Desert (14 page)

Evening is settling slowly in the sky, deepening the blue of the sea and making the froth of the waves seem even whiter. At regular intervals, Old Naman dunks his rag brushes into the pot of pitch and, with a twirling motion, runs them along the grooves filled with oakum. The boiling liquid sinks into the chinks and dribbles onto the sand of the beach. Lalla and all the children watch Naman’s hands.

“Then something terrible happened in the kingdom,” Naman goes on. “There was a great drought, God’s curse over the whole kingdom, and there was no more water in the rivers or in the reservoirs, and everyone was dying of thirst, first the trees and the plants, then the herds of animals, the sheep, the horses, the camels, the birds, and finally the humans, who died of thirst in the fields by the side of the road; it was a dreadful sight to see, and that is why we still remember it...”

The louse flies come out; they alight on the children’s lips, buzz about their ears. They are inebriated by the sharp smell of the pitch and the thick plumes of smoke swirling up between the dunes. There are wasps too, but no one tries to bat them away because when Old Naman tells a story, it’s as if they too become a little magic, sort of like djinns.

“The emir of the kingdom was very sad, and he summoned the wise men to ask their advice, but no one knew what to do to stop the drought. It was then that a stranger appeared, an Egyptian traveler who was well-versed in magic. The emir summoned him as well, and asked him to break the curse upon the kingdom. The Egyptian gazed at an ink spot, and he became suddenly frightened, began to tremble and refused to speak. ‘Speak!’ said the emir. ‘Speak and I will make you the richest man in the kingdom.’ But the stranger refused to speak. ‘My lord,’ he said, ‘allow me to go on my way, don’t ask me to reveal this secret.’”

When Naman stops talking to dip his brushes in the pot, Lalla and the children are almost afraid to breathe. They listen to the fire crackling and the sound of the pitch boiling in the pot.

“Then the emir grew angry and said to the Egyptian, ‘Speak or you are doomed.’ And the executioners seized him and were already unsheathing their sabers to cut off his head. So the stranger cried out, ‘Stop! I will tell you the secret of the curse, but know that you are damned!’”

Old Naman has a very particular, long, drawn-out way of saying Mlaaoune – damned by God – that makes the children shudder. He stops for a moment to use up the rest of the pitch in the pot. Then he hands it to Lalla without saying a word, and she has to run over to the fire to fill it with boiling pitch. Thankfully, he waits for her to come back before continuing the story.

“Then the Egyptian said to the emir, ‘Did you not once punish a man for stealing gold from a merchant?’

“‘Yes, I did,’ said the emir, ‘because he was a thief.’

“‘Know that the man was innocent,’ said the Egyptian, ‘and falsely accused, and that he has put a curse on you. It is he who sent the drought, for he is the ally of spirits and demons.’”

When evening comes like this out on the beach, while you’re listening to Old Naman’s deep voice, it’s sort of as if time no longer existed, or as if it had been turned back, to another very long and very gentle time, and Lalla wishes Naman’s story would never end, even if it had to last for days and nights, and she and the other children would fall asleep, and when they awakened, they would still be there listening to Naman’s voice.

“‘What must be done to stop this curse?’ asked the emir. The Egyptian looked him straight in the eyes: ‘You must realize there is but one remedy, and I will tell you what it is since you have asked me to reveal it to you. You must sacrifice your only daughter, she whom you love more than anything in the world. Go, leave her to be eaten by the wild beasts of the forest, and the drought which has stricken your land will cease.’

“Then the emir began to weep and to cry out in pain and anger, but as he was a good man, he allowed the Egyptian to leave freely. When the people of the land learned all of this, they also wept, for they dearly loved Leila, the daughter of their king. But the sacrifice had to be made, and the emir decided to take his daughter into the forest to allow her to be eaten by the wild beasts. However, there was one young man in the kingdom who loved Leila more than any of the others, and he was determined to save her. He had inherited from one of his relatives, a magician, a ring that gave the one who possessed it the power to be transformed into an animal. However, once transformed he could never return to his original form, and he would be immortal. The night of the sacrifice came, and the emir went into the forest along with his daughter...”

The air is smooth and pure, the line of the horizon is infinite. Lalla looks out as far as she can see, as if she had been turned into a gull and were flying straight out over the sea.

“The emir reached the middle of the forest; he had his daughter dismount from the horse and tied her to a tree. Then he left her, weeping in sorrow, for the cries of the ferocious beasts could already be heard as they approached their victim...”

At times, the sound of the waves on the beach is more distinct, as if the sea were drawing nearer. But it’s just the wind blowing, and when it coils round in the hollows of the dunes, it sends spurts of sand that shoot up and mix with the smoke.

“In the forest, tied to the tree, poor Leila was trembling with fright, and calling out to her father to save her because she couldn’t bear to die like that, devoured by the wild beasts... Already a large wolf was moving toward her, and she could see his eyes glowing like flames in the night. Then all of a sudden a sweet music broke forth in the forest. It was such beautiful, pure music that Leila was no longer afraid, and all the ferocious beasts of the forest stopped to listen...”

Old Naman’s hands take the brushes, one after the other, and with a slow twirling motion, run them along the hull of the boat. Lalla and the children watch them too, as if the brushes were telling a story.

“The celestial music resounded throughout the forest, and as they listened, the wild beasts lay down on the ground and became as gentle as lambs, for the song that came from the heavens bewildered them, troubled their souls. Leila also listened to the music with delight, and soon her bonds came loose on their own, and she began to walk through the forest, and wherever she went, the invisible musician was above her, hidden in the leaves of the trees. And the wild beasts were lying along the path, and they licked the princess’s hands without causing her the slightest harm....”

The air is so transparent now, the light so soft, that you think you’re in another world.

“Thus Leila came back to her father’s house in the morning, after having walked all night long, and the music followed her all the way to the gates of the palace. When the people saw this, they were very happy because they loved the princess dearly. And no one noticed a little bird flying discreetly from branch to branch. And that very same morning the rain began to fall upon the earth...”

Naman stops painting for a minute; Lalla and the children stare at his copper face in which his green eyes are shining. But no one asks any questions, no one utters a word.

“And the bird Balaabilou sang on in the rain, because he was the one who had saved the life of the princess he loved. And since he could not return to his original form, he came every night to perch on the branch of a tree next to Leila’s window and sing his sweet music to her. It is even said that after her death, the princess was also turned into a bird, and she joined Balaabilou to sing in the forests and gardens with him forevermore.”

When the story is finished, Naman says nothing more; he continues working on his boat, running his pitch paintbrushes with a twirling motion along the hull. The light wanes because the sun is slipping over to the other side of the horizon. The sky becomes very yellow, with a hint of green, the hills seem to be cut out of tarpaper. The smoke from the bonfire is thin, light, it can barely be seen against the sunlight, like the smoke of a single cigarette.

The children drift off, one after another. Lalla remains alone with Old Naman. He finishes his work without saying anything. Then he goes off as well, walking slowly along the beach, carrying his paintbrushes and his pot of pitch. Then the only thing left next to Lalla is the dying fire. Darkness quickly reaches deep into the sky, all of the intense blue of day is gradually turning into the black of night. The sea grows calm at this particular time, no one knows why. The waves fall very lazily on the sandy beach, extending their skirts of purple foam. The first bats begin to zigzag over the sea in search of insects. There are a few mosquitoes, a few gray moths that have lost their way. Lalla listens to the muffled cry of the nighthawk in the distance. All that is left of the fire are a few red embers still burning with no flame or smoke, like strange throbbing beasts hidden amidst the ashes. When the last ember goes out, after having flared for just a few seconds, like a dying star, Lalla rises to her feet and walks away.

T
HERE ARE TRACKS almost everywhere in the dust of the old paths, and Lalla plays at following them. Sometimes they don’t lead anywhere, when they’re bird or insect tracks. Sometimes they lead you to a hole in the ground, or else to the door of a house. It was the Hartani who had shown her how to follow the tracks without getting thrown off by the surroundings, the grass, the flowers, or the shiny stones. When the Hartani is following a track, he’s exactly like a dog. His eyes gleam, his nostrils flare, his whole body tenses and leans forward. Sometimes he even lies down on the ground to better smell the trail.

Lalla really likes the paths around the dunes. She remembers the first few days after arriving in the Project, after her mother had died from the fevers. She remembers her journey in the tarp-covered truck, and her father’s sister, the one named Aamma, being wrapped up in the large, gray, woolen cloak, with her face covered because of the desert dust. The journey had lasted several days, and every day Lalla had sat at the back of the truck under the stifling tarp, amidst dusty bags and bundles. Then one day, through the opening in the tarp, she had seen the deep blue sea stretching down the length of foam-fringed beach, and she’d started to cry, without knowing if it was from joy or fatigue.

Every time Lalla walks out on the path by the seaside, she thinks of the deep blue sea in the midst of all the dust from the truck and of those long silent waves unfurling sideways, way off in the distance along the beach. She thinks of everything she saw all at once, just like that, through the slit in the tarp of the truck, and she can feel tears in her eyes, because it’s sort of like her mother’s eyes falling upon her, enveloping her, making her shudder.

That’s what she’s looking for along the path of the dunes, heart pounding, her whole body straining forward, like the Hartani when he’s on a trail. She’s looking for the places she came to afterwards, so long ago that she can’t remember by herself.

Sometimes she says, “Oummi,” just like that, softly, in a murmur. Sometimes she talks to her all by herself, very quietly, in a whisper, gazing out at the deep blue sea between the dunes. She doesn’t really know what she should say, because it was so long ago that she’s even forgotten what her mother was like. Could she have even forgotten the sound of her voice, even the words that she used to like to hear back then?

“Where did you go, Oummi? I’d like you to come to see me here, I’d really like that...”

Lalla sits down in the sand facing the sea, and she watches the slow movements of the waves. But it’s not really the same as the day she saw the sea for the first time, after the stifling dust of the truck on the red roads coming from the desert.

“Oummi, don’t you want to come back to see me? See, I haven’t forgotten you.”

Lalla searches her memory for traces of words that her mother used to say, words she used to sing. But it’s difficult to find them. You have to close your eyes and throw yourself back as far as you can, as if you were falling into a bottomless well. Lalla opens her eyes again, because there’s nothing left in her memory.

She gets to her feet, walks down the beach watching the water pushing the froth farther up on the sand. The sun burns her shoulders and the back of her neck; the light blinds her. Lalla likes that. She also likes the salt that the wind leaves on her lips. She examines the seashells abandoned on the sand, straw-colored or pink mother-of-pearl, the old, worn, empty snail shells, and the long ribbons of greenish-black, gray, or purple seaweed. She’s careful not to step on a jellyfish, or a ray. Every now and again there is a strange, frantic churning in the sand when the water recedes in the place where a flatfish has been. Lalla walks a very long way down the shore, spurred on by the sound of the waves. Sometimes she stops, stands still, looking at her shadow puddled at her feet, or the bright sparkling of the foam.

“Oummi,” Lalla says again. “Can’t you come back, just for a minute? I want to see you, because I’m all alone. When you died and Aamma came to get me, I didn’t want to go with her, because I knew I would never be able to see you again. Come back, just for a minute, come back!”

By half-closing her eyes and staring at the light reverberating off the white sand, Lalla can see the large fields of sand that were all around the house, back there, in Oummi’s country. She even startles suddenly, because for a second she thinks she sees the shriveled tree.

Her heart is beating faster, and she begins to run toward the dunes, up where the wind from the sea is cut off. She throws herself down on her stomach in the hot sand; the small thistles tear her dress a little and stick their tiny needles in her belly and thighs, but she doesn’t notice. There is an excruciating pain deep in her body, such a sharp jab that she thinks she’s going to faint. Her hands sink into the sand, her breath stops. She becomes very stiff, like a wooden board. Finally she’s able to open her eyes, very slowly, as if she were really going to see the outline of the shriveled tree awaiting her. But there’s nothing there, the sky is very vast, very blue, and she can hear the long, drawn-out sound of the waves behind the dunes.