Visions of Isabelle

by William Bayer

  THE SPAHI IN THE GARDEN

  In the end Isabelle's check from the marquise was not so grand as she would have liked. The old lady's effusiveness quickly turned to shrewdness, and Isabelle felt fortunate that she'd bargained her out of a thousand francs, enough to live on for a year, and to provide her with a bitter-sweet memory of Paris–which she promptly left.

  At dawn on July 23, 1900, after spending the entire night on the deck of her ship, she arrived at the port of Algiers where she was met by Eugène Letord.

  They set out to walk, talking of all their feelings and thoughts. In the middle of a sentence she suddenly stopped, widened her eyes and hugged him to her chest.

  "I'm so happy, Eugène–so glad to be back. Look–Moslem women in veils! Men in turbans and robes! The language! The smells!"

  Delighted by her exuberance Eugène put his arm about her waist and guided her on.

  "I'm done now," she told him, "with the corrupt and hypocritical social comedies of Europe. Now I never want to leave this precious Moslem earth."

  They settled down for breakfast in a teeming café, and there she told him of her disillusionment with writers and with Parisian literary life.

  "But it doesn't make any difference," she said. "I'm not destined to be a writer–I see that now, and it doesn't bother me at all. My experiences, my feelings–these things are more important to me than anything I could possibly write down. I've decided to abandon literature, Eugène. From now on my life will be my novel, and in it I shall play an heroic role."

  They walked through the deserted love markets, peered into the narrow shops of artisans, stopped while she bought herself a kif box made from the udder of a camel.

  "I have a fantastic vision of my life. I will buy myself a horse. I will sit around fires and talk with Berbers. I will take wild lovers and lie with them beneath the stars. I'll sleep all day and ride the dunes all night. I'll have passions, adventures. I'll explore."

  "But why," he asked, "why El Oued?"

  "Because it's so hard to get to. It takes days to travel there–it's like going to the end of the earth."

  "Yes, I see that..."

  "And the beauty, Eugène! The stars. The sunsets. The buildings with their domes; the paths all made of sand; the faces, too; the tents, the skies, the mornings, the sound of the winds. It's an island, far away, lost among the dunes. In El Oued I can be myself. I never have to pretend. No one expects anything of me. Everyone accepts me as Si Mahmoud. In El Oued I'm completely free."

  They talked of the twentieth century–what it would be like, what it would mean.

  "Already," he told her, "it feels clean. Like a new beginning. Maybe a great new heroic era, where we can all realize our dreams."

  "Yes," she said, "I feel that, too. I feel my future is open, a clean tablet, and that upon it God will write me a life unlike any other before."

  He left her at sunset to catch his train for his garrison near Oran. As he sat in his compartment and watched the light fade from the sky over Algiers, he marveled that he was the friend of such a person, and knew he could bear whatever unhappiness might occur in his life because she was in the world, and he would see her again.

  She left the station to wander off, found herself drawn at the time of the evening prayer to the Djemaa Djedid mosque. Here, deeply moved by the hush and gloom, the praying multitudes illuminated by hanging oil lamps, she thanked God that she'd come home.

  She traveled south as quickly as she could, by train and mule, camel and horse. The heat was as intense as she remembered, the nights as frigid, the guides as solemn. The smell of the campfires of dried dung, the poetry of the nomads, even the fevers that came and went were all the same. And at night, when the ripples of sand were lit up by the stars, she thought how greatly she loved the emptiness and made up a song:

  Sahara, 0 treacherous Sahara–how well you hide your somber heart beneath your silent folds of solitude.

  At nightfall on August 4, precisely a year and a day since she'd completed the same trek, she mounted the great dune to the west of El Oued, picked her way past the bones of fallen camels fixed in poses of supreme abandon, and looked down once again upon the city of a thousand domes.

  Descending toward this town, to which she'd felt herself so powerfully drawn, she resolved that here she would recreate herself, become the "Si Mahmoud" of whom she dreamed.

  After renting a good house that belonged to the caid, she bought herself an excellent horse. She called this affectionate animal "Souf" in honor of the territory she intended that it roam. Then, after only a few days of rest, she began to ride off at night to visit the outlying settlements, sunken palm groves, and wells. She made friends quickly, and when her Arab neighbors inquired why she'd come to El Oued, she replied that she'd been sent to find the assassins of Morès. She'd laugh, then, as if this were a joke (which it was to her), but word traveled fast, and soon the interest of the Arab Bureau was aroused.

  She'd been amused the year before at being taken for a spy. But upon reflection she realized that, since Morès had been murdered and his killers were still at large, she was foolish to broadcast the story and make enemies for the sake of a man she despised. So when the local commandant, a stiffer and even more proper version of De Susbielle, called her in for a talk, she told him she hadn't the slightest intention of carrying out her mission, and that as far as she was concerned Morès had met his deserved end.

  The captain, shocked at her pleasure in her fraud, wired his superiors, who in turn found a discreet means of informing the old marquise. Thus, within a month of her arrival, Isabelle received word that she was sacked.

  By this time she didn't care, for though her funds were dwindling she'd embarked upon her dream. She was prancing out upon the sand each night, searching out strangers, spending hours around nomad fires discussing religious points. She was learning the local dialects, befriending guides and studying an old medical textbook so that she could minister to the sick. She galloped about like a rushing spirit, urging Souf over dune after dune, raging across the sand. Since the desert belonged to no one, she felt that it was completely hers, a place where she could seek the annihilation of what she'd been and forge herself anew.

  At last, she knew, her life had become extraordinary. She was beginning to live at a pinnacle of sensuality, open to anything, completely free.

  It was in the garden of Bir R'arby that she met Slimen. She came often, at dusk, to this lush sunken grove, to prowl among the palms. At darkness the apparatuses of the primitive wells would loom into black brooding shapes that made her think of the ancient torments, the savage history of the Sahara. Then, at night, these forms would be transformed to softness, and beneath a heaven full of stars she would feel satisfaction in the cool and meditate.

  She was not the only one who came to this place. Many men and boys came, too, in the early evening, each to sit alone. The reveries of Bir R'arby were private; the flutes played and the songs sung merged with the cool wind and became part of the sublime soft hush.

  A few weeks after she discovered the place and had gotten into the habit of visiting it before one of her tempestuous night rides, a slender man with large moist eyes and a profound and gentle face approached her where she sat, arms curled about her knees, and asked if he might sit near.

  They spoke together for a while, their conversation soft and loose, divided by long spells of silence, the sounds of their breathing, an occasional verse from the Koran. Though no one was near they spoke in whispers, for Bir R'arby had the aspect of a mosque.

  After a while the man moved closer, brought out a pipe and offered her kif. They smoked and spoke again.

  "Do you come here often?" he asked.

  "As often as life permits."

  "And do you pray?"

  "I pray and then I ride."

  "Your horse is very good."

  "He is, and he knows it."

  "I've seen you in El Oued. Your horse follows you about on the street."

 
"He relies on me. He thinks he's my brother."

  "He loves you, perhaps."

  "He loves himself more. He brings me here so he can drink, and then, after a few mouthfuls, he stares down at his reflection and nods at his handsomeness."

  "Ah–like a young man."

  "That's his trouble. He thinks he's human."

  "You go well together. You are both good-looking."

  "Thank you–or do you mean I look like a horse?"

  "You are both handsome, and so fortunate that together you've found love."

  She laughed gently.

  "I have a horse of my own," he said. "Would you like me to fetch him? Perhaps they will like each other, go off behind some trees and have some fun."

  "What sex is your horse?"

  "A boy."

  "Hmmm."

  "Why not? Human boys can make love. Why not boy horses?"

  "It would be very difficult, I think. With the four legs and everything."

  "It's better that way. They also have the advantage of a tail. The tail tickles the parts and stimulates."

  "It's hard to imagine."

  "Let me show you. Come, get down like me, on all fours. Yes. Like that. Now we are horses. All right! Now we must go over there."

  Amused, she took up the role, and scampered after him, toward the bases of the trees.

  He wrestled himself out of his cloak, whinnying all the while, then spread it upon the sand. He trotted to her. "What a slender pony you are," he said.

  "No, a gallant stallion," she replied, rolling upon her back, kicking at him with imaginary hooves. They played at fighting horses for a time, neighing and whinnying, neither holding onto the other for very long. Soon she felt a tingling all over her skin, a tingling she hadn't felt in a long while. He must have felt the same thing, for he proposed that she stand still on all fours so he could show her how one boy pony could enter another from behind.

  "But I am not a boy pony," she told him.

  "Ha! That's why they call you Si Mahmoud!"

  "I call myself Si Mahmoud," she said, "but I am not what I seem to be."

  "I think you are playing with me–one horse teasing another."

  "Come find out for yourself," she said, and lay down on her back, her knees up, her arms stretched above her head.

  He stopped playing a horse then and reached gently toward the division of her legs. He quickly withdrew his hand as if it had been stung.

  "Praise be to God!" he said. "You are not a boy!"

  "How does that strike you?"

  He thought a moment.

  "It's good," he said. "Better a mare than a stallion any time."

  "Ah! Arabs!"

  "And you are not!"

  "Not me."

  "But you speak..."

  "I speak many things."

  "What are you then?" he asked, confused.

  "A Russian whore!"

  He laughed.

  "Come," she said. "Show me how a boy horse can make love to a mare."

  He stared, bit his teeth into his lip, then pounced upon her. They fought each other as they made love like savages, and she was exhilarated by the fighting, for it warmed her body up. Afterward he told her he was happy she'd turned out to be a woman, because, though he could not understand why she went about disguised, he found it enormously appealing to have the best of the worlds of women and men.

  "I have dreamed," he said, "of a brother and of a European woman, too. With you I have them both."

  She stood up fast, arranged her clothes.

  "You have nothing," she told him, "and certainly not me. No one has me, except myself. Anyway, the way I look at things, it's been I who's had you!"

  He gazed at her with admiration, then spoke softly, meaning to show that he was being careful with his words. "You are so good I would not want to let you go."

  "But I am willing to let you go, like that!" She snapped her fingers, watched him wither at the crack.

  "I'm in love with you."

  "That's a problem you'll solve in time."

  "You don't love me?"

  "I don't know your name."

  "Call me 'Mohammed Horse'."

  "Very amusing. Yes, I shall call you that. Good-bye, Mohammed Horse. I'll probably be seeing you again."

  "Then you don't love me?"

  "Of course not."

  "But you must have liked me a lot–to lie with me..."

  She reached down, pulled him to his feet.

  "You don't understand," she said. "I wanted your body, and now that I've had it I want to thank you very much. Thanks for the use of your goods."

  "But this is impossible!"

  "I'm sorry if it puts you out."

  "No, not that. But you can't be serious. Who ever heard of a woman saying a thing like that?"

  "Why not? When you thought I was a man, you thought it likely that I would have fun using your ass. Well, I didn't want that; I wanted your nice zib. You have a pretty good one and I thank you for it."

  She laughed, turned, walked back toward Souf.

  "Where are you going?"

  "To ride," she said. "Thank you and good-bye."

  "No! Wait! Come back!" He gathered up his cloak and chased after her, reaching her just as she was mounting up.

  "Wait, please. I want to ride with you."

  "All right," she said. "We'll race."

  As she urged Souf forward and cantered out of Bir R'arby, she decided she rather liked the slender young man who had declared his love with such sincerity and was now, doubtless, fumbling with his reins. Once upon the dunes she galloped less furiously than usual, to give him a chance to catch up. But as soon as she saw him kicking madly at his horse's flanks, she broke forward as fast as she could. She wanted to appear like a phantom galloping on top of a ridge of sand, highlighted by the moon, a silhouette against the sky.

  Let him chase me for miles, she thought; let me be an allusive horseman always just beyond his reach, and then when he's exhausted, and flings himself down upon the sand to bash his head with his fists and weep, I shall quietly circle back to gentle his heaving chest.

  She had great pride in her horsemanship, thought of herself as one of the best riders in the world. And she had confidence, too, in Souf. But the young man who pursued her was a persistent knight. He charged out on the sand with a determination that added to her liking of him, though she thought that if he should catch her he would be unbearable in his pride. So she pushed harder until she was flying along the crests, and Souf's legs were stirring up a storm of sand.

  They raced along like this, pounding the sand with rapid soft thuds, she ahead but he gaining, though still a hundred meters behind. Crouched in their saddles, their bodies sloped, they were like a pair of urgent messengers tearing up the desert to carry news to an Arabian conqueror of a great triumph or else a terrible defeat.

  On the sand their horses could not sustain a frantic pace too long. After some minutes they were forced to slow, and then, when Isabelle began to shiver from the cold that chilled her perspiration, she signaled Souf to halt. She dismounted, looked back at "Mohammed Horse" and cupped her hands.

  "Praise be to God," she shouted across the top of the dune. "You chase me like a madman. From this I deduce your love for me is great."

  She listened while her hoarse and rasping words pierced through the hushing wind. He stopped, dismounted, cupped his own hands and shouted back his reply.

  "My love for you is as great as the Sahara."

  "As empty?" she growled.

  "As full," he answered, "as the desert is of grains of sand."

  She pondered his declaration, found it satisfactory.

  "Come to me," she shouted again. "I want to see your face."

  He came toward her then with a careful stride that reminded her of a soldier in the desert on march. Then he stopped five meters away.

  "Come," she beckoned, "I have a candle."

  He stood still and for a moment she was afraid. Then with a gesture so quic
k she had no time to feint, he brought out a knife from beneath his robe and plunged with it toward the sand near her feet. She heard a sound, a soft thump, and then he sprang back up and kicked the sand.

  "A snake," he explained. "I saw it ready to strike."

  She was filled with admiration. He was a man of action, had probably saved her from a terrible wound.

  "Thank you."

  "Light your candle."

  She did, then placed it in a small lantern and held it up. She found him beaming, his face smooth, his moustache soft.

  "Tell me your name."

  "Slimen."

  "Slimen?"

  "Slimen Ehnni."

  "And what do you do, Slimen Ehnni?"

  "I'm a cavalry corporal in the French army."

  They sat, after searching carefully to be sure there were no more snakes.

  "So, you're a Spahi," she said to him, running her fingers along his cheek. "You ride well. I might have known."

  "I'd have told you, but I didn't want to ruin the game."

  "Good! You understand. I was pretending to be a spy who'd escaped from an enemy camp. I'd left all my pursuers behind but one, and he–that was you, of course–was relentless, was going to follow me till I fell. Eventually we'd both stop–our horses would fail us, and then we'd be off on foot, you tracking me through the night. At daybreak I would have disappeared, or so you'd think, until suddenly I'd leap out from behind a dune, wrestle you down and stab you to death."

  "And what then?" He was fascinated. Like all Arabs he loved a story of action.

  "Oh, then I would take your goatskin and start across the sands. I would try to conserve the water, but by the afternoon I would have finished it off. Then there would be the misery of searching for a well."

  "Yes, yes..."

  "I would be panting like a dog, crawling on the sand. Finally, the sun would strike me down. And there I'd lay, broiling, my lips blistering, my skin shriveling on my bones, until..."