Visions of Isabelle

by William Bayer

  "Help me set them up."

  They arrange the pieces and begin, Sidi Lachmi immediately preparing a strong defense. Isabelle feels he is testing her, and wonders if etiquette demands that she should lose. But she plays as well as she can, and soon they are embroiled in a complicated position with dozens of possibilities, and no clear sign of victory on either side. She decides to clarify–Vava's favorite strategy–and starts a series of exchanges which he cleverly turns to his advantage. Then he begins to attack, his game full of duplicity and tricks, poisoned pawns, deceptive sacrifices, lines of attack suddenly revealed. Soon she is decimated and gives up the game.

  "Your play is clever," he tells her, "but you lack experience."

  "Even that would not aid me against so great a lord."

  "If I may characterize your game, it is much like the way you ride your horse. Direct, without caution or tact–plain and strong and wild."

  "I'm sorry."

  "You needn't be. It's the way you live. But don't expect longevity."

  Isabelle, shaken, recalls his earlier remark.

  "Why," she asks suddenly, "would anyone want me killed? I bother no one. I do no harm."

  Sidi Lachmi strokes his beard.

  "I'm not sure. There are always people who fear what they cannot understand. And you are difficult to understand."

  "But I don't do anything except ride the dunes and sometimes tend the sick."

  "Perhaps that's the problem. You don't appear to do anything, and that raises the question: what do you really do?"

  She thinks for a moment, then asks for his advice.

  His face turns blank, as if the silk veil that frames it has been pulled across. A silence–she can hear the snores of men asleep in distant chambers.

  "You shall become a Kadrya," he says, finally, "and enter my protection. Then those who wonder what you do will know that you serve me."

  "You accept me?"

  He nods.

  "The rites are simple, the rituals are for fools, and the secret signals will amuse you. But you must know that the sects are political parties, the members soldiers in a long and devious war that makes chess seem like a children's game. Right now the French favor the Tidjani, who acquiesce to their rule. We are weak because we are divided, and the French use this to manipulate us, keeping strength from a single group. My aim, of course, is to gain dominance, control of the desert. But the days of armed uprisings are over, and now everything is politics, trickery, deceit. In my youth I was like you–reckless, direct. But now, in middle age, I've become crafty, for that is the only means I know to accomplish my ends."

  He stares into her eyes, she into his. She sees caldrons that glisten like black mica, a pair of furnaces where history will be forged. For the first time since she's been in the desert, someone is speaking to her with a vision that goes beyond the next well. The man's dominance reminds her of Vava, and she feels the same weakness before him that her father once inspired. Impossible, she thinks, to resist a man who is obsessed. But Sidi Lachmi's obsession is grand, not some petty scheme to manufacture perfume. It's a will to power, a dark instinct to rule and revenge. He has everything she ever hoped to find in a Saharan sheik–greatness, ruthlessness, strength.

  "Why," she asks finally, "do you take me?"

  The sheik closes his eyes, is quiet for a long while.

  "I like you," he says, and waves his hand to dismiss.

  She stands, backs away from his throne of piled sheepskins. Sidi Lachmi does not look at her again.

  A few days later, at her initiation, she learns the special way of reciting "there is no God but God," with heavy breathing and a contortion of her body, and also how to handle a string of beads placed about her neck so she will be recognized by her "brothers" everywhere. She recites a pledge, gives ritual answers to catechistic questions and is finally embraced by the three wise men.

  She finds the ceremony boring, though she suspects that if Sidi Lachmi hadn't told her it was devised for fools, she might have been thrilled.

  He has use for her. She drafts his letters in Arabic and French, sits behind him at meetings with his counselors, takes notes as they discuss their strategies against the Tidjani and the French. If the religious purposes of the sect seem cynically contrived, the political machinations of a desert sheik are a fascinating revelation.

  Sidi Lachmi treats her sternly, always maintains his reserve. But she often feels he is watching her, thinking about her, and she cannot forget that he knows people who have wanted her killed. She is, as he promised, under his protection, and though this gives her some comfort, she wonders occasionally for what purpose he will finally decide she should be used.

  They play chess often–he finds relaxation in the game. But she is never able to defeat him, no matter how hard she tries. For a time it seems important that she gain at least one victory, if only to raise his estimation of her worth. But his duplicities are without end, and always, when he has checkmated her or forced her to resign, he repeats his remark that she is insufficient in deceit.

  "That's one thing," he tells her, late one evening after a particularly strenuous and protracted game, "that the Europeans have never understood. They know all about how we dress and pray and speak, even how we wage war, but they don't see the principle of deception that lies behind everything we do. It's the single great principle of survival in the Sahara. Here mirage is everything, and we who rule in the sands not only know how to make mirages, but also how to recognize them as our enemy's deceits."

  She is surprised at his monologues, unexpectedly delivered in the most lucid French. Also by their aftermath–the manner in which he shuts his eyes and waves her away. It is as if Sidi Lachmi is speaking to himself, and her purpose is to be a mute witness, an acknowledgment that his mighty words do not fall with silence like a landslide in an uninhabited gorge.

  Slimen is not forgotten, for though she spends much time with Sidi Lachmi, often staying with him late into the night, she always returns to the house in El Oued, and then, no matter how late, she and Slimen ride out upon the sand. She has two separate lives now, almost as she dreamed. She divides her time between her medical ministrations and the politics of the desert, between her role as wife and brother to Slimen, and secretary to the sheik. Often she asks herself which role she prefers. But the answer, always, is that she loves them both.

  For a time after she joins the Kadrya, Slimen's mood is depressed. But he regains his good humor when he sees that his possession of her is not impaired. By then they have explored all the outlands of El Oued, and so devote themselves to revisiting places they especially like. Here they play their various games of love, games in which they enact the roles of horses, camels, gazelles.

  For her there is still nothing better than feeling that some violent creature, far stronger than herself, is crushing her, annihilating her in the empty wastes of sand. There is tragic poetry in this, an escape from being remarkable and strong. She knows that she is extraordinary, but there are times in the desert when she wishes she were dust.

  Slimen shows little interest in the intrigues of the Kadrya, perhaps because as a French soldier he knows it is best to remain aloof. But on one occasion he thanks God that Isabelle has joined the sect.

  In late November they depart for a journey of several days. They ride south, to the great emptiness east of Touggourt, and here set up their tent in a small valley between high dunes. The air is clear, made brilliant by the winter sun. All sorts of strange plants have sprung out of the sand on account of violent autumn rains. They wander in this thwarted scrub, chasing Saharan rabbits, pausing often to stare at the vast horizon of monotonous sands. Isabelle is struck by the intensity of the calm. The silence of the desert is so strong that it lulls her, and then Slimen complains. He misses her energy, even her diatribes. He is bored and wants to return to El Oued.

  On their third night, while they are sleeping, wrapped in burnooses against the cold, a violent south wind rips across the sands. Sudden
ly a gust destroys the tent, which nearly smothers them as it collapses about their heads. They crawl out, only to have their faces lashed by sharp blowing sand.

  Since it is impossible to go back to sleep, they huddle together until the storm subsides. Then, at dawn, disgusted at the wreckage of their little camp, they ride off at a gallop to clear their heads, leaving everything–their revolvers, goatskins, even their compasses behind.

  The winds have slightly changed the dunes, new curves and ridges confuse them, and after a while they realize they are lost. They have only their belt flasks full of water, and just as their horses begin to tire, the winds blow again.

  No refuge now, no place for them to huddle. They wander for hours, their faces covered with cloth, their eyes squinting against the wind that increases slowly until it reaches gale force. The storm of the previous night has deposited dustlike sand everywhere, and now the new storm blows it furiously so that all the air is filled with fine powder and they can see nothing, not even the outlines of the dunes.

  They wander in circles, frightened, unnerved. They are in a limbo and Isabelle feels surrounded, oppressed. She begins to fear the desert, and, at the same time, to feel sorry for Slimen who, mumbling frightened incoherent prayers, reminds her suddenly of Augustin.

  When she is finally ready to dismount and lie face down and wait for some horrible dehydrating death, the wind stops, the dust falls back upon the earth, and she sees they are on a great empty plain, without even a tuft of weeds in sight.

  "We shall die." Slimen's sand-crusted face is streaked with tears.

  "No, brother, we have luck."

  "It's all over. We've been stupid, and now everything is finished."

  She looks with pity at his stricken face and marvels at how weak he is compared to her.

  "Gather strength, my brother," she says. "Better to struggle until the end."

  They wander on, and then, turning behind some dunes, they see a valley, and in its center some scraggly trees. They descend and find a well.

  Bent over, in the act of filling their empty bottles after laughing, embracing, dancing about, they hear the sudden click of rifles being cocked.

  They turn to find three men, faces almost black, wrapped in multi-colored robes, approaching from three sides.

  "You cannot use this well!"

  "We are thirsty," Isabelle replies. "We are lost."

  "Stand back!" The man in the center motions with his gun. "This is a well of the Rebaia tribe. You are not Rebaia. I forbid you to drink."

  The two men on his flanks inspect their horses. Isabelle feels she is going to be killed. She begins to mumble the recitation of the Kadrya, "there is no God but God," breathing the special way she's been taught.

  "You are Kadrya?" asks the leader.

  "Thanks be to God!" she says.

  The tall black man pulls roughly at the collar of her robe, strokes the rosary beneath. Then he peers into her eyes.

  "We are brothers," he says. He lowers his rifle, throws it to the ground and embraces her with both his arms. "You will spend the night with us. Then, in the morning, we will show you your way."

  She does not sleep, but listens all night to tales of life in this desolate quarter, learning much about the mysteries of shifting dunes.

  For weeks she broods over the incident, asks herself what it means. She knows the odds against stumbling across a well, though Slimen is more impressed by the coincidence of meeting Kadrya.

  "Thirst or a bullet," he tells her, "it's the same death in the end."

  But still she wonders if God has saved her for something, some destiny yet to be revealed. She decides to ask Sidi Lachmi, the most cynical man she knows. She finds him with his retinue hunting gazelles in the desert with a fierce-looking falcon perched on his wrist.

  "It is interesting that you began to pray," he tells her, releasing the gigantic bird. "I'm not sure that I would have done the same. Perhaps your salvation is a sign. Perhaps you are a mystic, or even a saint."

  To his surprise she takes him seriously.

  "Do you think so?" she asks.

  "Already," he says, laughing, hoping to deflate her with ridicule, "I see the signs in your face. Fanatic's eyes!"

  The next morning she rides west to the great dunes which she crossed the first time coming from Touggourt. The air is still and cold, the bones of fallen camels bleached a chalky white, and each grain of the desert seems etched by the brilliant winter sun. She stands at the crest for a long time, waiting for a revelation, some sign that she has a destiny, that God has saved her for something great. But there is only silence, and after a while she shrugs, falls to her knees, kisses the shimmering sand.

  Suddenly, in January–disaster. All the money from the marquise is spent; her letters to Eugène, Samuel and Augustin are unanswered; the café refuses to extend her credit; she has not even enough to buy absinthe. For a moment she considers selling Souf, but knows this is impossible, that without him she will not be able to ride at night.

  And then, just as she is grasping the awful reality of her financial condition, Slimen comes home with the news that he is to be transferred to Batna in two days. There is not even the possibility of a postponement–his pleas have already been rebuffed.

  "But why?" she asks. "Don't your officers understand our hardship? Don't they understand what this will mean?"

  "They understand very well. I was led to believe that the transfer is deliberate–that the Arab Bureau doesn't like you and wants us kept apart."

  "They hate us, of course."

  Slimen nods.

  "So much so that they said I would have to live inside the garrison–just in case you were thinking of coming along."

  "Oh, they hate us because we are free."

  They discuss desertion but it is impossible for Slimen, and, besides, they would have no way of earning money to live. Over the next twenty-four hours they become possessed by a kind of madness. Anxious, depressed, they ride around the dunes discussing alternatives, realizing that all they have together is soon to be lost.

  "There is always suicide," says Slimen, cheerfully. "We could make a pact."

  "Oh, how stupid..."

  She stops herself, looks at his fallen face, is seized by an enormous fondness for his romantic heart.

  He shrugs and bows his head.

  "Then it is written, Si Mahmoud. It is God's will. We have no choice–we will be separated. That is our destiny, and we must submit."

  "Oh, brother," she cries, dazzled by the depth of his resignation. And then she begins to weep.

  She can think of no other man, no other kind of marriage than theirs. That he never tries to dominate, except when she insists; that he offers her total freedom and total friendship without jealousy or cant; that she can be both brother and wife–these are things she doubts she will ever find again. Faced with separation and utter penury, she tells herself her life is ruined, though she is not yet twenty-four years old.

  On the morning of their last day together Slimen's hand trembles as he lifts his tea. There is a strange hysterical look in his eyes, red from crying, that moves her to pity.

  "Don't worry," she tells him, "somehow we'll survive. I'll find some money, pay our debts and move to Batna. They'll never be able to keep us apart. We'll find some way to end your enlistment, and then move back here and ride the dunes."

  "It's a dream," he says.

  "All right, we'll see. Tonight I will bring you to Sidi Lachmi. We'll throw ourselves on his mercy. Perhaps something will come of that."

  They arrange to meet by the cemetery of Ouled-Ahmed. She waits for hours, but Slimen does not appear. She rides out to find him and then hurries back, afraid he will come when she is gone and think she has given him up. Finally he arrives long after midnight, swaying on his horse. He has been smoking kif and guzzling absinthe. His face looks terrible, and he shakes like a man who's been condemned.

  Inside the monastery Sidi Lachmi looks at them. He is impassive. Suddenly
Slimen begins to weep.

  "What is this, Si Mahmoud? You bring me a man who cries like a child."

  She begs to explain, to tell her saga of troubles. Sidi Lachmi shows no emotion as she speaks. His eyes betray nothing, and when she rambles on about her love for Slimen, he seems implacable, like a mountain of rock.

  Finally, when she's finished, he asks what she wants him to do. She is silent.

  "Is it money?"

  She nods.

  "Money means nothing," he says, reaching into his purse, bringing out several pieces of gold. "This will help, and God will pay the rest."

  Slimen, his nerves strained beyond control, breaks into laughter. While Isabelle comforts his shaking body, she and Sidi Lachmi exchange a lengthy glance.

  "Tomorrow I am riding to Nefta," he says. "I will need you to accompany me, and take notes."

  She kisses his hand.

  This last night she and Slimen decide to ride out to the sand, gallop and roam from garden to garden revisiting all the places they love. Sentiment soon draws them to Bir R'arby where they nestle among the palms and laugh over the strange way they met.

  "Do you remember," he asks, "how I was going to show you how one boy horse could enter another boy horse from behind?"

  "How," she laughs, "could I ever forget that?"

  It is too cold to take off their clothes. They make a little fire of foraged twigs and dung, wrap themselves in their cloaks.

  "Believe me," she says, "now that Sidi Lachmi has given us gold, things are going to change."

  But he is too tired to speak, prefers to rest in her arms, and soon falls off. She holds him for many hours, but is unable to sleep herself. She listens to his breathing, regular and strong, and stares at the stars. Then a sweet sadness descends upon her, a mood of longing and sorrow that brings back the memory of an October evening long ago in Meyrin. She feels the same melancholy that pressed upon her the night Augustin left home. Then, with a smile, she remembers how she spent that night sleeping in his sheets.