A Desert Dies

by Michael Asher

  The guide told us that his route led through El ’Atrun and to the oasis of Nukheila beyond. From there, it was another eight days to the border post at ’Uwaynat and another six to Kufra. I asked the men why they wanted to go to Libya. They replied that they were after work, any kind of work. They would work as butchers, waiters, labourers. They would stay there for three or four years and then return to their own country to marry and settle down. ‘You cannot get enough money even to marry in the Sudan,’ someone said. ‘In the town, you have to pay 2,000 pounds for a respectable girl!’

  The guide asked us for news of police patrols in the El ’Atrun region; this kind of emigration through the back door was illegal. I asked if they had heard the stories about immigrants being drafted into Colonel Gadaffi’s ‘Islamic Foreign Legion’.

  ‘It is not so bad!’ the guide cut in defensively. ‘They get paid well, and every recruit gets a Libyan wife!’

  Many townsmen like these had died on the road to Libya. They were improvident and had little idea how much food and water was needed. They could buy one camel between three or four men, taking turns to ride and thinking that the animal could carry limitless provisions. Several years earlier, a caravan of men from Darfur had been lost north of Nukheila. Out of forty men, only two had survived. The same happened again in 1985, when more than fifty men from the El Obeid region died of thirst in the desert. Their bodies were found by a truck driver en route from Kufra to Darfur.

  After the meal, the men began to pack up. Half an hour later, we watched the column as it marched off northwards and disappeared into the desert sands.

  Rest, rest, rest, was all my body craved. For most of the day, I sought out the shade and left it only to eat and drink: porridge, goat’s milk, dates, tea, the remainder of the goat. As the hours passed, the familiar ache of hunger receded. I had never expected the meagre fare of this place to seem so opulent. Over the three days I remained at lidayn, my body recovered some of its vitality. It was much needed, for the journey was by no means over. We still had two hundred kilometres to cover between lidayn and Sawanat al Haworab, where the natron would be sold. On the second day, Mohammid disappeared, and I was pleased when his mother asked me to perform some of the household tasks in his stead: filling waterskins, watering goats, and collecting camels.

  Watering was always a difficult task here. Many of the Arabs spent days digging through the blue clay to be rewarded with only a few skins of water. Some of the wells were dry, and the others were in constant demand; this meant a long wait in the biting winds that seared down from the hills. Often, the Arabs were reluctant to hand over the well bucket and occasionally, I quarrelled with them. Often, I wondered just how enduring a man had to be to live in this place.

  On the morning of the third day, Mohammid woke me from a deep sleep, saying, ‘We had better get moving. I have been to see my Ribaygat girl again!’

  ‘Did they catch you?’

  ‘No, but they will find my tracks.’

  ‘They will kill you this time!’

  ‘Let them try! I am not afraid of them. But I cannot pay another fine to the nazir!’

  It took us only a few hours to sort out the salt. We made up new loads, about half the weight of those we had brought from El ’Atrun, so that we could manage them more easily between the two of us. Mohammid said that we should meet one of his cousins further south, who would help us.

  Before we loaded, Fadlal Mula came up and said, ‘Omar, why not sell me your shotgun? You will not need it again; I will give you money for it.’

  I looked at the old weapon, remembering the dreadful scene with Balla in Zalat Hammad. I was not superstitious, but it seemed to me that the thing had brought me nothing but trouble. I remembered how, years ago, I had put away the pistol I had carried in Northern Ireland, vowing that I should never carry firearms again. I had not kept that vow, but firearms had always led to trouble. I handed him the gun and the cartridges, saying, ‘Take it!’ As he took the weapon, I suddenly felt pounds lighter; but this was not the last I was to hear of it. I still had my ·22 revolver, which I had carried on many journeys. Now, I no longer needed that either. I had a good idea what I should do with it.

  Fadlal Mula and his wife came to see us off, but there was no ceremony. Within moments, Mohammid and I had left the oasis and were leading our camels back into the bleak winter landscape of the desert. As we walked, Mohammid said, ‘I told you I should see her again. They will not make me give her up, by God!’

  ‘Will you ever be able to marry her?’

  ‘Not unless the husband divorces her.’

  ‘Is that possible?’

  ‘Only if she runs away from his tent or refuses to sleep with him.’

  ‘Do you think they will follow you?’

  ‘Yes. If they catch us, will you fight?’

  I knew that it was incumbent upon me to defend my companion, but my body had suffered much in the thousands of miles I had ridden in the past few months. I said, ‘Of course!’ but I wondered wearily how much more fight I had in me.

  We spent the night under the cold ramparts of Shaynat mountain. In the middle of the night, I was woken from a doze by my companion saying, ‘Look, here they are!’ Mohammid pointed out four dusky forms riding along the base of the mountain. They were going south. As they disappeared into the night, Mohammid whispered, ‘They did not see us. I am certain they were Ribaygat, by God!’

  A strong wind was blowing as we led the caravan down into the valley the next morning. Sand sifted like snow through the bony battalions of the thorn trees. Within minutes, the tracks of the nightriders were covered, and it was comforting to know that ours too would soon be lost under the spindrift. We had only five camels with us now. Wad at Tafashan looked thin and ravaged, though the knowledge that he was returning to his own pastures probably kept him going. Still, our animals played up, casting loads and snapping ropes. Even though the animals were fewer and the packs much lighter, each stoppage drained a little more from the small reservoir of energy I had built up.

  In the afternoon, we came upon a rich vein of grazing. We stopped and turned the camels loose. Mohammid’s cousin found us there. He was a well-groomed Arab named Sulayman with a faintly menacing manner. He wore a Webley ·45 in his belt like a cowboy. I discovered that he had just been released from prison, where he had been sentenced to death for murder. ‘It was all over a woman!’ Sulayman told me. ‘Her husband caught us, and I stabbed him to death. Then the nazir’s men tracked me down and I was handed over to the police.’ He described how the judge had sentenced him to death and how he had waited in his cell for the day of the hanging. The day before they were going to string me up, they said that I had been reprieved. I got five years instead!’

  ‘Weren’t you afraid?’

  ‘Not me!’ he scoffed. ‘We all die when our time is up. But I hated being in that prison! You are cooped up worse than a goat!’

  ‘Do you leave women alone now?’

  ‘No, by God! I shall never leave women alone!’

  And as if to demonstrate this beyond doubt, he said to Mohammid, ‘There is a Ruwahla camp near here. The men are away, but the women are there.’

  ‘Why don’t we try them?’ Mohammid said.

  They prepared for the excursion by burning a flake of incense and inhaling the smoke deeply beneath their blankets. Mohammid told me that it was a potent aphrodisiac. I agreed to stay and look after the camels, and the two of them rode off into the night.

  It was sunrise when they returned, saying, ‘Come on, Omar! Let’s get out of here!’ When the camels were packed, we moved off into the bushland. By now, the desert steppe had fallen away and we were in more wooded country. All day, the Arabs discussed their new conquests, and boasted about how easy it had been. ‘I cheated her!’ Mohammid announced. ‘I said I would just sleep next to her, and not touch her. But I did!’

  It was another four days before we reached Sawani. No irate brothers or husbands caught up with us, yet for me
, those last days were torture. We had little food left and still we shivered at night, praying for sleep. My small colony of lice had undergone a population explosion and was viciously irritating after dark. But I was most worried about my camel. The gall on his back had gone septic, and one morning, as I mounted, he snapped at me for the first time. I realised he must be in pain, and would not carry me much further. I felt black inside, and thought only of journey’s end.

  Eventually, I had to dismount and walk. We passed close to the pool at Kilagi from where I had set off into the jizzu with At Tom and the others. There were no Arabs there now. The pool was dry and its bed baked hard. Gone was the hustle, the life that had bloomed here like a brief flower. We travelled around the hardpacked rim of the pool. There were broken trees and the discarded artifacts of the nomads: lengths of torn shugga, pieces of hobbling ropes, the frame of a cabin eaten by termites. Everywhere, there were the mangy white bones of camels, some of them set hard in the dry mud. Desiccation had come here like an avenger, leaving only a graveyard of hopes. I remembered how the Nurab had ridden forth from their summer camps, moving joyously towards these rain pools. Their joy had turned to despair when the rains failed and the jizzu had fizzled out.

  There were many families moving south of Kilagi, going back to their camps in Hamrat ash Sheikh. The goats—black, white and brown—looked thin and lacking in milk. The sheep were small and underdeveloped, and the camels were blighted with grey-black patches of mange. As we moved past them, Mohammid said, ‘Those camels will soon be dead too!’

  I wondered grimly what would happen next summer, when the Kababish had to swelter again in their camps, surrounded by animals for which there was no pasture. I doubted if there was any alternative for them but to move south into Central Kordofan or South Darfur; but if they did so, there would undoubtedly be conflict with other tribes.

  Now that I had been denied the comfort of riding, the days seemed interminable. I stumped on through the acacias and the mukhayyit, too weary to think or talk. Sleep eluded me at night, and hunger became sharper as our supply of flour ran out. When it had gone, Sulayman proudly produced a bag of dried gazelle meat that was very wizened and very old. We ate it raw as we had no oil to cook it in. After we ate, I quickly had a resurgence of the diarrhoea I had suffered at El ’Atrun; Mohammid vomited vilely, and lay groaning all night.

  At last, we saw the peaked roofs of Sawani peering over miles of scrub. I mounted Wad at Tafashan for the final effort; the last leg of any journey always seems the longest. We lurched and rocked forwards, weaving around the trees for what seemed like hours, then suddenly, we were couching our camels in front of one of the straw shops. Across the convex slope of grass, I could see the small courthouse where I should find Ali at Tom’s brother, the magistrate of this area. This and the five or six rambling structures of cane and mud were the first buildings I had seen for months; this was civilisation.

  It was a tremendous anticlimax. I felt hollow and emotionless as I dismounted. One of the fat merchants came out to greet us and brought us a melon, which he bounced once on the ground so that it split in half. The juicy maroon flesh was irresistible. As we crouched down to eat, I realised that this was our last meal together. The dream was over.

  Afterwards, Mohammid said that he and Sulayman would take the camels off to browse in the wadi. Before they left, I reached into my saddlebag and brought out my ·22 pistol. It was scarred and battered, the victim of many journeys. When I handed it to him, his face lit up with surprise and delight. He put the gun away in his pocket and we embraced, touching each other lightly on the shoulder with our right hands.

  ‘By God’s will, we shall meet again,’ he said.

  ‘Amen.’

  I watched the cousins leading their minute salt caravan to the wadi, then I roused my camel and limped off towards the courthouse.

  I arrived in Hamrat ash Sheikh the following day. I led Wad at T afashan up to the two corrugated iron shacks that formed the centre of the market. We were on the verge of collapse, both mental and physical. Just then, a voice said, ‘As salaam ’alaykum!’ It was Juma’ Wad Tarabish, mounted on his camel. With him were Mahmoud and Mura’fib. They jumped down from their mounts and embraced me with real warmth. ‘Omar! By God Almighty, you have got weak!’ they shouted, slapping me on the back. They took me up to the nazir’s old house that stood on the crest of a hill. It was a dilapidated collection of mud huts and straw dwellings in a yard that had once been encircled by a stockade. There was a single tree in the yard, and I tied Wad at Tafashan to it. As he sat down, his neck drooped and his head sagged; he was too exhausted even to sniff the fresh leaves.

  The door of one of the huts flew open, and out came Wad az Ziyadi and Hamid with a white-haired old man. ‘Omar! Thanks to God for your safe arrival!’

  It was another bitterly cold night, but for once, I was protected from the wind by thick mud walls. The old man, Khalifa, who was the watchman of the house, made us tea; Wad Tarabish came back from the bakery with a pile of fresh loaves and some slivers of roasted meat, and Wad az Ziyadi brought out some handfuls of dates. We ate with gusto. Khalifa lit an oil lamp that spluttered as a chilling blast rattled the rafters and pierced the cracks in the boarded-up window. We sat on our sheepskins on the mud floor. After we ate, Wad az Ziyadi explained that they had just arrived from Sodari, the administrative capital of the dar, where they had presented the Requisition camels to the local officer. ‘We got ninety-four camels in the end,’ he told me. I thought of the Sarajab and could work up no enthusiasm for the Requisition; it seemed futile. I knew that even if the hospital opened here, the Arabs who needed it most would never use it.

  I asked after At Tom. Hamid said, ‘He has returned to the dikka. The nazir is still very ill, and At Tom is now head of the tribe until his father recovers. The dikka is no longer at Umm Sunta. It has been moved to the wintering ground at Umm Qozayn.’

  They asked about the Sarajab and my experiences with them, but I was not prepared to go into the details of the journey to El ’Atrun. ‘They are bandits!’ Wad az Ziyadi commented. ‘You found they could not be trusted and no doubt!’

  ‘They are bandits, but they are brave men,’ I said. ‘Their life is hard. They are strong and not afraid.’

  ‘Anyone who goes to Al Ga’a is strong!’ Wad az Ziyadi answered.

  It was an obvious compliment, but I was too weary to rise to it. I was grey and washed out. I did not feel proud of my journey to El ’Atrun, only humbled by the endurance of my companions. I knew that I had learned some shattering lessons on the way there, but tonight I was too confused to know what they were. I could only think about the salt, and reflect with bewilderment and relief that I would never again have to load those sacks of natron.lt was not until much later that I realised how welcoming these Nurab had been, and how this reception had made my return a real homecoming.

  Next morning, the ghaffirs rode off to the nuggara herds that were grazing near Umm Qozayn. They took Wad at Tafashan with them, and as they led him off, I wondered if he would survive the tremendous shock his body had sustained.

  After they had gone, I sat in the hut with Khalifa. He was thin and sickly, and his eyesight was poor. ‘Why do you stay here?’ I asked him. ‘No one uses this place any more, do they?’

  ‘No,’ he answered. ‘It was built by Sir Ali Wad at Tom. But the present nazir never uses it now.’

  ‘Then why are you here?’

  ‘There is a good reason,’ he drawled. ‘A very good reason.’ He waved a bony hand towards the back of the hut. There was an iron bedstead standing against the wall, rusty with age. It supported something lumpy and thick covered with a mouldy canvas sheet. ‘That!’ he said mysteriously. ‘That is why I am here!’

  He pulled at the canvas sheet weakly until it slipped off. I was astonished to see five brightly polished copper kettle drums. A single ray of light from the boarded window struck the burnished skins, and they threw the light back brilliantly. They looked
very valuable. I was astonished that they should be here in the midst of such dilapidation; it was like finding the crown jewels of England on a building site. ‘There they are!’ the old man gloated. ‘These are the nahas—the war drums of the tribe. I am their guardian.’

  I could not resist touching the red copper skin. My hand left a dirty mark on the shining metal. I saw that there were two large drums and three smaller ones. ‘They all have names,’ Khalifa told me. ‘The biggest is called “Bull” and the second biggest “Cow” the other three are “Calves”.’

  ‘Where did they come from?’ I asked.

  ‘These drums were given to the nazir Fadlallah Wad Salim. That was long ago, before the English came. They are old, these drums, older than anyone alive now. They were given to Fadlallah Wad Salim by the Khedive of Egypt, Mohammid Ali Basha. They have been handed down for generations. No one is truly nazir unless he has the nahas.’

  ‘When was this?’ I inquired.

  ‘Fadlallah Wad Salim was the grandfather of Sheikh Hassan’s grandfather, that is the grandfather of Sir Ali at Tom. He passed the drums on to his son, At Tom Wad Fadlallah, at the beginning of the Mahdi’s revolution. Most of the tribes joined the Mahdi, but At Tom Wad Fadlallah refused. He knew that it would not be long before the Mahdi’s men captured him, so he sent the drums to his brother, Salih al Bey, who was hiding in the desert. Salih rode out of his camp one night with his slave. They took the drums with them; there were only four of them then: “Bull”, “Cow” and two “Calves”. They took them to the foot of Jabal Aw Dun and buried them in pits. Before they had finished, Salih drew his sword and shshickck! —he cut the slave’s head clean off! Those were hard days, by God! Salih knew that dead men tell no secrets. He was the only man alive who knew where the drums were hidden. Not long after that, At Tom was killed by the Mahdi, and Salih became nazir of the Kababish.’