by Sanmao
‘Somebody always died, without fail?’
‘Without fail. Nowadays there is no gravekeeper. It actually feels a lot better this way.’
‘Does the ground still crack open?’ Manolín asked.
‘Of course. When somebody dies and gets carried away, there’s always a big hole in the ground waiting.’
‘A coincidence. The ground’s probably too dry!’ Even I didn’t believe these words coming out of my mouth.
‘The ground is made of cement and held together firmly. Without an earthquake, how could it crack open?’
‘Ay, you just said you didn’t really believe in it. How come you’re insisting now?’
‘I’ve seen it with my own eyes, many times,’ Yadasi said slowly.
‘Dios mío! Who did the djinni send to the grave?’ I asked him.
‘My wife. She’s also buried there. Fourteen years old. She was pregnant when she died.’ Yadasi sounded like he was talking about somebody else. Everyone was rooted in shock, staring at him without knowing what to say.
‘What are you talking about?’ José had crept over to us, accidentally knocking over a plank.
‘Shh, we’re talking about djinn!’
‘Ah, those things. Miguel, hand me the teapot!’ In the glow of firelight, there was silence once more.
‘Yadasi,’ I called out, lying in my sleeping bag.
‘Hmm?’
‘Why are they called djinn? Can you explain?’
‘In the past, there were many djinn. They are ghosts that live in the desert. In the Hassaniya language, they are considered spirits. They live in the groves of desert oases. Then when there were fewer and fewer oases, the djinn moved to the south. They say one has been living here in the Spanish Sahara for the past few decades at the tomb of the Mahmoud clan. Everyone always cried out, “djinni, djinni”, so now the ghost and the cemetery have the same name.’
‘Isn’t your surname also Mahmoud?’ José asked.
‘He just told us his wife is buried there, you didn’t catch it,’ I whispered to José, before turning back to Yadasi. ‘Why did the Mahmoud clan choose that land?’
‘It was by accident. They buried seven people at once. Then when they discovered a djinni lived there and made the ground split open to foretell deaths in the clan, no one dared to move again. They even offer sacrifices every year!’
‘I’ve seen photos,’ I said under my breath.
‘Are there photos of the djinni?’ Miguel asked in astonishment.
‘Just the photos that the journalist took,’ replied Yadasi. ‘Not of a ghost or anything, but the graveyard. He didn’t take any of the outside. There were lots of photos of the interior. It was small, with a concrete floor covered by a red and black striped coarse cloth. He didn’t see anything special about it. There wasn’t a crack in the ground either. There were names written all over the walls.’
‘How come the graveyard was indoors?’ José asked.
‘Originally there was no building, just a circle of stones. But then the ground would always split open where people had been buried. When people went to look, they could never find the bones, so they just buried the next one wherever the earth was cracked. After almost a hundred years, they still hadn’t filled this tiny piece of land. It’s just a few times the size of Sanmao’s sleeping bag, but somehow all deaths in the clan have been buried there, year after year.’
I felt pretty uncomfortable with Yadasi using my sleeping bag for scale. I didn’t dare move, my back pressed to the ground.
‘They didn’t look hard enough!’ Miguel said. ‘I hear that most corpses in the desert never rot.’
‘They still have to dig deep whenever someone is buried. There really was nothing underground.’
‘Add some firewood, Manolín!’ I called out.
‘Then eventually you built a house and put down a concrete floor, thinking it wouldn’t crack, right? Ha…’ José started laughing out of the blue. The tea water splashed onto the fire with a sizzle, making us jump.
‘You don’t believe it?’ Manolín asked in a low voice.
‘Everyone dies. Whether the ground cracks open or not, they’ll die. Besides, the Mahmoud clan is pretty big.’
‘The djinni casts omens for only your clan,’ Miguel said softly. ‘The two cemeteries by Sanmao’s house don’t have one.’
‘Hey, don’t talk a bunch of crap,’ I protested. ‘Our place is the picture of serenity.’
‘Shh, speak softly.’ José swatted me and shoved the hand I’d stuck out back into the sleeping bag.
‘The townspeople are quite odd. They won’t hang out near your home.’
‘People who aren’t part of the Mahmoud clan won’t get consigned to their deaths there. The djinni only recognises the Mahmouds because they’re always the one offering sacrifices. No one else is allowed to be buried there!’
‘One time, a father and two sons from another clan were travelling. During the journey, the father died of illness. The sons were close to where the djinni was. They carried their father and buried him with the Mahmouds. There was still no concrete at the time, so they just put stacks and stacks of large rocks on the grave. When the sons walked back to where they’d tied their camels, a new grave had appeared right there. There was no one anywhere around. The two sons could hardly believe it. They dug up the grave and were shocked to find their father inside, whom they had buried hundreds of metres away. They stumbled and tottered their way back to the djinni. The father’s grave was empty. There was nothing at all in there—’
‘Let me tell the rest,’ Miguel cried. ‘So this time they carried their father back to bury him in the original spot. After burying him, they returned and found another new grave in their path. When they opened it up, it was the father again. They—’
‘How do you know?’ I interrupted.
‘I’ve heard this one before. It was an ancestor of Lwali, one of the drivers at the company. He used to talk about it all the time and wouldn’t stop until everyone was upset.’
‘Hey, how about roasting some sweet potatoes?’ I asked, sticking out my head.
‘Where are they?’ José asked quietly.
‘In the bucket, quite a few kilos. Stoke the fire a bit.’
‘I can’t find it.’ José was searching high and low in the distance.
‘Not the red bucket, the blue bucket.’
‘Get up and look yourself – you’re the one who put them there.’
‘Can’t get up.’ We were surrounded by darkness on all sides. It felt like there were thousands of eyes blinking at us from beyond the firelight.
‘How many do you want to roast?’ he asked softly.
‘All of them. If we can’t finish them, we can have them for breakfast tomorrow.’
As they began burying sweet potatoes in the hot ashes, I tucked into my sleeping bag, imagining they were burying seven dead people, all with the surname Mahmoud.
‘Speaking of people at work,’ Miguel began again. ‘That engineer is another one of them.’
‘Who?’
‘The eldest son of the police chief.’
‘He’s irrelevant, Miguel,’ I said.
‘I’ve been here longer than you. He’s relevant. You just haven’t heard about it. Two people went to find the great San Diego sand dune, got lost and didn’t come home. The father went to look for them with the police. Two days later, they found them in a grove. They hadn’t died of dehydration or heat. Their car had run out of gas and got stuck there. One of them was fine but the other had gone totally crazy.’
‘Ah, I heard he was a bit weird to begin with.’
‘No way. He was fine when I first met him. Once they brought him back, he was properly mad, running all over the place and foaming at the mouth. He kept saying there was a ghost chasing him. They had to forcibly sedate him. He’d pass out for a while. Then, when no one was paying attention, he’d open his bloodshot eyes and go nuts again. Everyone was worn out after a few days of this. They
saw that this wasn’t going away. They brought him to see the santón. The santón told him to pray facing Mecca. His mother stepped in and said they were Catholic and would certainly not be praying to Mecca. But the priest in town also said it was a kind of psychological treatment and he might as well pray. If he got better from praying to Mecca, it would be God’s will…’
‘What a strange priest. The priest and santón in town have always been enemies…’
‘Sanmao, don’t change the subject.’ Miguel stopped here unhappily.
‘And then—’
‘Then he prayed and prayed to Mecca. The djinni stopped following him and left. Amazingly, it let go of him.’
‘Psychological treatment, you got that right. In the desert, just go with Mecca. Other religions don’t work.’ José was laughing again in disbelief.
Miguel ignored him. ‘He lost a lot of weight after that,’ he continued. ‘He was always sullen and unhappy. Still died in less than six months.’
‘He swallowed a gun in the dormitory. His younger brother just so happened to be getting married in Spain that day, so his parents were both gone. Right?’ I asked quietly.
‘Swallowed a gun?’ Miguel looked at me, uncomprehending.
‘I’m using a Chinese expression in Spanish. Didn’t he put a handgun in his mouth and pull the trigger? That’s swallowing a gun,’ I said.
‘I heard his girlfriend left him to marry his brother,’ José said. ‘That’s why he didn’t want to live. It has nothing to do with the djinni.’
‘Says who?’ I looked at José disapprovingly.
‘Me.’
‘Ay…’ I sighed. ‘The desert corps also talk about the djinni,’ I added. ‘They start spitting everywhere when they talk about it, like it’s bad luck.’
‘A few decades ago, I heard that the soldiers came across a caravan of camels with no people. They say it was one djinni paying respects to another!’
‘That, I’m not afraid of,’ I giggled. ‘It’s a friendly gesture.’
‘Yadasi?’ Manolín, who had long been silent, suddenly called out.
‘Do you want a smoke?’ Yadasi asked him.
‘So where exactly is this djinni?’ Manolín asked, his tone suspicious.
‘How would I respond to this kind of question? The desert looks the same everywhere.’ Yadasi started sounding kind of vague.
‘The small sweet potatoes are ready,’ José said softly from by the fire. ‘Who wants one?’
‘Toss one here,’ I called out quietly. I half sat up and caught the one he threw to me. It was too hot to hold, so I tossed it to Miguel, who threw it over to Yadasi. ‘Ha ha, now there’s a hot potato no one can hold on to.’ I started chuckling. Abruptly another one was coming at me. I grabbed it and stuck it in the sand. With this ruckus, the yin energy all around us seemed to dissipate. José was putting more dry brambles on the fire, and soon the flames leaped up again.
Right then there was a commotion in Jerry’s tent, the sound of something getting knocked over, followed by baby Isabel’s wailing.
‘Jerry, what’s the matter?’ José called out.
‘Sanmao threw herself against the back of the tent and woke up Isabel,’ Tania cried pitifully. Their gas lamp lit up.
‘No, I didn’t. I’m over here.’ I shivered when I heard what she said. Soon I couldn’t stop shivering. Everyone went over to their tent to take a look. Only I stayed, half-upright by the fire.
‘We were fast asleep. Then there was a smack on the side of the tent closest to the woods.’ As Jerry explained, Miguel shone a flashlight around there.
‘Hmm, there are claw marks here. A very clear set. Come look.’
I sat straight up when I heard Miguel say this. ‘Quick, come over here,’ I called to Tania while the men ran into the darkness. ‘Come by the fire!’
Tania staggered her way over in a rush, her face white as snow. Isabel was no longer crying in her arms. ‘A wolf? Are there coyotes here?’ She sat with her back against me, also trembling uncontrollably.
‘Of course not. There have never been any. Don’t be afraid.’ I kept my eyes on the group that was slowly returning to us. ‘We have more than wolves to be afraid of…’ I added.
‘Sanmao, what time is it?’
‘I don’t know. Let’s ask José when he gets back.’
‘Four thirty,’ Yadasi said quietly behind us.
I turned around and almost cried out in surprise. ‘Hey, don’t scare us like that. Didn’t you go with the others to find out about the claw marks? How did you pop up behind us?’ Tania was already afraid of Sahrawi people. She was even more terrified now.
‘I… didn’t go.’ There seemed to be something off with Yadasi.
Just then the three others got back. ‘A wild dog,’ José said.
‘How did a dog get over here?’ I asked.
‘How would I know?’ José’s tone also seemed strange. He must have grown more nervous. I gave him a look and ignored him.
A deep silence surrounded us. Jerry went back to his tent to get blankets and spread one on the ground. Tania lay down with Isabel and pulled up two blankets as cover. Jerry stroked her hair. ‘Back to sleep!’ he whispered. Tania closed her eyes again.
We gingerly peeled the sweet potatoes. The fire had dwindled when we took out the smaller ones. Now it was spread weakly on the ground. ‘Add firewood!’ I called out quietly to Miguel, who was sitting by the fire. He threw on a few dry brambles.
All grew silent again. I sprawled out with my chin propped on my palms, watching the flames dance and jump. Yadasi also lay down. Manolín still sat cross-legged. Miguel was intently focused on stoking the fire.
‘Yadasi, won’t you show us the way to the djinni?’ Manolín reopened the conversation that had long fallen to the wayside.
Yadasi didn’t speak.
‘If you won’t, then maybe ol’ Demon Eyes in town will?’ Miguel inserted himself into the silence.
‘Hanna took that foreigner once and his wife died,’ I said. ‘Who has the guts to bring anyone any more?’
‘Stop talking rubbish,’ José said under his breath. ‘Hanna didn’t die, the journalist didn’t die. It was his wife, who didn’t even go, who died…’
‘The journalist – he did die,’ Manolín said. No one knew such a thing had happened. We froze in place. ‘In a car accident. Almost a year ago.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The magazine he worked for published a little announcement. I just happened to stumble upon it. It said a lot of good things about all that he did in his life.’
‘Are you guys talking about the djinni?’ Jerry asked Yadasi, joining the conversation. He motioned at us not to speak any further. Tania wasn’t asleep yet. Her eyes kept opening and closing.
The sun was rising in the desert, but it was still dark where we were. The sky wouldn’t grow light until seven or eight in the morning. The night was yet long.
‘Speaking of Demon Eyes, did she really see something?’ Miguel asked Yadasi in a low voice.
‘No one else saw it, just her. At first she didn’t realise. Then one time it followed her to a funeral. In broad daylight, she became confused and grabbed someone to ask, “Hey, where did all those flocks of goats and tents come from?” She pointed at the empty land and said, “See, those people are striking camp and getting ready to go, they’re leading their camels…” ’
‘Bullshit. I don’t believe it.’
‘Bullshit or not, it’s true. A dead man who she didn’t recognise asked her to pass along a message. When she went back to town and spoke to his relatives, she found there really was someone in their family who had died many years ago. He asked who his daughter Shaia’a had married.’
‘We have these kinds of people in China, too. They’re all frauds!’
‘Demon Eyes doesn’t need money. She has enough already.’
‘She’s seen the djinni?’
‘She said the djinni was sitting on a tree branch, shak
ing and shuddering and watching the burial beneath. It even smiled and waved at her. Demon Eyes was so frightened by this that she brought her own camel to sacrifice.’
‘That’s right, and there are people who say that the sacrificial altar is never full!’ Miguel said. ‘The altar is also weird. It looks just like a flat block of stone, not even as big as a table. One slaughtered camel wouldn’t fit on it. But forget that. You could put the flesh of ten camels there and it would still never be full.’
‘The djinni is greedy!’ I said quietly.
A strange wind rose out of nowhere just then. I saw the fire, which was nearing its end, burst up and over towards me. José dragged me back, half tumbling. The fire receded as I stared at it. A cold and prickly feeling spread from my back through my entire body.
‘Please, change the topic,’ Tania moaned, covering her eyes. All of us sat stiffly after that burst of flame. The yin energy grew stronger still. The flames gradually grew dimmer. Everyone looked at the fire, sinking into silence once more.
After a while, Miguel said, ‘Did anyone see the performance of The Lion in Winter in town?’
‘I saw it twice.’
‘Was it good?’
‘Depends on your mood. I liked it, but José didn’t.’
‘A matter of taste in theatre,’ José said.
Speaking of drama, there came a sound like roaring waves from the forest behind us. ‘Stop talking,’ I called.
‘Now we can’t talk again.’ Miguel gave me a strange look.
‘Macbeth.’ I pointed at the woods behind me.
‘You really love free association,’ Miguel said, laughing all of a sudden. ‘Is there anything in the world we can’t be afraid of?’
‘There’s still something weird going on. Ask Manolín. He went in there too.’ Manolín didn’t deny or confirm anything. ‘I think it can move,’ I went on.
‘What can move?’
‘The forest!’
‘You’re crazy! Your imagination is running wild.’
I flipped over. Flames had just leapt out at me. Now the fire had died down on its own. Cold gloom seeped into our bones. The chill all around us grew heavier.
‘Time to get more firewood!’ José stood up.