Friday night, I took a Mercedes Benz sedan home to the Cemetery District. I spent my first night in the desert bundled in a sleeping bag. José was wrapped in a thin blanket. It was close to freezing. We slept on a piece of tent canvas over the cement floor, shivering until daylight.
Saturday morning, we went to the courthouse to apply for our marriage certificate and also bought a stupidly expensive mattress. As for a bed frame, that wasn’t worth dreaming about.
While José was applying for our water service at the city government, I bought five of the large straw mats that the Sahrawi use, a pot, four plates, and a fork and spoon for each of us. As for knives, we had eleven ready-mades between the two of us, all of which could be used for cooking, so I didn’t get any more. I also bought a bucket, a broom, a brush, clothes pegs, soap, cooking oil, rice, sugar, vinegar…
Everything was so dishearteningly expensive. With the small stack of bills that José gave me, I couldn’t bring myself to buy any more than this.
My father’s money was stored in an account with the central bank. We wouldn’t be able to touch it for half a year, with the interest rate at 0.46 per cent.
We went to pay the landlord a visit when we got home around noon. He seemed a very generous Sahrawi man and we all left with good first impressions of each other. We borrowed half a bucket of water from him. José went to the roof to scrub out the dirty parts of the bucket while I cooked. Once the rice was done, I dumped it out and used the same pot to cook half a chicken.
We ate on the straw mats. ‘Did you add salt to the rice?’ José asked.
‘No, I used the water we borrowed from the landlord.’
It dawned on us then that El Aaiún drew its brackish water from a deep well. There was no fresh water. José ate lunch at work on most days, so naturally this had never occurred to him.
Even though we’d bought a few things for the home, it still looked like just a couple of mats on the floor. We spent the entire weekend cleaning up. Sahrawi children began to poke their heads in through that hole of a window, screeching up a storm.
On Sunday night, José had to leave to go to the phosphate mine. I asked if he would be home the following afternoon. He said he would. His workplace was nearly a hundred kilometres round trip from our rented home.
The man of the house was only around on weekends. Usually José rushed home after work and then took a shuttle bus back to the dorms when it got super late. During the day, I went into town on my own. Our Sahrawi neighbours would come by in the afternoons if it wasn’t too hot.
It took forever to get all the documents together for our marriage. Thanks to a retired commander of the Legión Española, I often tagged along for a ride on the big trucks that sold water, venturing out within a radius of a few hundred kilometres. At night I would pitch my own tent and sleep near the nomadic herders. No one dared touch me since I was under the commander’s care. I always brought along white sugar, nylon thread, medicine, cigarettes and so on to give to the locals, who had nothing.
Only by going deep into the desert, taking in the beautiful sight of wild antelope running in flocks at sunrise and sunset, was I able to forget the hardship and ennui of my reality. I spent two months this way, often leaving town to travel on my own.
Once the announcement of our marriage was posted in the local courthouse of our former Madrid residence, I knew I would be settled down for real very soon.
Home suddenly became a place that I couldn’t bear to leave.
Every time I wanted to milk our goat, it would scramble all over and try to ram me with its horns. I had to buy a lot of grass and wheat for it to eat. Our landlord still wasn’t very happy with us borrowing his goat pen.
Sometimes, if I got there slightly too late, the landlord’s wife would have squeezed out all the goat’s milk already. I really wanted to love and protect this goat, but it refused to acknowledge me or José. I ended up donating it to the landlord, rather than force the matter further.
Right before we got married, José was taking on others’ night shifts in order to make more money. There was no way for us to see each other regularly with this round-the-clock schedule. Without him at home, I had to attend to many menial tasks on my own.
Besides the Sahrawi, there was also a Spanish family that lived nearby. The wife was a bold and robust woman from the Canary Islands. She asked me to accompany her every time she went to
buy fresh water. On our way there, it was easy to keep up with her because our water tanks were empty. After buying ten litres of fresh water, I’d always tell her to go on ahead.
‘How are you so useless?’ she teased loudly. ‘Have you never carried water before in your life?’
‘I. . . It’s too heavy. You go ahead – don’t wait for me.’
Beneath the burning sun, both hands gripping the handles on the water tank, I’d walk four or five steps and then stop, panting, before going on for another ten. Stopping and starting, soaked all over with sweat, my spine would spasm with pain, my face and ears growing red, my pace slowing. My home was still a tiny black speck in the far distance, seemingly always out of reach no matter how far I walked. As soon as I got home with the water, I’d immediately lie on the straw mats to ease the pain in my back.
Sometimes when the gas was used up, I didn’t have the energy to take the empty drum into town to exchange. You had to walk into town first to hail a taxi. I was too lazy for this. So I often borrowed our neighbours’ charcoal stove and squatted outside, fanning the flames, choking while my eyes teared up from the smoke.
It was at times like these when I felt glad that my mother wasn’t a clairvoyant. Otherwise, her beautiful cheeks would be drenched for the sake of her beloved daughter – Oh, my daughter, precious pearl, apple of my eye! She would no doubt dissolve into tears.
But I didn’t lose heart. Gaining life experience is always invaluable.
Before we got married, whenever José was working overtime, I’d sit on the straw mats listening to the wind howl outside as if wailing with complaints. We had no books or newspapers at home, no television or radio. We ate on the ground. When it was time to sleep, we went into a different room and lay on a mattress on the ground.
The walls were hot to the touch during the day and frigid by night. As for electricity, we had it when we were lucky. Most of the time we weren’t. At dusk, I’d gaze through the square hole at the grey sand, fine as powder, sneaking in and spilling everywhere. When it was dark outside, I lit white candles and waited to see what shapes their tears might drip into.