Impossible Journey

by Michael Asher

  Eating rice was a problem that she found hard to resolve. You were supposed to thrust your fist into the food, squeezing the rice into a ball between fingers and thumb. Then you transferred the ball to your mouth and popped it inside with the thumb. It was unseemly for the fingers to enter the mouth. When Marinetta tried to make a ball, it would inevitably crumble before it got anywhere near her mouth, leaving a scattering of rice across the sand. Furiously, she would crush the gluey stuff into her palm and chew it out of her closed fist, drawing disgusted glances from Mafoudh.

  The reason why the Moors used only the right hand for eating was that the left was exclusively for cleaning themselves after defecating. They thought toilet paper disgusting and used water to clean themselves when it was available. In the desert they used sand or stones. Marinetta tried sand and found it painfully abrasive. Often, she pined for ‘Scottex Supersoft’. Answering nature’s call was always a dilemma for her. In the daytime, there was nowhere to hide, and she had to pull her long Arab shirt over her knees and hope no one was watching too closely.

  After we had eaten, Mafoudh would whip through his afternoon prayer. He prayed at sunrise, noon, afternoon, sunset, and evening. The prayer consisted of bowing, kneeling, and the repetition of certain verses from the Quran, like a meditation. Before each prayer, he would make ritual ablutions, covering his hands and face with sand. He always seemed to be in a hurry with his prayers, though, as if they were something to be got out of the way before he drank his tea.

  As the days passed, any doubts that I may have entertained about Mafoudh dissolved. He seemed completely trustworthy. I felt foolish for having been over-protective about Marinetta. Still, we had to behave very formally with each other while he was around, never touching or showing any sign of affection, which might have upset his sense of propriety. In Chinguetti, with a measure of privacy, we had fought like cat and dog, rowed and argued and raged. Perversely, now that there was no privacy at all, our desire for each other increased in leaps and bounds, and I found Marinetta more attractive every day as her clothes became more stained and dishevelled and her appearance wilder. Often when Mafoudh’s back was turned, we found ourselves exchanging secret smiles and, occasionally, the forbidden delight of a kiss. Mostly, though, we maintained the distance of strangers, hardly able even to talk.

  Marinetta always kept her hair covered in the Moorish fashion. For a woman to show her hair in their culture was as much a green light to men as flashing a naked breast in ours. She had always detested hats of any kind, and keeping her thick headcloth on, even in the cool of evening, was the worst torture she had to bear. Throughout the journey, she dressed like a man, and the bulky Arab shirt and sirwel neatly disguised any alluring feminine curves she might have shown. This brought us problems of its own. When we arrived at a well on 11 August, two women who were watering goats there refused to greet her. They backed away, giggling, when she held her hand out. ‘They think she’s a man,’ Mafoudh chortled. ‘Moor women never shake hands with a man.’ Both the women were dressed in faded indigo shifts and even more faded cotton skirts. One of them was quite an old lady with a face like parchment, but the other was young, slim, and willowy with creamy, smooth shoulders and pert breasts. To me she looked decidedly sensuous as she dipped the rubber bucket in the well. But Mafoudh hardly gave her a second glance. Watching Marinetta beside her, I realised with a jolt what a weird, hermaphroditic figure she must have seemed to them, with her feminine smallness and her masculine dress.

  When they learned that she was a woman, their behaviour changed dramatically. They hustled up to her, examining her clothes and touching her skin. They fingered her wedding ring and earrings and peered into her camera bag, continually demanding presents. They seemed like wild things. Once, she presented the young girl with a cheap bracelet from Chinguetti; the girl said, ‘This is nothing!’ and asked for more. When they became aggressive in their demands, I went to her rescue and told them gruffly to leave her alone. They did so immediately. I found myself wondering about this culture in which women could touch any other woman, even a complete stranger, but a man couldn’t touch his own wife.

  The well was in the Khatt, the great fault in the desert crust that divides the regions of Adrar and Tagant. The water was salty but the women said it was all they had, since no rain had fallen here or farther south. ‘That means there’ll be no tents for us to rest in,’ Mafoudh said testily. ‘We’d better fill agirba, even though the water’s bad. A man who doesn’t fill his waterbags when he gets the chance knows nothing about the desert.’

  The heat was back with a vengeance, and a hot wind raked us, scorching the sand and drumming up a shroud of dust that raged in the sky like sea-froth, obscuring the sun. This is the worst type of day to travel on,’ our guide declared. ‘It’s hot, and with this mist, you can’t tell the north from the south.’ The heat got us all down. Mafoudh became prickly and argumentative, lapsing into sullen moods of silence, then waking up and yelling, ‘Come on! Come on!’ even though we were right behind him and going no more slowly than usual. Instead of laughing, he glared at me nastily when one of my knots came undone and, when he saw me tying a girba, commented crabbily, ‘I thought you knew how to tie a girba. You should tie it on the left, not the right.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ I snapped back. ‘It doesn’t make any difference. You just want everything done your way!’

  The heat did this. It made you argue. Yet I knew that beneath the arguments was the ancient, ugly question that has plagued all men at all times.’ ‘Who’s the boss?’ No one travelling in the desert with desert people can avoid that issue for long. Sooner or later, in ways subtle or obvious, there will be a struggle for power.

  Ours came that night, when Mafoudh told me, ‘The way you march is wrong. We should get up two hours before dawn and travel in the coolest time. That way is better for camels and men. We should rest most of the day and travel at night. The day is our enemy in this heat. When you find grazing, you should stop for a day or even two.’

  I told him that I had developed my own system of marching in the Sudan. I knew that Arabs marched haphazardly, resting for two days when they found grazing, then rushing on madly for twenty hours to make up. That style was no good for our journey of 4,500 miles. It was a journey that most Arabs would not have undertaken. I was convinced that it required a more methodical approach, a blend of the Orient and the Western. Mafoudh would be with us only till Walata, then we should have another guide, then another, and another. We couldn’t change our ways continually to accommodate the whims of each new guide. Our guides would have to adopt our way. And our way was to march by watch and compass, going by day and covering the same distance daily, come hell or high wind, from Changuetti to the Nile. I remembered the story of Harry St John Philby, the explorer of Arabia’s Empty Quarter. His bedouin guides had threatened to kill him because he insisted on travelling by day. He had won only by refusing to eat with them. I doubted if such drastic measures would be needed with Mafoudh. I reminded him of what Sid’Ahmed had said before we left, and he stomped off to bed, muttering. By the following day, it was forgotten.

  The next morning, we saw the palm groves of Talmoust sprouting from a depression in the middle of a dusty, black plain. The palm trees looked temptingly green, but when we got nearer, we saw that they bore no dates. The Moors who were at the well inside the groves told us that there had been no rain there for five years and that dates no longer grew. ‘The palms need water just like the grass,’ one old man said. ‘If we don’t get rain next year, Talmoust will be finished.’ There were no Haratin in Talmoust. The people here were bidan of the Kunta, an Arab tribe of noble origin found throughout the Sahara. They herded goats and camels around Tijikja and retired to these palm groves in the season of the date harvest. Their tents were rolled up and stored on wooden frames outside the huts of palm fibre that they used in summer. The village of huts was bleak. The buildings were grey and derelict, inhabited by naked, brown children and shy women i
n the usual faded blue. The men were very Arab-looking, stringy as thorn trees, with wisps of beard and ragged gandourahs. A few scraggy camels were being watered at the well, and around it lay butterfly saddles, stained and broken, and heaps of old ropes and saddle bags.

  The men crowded round to greet us, and Mafoudh and I shook hands with each of them. The greeting always followed the same ritual. First you wished the whole crowd, ‘Peace be on you!’ and they would reply in chorus, ‘And on you be peace!’ Then you grasped each man firmly by the hand and, putting on your most earnest expression, repeated, ‘How is your condition? Nothing evil, I trust!’ ‘How is the news? Only good, I trust!’ You jabbered this as if in competition with an opponent, and your adversary would repeat, ‘No evil, thank God!’ ‘The news is good, praise God!’ The news was always good, even if your father had died or your entire camel herd had contracted the mange.

  When all this had finally died down, someone would diffidently inquire which tribe you belonged to. It was really an inquiry after your social position because in Mauritania, your status depended on how high up the social scale your tribe stood. Mafoudh belonged to a marabout tribe, which, while still nobility, didn’t figure very highly in relation to these Kunia. They considered themselves descendants of the family of the Prophet Mohammed, a distinction that earned them the title of Shurfa. The Shurfa were top-drawer in Moorish society. Curiously enough, nsara were considered nobility because it was said that they were descended from a branch of the Prophet’s tribe that had left Arabia before the time of Islam.

  When status had been established, they would get down to the real news. The first question was always about grazing. Had there been rain? Where had it fallen, and how much? Had the grass bloomed yet? Where was it, and of which type? When that topic had been exhausted, they would move on to questions about people and places. Had you seen so-and-so in Chinguetti? He was a cousin. Had you seen a she-camel of such-and-such a description? Someone had lost one a few days before. They were always avid for the news, and their grapevine was very efficient, yet they much appreciated the luxury of a radio. Mafoudh constantly chided us for not having one. ‘It tells you everything,’ he said, ‘even where the rain has fallen. It can be very useful.’

  Next morning, in a stream of thick, silent heat, we saw Tijikja below us. It lay in a rocky groove in the middle of a valley from which the purple stain of date palms spread for several miles in both directions.

  ‘Well, you’ve made it to Tijikja.’ Mafoudh said.

  ‘You said I’d never make it!’ Marinetta laughed at me.

  ‘Anyone can be wrong,’ I said, ‘and there’s still another 4,350 miles to go.’

  We made camp by a thorn tree above the town. It was like coming into a great harbour and dropping anchor without reaching the quayside. As soon as we had unloaded, Mafoudh said he wanted to look up an old friend and set off on foot. Marinetta and I put the tent up. It was our first moment of privacy since we had set out. She looked very attractive, and it was all I could do to stop myself dragging her into the tent that moment. ‘How do you feel?’ I asked her, massaging her shoulder.

  ‘I certainly don’t feel flat any more,’ she admitted, smiling.

  I was just about to move a little closer when there was a buzz of voices. We looked up to see a crowd of Haratin children who immediately surrounded us, shouting, ‘Nsara! Nsara with camels!’

  ‘There’s the end of our privacy,’ Marinetta said. ‘We’ll never get rid of them now.’ And she was right. We never did.

  From the moment we entered the town the next day, the children never left us alone. They followed us, chanting, clapping, and even throwing stones. I heard one boy, a miniature adult in gandourah and headcloth, tell his friend, ‘They are unbelievers who will surely fall into the fire.’ Few tourists visited Tijikja, but there was an American Peace Corps volunteer there who had adopted a Muslim name and prayed in the mosque five times a day. This was fine by me, except that the man was a Christian who, instead of declaring, ‘There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his Prophet,’ as Muslims were required to do before each prayer, proclaimed, ‘There is no God but God, and Jesus is his Prophet.’ This was not designed to elicit much sympathy from the Moors, and perhaps it had poisoned their minds against all nsara.

  We got out of the town as quickly as we could. Every minute in this crowded environment seemed a torture. We bought more dates, powdered milk for our crucial zrig, and a few pounds of flour to make bread. We also bought another sack of grain for the camels, piled it all on to a donkey cart, and beat a hasty retreat, still pursued by cat-calling, stone-throwing children. Their leader seemed to be the miniature adult, a boy of about twelve, who resisted all my attempts to get rid of him. When we passed the last house, he was still following determinedly. I rounded on him furiously. ‘Where are you going?’ I demanded.

  ‘I’m going after you!’

  ‘Oh no, you’re not!’ I said, feeling inclined to kick his backside very firmly. The other children lined up behind him. I glared at him and he glared back. To give him his due, he didn’t seem afraid.

  I was just wondering if I really would have to use force when a little, old Haratin woman came hobbling up, shouting, ‘Hey, you children! Let the strangers go in peace!’ Incredibly, all of them ran away.

  When we had unloaded our new acquisitions, Mafoudh told me that some of his relations had visited the camp. ‘They won’t believe you’re going to Egypt,’ he said. ‘They say it’s impossible.’ I sat down in the shade and lit my pipe. Then I took out our Michelin map and followed our planned route with my eyes. Before us lay the rest of Mauritania, Mali, Niger, the whole of Chad, and most of the Sudan. ‘The way is long!’ Mafoudh said.

  At that moment, I was filled with an inexplicable sense of dread. I had the feeling that I had stepped out of the normal barriers of time and space, that I had lost touch with reality, not knowing where I had come from or where I was going. Suddenly, I felt absolutely certain that I had been here before, that I had seen everything before, even that I had already reached Egypt and that time was playing backwards. I tried desperately to remember if I had dreamed this, but it danced like a shimmer of light just beyond my memory, and I walked in abject terror beyond the bounds of time, filled with images of the past, the years of struggle, the planning, the dreaming, and the work it had taken to get here. And then the images passed. The terror subsided. I looked at Mafoudh and realised that only a moment had ticked by. ‘Yes,’ I told him, ‘the way is long indeed.’

  We were heading for the oasis of Tichit. It lay in the centre of the Baatin, another massive fault of rock that stretched almost the entire length of the desert between Tijikja and Walata. We were on the roof of the fault, and we had to find a route down to the valley floor. The landscape was a graveyard. The trees stood as bare as steel frames, melted, dripping molten in the sun. There were other trees, cracked and broken, bark peeling off them like fish scales, great trunk roots lying useless in the sand. The ground was littered with bleached bones of camels and goats, set hard in the flake-dry surface. There was no sign of people, no sign of rain, just twisted scrub, red sand, black dust, purple rocks, and the day, hot and deathly still, going on forever.

  Once, we met a nomad boy of the Kunta, and we stopped to give him water. He was a lean, gloomy youth, his face stained blue from the indigo headcloth that he wore. He squatted down and gulped the liquid from the girha. Mafoudh asked the boy for directions to the pass that would take us down to the floor of the Baatin. The boy explained at great length.

  The way took us through a labyrinth of rock, through corridors between giant slabs of granite that were piled up on each other, creating natural dolmens and shadowed places. The rocks were everywhere—rippled rocks, melted rocks, hinged and ribbed rocks, rocks like cabbages perched on plinths. There were globules and nest eggs and rocks folded in sutures like an enormous human brain. The camels were tired and thirsty. Our water supply was low. Even Mafoudh was heard to say, ‘By
God, it’s hot!’ By late afternoon, we had come to the very edge of the cliff. We couched the camels and Mafoudh stalked off on foot, quickly disappearing over the lip of the rocks.

  Marinetta said, ‘Thank God he’s gone!’ She had terrible stomach cramps and bad diarrhoea. She had been suffering all day but had been too embarrassed to stop while Mafoudh was there. The guide returned half an hour later, fuming. ‘That Kunta boy lied to us, by God!’ he raged. ‘There’s no way down here! God curse him; he only wanted to laugh at us! I should have stuck to the way I knew!’ We had no choice but to skirt around the edge of the cliff, hoping that we would find a way down. Our water was short and night was coming on, but an hour later, we were still searching. We were all exhausted and Marinetta was bent double with the cramps. As we walked, Mafoudh spluttered, ‘By God, if I find that youth again, I’ll give him something he won’t like, Shurfa or no Shurfa!’

  We found a sandy place and made camp, hanging our remaining water carefully in a thorn tree. ‘We’ll have to leave early.’ Mafoudh said. We’ve got to get down into the valley before the heat starts, or we’ll run out of water.’ He told Marinetta to use it sparingly for the cooking. That night, the pasta tasted like chewing-gum.

  We were off before first light, picking our way down a flowing dune face into the wind. All around us, the cliffs were covered in a mantle of golden sand. A hail of rasping grains spun off the dune crests like fire. The camels were tilting down the dune slopes at 50 degrees and battling through long tunnels of deep, white sand. There were no tracks, and we couldn’t be sure even that these interlocking dunes would take us down into the valley. Then I noticed a group of camels, like black pimples in the distance, coming directly towards us up the dunes. Four dark pinpricks resolved into four Moors leading them. We ran smack into them and clasped their hands in greeting. They were travellers from the Rigaybat on their way back to Western Sahara, predatory-looking men with bullet heads, bird-thin with cavernous faces. After the greeting ritual was over, Mafoudh asked about the well of Ganeb, where we were hoping to water. ‘It’s a long way,’ one of them replied. ‘You’ll never make it before noon.’