Ukhayyad thought he would never see this herder again. He assumed that, after his master’s crazy proposition, the herder’s sense of dignity would suffice to make him leave Danbaba for good. It was a shameful demand. The first time Dudu had come to the oasis and stayed as a guest, Ukhayyad had not noticed anything wrong in either his appearance or behavior. All that he had noticed was that, in addition to the veil made of ashen cloth, the man wore a second, more impenetrable veil. Ukhayyad did not claim to know much about the hearts of men, but Dudu’s gloomy silence and unease had betrayed this second veil, the one that cloaked his heart.
The eyes are the mirror of the heart, as everyone knows, and while you can disguise your face behind a veil, you cannot hide the heart—for it speaks through the eyes. When Dudu had greeted Ayur, he was formal, even ceremonial—and nothing in his behavior aroused any suspicion except his fingertips. Etching his index finger into the ground, Dudu traced the sacred triangle for a while, then nervously went back over it, erasing the figure of Tanit he had just drawn. In that instant, a tremble shot through his fingers. At the time, Ukhayyad had not recognized the sign. But now, after thinking about it so intently, and after this latest secret had been divulged, he could see Dudu’s behavior for what it was. How fantastic the secrets of strangers are! And how strong these men are because of it! He who knows how to conceal his secrets is always the strongest.
That day Ukhayyad attempted to test his strength. He decided to abandon the Mahri for good. If he did not do it now, the shame of Dudu’s insult would stick to him forever. The desert was a merciless place. When the curse of shame sticks to a person there, he is stricken from memory. Worse, the scorn becomes inscribed, not only upon him, but upon his progeny as well. In the code of the desert, it is more merciful to be blotted out from the minds of men than it is to suffer this kind of scorn. A man scorned suffers not the finality of a single death, but rather death hundreds and thousands of times over—every day, every hour, every moment of his life. A real man, a man with dignity, chooses to die once rather than a thousand times. The thousandfold death is fit for slaves, and maybe vassals—but not self-respecting nobles.
In the morning, Ukhayyad placed the saddle and baggage on the plow camel and stole off, before the eye could distinguish the white thread from the black one in the twilight gloom. He descended into an arid valley and thrust his foot into the neck of the camel, spurring him into a trot. At that moment, he heard a distant howl of pain, “Aw-a-a-a-a-a-a.”
The wail came from far away, but the complaint and torment it communicated shot across the open desert to Ukhayyad. Only pain can turn the bellowing of camels into the howls of wolves. The piebald always howled when he complained, but he never complained unless the pain touched his heart. There is no creature in this world who can bear corporeal pain like a camel. At the same time, there is no creature as weak as a camel when it comes to heartache. Ukhayyad knew this from his experience with the piebald.
As he listened to the wail and his heart split in two, he tried to snuff out the pain that sparked in his core. It quickly ignited a fire whose flames consumed his breast. He whipped the plow camel’s shanks, spurring him to gallop on. He wanted to flee far, far away. He wanted to disappear, he wanted the sound of the camel to fade away and the fire inside him to die out. But the more pain flooded in, the more memories began to pour out. As if in a dream, he saw their friendship as it had been at the very beginning, before they were born, before they were clots in their mothers’ wombs. He saw them together, before they were even a thought, or a feeling, in their fathers’ hearts. He saw them before they were a desire that took hold of bodies, before they were even dust drifting in the endless void. He could glimpse them back when they had been merely a sound in the wind, the echo of a song, the lamentation of strings played between the fingers of a beautiful woman, and the trilling of a houri in paradise. Yes, that was it—the sublime sound of a merciful houri singing in the shadows of the well. And now he saw it clearly: before they ever existed as anything, they had been as one being.
How could he go off now—cloaked in the darkness of dawn, fleeing like a thief—abandoning the Mahri? How could Ukhayyad throw him off, as he might toss away a ring from his finger? How could he cast him to the barbarians in the Danbaba desert? Could a woman, a boy, and a stupid thing that people in the brutal desert called ‘shame’ make him abandon his divine half and trade it for the illusion of the world? And what was a woman? She was the noose Satan created so that he could lead men around by their necks! What was a son? The toy fathers play with, thinking they will find immortality and salvation—while in actuality they find instead the ruination of their wealth and life! And what was shame? Another illusion created by the people of the desert so as to shackle themselves with chains and rope.
If this is what shame really was, then dignity was freedom. Dignity meant saving the companion he had known in death. The companion who had carried him across the desert realms throughout these years. Dignity meant giving up the noose, the toy, and the illusion. It meant choosing the piebald. It meant that the two of them had to resume their journey across the desert realms.
Abruptly, he choked back the reins and turned on his heels. Dudu received him with the rising sun, wearing a linen veil over his face and a second over his heart. But, Ukhayyad now saw the ridicule in the man’s eyes, the confident disdain of one who knew that he had won. For a second, Dudu’s eyes gleamed a knowing smile, and then that smile vanished. Only at that moment did Ukhayyad begin to hate the man. This feeling of hate jolted through him as quick as lightning, as quick as Dudu’s concealed smile. Ukhayyad was astonished that until now he had never felt any hatred toward him. He had grown angry when the herder told him Dudu’s proposal, but he had not felt hate or resentment at the time. Perhaps because the guileless herdsman had succeeded so well in convincing him that the crisis had come about from his own mistake, the mistake of pawning the piebald. The herder had talked with him for a long while about the magical significance that the word ‘pawn’ had among merchants. The herder told him that Dudu himself had fallen into many traps set for him by the merchants of Timbuktu, Aghadès, and Ghadamès before catching on and learning what this word meant.
Now Ukhayyad also understood the meaning of this curse. Before, he had borne the brunt of the blame for what had happened, but now he understood, and his resentment found its mark: Dudu was to blame for what had happened. The famine was to blame for what had happened. Ayur, the child, the Italians, the desert—they were all to blame. My God—when fate sets things up, it spreads blame all around. It can turn everything against you—people, things, the desert—and arrange it so that no one is to blame for any one thing at all. When everyone shares complicity, there are no culprits. How clever fate can be when it wants to hide its tracks!
Dudu had come pursuing a cousin he had loved since his youth, a cousin who had been separated from him by the machinations of fate. Did Ukhayyad have the right to condemn him? If he were in the man’s place, would he treat him as his enemy?
Dudu said, “You came back to check on the giraffe?”
Confused, Ukhayyad asked, “Giraffe?”
“Yes—that is what I call him. The giraffe is the most beautiful animal we have in Aïr.”
Ukhayyad asked if he could see the animal. Dudu shook his head. “That won’t do anyone any good. Soon, you’ll want to come back to him again and again.”
Ukhayyad didn’t get angry, and said nothing. “He’s in the pasture in the western valley,” the strange foreigner finally muttered.
Now Ukhayyad understood. The morning breeze had come up from the east. It had been easy for the piebald to catch Ukhayyad’s scent when he tried to flee at dawn.
22
As the dreams of night scatter with the glowing embers of dawn, Ukhayyad’s resolve vanished as soon as he saw Dudu wrapped in his blue cloak, standing in the doorway. At that moment, he realized that a person is who he is because of what he drinks in his mother’s milk.
He knew it would be difficult to remove the noose, the toy, and the illusion from his head, unless he were to suddenly become another person altogether. “As a person is prisoner to his body, so too he is hostage to his worldly possessions,” Sheikh Musa often liked to say. By that, did he mean that people are unable to change themselves—just as they are unable to trade their bodies for others? But, could he really be content to sell the piebald and surrender himself to them—that noose of a woman, doll of a boy, and illusion of shame? Could he pawn himself to them simply because everybody else does that—abandoning the only sincere friend he had in this world?
Could he commit this betrayal without despising himself?
Descending through the valley, he had no sooner awoken from these thoughts when the Mahri rushed toward him, his forelegs still hobbled, froth spitting, and sweat pouring from his body. There was the old sadness in his eyes. He brought the plow camel to a halt off at a distance, and went down the hill on foot. They embraced.
Ukhayyad meant to be severe with the camel. “Are you a stud or a mare? What you are doing does not befit Mahris. Do you understand? I’ve told you a hundred times: be patient, it is the only thing that can protect you if you want to survive in the desert. Patience is prayer, it’s worship. Have you forgotten our journey to the fields of Maimoun? Have you forgotten our trip to Awal? Forgetting is your weakness and in the desert, it causes nothing but problems.”
The camel’s heart was not soothed. Distress flickered from his fear-stricken eye sockets. Those eyes spoke as eloquently as those of a gazelle.
Ukhayyad continued to talk to the camel, rubbing him gently, consoling him until midday. But no sooner did Ukhayyad leave than the camel bellowed in complaint. It sounded like the moans of a dying man.
To Ukhayyad’s ears, the piebald’s cries were unlike those of any other camel.
23
And now here he was, surprising Ukhayyad again.
The camel arrived, weak with fresh wounds, conveying a new message from Dudu. It was a cruel proposal, composed simply of wounds and new misery. This wretched skeleton was a warning, a sign, and it filled Ukhayyad with dread. The desert had taught him to fear this secret language, for it conveyed hidden truth, and it never signified in jest. The language of hidden, divine truth can kill.
Did the foreigner want to murder the piebald, or was this just a new stage of his heartless blackmail? Did he mean to extract revenge on the innocent animal for Ukhayyad’s scornful refusal to divorce Ayur, or was torture his method for forcing Ukhayyad into submission?
However much you think about the souls of foreigners, however smart you are, however many times you revise your interpretations, there are always more secrets to be found in them. It does not matter how clever or brilliant you are—the weapons of foreigners are always more lethal than your own. People never go into exile without a reason. The shrewd herder had been right about that.
That day, when the piebald appeared in tatters—emaciated, his bones sticking out—Ukhayyad saw contempt in Ayur’s eyes for the first time ever. No—he was not mistaken, she showed it on purpose. The look of contempt is unambiguous. She did not even attempt to hide it. What did it mean? Had something aroused her jealousy? Her jealousy toward the piebald had not been born just today! He was the splendid mount that had made Ukhayyad’s warrior status complete long before he got married. But he was also the mount that, after Ukhayyad’s marriage, had become like a second wife to her, that is, her opponent and even enemy. She had never dared to talk openly about any of her feelings toward the animal. But with all the hints she gave, it had not been difficult for him to understand where things stood.
They talked one night after dinner, a few months after their wedding, while they were still camping in the Hamada. “In all the desert I have never seen women as jealous as those of your tribe,” she told him. “Do you know what Tazidirt told me? She said, ‘Watch out. You cannot depend on a man who loves his Mahri the way Ukhayyad loves his piebald. It really is the most splendid Mahri in the desert, but when a rider loves his mount that much, no wife should trust him. Either his heart is with his mount, or it is split between his mount and his wife—and that is even worse! When a man loves his Mahri more than his wife, she should know this: she will soon lose him altogether.’ Did you ever hear such a ridiculous thing?”
He laughed that day and told her that Tazidirt was a wise woman who spoke only the truth. She had laughed too—but she never forgave him for turning the matter into a joke.
As soon as the famine began, she found her chance to get rid of the Mahri. At first, she had only insinuated this a number of times. Later, when she could no longer restrain her intentions, she announced her desires plainly and publicly. At the time Ukhayyad forgave her, since he could see what starvation was doing to everybody. He told himself that a mother who had to watch her son crying from hunger certainly had the right to lose her mind.
But now her jealousy was not simply due to his devotion to the piebald. It was because she had seen him struggle so much since pawning the camel to her kinsman. She had seen him advance and retreat as he went back and forth, again and again, between Danbaba and the oasis. She had closely watched his trips there and his returns. She thought it was a disgrace—and that he should be ashamed of himself. This was not just the jealousy a wife might feel toward the mount of a warrior. His stubborn attachment to the animal posed a real danger to her—a danger to her and to the child. She understood this with a woman’s intuition—and nothing is more sensitive than a woman who doubts! Her glance today was a warning and challenge—and it communicated contempt. Yes—contempt now flashed within her scorn. What does it mean to feel contempt as well as scorn? Contempt is stronger and crueler than scorn, and is something one suckles from a mother’s breast, or from the breast of the desert itself.
My God! Perhaps she truly loved her cousin—and perhaps she had meant to insult Ukhayyad so as to win her divorce papers. This fantastical idea only multiplied Ukhayyad’s distress. It dawned on him that all this time she had hidden the nature of her relationship to Dudu. Why had she not told him the whole story? Why, unless she was concealing some secret? Here was woman, the horrible noose tightening around his neck, strangling his breath. Here also the shadows crept up to swallow the light of day. That night, Ukhayyad wept.
Instead of sleep, he found two burning ribbons of tears pouring down his cheeks. He never thought he was capable of crying like this. A descendent of the great Akhenukhen crying in bed like the weakest woman! During his childhood, Ukhayyad had once fought one of his cohort to see who could hold a glowing coal in the palm of his hand the longest. The stench of burning flesh billowed from his hand, but he never let go. His opponent soon collapsed in pain and threw down his coal with a yelp. But Ukhayyad did not scream or cry, even though he was only nine at the time. Another time, when he was seven, his mother punished him by having their African servant insert hot pepper oil into his nostrils—spoonfuls of the stuff. He first passed out, then stopped breathing. But on that day, he did not cry.
Much later, he had plowed a furrow across the desert hanging from the tail of the piebald, then leaped into a bottomless black pit. He had died and returned to live again—all without tears.
Yet, here he was tonight, unable to stop himself. It was as if the person crying was not him, but someone else—his double—sleeping next to him, defying him. Someone else whose activities and deeds he could watch without being seen. Had this ever happened before to anybody in the desert?
He stole out of bed and left the hut. Outside, the glow of dawn began to split the shadows of the oasis, but the cocks had forgotten to announce the day’s birth, or maybe they had meant to conceal their secret. Only a band of crickets remained, carrying on with their late-night songs.
The piebald had also spent the night awake. Ukhayyad found him standing erect with his long frame, his head facing east. He was miserable and anxious as he silently watched the dawn’s birth. Meanwhile, the plow camel kneeled o
n the other side of the hut. It sat beside a thick, stooped palm, stupidly, mechanically chewing its cud. At this early hour, the melancholic piebald seemed saint-like in his pose. The other camel, whose mind remained carefree and vacant, seemed brutish and stupid in comparison. How appalling living creatures seem when their hearts are so free of worry or concern! Only sadness can implant the glow of divinity in a heart! Did this apply to people as well? Sheikh Musa always said that God loves only those worshippers who have experienced pain and suffering. Indeed, He inflicts misery only upon those whom He loves! The Sufi sheikhs in the oasis also often talked about something like this.
In the corner of the hut, he stole three handfuls of barley and snatched up his rifle. He attached the bridle through the Mahri’s nose and led him along the road to the vineyard spring.
On the road, Ukhayyad found himself repeating a refrain as if he were singing, “Patience is prayer. Patience is worship. Patience is life itself.” He took comfort repeating the words into the piebald’s ears, telling himself that the song was meant for the suffering Mahri. Inside he knew that this time the words were addressed to himself. That other person who had wept tonight, that other he had discovered living in his body—he was the one chanting the incantation. This other would be the one who would transform his sense of unrest into living deed. Since last night, this other had become his hand, his tongue, his eye. Those eyes with which he had cried—they belonged to this other. How long had this other lived inside his breast—since birth? Why had he woken up only yesterday?
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