Back of Beyond (19 page)

As the sun sinks (there’s no dusk here; the sun just vanishes in a brilliant fireball and it’s dark), a goat is killed and we smell the grilling meat, the bubbling soups, the tagine sauces, and wait restlessly for dinner.

And then the real stories begin, long rambling folktales like those told by the storytellers in the Djemaa of Marrakech. And although I have little idea of the themes, I watch as entranced as the others in the flickering firelight while the water splashes nearby and the camels moan to themselves out in the chilly desert. I now feel part of the caravan and I think they’re learning to accept me.

Later on something beautiful happens. Fatima and her two granddaughters disappear into their small tent and adorn each other in elaborate headdresses, robes, and jewels. Then they enter the circle by the fire and begin, very slowly, the famous Saharan guedra dance. Rahman and Ahmed play the small earthenware drums, and Fatima sings the long sad phrases with a strong guttural rhythm. They all sway together on their knees, blue robes waving, silver necklaces sparkling, using their arms, shoulders, and heads in movements that are somehow both erotic and yet the epitome of modest femininity. No one moves or makes a sound. We are all wrapped in this ancient rite, bound together in a tight circle of humanity against the vast infinities of stars and desert. We need no more.

Abdulali, the quietest member of the group, is treated with a respect verging on awe by everyone, particularly Fatima.

“He has been with the caravans for almost eighty years,” she explains. “He knows everything.”

Most of the time he sleeps. He even (sin of sins) had found a way to sleep on his camel as we travel. He also acts as our doctor, applying mixes of powders and lotions to wounds and burns and making fever remedies from dried bark and herbs he carries in a small leather pouch. One of Fatima’s girls received a scorpion bite on her ankle and he eased the pain in minutes with one of his secret rubbing compounds.

About the only time I saw him really animated was when he discussed dates with Ali. His face suddenly lost its wrinkled, half-asleep look as he described with elaborate gestures the sweet wonders of the
deglet nour
(“fingers of light”) dates, the smaller and firmer
deglet beida
(“white fingers”), and half a dozen other prime varieties. But when Ali asked his opinion of our daily ration of “ghar” dates, the syrupy pressed “bread of the caravan” we ate with every meal, his face went grumpy and he returned to his silent state.

Slowly I began to learn the codes of desert travel: share everything, accept the trials of each day with humor and a fatalistic sense of “this too shall pass,” don’t worry about regular bathing because all the sweating seems to keep your body remarkably clean, never get into an argument because in the heat of the day it can burst into a firestorm, enjoy it when a goat decides it wants to lick the salt off your face in the middle of the night, and laugh with the others when a camel walks all over your newly washed djellaba. I also learned that while “everything is in the hands of Allah” there are usually a few things you can do to help him along.

Quietly the old man, Abdulali, watched my apprenticeship and would nod encouragement when he saw me struggling to load my camel or trying to mount up with the same fluid movements as Ali and Rahman. After one particularly grueling day, when we’d had to walk the animals for a good ten miles, he sat by me in the cool of the evening and pressed into my hand a shard of quartz crystal with something engraved on it in Arabic. It was obviously an important gift.

Later I showed it to Saiid who stared in surprise.

“He gave you this?”

I nodded.

“This is very precious. This was given to him by his father when he became a man, when he was not a boy anymore.”

I asked what the inscription said.

“I’m not a good translator.”

“Try.”

Saiid paused. “I think it means this: ‘The strength you need already is inside you’.”

Gradually I begin to get used to the heat and become more aware of the light itself—a cleansing, almost transcendental energy that seems to penetrate directly to the soul, opening up the pores of the heart. I feel stripped naked of all pretensions and unnecessary trappings; everything around—my companions, the landscape, the colors—seem elements of a much larger whole that is almost tangible. I look at the others and know that they sense the same feelings except that these have been a part of their lives since they were born. They live in dual realities, the material and the spiritual, constantly and comfortably. My mind at first rebels, seeking distractions—something to occupy the vast silences of the daily experience. Then somehow the light itself seems to take over, the mind yammer ceases, and I become an integral part of the whole continuum. By surrendering I begin to understand the ways of the desert nomads—to sense new realities in their ancient world.

About a week or so after leaving Goulimine one of our camels died. Again we had been walking them across a difficult stretch of fêche-fêche dunes for hours and they were all exhausted. There was a sudden commotion at the back of the caravan; Saiid shouted and we all stopped and turned. One of the old she-camels lay on her side, her load scattered across the sand. The old man, Abdulali, rushed to her and poured long draughts of precious water down her nostrils. She coughed violently but it was too late. She gave a long sigh, shuddered twice, and lay still under the burning sun.

Rahman burst into tears. He had seen her limping the previous day and had lightened her load and spent the night sleeping by her side. Saiid continued washing her face with water refusing to believe she was dead. We were all stunned by the suddenness of the calamity and I began to realize just how precious these animals were. Without their endurance and their daily milk we were all helpless. I had learned a lesson deeply ingrained in all the others—that the camels are the lifeblood of the caravan. You sacrifice everything for their safety and well-being, willingly.

Ali knelt down in the sand, rested his forehead against the camel’s ear, and very gently stroked her neck. We stood for a long time before redistributing the fallen load and moving on.

The rituals of each day vary somewhat depending on whether or not we pitch camp. If we reach an oasis there is little point in unpacking the heavy leather and camel-hair tent for the men. We usually curl up by the fire or near the water. Ali tells one of the men to fix the cotton tent for the women, but they often sleep in the open air anyway, using the tent merely for modesty after washing.

Our diet is just as mundane as I’d been warned; round farina bread (
tagella
) cooked in the sand under the embers of the fire, endless cauldrons of harira soup (essentially a bottomless repository for leftovers), tough old goat (how I longed for that melt-in-your-mouth
mechoui
lamb sold in the Marrakech’s Djemaa), sour camel milk, big communal platters of couscous meagerly spiced with peppers and meat juices and, of course, endless sticky slabs of dried dates.

If there were complaints about the food (the men could be finicky after a hard day’s riding) Fatima would remind us all that she had once crossed fifteen hundred miles of desert alone on a she-camel, living on nothing but wild grass seeds and camel milk. And she would add, with searing pride, there were many days when the camel had no milk at all to give so she existed entirely on dew collected at dawn from scrub bush! This tirade was usually enough to silence the most picky eater.

Something is not right. For days since we left the first oasis we have been following trail markers in the form of small piles of desert rocks, hardly visible to the uninitiated. But there are none now and Ali seems hesitant. We all feel the change. The flowing hypnotic swaying of the camels has become jerky and uncoordinated. A restlessness ripples down the caravan; we wait for someone to speak, but no one does. Ali is a stubborn man; that is part of his power of leadership. People mistake his stubbornness for certainty, but this time we all know that we have lost the trail and we’re heading into strange territory.

Two hours later Ali turns and announces that he had taken a shortcut and has missed an expected oasis. With grace he apologizes to us all and asks if we prefer to camp or to travel on to the next oasis further to the southeast. We decide to keep moving. The stars are spectacular—billions of tiny bright pinpricks in the great black dome. What better than a moonlight ride with the expectation of a whole day’s rest up by a pool of cool water shaded by palms? I manage to move my camel abreast of Ali and, when he turns, his face is one huge grin. I must look quizzical so he just stretches out his arms as if to enfold the whole universe. And I suddenly realize that after years of traveling across these endless spaces, he’s just as much affected by it all as I am.

It is already well after dawn when we reach the ridge overlooking a thin green oasis. The water glints like liquid gold and looks inviting after days of hard traveling. Ali grins at us as if to say, “See—look what I’ve found for you.” Everyone is smiling, everyone except the ever-sceptical Ahmad, who seems uneasy.

“Is something wrong?” I ask.

“No one is here. There are no tents.”

“Is that unusual?”

“Maybe.”

We ease our camels down to the flats around the oasis. A gentle breeze is blowing; the camels can smell the water and give little snorts of anticipation. The palms are laden with bunches of golden dates and I make plans to stay here forever….

Then everything changes.

First comes a gunshot. Then out of the thick scrub at the base of the palms come two battered jeeps, each with three men, heading straight for us. The camels are alarmed at the sudden commotion and begin to weave violently. Ali calls out to us to rein them in but they resist. Fatima is thrown off and almost trampled by their elephantine feet. She is obviously hurt and can’t get up. Ali jumps down quickly and pulls her away from the frightened animals.

The jeeps keep on roaring toward us throwing up spumes of sand. There is another shot and one of the freight camels rears, scattering its load of rugs over the rocks. The men bound from the jeeps pointing their guns and shouting at us to jump down. It is a long drop but it is obvious that the intruders are not interested in the niceties of dismounting. Two camels begin running back up the ridge; one falls and is pinned to the ground by its load. Its strangled cries and flailing hooves send the rest of the caravan into total confusion. Sand and dust billow around us but the attackers ignore it all and begin herding us toward the palms. I looked at Ali and the others but they have their eyes fixed firmly on the ground. The two young women are carrying Fatima and weeping as we are pushed into the shade of the palm trees.

We see a line of one-room mud huts. They look like the remnants of a long-abandoned caravansary (the traditional form of desert resting place); their walls are deeply eroded and their once-solid wood doors are cracked and pierced by bullet holes. The windows are mere gaps in the mud, crudely boarded up.

We are taken to separate huts. At first they intend to put me with Saiid, but one of them rips off my litham, points to my red beard and hair, and becomes very angry. A short, stocky man with a huge black mustache and carrying a submachine gun runs up and peers fiercely into my face. Ali begins some long explanation but is quickly silenced with a gun pointed directly at his throat. I am obviously regarded as some kind of dangerous alien and am taken off to the furthermost hut, the only one with iron bars on the window! The stocky man with mustache, apparently the leader, pushes me through the doorway, shouts something very abusive, spits violently at the wall, and orders someone to guard the door.

I won’t dwell on the details, but the next twenty-four hours are some of the most unpleasant I can remember. I have no idea what is happening; I can hear nothing of the others, only the occasional braying of the camels. Sometime before sunset there is a shattering burst of machine-gun fire way down at the end of the oasis and then silence again until someone sticks a greasy plate of couscous under my door after dark and vanishes.

It is amazingly cold at night. I shiver for hours in a half-sleep full of violent images and sudden awakenings. I call out to the guard for something to wrap around me but there is never any reply. I can hear my voice bouncing off the rocks and hills around the oasis. I feel utterly alone and deserted. I am also scared—why have we been attacked, who are these people, how long will they keep us here…?

By the following morning I’ve had enough. I hear raised voices nearby and begin kicking the door and shouting as loud as I can. I am ready for anything now, machine guns or not. I am cold, hungry, and very angry. The voices get louder so I kick harder. Then who should appear at the window but Ali and Saiid, leaping about and calling the others. They unbar the door, pull me out, and we hug and dance and hug again, tumbling about in the sunshine.

Bit by bit, between the hugs and the ferocious devouring of dates, the story emerges—or at least as much as we can piece together. Who our captors were is never clear. At first Ahmed thought they were Algerian guerrillas, the Polisarios, who had been a constant irritant for years along Morocco’s eastern border. But that makes no sense. We are deep in the nation’s “new” territory of Western Sahara, which King Hassan II had claimed following Spain’s relinquishment of the region in 1975. Disputes with neighboring Mauritania over ownership of the thousand-mile-long territory had supposedly been settled, but Rahman says two of the captors had claimed to be Mauritanian rebels out to establish revived land claims.

But then Ali tells us sadly that they were far more interested in desert piracy than land-grabbing and had made off silently during the night with our best camels, all the trading goods, and every single item of value they could find, including my cameras and precious films of the journey. All they left us were a few older camels and a couple of half-dead goats. We would now never be able to complete the original journey to Senegal, nor had we enough supplies to return the way we had come.