Stories of the Sahara

by Sanmao

  I opened my camera in front of the group and pulled out the film from inside as though doing a magic trick. Then I jumped out of the car, holding the film to the light so they could see that the negatives were white on top. No human figures. They breathed a sigh of relief, seeing this. Everyone was smiling contentedly by the time we took off.

  On the road, I put in another roll of film, chuckling with Bashir. I sighed and looked back at the two old Sahrawi people riding with us. ‘Long ago, there was a thing,’ one of them said. ‘And when you put it next to someone, it would completely absorb their soul. It was even more powerful than your box!’

  ‘Bashir, what are they talking about?’ I asked, leaning over Bashir’s shoulder, my head bobbling in the open air.

  Once Bashir had explained it, I retrieved a hand mirror from my bag without a word and gently raised it in front of the old people. They took one look at the mirror and almost tumbled out of the car in fright. They pounded on Bashir’s back, telling him to stop the car. They scrambled out in haste as soon as he pulled over. I was dumbfounded by their actions. Then, looking around Bashir’s water truck, I realised there wasn’t a rear-view mirror or anything like that.

  Material civilisation isn’t really necessary for humankind. But I was truly shocked and amazed that there were people who lived in the same world as me and had never even seen a mirror before. Then I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pity for them. Was this kind of ignorance due to geographical limitations or human factors? I couldn’t figure out the answer for a long, long time.

  The next time I went into the desert, I took a medium-sized mirror. I took this shiny object with me out of the car and propped it up with a pile of rocks. Everyone was so scared to look into it they stopped caring about my camera altogether. The mirror became the truly powerful soul-stealing device.

  Fooling people for the sake of taking photos didn’t seem like noble behaviour, so I often squatted before the mirror to brush my hair, wipe my face and check myself out, before getting up to leave like nothing was wrong. I showed that I wasn’t at all afraid of the mirror. Over time, even groups of children were willing to come over. They walked very quickly past the mirror and, discovering that nothing had happened, walked past again and again. Soon the mirror was completely surrounded by shrieking Sahrawi people. This was how the matter of stealing souls disappeared.

  After getting married, it wasn’t just me that became José’s property. My camera, of course, also fell into his hands.

  When we cut straight across the desert on our honeymoon, my master didn’t let me lay a hand on my precious even once. He became the soul-stealer of the desert. The souls he stole often turned out to be those of our beautiful female neighbours.

  One day we took our rented Jeep over to the desert on the Atlantic coast. This was already over a thousand kilometres away from the town where we lived. The desert was black in some parts, white in some parts or yellow-brown and red in other parts. I preferred the black sand because it looked majestic. José liked the white sand. He said it looked like a fine snowscape beneath the hot sun.

  At noon, we drove slowly past a swathe of sand that was almost pure white. On the other side of the desert was the deep blue ocean. Out of nowhere a pink cloud appeared overhead, slowly descending towards the sea. Soon the rays of a setting sun were spreading across the sky.

  I thought it incredibly strange, gazing closely at this odd phenomenon in the firmament. How could there be a dusk scene appearing all of a sudden at noon? I looked closer. My God! Goodness! It was a large flock of flamingos, crowded together in enormous numbers, all of them lowering their heads to eat who knows what from the beach.

  I gently placed a hand on the camera. ‘Give it to me!’ I said to him quietly. ‘Let me take a photo. Don’t make a noise. Don’t move.’

  José was faster than me and had the camera up to his eye in no time.

  ‘Hurry and take the photo!’

  ‘I can’t get it right. It’s too far. I’m getting out.’

  ‘Don’t get out,’ I hissed at José. ‘Be still!’

  Before I could say anything else, José took off his shoes and scurried towards the bay. He looked like he was going to sneak up on a group of heavenly guests. Before he could get close, that pink cloud rose into the air and flew off without a trace.

  It was too bad that we didn’t get a shot of the flamingos. But the beauty of that moment remains in my heart, something I will never in my life forget.

  One time we paid a visit to someone’s tent, along with a Sahrawi friend. That day the host had slaughtered a goat with great ceremony and invited us to eat. This manner of eating goat is very simple. You cut up the goat into a few dozen pieces and throw it, dripping blood and all, to roast on a fire. Once it’s half-cooked, you put it in a clay basin the size of a bathtub and sprinkle on some salt. Everyone gathers around to eat together.

  All of us picked up big pieces of meat to gnaw on. After gnawing for a bit, we set it down, going out to drink tea and play board games with small stones. About an hour later, we were all called together again. We convened by the already gnawed-on meat, picking up pieces at random, regardless of who had had it before. We redoubled our efforts at eating. Only after many rounds of gnawing and tossing and gnawing and tossing did this one goat get eaten to the bone.

  I asked José to take a picture of me gnawing on the bones. But photos are just a still frame. I didn’t know how to photograph this phrase: ‘The piece of meat I’m gnawing on already has saliva from three or four people or more.’

  Another time, José and I went to see a camel give birth because we heard that baby camels just tumble down from their upright mother when they’re born. It promised to be extraordinary. So, of course, we took a camera.

  Who knew that the baby camel would take forever, refusing to come into this world? I got bored waiting so I went to walk around in the sand. That was when I saw the old Sahrawi man who managed the camel fall to his knees, then rise to stand again.

  His movements made me suddenly think of something rather amusing. There’s no toilet paper out in the desert, so what do people do after they defecate? Even though this wasn’t a very constructive question, I pondered it for some time.

  I ran over to José and whispered, ‘José, how do they do it?’

  ‘You see him kneeling and rising because he’s peeing, not pooping.’

  ‘What? Who on earth kneels to pee?’

  ‘There are two ways of doing it, kneeling and squatting. Don’t tell me you didn’t already know that?’

  ‘Go take a photograph for me!’ I insisted that there should be a record of this grand discovery.

  ‘He’s covered by a robe when he kneels. It’ll just be a picture of a person kneeling. Totally boring!’

  ‘I think it’s interesting. What other people also pee in such a strange way?’ I really thought this was a fascinating matter.

  ‘Is there artistic value in this? Sanmao?’

  I didn’t know what to say.

  * * *

  The number one most amusing episode with my photography also happened out in the desert.

  We were camping in a place not far from El Aaiún. Someone saw that we’d set up our tent and came over to chat. It was a young Sahrawi man, who was also very friendly. He knew how to speak Spanish and told us he used to help out with a mobile clinic run by nuns. He repeatedly informed us that he was a ‘civilised’ person.

  This guy really liked having his soul stolen by us. He politely asked if José could lend his clothes to him for the photos and was very careful when slipping on José’s watch. He tousled his hair again and again, then posed in a way that was completely not his style. He looked like a boorish imitation of a European.

  ‘May I ask if your camera is colour?’ he asked politely.

  ‘What?’ I was taken aback.

  ‘May I ask if this is a colour camera?’ he repeated.

  ‘You mean the negatives? There’s no such thing as a colour cam
era.’

  ‘Yes, there is. The nun I used to work with only had a black and white one. I prefer colour cameras.’

  ‘You mean the film? Or the actual machine?’ I started having doubts myself, talking to him.

  ‘The machine. You don’t understand. Ask your husband. I see that the camera he has can shoot in colour.’ He looked disdainfully at me, a woman asking too many questions.

  ‘It can! Don’t move. I have the world’s best natural colour camera in my hands.’ José solemnly raised his hands and took a photo of this graceful young man who considered himself a civilised person.

  I watched from the sidelines as José deceived him without correcting his mistake. I was laughing so hard I had to bury my head in the sand like an ostrich.

  Lifting my head up, I realised José had his camera pointed at me now. I covered my face and yelled, ‘The colour camera is going to take my clean white soul! Please have mercy on me!’

  Sergeant Salva

  One summer evening, José and I decided to go for a stroll in the cool outdoors. It had been an unbearably hot day. The desert, at this hour, was pleasantly refreshing. Our Sahrawi neighbours were all eating dinner outside with their children. The night had already grown quite dark.

  As we neared the cemetery on the outskirts of town, we saw there was a group of young Sahrawi not too far away, clamouring around something in the moonlight. It wasn’t until we made our way through the crowd that we discovered it was a Spanish soldier who lay completely still on the ground. He would have looked dead, were it not for the rosiness of his face. With his big beard, riding boots and military uniform, it was clear he was part of the desert corps. There was no insignia by which to identify him.

  He had been sprawled there for quite some time, it seemed. The crowd that surrounded him was speaking loudly in Arabic. They snuck up on him and spat mischievously, tugging at his boots, stepping on his hands. One of the Sahrawi even put on his military cap and clowned around, pretending to be drunk. Facing a soldier who was in no position to resist, the Sahrawi were bold and impudent indeed.

  ‘José, go back and get the car, quick,’ I said under my breath, looking around nervously. How I wished there were another soldier or a Spaniard nearby. However, no such person was around. While José ran back to get the car, I kept staring at the gun slung around the officer’s waist. I decided I would start screaming if anyone tried to take it. I didn’t know what I would do after that.

  Around this time, the youth of the Spanish Sahara had organised themselves into the Polisario People’s Liberation Front. Their headquarters was in Algeria, but pretty much every young person in town was on their side. Relations between the Spanish and the Sahrawi were dangerously tense. The desert corps and the locals hated each other even more.

  José drove over in a hurry not long after. We parted the crowd in order to drag this drunkard into the car. This guy was big and beefy. It was no mean feat to carry his weight. We were soaked in sweat by the time we managed to get him situated in the backseat. Closing the door, we muttered apologies and drove slowly away from the crowd. A few people still banged on the roof of the car as we left.

  José sped along towards the main gate of the desert corps. The army camp was deathly quiet. ‘Flash your lights, José, and honk the horn. We don’t know the password. They’ll get the wrong idea. Let’s park a bit farther away.’

  José parked quite a distance from the guards. We opened the doors and got out of the car in a hurry. ‘We’re bringing home a drunk person,’ we called out. ‘Come over and take a look!’

  Two guards rushed over. They loaded their guns with a clatter and pointed them at us. We pointed into the car and didn’t budge. Looking inside, the two guards immediately recog­nised the fellow. They went in and began to take the soldier out. ‘Him again!’ they said.

  Just then, a spotlight from above swept over and shone down on us. I was incredibly frightened by this and scrambled into the car. As José was about to drive off, the two guards saluted us and said, ‘Thank you, compadre!’

  Fear still lingered in my heart on the way home. It was the first time in my life that someone had pointed a gun at me up close. Even though these were our own troops, it still made me very nervous. For many days after, I kept thinking about the heavily guarded camp area by night and that stupidly drunk officer.

  A few days later, two of José’s co-workers came over to hang out at our home. I poured a big jug of cold milk for them as an expression of our sincere hospitality. These guys chugged it down like oxen drinking water. I went to open two more cartons right away.

  ‘Sanmao, if we drink it all, then what will you do?’ They stared sadly at the milk but continued to drink, looking embarrassed.

  ‘Relax and drink up! This stuff is hard to come by for you guys.’

  Food was a topic that concerned everyone in the desert. It wasn’t enough to be on the receiving end of hospitality. People would always ask where the good stuff came from. That afternoon, José’s co-workers drank all the cartons of fresh milk I had. Seeing that my expression hadn’t changed, sure enough, they asked where I’d bought it.

  ‘Heh! I’ve got a place.’ I kept them in the dark, feeling very pleased with myself.

  ‘Please tell us where?’

  ‘Ah, you can’t buy it there yourselves. Just come over when you want milk!’

  ‘We want lots of it. Sanmao, please tell us where!’

  ‘I bought it at the canteen of the desert corps.’

  ‘The barracks?!’ they shouted, gaping like yokels. ‘A woman, all by yourself, buying groceries at the barracks?’

  ‘Don’t the army wives shop there? Of course I go there, too.’

  ‘But it’s against the rules. You’re just a commoner!’

  ‘Commoners in the desert are different from commoners in the city,’ I chuckled. ‘The soldiers don’t draw distinctions between us.’

  ‘Are the soldiers polite to you?’

  ‘Very polite. Much better than most people in town.’

  ‘Would it be a problem to ask you to buy milk on our behalf?’

  ‘No problem at all, just give me a list tomorrow for how many cartons you need.’

  When José got home from work the next day, he gave me a list of requests for milk. On it were the names of eight single men, each of them hoping I could provide ten cartons of milk to them per week, a total of eighty cartons. I bit my lip, looking over the list. I’d already talked it up so much, but I couldn’t imagine asking for eighty cartons of milk at the barracks. Under such circumstances, I would rather lose face and buy the shameful eighty cartons all at once, then never come again. It would be better than buying ten cartons a day.

  The following day, I went to the canteen and bought a big case of ten cartons of milk. I asked someone to help me set it aside in a corner, then turned and went straight back in to buy another case. I put this case in the corner again. After a while, I went in yet again. I did this four times in total. The young soldier at the till looked befuddled.

  ‘Sanmao, how many more times do you need to come and go?’

  ‘Four more times. Please bear with me.’

  ‘Why don’t you buy it all at once? Is it all milk?’

  ‘It’s against the rules to buy it all at once,’ I replied, rather embarrassed. ‘It’s too much.’

  ‘Don’t worry. Let me get it for you. May I ask what you need this much milk for?’

  ‘I was sent by others to buy milk. It’s not all for me.’

  Once there were eight big cases of milk piled in the corner, I got ready to call a taxi. Suddenly a Jeep swooped past and parked. I looked up and had quite a fright when I saw the soldier sitting in the car. Wasn’t it that drunkard we’d brought back to the camp area the other night?

  This man was tall and robust. The uniform fitted him well. I couldn’t tell how old he was beneath that big beard. There was a bit of an aggressive glint in his eye when he looked at me, an overly intense focus. The top two buttons
of his shirt were left undone. He had a crew cut beneath a green boat-shaped military cap, which displayed his ranking – sergeant.

  I hadn’t seen him clearly that night, so I looked him over deliberately. Without waiting for me to speak, he jumped out of the car and started moving the small mountain of milk cases into the car, one by one. Seeing that the milk was already in the car, I stopped hesitating and got into the front seat.

  ‘I live in the Cemetery District,’ I said to him very politely.

  ‘I know where you live.’ With that curt reply, he started the engine.

  We said nothing on the road. He drove very steadily, two hands gripping the steering wheel. As the car passed the cemetery, I turned my head to take in the landscape, worried he might remember and feel embarrassed about how we had picked him up in such a pitiful drunken stupor the other night.

  He slowed the car to a stop as we came to my neighbourhood. Before he climbed down, I tumbled out and called loudly for my friend Salun, who ran the small grocery store nearby, since I couldn’t very well trouble this sergeant to help move all that milk again.

  Hearing my voice, Salun rushed out in his slippers, a shy smile on his face. When he got to the Jeep and discovered there was a soldier standing next to me, he paused ever so briefly. Then he lowered his head and hurriedly began moving the cases for me, looking as though he’d seen a ghost.

  At this point, the sergeant who’d brought me home saw that Salun was helping me and glanced over to Salun’s little shop. His eyes shifted to me with a gaze full of contempt. I was keenly aware that he must have misunderstood. My face turning red, I clumsily spoke up in my defence. ‘This milk isn’t for resale, really! Please believe me, I’m just. . .’

  He climbed into the car and set his hands on the steering wheel with a pat. He looked like he might say something, but he just started the engine instead. Only then did it occur to me to run over and thank him. ‘Thank you, Sergeant! May I ask your name?’