The autumnal light is pale against the sulfurous dunes. There is an immense sadness about the desert south of Beni-Ounif, where the company makes its camp. In the mornings she's awakened by the moans of camels, then by the sounds of the men around who rise slowly to stir the fires.
Desforges, as an officer, has the luxury of a tent. She sleeps among the men rolled in her burnoose, her rifle, like theirs, beneath her head. This time she takes great pains to maintain her disguise. She's an Arab–Si Mahmoud. Only Desforges knows her real name.
They seldom speak, though on the first night, when he strides about inspecting the camp, he invites her, in a whisper, to join him for dinner in his tent.
"No," she tells him. "If I do that they'll suspect."
He nods gravely and walks away.
But when they are en marche the next day, at a slow desert pace, he circles back from his position at the point and rides by her side.
"Everything all right?" he asks, and when she assures him that it is, he asks if there's anything she needs.
She grins then and shakes her head. He stares at her, confused, and rides off.
She has resolved to have nothing to do with him, to live among the men, listen to what they say, record the texture of their lives. Late at night, after feasts of stewed camel meat and dates, she retires to a place near one of the fires and makes notes on all she's seen. She's fascinated by the tribal disputes, the tales of vengeance, the insults happily exchanged.
As the days pass in a monotony of rocks and dunes, relieved only by the incredible luminosity of the air, she feels a building up of tension in Desforges. Then she enjoys a fantasy of him alone and smoldering in his tent, thinking up ways to gain her attention, grinding his teeth over her insufferable chill.
Each day he tries a different tack, devised, she has no doubt, the night before. He's in search of some delicate means to win her confidence without giving offense. Sometimes he implores her to join him for a talk after the march, and on other days demands her presence with a barely concealed anger she answers with contempt. She observes him when he inspects the camp, walking moodily, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, puffing with distraction on his pipe. And in the mornings, while eating her bread and tangia made in a communal earthenware pot buried the night before in the embers of the fires, she observes him snarling at his sergeants as though he's suffered a tormented night.
She finds herself becoming interested against her will. He becomes a specimen she watches, and hopes to see explode. But she conceals her interest beneath a contemptuous disdain, hoping to drive him to a fit.
"Where's that famous toughness?" she asks him one morning.
"I don't know what you mean."
"I've been with you a week, Lieutenant, and I've yet to see you break something over someone's head."
He snorts and rides off, but an hour later is back by her side.
"What are you doing? Trying to drive me mad?"
"I'm too busy with my work."
"You know I desire you, so why do you resist? I need company. These men are animals and this terrain bores me to death."
"I'm sorry," she says, "but the truth is I don't like you at all. Wouldn't it be more civilized if we'd just stay out of each other's way?"
They ride in silence, then he mutters something and canters off.
For the rest of that day he stays apart, but after dinner he sends a sergeant who orders her to report to his tent. She goes, feeling she has no choice. But once inside, she taunts him.
"So," she says, "you've gotten me here at last. How clever and how sad that you couldn't manage it by yourself. You know I couldn't refuse without giving the game away."
"You can't refuse in any case. An order is an order, and I'm in command."
"Come, come, Desforges, I have special status here. You have no control over me."
He gives her a serene look.
"Your trouble, Si Mahmoud, is that you've lived your entire life without any discipline at all. You're the most willful, self-indulgent woman I've ever met."
"Ho-hum, the famous disciplinarian speaks."
"He does. Tomorrow we turn toward Béchar. The colonel wants to extend the rail line, and we're going to survey the route. I'm only taking a few men. You'll have to stay here."
"What? I absolutely refuse! I wasn't sent here to sit around your boring camp. I've been waiting a week to see some action. You have no right..."
"Shut up! I'm responsible to the colonel. For some reason your safety is important to him. So–you stay!"
"Now listen, Desforges..."
"That's an order. Do me a kindness and obey."
Then he turns his back.
That morning at parade he calls out the best of his men. The rest are assigned to guard the camp. Isabelle is given sentry duty at his tent. The order is formal, given in Arabic before the men.
She decides to follow him as soon as his troupe is out of sight. Without thinking of the risk she takes of being shot for desertion of her post, she sneaks off, mounts her horse and following the footprints in the sand, tracks him to the settlement of Bou-Aïech.
That evening she's discovered by a scout who notices her lingering on the fringes of the camp. He jumps her from behind, wrestles her to the ground, then holds a knife against her throat. Recognizing her at last as she squeals and squirms, he grasps her up and pushes her roughly into the lieutenant's tent where Desforges, stripped to the waist, is studying his maps.
"Look what I found outside!" says the scout. "It seems Si Mahmoud's a spy!"
"I shall question him myself," says Desforges. "You can return to your post."
When the scout's gone he shakes his head.
"I'm sorry you did this, Si Mahmoud–very sorry, indeed. I have no choice now but to send you back, with a report to the colonel besides. He doesn't like quarrels between his men. This time I think he'll agree you overstepped. It's a pity. You've acted like a woman, a very silly woman indeed, and now I must treat you like a woman in return."
"That's not fair. If there's danger I want to experience it. I'll write a letter to Lyautey now–explain everything, absolve you of all responsibility."
"You really want to be a soldier?"
"I told you that last night..."
"But you deserted your post, Si Mahmoud. A soldier can be shot for that."
She shrugs.
"No, Si Mahmoud, you can't have it both ways. If you're going to pretend to be one of the men, you're going to have to follow orders the same as they. I'm sorry. Tomorrow you go back."
Silence. She sees he's serious.
"Please, Desforges, be reasonable. Let me stay. I promise I won't disobey you again."
"It's too late for that–the whole camp knows you're here."
"Couldn't you overlook...?"
"Impossible. One exception and discipline breaks down. The slightest hint of favoritism and I lose authority with the men."
She stands, silent, realizing that he's right.
"Look, Desforges, I'm sorry about everything. I admit I was playing games with you. Couldn't we–isn't there some way...?"
"There is one way," he interrupts. "But I don't think..."
"What?"
"No." He shakes his head. "Impossible!"
"Tell me, Desforges. I'll do anything."
"Anything?" He smiles. "Well, in that case there may be a chance." He scratches his head. "If you stay, you see, you'll have to be punished in front of the others so they'd know what would happen to them."
"Punished?"
"Yes. For what you've done a man would be punished."
"I don't quite see..."
"Yes, I'm afraid that's the only way. Either go back, because you've acted like a woman, or stay here and get treated like a man."
"What do you want to do–have me shot?"
"No," he laughs. "Not for a first offense. You'll follow us tomorrow, on foot, with your hands tied to the stirrup of a guard. That's how we teach a man to obey, and that's how we'll teach you.
Think about it–make up your mind, but let me know before we ride." He calls for a sentry. "Dismissed!"
She leaves the tent furious, goes to one of the fires, tries to eat but discovers her hunger has gone away. She finds a place to sleep, rolls herself up in her burnoose and is shocked to find she wants to cry. It's been years, she thinks, since she's truly wept, not since Old Nathalie's death. And after all she's suffered–Behima, Constantine, Marseilles, Ténès–she's surprised at this urge that comes upon her, unleashing tears that sting her cheeks.
How can this be? she asks herself. There is nothing on earth that can make Si Mahmoud cry. Wiping her eyes with her arm she knows that this is not Si Mahmoud at all–it is Isabelle who weeps, a girl of twenty-six, alone among men in an obscure corner of the earth, forced to decide who she is going to be.
She spends an anguished night over the choice, knowing that Desforges, in his uncanny way, has found out her weakness, plunged in his knife and now threatens to divide her soul.
She thinks: If only he'd not given me the choice. Then, she knows, she could accept his sentence, endure it as she's endured so many things much worse. If Si Mahmoud must suffer then suffer he must–but to be forced to decide between suffering and staying Si Mahmoud, or leaving and reverting to Isabelle–that is torture worse than any punishment Desforges could ever devise.
If I go back as Isabelle, then Si Mahmoud is dead. This, she suspects, is something Desforges, in his brooding, has found out. He's testing her, testing the strength of her role, knowing that if she refuses his sentence, he will have broken her and won. Knowing that to be sent back would be a worse humiliation than the forced march, she decides to endure the pain rather than the scornful laughter of this man who wants to rip away her mask.
But how cruel, she thinks, how devilishly cruel of him to leave me with the choice.
At dawn she presents herself at his tent.
"Well?" he asks coolly.
"I want to stay."
His lips form a narrow smile that broadens as she stares directly back.
"Very good. I'll give the orders. And if things become too difficult along the way, then, Si Mahmoud, just shout for me."
He snaps the flap shut, but in the moment before she sees a glimmer of satisfaction in his insolent eyes.
Her wrists are tied tightly with a leather thong in front of the men, and then attached to a long rough rope. A man dressed in black, his mouth covered, his high dark Berber cheeks bitten deeply by the pox, attaches the rope to the stirrup of his horse. He comes to her, holds his goatskin bag of water to her lips, then turns and mounts. My executioner, she thinks, my man in black.
Soon the rest are on their horses–she sees her own horse, Karim, tied behind the camel that carries Desforges' tent. The lieutenant mounts last, but his horse is restless. She watches as it rears, halfheartedly trying to shake him off. She hopes he'll be thrown, but he's an excellent rider, leans forward, speaks to the animal and strokes its neck. Then he is off to the front of the column without giving her a glance.
The march begins, and for the first hour she's surprised at its ease. She moves proudly, trying to find a pleasant, sliding desert gait. Her only annoyance is the thong that binds her wrists. Her hands feel awkward, tied before her body; she longs to swing them by her sides. However, this is nothing but an inconvenience which she forces herself to forget. I must think of this as just another promenade, she thinks, and catching sight of Desforges, she fixes her eyes on his back so as to be ready to meet his when he finally turns.
Not so bad, she thinks, not so harsh. The winter sun is bearable enough. And she welcomes it when it comes, hitting her full on the right side of her face, giving pleasure as it takes the morning's chill from off her cheeks.
An hour later she is praying for a solar eclipse. This gentle sun is fast becoming a cruel monster in the sky, rising and steadily increasing its heat, until the growing pain in her feet and the numbness in her wrists seem insignificant compared to its infernal gaze.
Her guard stops, drinks, then dismounts and gives her water. Relief, then, for a minute or two, but after that the pain begins again, the beating down, hard, blinding, which starts a dull thudding tom-tom in her brain. Quarter hour by quarter hour it gets worse, until it takes all her strength to keep from crying aloud.
The next time her guard drinks, he does not bother to dismount but motions for her to walk beside his horse. Then with a gesture that is more weary than mean he pours her ration upon her face. Most of the precious liquid splashes away, and she must dab about desperately with her tongue. She catches little of it, finds salt caked around her lips. She opens her mouth again, squinting at him, whispering a plea for more, but brusquely he motions her back, and then enrages her by a harsh jerk he gives the rope.
They are moving toward the base of the Antar Mountains, through what the French maps call "the Desert of Black Stones." This is a place of uneven rocks that bite into her boots. She keeps her head down, afraid she'll stumble, but raises it often so she'll not miss Desforges if he should look back. What she hadn't realized before is that, winter sun or not, it is one thing to sit on a horse, barely moving, lulled by the animal's gait, holding one's face to any glimmer of a breeze, and quite another to move one's body, take step after step, at a pace set by others, with no choice but to follow or be dragged. It's the moving that's killing me, she thinks, having to move my whole body at every step. For she knows this law of the desert well: wasted motion means a depletion of moisture, and every movement is agony beneath the sun.
As it rises higher she is struck by an increase in her pain. Now her wrists, her feet, her eyes, her lips, her face and legs and back all ache; an entire torment wracks her body, threatening to make her cry and fall. There is a temptation, then, to call out for Desforges–she's proved her point; surely now she can be released. She knows better–that he has set the terms, and she must meet them or else admit she's Isabelle and not Si Mahmoud.
She turns her face up to the blinding whiteness of the sky, can tell by the position of the sun that it's not yet eleven o'clock. The worst, she knows, is still to come–at least two more hours of marching, finally broken by the midday rest. After that the sun will not give so much pain, but the ground, the stones, the thongs, the rope–they will take their turn.
She decides to divide her punishment into segments, see each one through and decide then how to go on to the next. Maybe this way, she thinks, she'll manage to survive the day. The first segment will last until the shadow of her guard's horse falls directly beneath its belly; the next, at the midday stop. Her skin feels as if it's being ripped away by white-hot solar tongs. She gives up waiting for Desforges to turn, decides to concentrate on the stones beneath her feet. Just then her toe, connecting with a rock, gives violent pain. She hops on one foot, stumbles and a moment later feels the rip of the rope against her wrists. Both shoulders are pulled out hard, stretched until she screams. Her black guard turns, stops his horse, halts and when she's up, starts again. How compassionate he is, she thinks, for she knows how little such men care about another's pain.
He gives her water then, poured more carefully than before, and smiling she nods her gratitude. For a moment her guard looks into her face, and then he turns away his eyes. It occurs to her that she may not be presenting a pleasant sight.
By noon, when the sun is directly overhead and her own shadow is concentrated to a moving puddle at her feet, her suffering reaches a new and heightened pitch. Everything is pure pain, and the worst of it is that she cannot lie down and find relief in coma or sleep. She must march on, step after step, or else be dragged and bruised upon the stones. No question now of giving in, crying out for mercy, begging pity and relief. She hasn't even a voice for that, as she learns the second time she falls and tries to call to her guard for a moment of respite. Her black horseman is sleeping in his saddle, lulled by the monotony of the terrain. When the rope goes taut he simply removes his foot from his stirrup and nudges at his horse. Somehow s
he pulls herself up, then stumbles after him to slacken the rope.
Pulled along now, across a field of pointed stones, her wrists numb, her arms sore, her shoulders wrenched, her lips scalding, blistering, her whole face and head resounding with a beating ache, she searches for some inner power to help her to endure. Other men, she knows, have suffered worse. It takes, she thinks, some kind of mental magic, some interior adjustment to blank out the pain. I must submerge myself, forget, seek oblivion, become like these rocks, these mountains. I must disappear, bury the part of me that feels, become a thing, a wheel, perhaps, that merely rolls where it is led.
But no matter how she tries she does not know the way to self-annihilation; she doesn't yet possess that mystic power that comes so easily to primitive desert men. She has no notion of how to make herself an unfeeling stone, and it is not possible, she knows, to learn such a thing in a single day. But then, as she falls forward again, this time opening cuts in her knees, a new thought suddenly occurs.
I must try to seek out the pleasure in this pain. She feels a trickle of warm blood rushing from her knees. I must begin, she decides, by forcing the agony off my face. Smile, smile, laugh if I can. And at that she manages to let out with a dry unhappy gasp. Think of ecstasy, think of joy. She fastens on the torment in her shoulders. They feel good. Then, like a litany, she begins a dialogue with herself. Do my arms feel light? Yes, they feel light. And my shoulders–are they sore? No, they are not sore. My whole body–it's in ecstasy. Oh, God, help me find the pleasure in this unbearable pain. Help me find the will to turn it around. Smile, laugh. Make each step a pleasure. Let the bite of every rock become a sweet caress.
Her guard unties the rope from his stirrup but leaves her hands bound. Ignoring her eyes, he leads her to the shade of a boulder, drinks, gives her water, helps himself to bread, then breaks up small pieces and puts them one by one between her lips. He says nothing to her, but before he sleeps ties the other end of her rope around his waist. She looks about. The rest of the men are spread in the shade of other boulders in a vast amphitheater of basaltic rocks. Sentries are posted, and she sees Karim resting with the camels beside a well. She doesn't even look for Desforges, doesn't even think of him. Trying to recall the last hour of marching before the halt, she can remember nothing at all.
Visions of Isabelle Page 26