The Caravan of White Gold

by Michael Benanav

  “No. They’re not going to Timbuktu. They’re going home first, and Araouane is out of their way.” I wouldn’t learn exactly why this was for two more days.

  I was speechless. Parting ways with the caravan so suddenly, with no warning, was like having something stolen out of my hands. I couldn’t believe that Walid hadn’t mentioned anything about it in advance, and I prickled inside. But worst of all, I hadn’t even had a chance to say good-bye to any of the azalai. I felt like something important had been left incomplete.

  I was so thrown by the abrupt shift in my reality that I hardly realized how incredible it was that, in the middle of a pitch-dark featureless plain with even the stars obscured by haze, Walid had known when and in which direction to turn in order to lead us to Araouane.

  After an hour or so of juggling a jumble of emotions, from anger to loss to anxiety, I let them all drop and left them behind me in the sand. I’d had an incredible experience with the azalai, and this shining truth easily burned off the disappointment of leaving them sooner than I’d expected. Besides, thanks to what the trials of caravan life had taught me, I knew in my bones, not just my brain, that there was little worth getting upset about as long as I was alive and well. And, though I didn’t know it then, leaving the others would allow us to enter an entirely different, even more exotic kind of nomadic world.

  Walid and I rode on and on, into what would be our longest day on the trail of the entire journey.

  Dawn broke beautifully. The sun poured like molten brass between platinum-fingered clouds. The ivory sand was drenched with pinks and blues and yellows absorbed from the sky. I heard the twitter of a birdsong for the first time in weeks. The entire world seemed at peace with itself. And I was no exception. I felt clean inside, utterly content, and gave heartfelt thanks for all that I had in that moment, and in my life. It was an appropriate time to do so, since it was Thanksgiving morning.

  Though I was half a world away from family and friends, nibbling on peanuts rather than gorging on turkey, riding forever on a camel rather than resting on a couch, I found myself in a more natural state of gratitude than I ever have when celebrating the holiday at home. With nothing but the essentials for survival, surrounded by nothing but desert, I felt like a rich man. I had my memories of Taoudenni, and of the azalai. I had a trusty camel beneath me. I was sharing the day with a man whose life and language were so different than my own, yet with whom the seeds of friendship had blossomed in the common ground of our humanity. Most of all, I was grateful that my body and mind had been able to adapt to the insane regimen of caravan life.

  This attitude stayed with me throughout the day. I felt strong, like I’d crossed a threshold into a new level of endurance, where no amount of strain could break my body or my spirit. And it served me well: except for two brief stops for tea and dorno, we traveled on until sunset, a total of twenty-two hours on the march.

  For the effort, we earned ourselves a full night of sleep, though for the reward I was really looking forward to, I’d have to wait one more day.

  CHAPTER 9

  From a distance, it was so small it could have easily been overlooked, dwarfed into invisibility by the immensity of the desert that surrounded it. But its dark, blocky features stood out unnaturally against the rounded, rolling rhythm of the pale landscape, drawing the eye in its direction. Riding side by side, Walid and I aimed our camels straight for it.

  It was just past noon when we arrived. We’d traveled for six hours that morning, over washboard ridges speckled with the very bushes that I‘d mistaken for camels when we first began pursuing the northbound caravan, and on through the “good grazing grounds” where we’d first lost it. We ascended the slope that Walid, Baba, and I had once walked down to the clamor of blessings offered by the people of Araouane. Exactly three weeks had passed since then.

  I reentered Araouane with a sense of quiet triumph. I felt like a knight returning successfully from a quest that had taken me deep into the fabled “Land of Terror.” Weathered and dirty, the naïveté with which I’d left this place had long since been scoured from my face. Though I fantasized we might be welcomed by cheering crowds, there was no fanfare. Since it was mid day, and hot, the town seemed empty. Walid and I slid from our camels and walked the last fifty yards to the same house where we’d rested on our way north.

  As we couched Lachmar and L’beyya, the wooden door swung open and the children ran out to greet us, followed by their mother, Barka, and their uncle, Lamana, whom I’d last seen when he’d bid Walid and me a concerned farewell on the outskirts of Timbuktu. He hurried over to me, clamped both his hands over my right hand, and shook it vigorously. Relief radiated from his smiling face as he asked, “Ça va?”

  “Ça va bien!” I answered, grinning back. “Al-humdulillah!” (Praise be to God!)

  “Humdulillah,” he replied. “All month long I’ve been worried about you. I’ve been waiting here in Araouane for the past few days, thinking you might have made it back a little earlier, and when you didn’t come I thought maybe something was wrong. I’m very glad to see you.”

  I assured Lamana that I was glad to be there. He then went to Walid and welcomed him with equal enthusiasm, while I turned my attention to Barka and the kids. But we didn’t waste much time on hellos. We had to unload the camels and water them before we could have tea.

  Down at the well, Lachmar hauled water for L’beyya, then L’beyya for Lachmar, while Walid, Lamana, and I dumped the water from the goatskin buckets into the cement troughs. Lamana and Walid talked to each other rapidly in Arabic, most of which I couldn’t understand. I watched in awe as the camels drank unbelievable amounts unbelievably quickly. Their sides swelled like they were sucking on an air hose. What would it be like, I wondered, to have your first drink of water in twelve days? In my own way, I was about to find out.

  When Lachmar and L’beyya were so full I thought I’d be able to hear the water sloshing around inside them, we filled our inner tubes, and I gave my hands and face their first good rinsing in weeks.

  Back at the house, Barka invited us to sit on the mats that covered the floor of fine, soft sand. The yellow walls brightened the diffused light in the room that was cool as a cave. Hannah, the nine-year-old, carried in the charcoal-filled brazier, then the tea tray. I no longer felt like a stranger, as I had the first time I’d been here, less because I’d been here before than because I knew that this was Abdi’s home, Abdi’s family. And if he’d had his way, it would have been mine, too; all I would’ve had to do was accept the girl who brought the tea fixings as my prepubescent bride. Though nothing had been lacking from Barka’s welcome three weeks ago, this time she was even warmer, for I’d spent time with—and had news from—her son. I gave her the letter Abdi had written to her, and handed Lamana his. They received them gratefully. Barka took hers back out to the inner courtyard, while Lamana read his in silence where we sat.

  The tea was served, and while we drank I began peppering Lamana with questions about the caravan. I wanted to make sure I’d understood the things Walid had told me, and to ask questions that had been too complex for me to pose in Arabic. Sensing my urgency, he smiled and told me to relax—he’d be traveling back to Timbuktu with Walid and me, and there’d be plenty of time to talk on the trail. Even so, he couldn’t wait to find out how I’d fared in the desert and how I’d liked the mines. He let out a loud “Eeeeeeee!” and broke into a chuckle when I told him about the bloody sores I’d acquired on the first few days of the trip; he seemed to expect as much. He translated what we were saying for Walid, and he, too, started laughing. “That was a long time ago,” he said, sparking his pipe.

  We talked like this for a few minutes, Walid telling Lamana about our experiences in Arabic and Lamana asking me about them in French. In the meantime, Abdi’s father came in, offered a hearty welcome, and sat down to listen with interest. But our conversation was cut short when Barka and Hannah entered the room, each carrying a bowl of food.

  Barka
placed a large metal bowl amid the three men, while Hannah handed me a small one. Many times on the trail, as I’d suffered through meal after barely edible meal, I wistfully recalled the lunch that Barka had served when Walid, Baba, and I had rested at her house on our way north. The closer we got to Araouane on our return, the more vivid those memories became. I’d been looking forward to this moment for days.

  This time Barka had prepared rice, topped with a slab of camel meat smothered in thick red gravy. Unlike what we’d bought at the mines, which was tough and foul, this camel meat was fresh, succulent, and plentiful. It fell apart at the gentlest touch and practically melted in my mouth. The rice itself seemed to be an altogether different grain than what I’d eaten for weeks on end, fluffier, lighter, and, best of all, sand-free. And tasting the gravy, I can say without exaggeration, was like falling head over heels in love after having given up all hope of ever loving again. It sent my mouth straight to Paradise after weeks of torment in gastronomic Hell. I praised Allah as my hands quickly traveled between the bowl and my mouth and back again. It was so good, so beautiful, tears welled in the corners of my eyes. I was too overwhelmed with emotion to care if the others saw me getting misty.

  After lunch, Lamana said we’d leave in a couple of hours, and that he and Walid were going to visit friends in the meantime. He suggested I stay where I was, so I lay down on my mat, still in a state of bliss, and fell asleep.

  When it was time to leave and Lachmar, L’beyya, and Lamana’s two camels were loaded and ready to go, Lamana told me to take our animals and go with Abdi’s younger brother, Salim, who would escort me to the edge of town. Lamana and Walid would catch up to us in a few minutes.

  I placed the camels’ lead over my shoulder and headed south with Salim, past the eroded adobe houses half submerged in sand. Walking by my side, his curly-haired head no higher than my chest, the hem of his white djellaba swaying just above his bare feet, Salim started in on me immediately.

  “Give me your watch,” he said in French.

  “What?” I exclaimed, surprised and offended that a member of Abdi’s family would demand things like Omar, or Najib before him.

  “Give me your watch,” he repeated. “I don’t have one and I need one.”

  “You must be kidding,” I said. “I’m not going to give you my watch.”

  “Then give me money.”

  “I’m not going to give you that, either.”

  “But you owe me.”

  “What are you talking about?” “My brother showed you the mines at Taoudenni. You owe me money for that.”

  “I gave Abdi money before I left.”

  “How much?”

  “Ten dollars.”

  “So give me ten dollars!”

  “Forget it.”

  “Okay, give me five.”

  “No.”

  “But you ate at my house. You can’t just eat and not pay.”

  “Walid has all the money for food,” I said, fully aware that Barka wasn’t running a restaurant anyway.

  We plunged down the slope of soft sand that descended toward the open desert.

  “What about the tourist tax?” Salim continued.

  “What are you talking about?” I answered, beginning to get annoyed.

  Salim pulled a few of what looked like small raffle tickets out of his pocket. “All tourists who come to Araouane have to pay a tax. You can pay me and I’ll give you this receipt.”

  I didn’t go for it. If there was a tourist tax, Walid should’ve had the money for that, too, but no one had said anything about it. Besides, I felt, perhaps a little egotistically, that I was no tourist. If tourists did have to pay a tax, let Salim collect it from someone who’d driven here in a Land Cruiser.

  “I’m not going to give you any money,” I said firmly, as though once and for all.

  “Okay, then give me your watch.”

  I started laughing and Salim let loose with a rapid stream of invective in Arabic.

  “Two can play that game,” I said in English. “I can talk just as long in English as you talk in Arabic, and I don’t even have to say anything bad about you because you wouldn’t understand it even if I did.”

  Salim paused, taken off guard by the English. Then, with nothing to lose, he cursed me again.

  When Walid scurried up from behind, Salim fell silent and pretended that he and I had been walking together amiably. Since he didn’t ask for another thing, I knew that he knew he’d be in trouble if anyone heard him harassing a family friend. When Lamana joined us, we said good-bye to Salim. He turned back toward town, throwing a parting pout in my direction. The three of us, with our four camels, aimed for a saddle between two massive ramparts of sand in the distance.

  In the basin below the saddle, we passed between clumps of tall grasses so large they could’ve covered a pitcher’s mound. The eastern flanks of the dunes, lightly shrouded in shadows, looked like they were made of silver dust, while their sunny western sides glittered bright and white, like grains of opals. Long, thin ripples slithered up the slopes in rows, like an army of snakes carved in relief. Coming through the pass, an impressive camel caravan—easily as big as the one I’d traveled with—wended through the S-curve formed by the dunes’ overlapping tails. It was led, among others, by Walid’s brother. We said a quick hello, nothing more, since even though these were two brothers meeting in the desert after at least a month apart, the rules still applied to their caravan: No stopping.

  We traveled on for another hour or so, under periwinkle skies flecked with small puffs of clouds flushed with sunset. Just before dark, we made camp, gathered dung, and lit a fire.

  While dinner cooked, Lamana invited me to pose some of the questions I’d started to ask back in Araouane.

  “Why did we split from the caravan north of Araouane? How come they didn’t go with us to Timbuktu like I thought they would?” I asked.

  “Ah, yes,” Lamana began, doodling in the sand with his right index finger, as was his habit. “The caravan didn’t go to Timbuktu because it was their first trip to the mines this season. After the first trip, the azalai go back to their camps or their home villages and drop their salt there, so they don’t have to go so far south before going north again. They let their camels rest and graze for a month, then head back to Taoudenni. They carry the salt from the second trip all the way to Timbuktu, then head home and let their camels rest and graze again. If the rainy season is good and enough grass has grown, they’ll go back to Taoudenni a third time; if it’s a dry year, the caravans only make two trips. But in either case, the salt from the first trip is only brought to Timbuktu at the end of the season, once the caravans are done traveling to the mines.”

  Lamana translated what he’d said for Walid, who confirmed its accuracy with a single cluck from the back of his throat.

  “And after the caravan season, the azalai return from the desert to tend their animals, yes?” I asked, to confirm what I’d gotten from Walid.

  “Well, mostly,” Lamana said. Then he clarified.

  “Most azalai work the caravans, sell their salt in Timbuktu, then spend the rest of the year with their herds. Walid, however, now sells only some of his salt in Timbuktu. When the caravan season is over, he makes a few trips to Mopti, where salt prices are higher. He travels upriver by boat with his salt and some goats, and trades them for things like sacks of millet and rice, cases of tea, cloth, and other things that his family needs, then sails back with them to Timbuktu.”

  “He doesn’t sell the salt for money?”

  “Not Walid, not usually. Remember, he doesn’t understand numbers well and can’t grasp the difference between a thousand-CFA note and a ten-thousand-CFA note. It’s all paper to him. But he understands well the size of a bag of millet and knows what it’s worth in salt.”

  Of course he had to use cash for some things, and sometimes sold salt for money. Fortunately for Walid, most salt buyers were honest and wouldn’t take advantage of his ignorance. Often, other peop
le in his family took care of selling the salt for cash.

  I told Lamana about the assumptions with which I had embarked on this journey, how I’d believed the caravans would soon become extinct, and wondered where that idea could have come from. Lamana shook his head and smiled. “Some journalists come here and drive around the desert in a four-by-four for a few days, ask a few people a few questions, and think they understand us. Most of them are nice people, very nice, but they don’t understand. They want to get their story or their pictures, but they don’t want to truly face the desert or don’t have the time. And all we have out here is desert and time. Maybe they hear a little of this or a little of that … who knows where they get some of their ideas.”

  Walid spooned some rice, with slivers of dried goat meat he’d picked up in Araouane, onto my plate. I took a bite and said in Arabic, “Sorry, Walid, but you’re no Barka.”

  “Eeeeee!” Lamana exclaimed, while Walid laughed. “It’s true! But no one in the whole Sahara cooks like Barka!”

  We woke just before sunrise and ate a leisurely Tuareg breakfast as the growing light erased the last traces of darkness from the western sky. Compared with traveling with the caravan, we were living the easy life. While we drank our tea, Lamana said that this day we would aim for the camp of Walid’s nomadic in-laws, with whom Walid’s wife and sons were staying. This was a completely unexpected bonus, and I was excited. On the trip north I’d itched to see what was going on inside the tents we’d passed, but never expected to have the opportunity; if we’d ridden with a caravan all the way to Timbuktu, we wouldn’t have had the time.

  Throughout the morning, we walked and rode up low ridges and down shallow valleys, as uniform as a stable wave pattern. White whalebacks of sand breached and plunged back into the earth. The camels deftly dipped their heads toward every bush we passed, grabbing what they could with their lips as we went by, as though they feared we’d soon be back in a land where nothing grew.