Anubis: A Desert Novel

1 Sunrise

I AWOKE FROM MY SLUMBERS at sunrise and had to struggle to open my eyes. Then I watched a hesitant, golden radiance stretch across the band of the horizon to flood the naked, eternal desert strewn with ash-gray pebbles. The melancholy barrenness shocked me, but I was overjoyed to see streams of golden light pour across the exposed land and inundate an awe-inspiring world, which was mysterious despite its nudity, perhaps because it spread and stretched out endlessly, with no tree or boulder to obstruct its forlorn progress till it reached the blue sky, which was also bare and just as severe. Wishing to remain in harmony with the lower world, it seemed, the upper world had mimicked its nakedness, inscrutability, and clarity.

Had I not observed on that day the breathtaking light that hovered as importunately as a busybody between the heavenly and the earthly realms, I would have judged each a puppet of the cunning type used to create shows to beguile the young. But in their heated embrace I discerned a secret that exercised my mind for a long time before I discovered that it was an especially cryptic talisman. I found myself ever further from the secret’s truth the closer I thought I was to grasping it, until I realized at last that it was at this moment when I met the mysterious puppet at sunrise, rather than at any other, that the sky and its consort the desert showed me their secret.

Perhaps that secret prompted the laugh that burst from me then. In the tent, it caused a clamor that shook me so profoundly that I expressed my alarm in a prolonged bout of weeping, even though the priestess, whom I saw standing above my head, did everything she could to restore my peace of mind. She appeared inscrutable as well, but I observed in her look a magic appropriate for a priestess. Actually it was nobler than magic, poetry, or maternal wisdom of the breast, from which I sucked my appetizing nourishment, for she was not merely a priestess. As I was to discover, she was my lady who appeased my hunger and protected me from fear. In my lady’s expression I perceived a lofty look. The disk of the sun had to roll across the desert sky many times before I realized that this look is named “compassion.”

Let us postpone our discussion of compassion’s story temporarily, since I have not yet finished recounting the string of wonders I witnessed the day I opened my eyes to the sunrise.

When the clearly demarcated horizon split with the first effusion of the flood of light, the nakedness uniting the realms of the upper and lower world was sundered and the last remnants of the darkness cloaking the desert world dissipated. Then I passed into the spirit world to witness the miracle: to see the secret smile, the genuine smile I was destined never again to see as I saw it that day. I was destined, likewise, never to forget it. Whenever I recalled it, I always experienced that nameless tremor again. Eventually I understood that the birth of light on the desert’s horizon that day was not just the birth of an awe-inspiring disk, to which the people apply the name “Ragh,” but the birth of light in my heart and of a riddle in my soul. I did not perceive, until after torrential floods had overflowed the ravines, that the desert with its horizon kissed by the morning light was not another body separate from my own and that the ray of light escaping from its eternal jug was not a reality separate from mine. The sword that smote the darkness of falsehood and limited the intimate congruence between desert sky and desert land did not burst forth from some spot in the eternal unknown but from inside me. The deep delight that overwhelmed me at that moment — a delight I was not destined to savor again — was no more nor less than a profound response to my experience of this riddle, which showed me that the birth of light on the horizon was actually my own birth, that the emergence of this disk Ragh from the band suggesting the horizon was my prophecy, that the bathing of the desert’s body by torrents of light was my miracle, and that the astonishing game termed “sunrise” by men’s tongues was my own awakening.

What could prevent my lips from smiling once my heart had smiled? What could prevent my heart from smiling when the inner light had smiled?

Yes, this was the secret of the smile that preceded the laugh that so convulsed the consciousness of the encampment that people broke into an uproar that toppled the settlement’s tent posts. Then I wept in alarm at the collapse of the settlement’s dwelling, which was nothing more than a tent, and found that my lady took me into her compassionate embrace, making of her arms a cradle for me. She even crooned to me, rocking me as she hummed, soothing me, and gradually restoring calm to me once more.

The uproar in the tent, however, was greater the second time, when the supreme star rose to wend its way through space, and I found myself emitting, without meaning to, a cry that the people of the spirit world considered a prophecy: “Iyla! Iyla!”

A profound silence reigned; then clamor broke out. The shadowy figure beside my lady asked, “Did you hear that?”

The priestess, without ceasing to rock me, replied, “I heard!”

Silence reigned once more, but the shadowy figure refused to yield to it, “He spoke!”

The tent’s priestess acknowledged this with a coldness that attempted to mask a happiness that could not be concealed, because it was of the same unbearable kind, “He spoke!”

Silence returned to dominate the world, but silence is fated to die at any moment, although it always wagers that a day will come when it achieves eternal victory. Silence died this time too, since the ghostly figure beside the tent post refused to remain silent. “What did he say?”

Encircling my body with her arms, my lady replied, “He spoke the prophecy!”

The apparition squatting beside the tent post remained quiet for a long time before marveling, “The prophecy?”

My compassionate lady rocked me and hugged me to her bosom. I felt such deep warmth I can compare it only to the feeling that overwhelmed me the moment the sky’s heart opened to disclose the sky’s secret and that of her consort the earth. Eventually my lady responded, “He spoke in the Name.”

“The Name? But what name?”

I detected a note of respect in the lady’s tone: “The Name that cannot be preceded or followed by falsehood.”

“But is prophecy of the Name a good or a bad omen?” The lady did not reply.

She did not reply, because she had decided to take on the mission of compassion: she began to teach me the names. She called in my ear as loudly as she could, “Rau … Rau … Rau … Rau …. From today on your name is Wa.” Next she struck her chest with her hand and howled into my ear, “My name is Ma.” Turning toward the ghostly figure squatting beside the post, she shouted his name in my ear: “This fellow is Ba.” Then she took two steps toward the entrance of the tent and carried me outside to bathe me in a flood of the light emanating from the amazing golden disk. Finally she shouted as loudly as she could, “This one is nameless, for he is master of all the names. He is the one you called Iyla. You shall call him Ragh once your speech clears and you regain an ability like mine to make the ‘r’ sound.”

2 Forenoon

WITH THE ASSISTANCE of my Ma, I began to rehabilitate my tongue, for I had lost control of it during my journey through the unknown. I remembered obscurely that I had once mastered this astonishing organ, even though I did not know how I had lost control of it. Apparently, while I slept I had lost the tongue’s secret along with the secret of my prior existence. I attempted to recall my previous day with heroic courage, but gained nothing for my heroism save a cryptic sign comparable to the prophetic one I had detected in the mien of the sky when it embraced its consort the desert as I awoke to testify to the birth of Iyla from the horizon’s belly. Every time I recklessly attempted to recapture lost time, I experienced insane visions of specters, my body was racked by anxiety, and I succumbed to a splitting headache. I escaped from these dark apparitions by returning to the womb of the desert, for fear of going mad.

An ember that suddenly flared up would occasionally dispel the foyer of shadows and disperse my forgetfulness. Then the desert labyrinth would allow a view of the promise, of the homeland of the promise, and of the true nature of my lost time. I noticed, however, that this inspiration was always short-lived. Since it was a spark destined to go out, the live coal’s flash would last no longer than the blink of an eye. Then regret would sear my heart, leaving me with a bitter taste. I also learned from experience that each of these rare moments of inspiration was unique. I would recall them to delight in the vision. I was forced to enter the desert again to learn part of their secret, and the ravines had to flood with many torrents before I understood that these gleams from firebrands were what the desert’s priests designate as “prophecy.” Prophecy remains a riddle forever, even if we discover an exegesis for it, because prophecy, this awe-inspiring emanation, is not prophecy unless it is a riddle, and a riddle ceases to be a riddle once we find an exegesis for it.

For this reason, I thought I would ignore my previous life experiences, which had cost me the use of my tongue, in order to speak of my new day, which I heard the others call “birth.” (Even my lady, who trilled the word in my ear as a charm, called it “birth.”) I decided to use the community’s language, despite my distaste for it, since I had learned that a creature who finds himself among a group of folks does not have the right to change anything, either by creating new words to replace those in common use or by making mistakes in referring to things. People consider the invention of new names a detestable heresy and an expression of hostility against the customs established over the course of untold generations. For a man’s soul to seduce him into calling things by their true names constitutes another sin. This is considered not only a deplorable display of arrogance but construed as an act of blasphemy against the august law, the lost texts of which so encouraged the privileging of the language of equivocation and concealment that most of its teachings were reduced to collections of bits and pieces, of charms and symbols that defy understanding. Thus the community continued to punish an innovator who invented new names by stoning him to death. They could think of no punishment more severe than this for the presumptuous people whose souls so seduced them into disobeying the teachings of the lost law that they called things by their true names — except exile, since they were certain that exile is an even more excruciating punishment than death. There is nothing more miserable than to be born a man only to find yourself alone and isolated in the eternal desert, unable to use the sole organ that marks you as a man rather than a rock, a tree, a lizard, or a creature spawned by the jinn; although many assert that the people of the ultimate community will excel in their use of the tongue.

I confess that this exaltation of the tongue upset me and awakened old pains associated with my inexplicable loss of control over mine. To understand what had really happened, I several times committed the error of questioning the spirit world, which may be slow to act, but whose forbearance does not last forever. Instead of solving my riddle, it requited my stubbornness with an ailment called anxiety.

The first symptom of this malady was a juvenile melancholy that overwhelmed me the moment I found myself wrapped with swaddling clothes and safeguarded by the knife blades my Ma used to protect me from the enmity of evil jinn. Next came a period when my melancholy degenerated into bitter outbursts of weeping. Anxiety intensified once it was time for me to be freed from the cradle’s shackles. I abandoned myself to the seductions of the eternal desert and found myself isolated and forsaken, without power or might. So I walked in my desert alone, played in my desert alone, cared for my flocks in my desert alone, learned to comfort myself by hunting lizards alone, and sang haunting laments alone, until solitude became a companion for me, as well as a father, mother, and lord. The longer I cohabited with solitude, the deeper, richer, and more mysterious became my attachment to it. The deeper, richer, and more mysterious this attachment grew, the deeper, richer, and more mysterious became my sense of anxiety. Finally I realized that anxiety is a true lord that must inevitably take precedence over all others, since it is anxiety that leads people to lords. I ascertained as well that anyone free of anxiety is unable to take a lord in our world.

I also discovered that this type of anxiety is a labyrinth more difficult to escape than to enter. Anyone who grows accustomed to it and walks partway through it necessarily finds the hidden vessels of his heart so weakened that he will never taste happiness anywhere in his world, unless it be diluted by a dose of anxiety, which is a malady that originates from an innocent question about one’s origins. As the individual falls sick, this indisposition matures into a bitter longing, which inevitably leads its victim to the refuge people call anxiety, which the lost law made a precondition for obtaining the treasure referred to as the lord.

3 When the Flocks Head Home

THE RULES GOVERNING origins seem to be no less authoritative than the law’s own rules. In other words, I began to discover that I had inherited my wanderlust from a source personified by the shadow squatting by the tent post, from the figure Ma referred to as Ba the day she taught me names. I did not get a good look at this creature, just a glimpse, and so it seemed fitting for me to think of him as a shadowy apparition. Even though he had not taught me the names, as my Ma had, had not hugged me to his chest, as my loving lady had, and had not immersed me in the floods of his compassion, as the priestess of eternity had, all the same, when I opened my eyes to observe my dawning, he definitely informed me in an insistent whisper that my secret lay concealed in his wretched specter and that unless I found a way to meet him, my path would be a desert labyrinth. For that reason, apparently, I succumbed to this insane fever that began with what the community terms the “cradle” and that has haunted each step of my progress through life. I doubt I will ever recover from it, since my thirst for my Ba has not been destroyed by time, which tends to destroy everything in our world. Instead, amazing though it may sound, this thirst has gained strength with time and evolved into a concern, a longing, and a belief. I have found that it courses through my blood, like a torrent through the ravines, until it pours into the mysterious sea that, not so long ago, I named “anxiety.”

It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the first question I asked my Ma, when I regained control of my tongue, was: “Where did I come from?”

My mother’s answer was, “Same as everyone.”

Since I was not satisfied with this response, I asked, “How does everyone come?”

She replied, “From a mother and a father.”

“You’re my mother,” I said. “Why don’t I see my father nearby?”

“Because absence is the destiny of fathers.”

“Why must fathers accept absence as their fate?”

“Because fathers, like lords, are not really fathers, unless they distance themselves.”

“But I saw him once,” I protested. “I caught a glimpse of him as a ghostly apparition. I swear!”

She explained, “He would not have been a father unless you had seen him. Like the lord, the father must be seen at least once to demonstrate that he is a father, but he must also disappear to prove he’s a father.”

I was amazed. “But why must he disappear, since he can appear?”

“We are only truly convinced by what we see but only believe in what we don’t see.”

“Why doesn’t he stay with us forever?” I asked.

“Because he comes to convey the message to us.”

I asked, “What message?”

“The message that migration is the father’s choice, since he wants to be as he ought to be.”

“What does he want to be?”

“To be worshiped, not loved.”

“Why can’t he be both loved and worshiped?” I asked in astonishment.

“Because we worship what we don’t see and only love what we do see.”

I protested, “But, my mistress, I don’t understand.”

She remained silent. Dejected, she gazed at the open countryside, which was flooded by the light of glorious Ragh. As she lifted her head toward the naked sky, her wrap fell from her hair, which was braided in thick, black plaits. She said, “We worship the sky but love only the desert. The sky is our father, whom we worship, because he is far away. We worship him, because we know nothing about him. On the other hand, wherever we turn, we find the desert before us. For this reason we love the desert, and we consider her our mother.”

I felt desperate, and in my desperation she detected anxiety. I was astonished that she showed me no compassion then, since I had learned compassion from her. She swept her gaze across the vast areas flooded by rays from the divine, rising sun and said, as if addressing her stern prophecy to the desert wastes, “Yes, indeed, we worship fathers but love mothers.”

Her prophecy about love for mothers did not astound me, but I did not understand — until I had shed blood in my quest for the missing, ghostly apparition — why concern about our fathers should change into longing or why this longing should develop into anxiety. This passion eventually exercised such a profound influence over me that I was unable to eat or sleep. Then I found no antidote save to depart.

I followed the camel trail until I reached the herdsmen in the neighboring grazing lands. I told them the truth, explaining that I had set forth in search of a father whom I had seen only as a ghostly apparition when he entered our residence as stealthily as a thief, to flee from it just as stealthily, shortly before dawn. Since the frequency of his visits had decreased as I advanced through the stages of my quest to learn the difference between truth and error, I now doubted whether I had ever heard him speak to my mother or had observed his shadowy form squat beside the tent post. How did the herdsmen reward my tale? They scoffed at me, laughed in my face, and said that I would never taste happiness, since it is a curse to search for a father in the desert. When they noted the anxiety in my eyes, the eldest approached and led me out into the open country. There he advised me to retrace my steps if I wished to enjoy peace of mind. He explained that a father is an anonymous envoy whose mission is to bring people like me to the labyrinth that generations of men have called the desert only to double back on his tracks and disappear forever. The shepherd also said that a father resorts to tricky stratagems to discourage forgetfulness and that mine had slipped an amulet named memory into my heart, so I would discover him there each time longing overwhelmed me. On detecting my misgivings from my eyes, he bowed his head for a time.

Then, casting me a melancholy glance, he said, “Beware of searching for a father in the desert. This brings nothing but calamities.” He stared at my face for a while, noting my determined and even disapproving expression, and then watched my body tremble. So he decided to yield. He spat forcefully and then said compassionately, “Fine. It’s futile to attempt to dissuade a man from something that is part of his destiny. You can follow the caravan route that heads to the southern oases, if you’re not afraid of thirst. You can attempt to waylay your father at the well of Wanzir, if you’re not afraid of trackless wastes. You can also return home to transform your longing into a song there, if you want to save yourself.” I don’t sing, however, not because I lack talent, but because I’ve never found a tune that can cure a disease. So I set off to the west to lie in wait for my father at the neighboring well of Wanzir, following the advice of the shepherds’ sage.

Hoping to reach the place shortly before sunset, I departed as the time approached for the flocks to head home. The starkness of the earth became even more depressing, severe, and gloomy, and so I turned my eyes to the sky, which was stark and severe too. In the sky’s severity, however, there is always a consolation. As the lavish floods of Ragh washed across it that afternoon, the sky became clearer, bluer, and more profound. On the next leg of the journey, the trail that the caravans’ camels had dug with their heavy padded hooves crossed an area of clay soil strewn with rocks grilled by the punishing, ever-lasting disk, and marked here and there by pathetic water courses, over which rain water had run in the rare rainy seasons. Gullies appeared only to end abruptly and disappear in the next stretch, since the short-lived rains that had carved them had evaporated or had been absorbed by the ever-thirsty earth. Then I would find myself lost in a labyrinth once more. The labyrinth is anything but stingy with the wayfarer; it flings decoys in his path to mislead him. The ancestral sepulchers rise in piles of black stones scorched by the fires of immolations. They do not reach very high; their rocks have been strewn about hither and thither and dispersed by the force of the rains and storms or by the passing days, since antiquity. From time to time, tombs of more recent vintage can be seen. They are larger, and their stones lighter.

The uninterrupted plain inspired a sense of desolation but also awakened an ill-defined feeling of happiness. An eternal wasteland, reproduced in every direction, was surmounted by an equally eternal sky that mimicked it by reaching out and extending in every direction and that proceeded to kiss the clearly demarcated horizon, which formed a perfect circle. Silence seized the whole land, further suggesting that a conspiracy had been laid, and I felt as insignificant as a pebble. All the same, I would not stop. The gloom that attends sunset spread through the sky, and I did not stop. Suddenly the labyrinth abandoned its arrogant ways, and the earth opened into narrow ravines with alternating patches of green and parched vegetation.

A wretched hare sprang from one of these shrubby areas, ran between my legs as he fled south, suddenly veered to the west, and then stopped. He reared up on his hind legs and turned his head to check behind him. I watched him for a while before continuing on my way but found the caravan trail also veered toward the south and passed by the spot where the miserable creature stood. I walked forward a few steps, came alongside him, and approached him, but he did not move. With his gloomy coloring, positioned there, he resembled a statue. He gazed into my eyes curiously, provocatively, challenging me.

I picked up a rock and threw it at him. He did not move. I took a step toward him and could see his eyeballs clearly, despite the dusk. His eyes were deep, large, and unfathomable, like the eyes of a human being, like the eyes of a foreign priest. A strange gleam pulsed in them, as though the rascal wished to say something. I shut my eyes to avoid seeing his eyeballs. With my eyes closed, I reached out to seize him, but he slipped free. He did not flee as he had the first time. Instead he hopped away briskly. Actually he stumbled off rather clumsily, in a way befitting heavily laden camels. He stopped beside some herbage in a nearby hollow and began sniffing the pebbles and chewing, as if nibbling on grass or perhaps ruminating. I walked toward him until I stood over him. He stared at me, but I did not detect provocation, curiosity, or challenge in his eyes this time. They seemed, instead, to betray a lack of interest. He casually sped past my feet. I leaned over to grab him, but he dodged me deftly once more and put some ground between us. The earth felt softer, and the barren land gave way to thickets of dry plants with green sprouts on the lower branches. A passing cloud had apparently dropped a shower here and brought the dead plants back to life. The rogue took his time going here and there among the herbage, greedily stuffing his mouth in the thickets. Whenever I approached, he escaped and hopped clumsily a short distance ahead, until darkness fell and I could make him out only with great difficulty. I stalked him a little further before I came to my senses and remembered that I needed to reach the well before night fell in earnest, since I had brought no water or provisions with me. I retraced my steps, but only imperfectly, since it was too dark to see my tracks clearly. So I proceeded toward the west, in the direction the trail took.

I covered quite a distance before I found the narrow track dug by the padded hooves of the caravans’ camels. I kept desperately on that trail all night long, without ever reaching the well. I was overcome by exhaustion, and my throat was dry for I had sweated profusely during my trip and felt thirsty, even though the sun had set and a congenial evening breeze was stirring. I moved off the path a couple of steps and, using my hand as a pillow, slept like a dead man. I imagined I heard a commotion and was frightened repeatedly by the howling of jackals. A bevy of girls clad in black approached me. A local girl, our playful neighbor, preceded them, laughing seductively, the way she did whenever we met among the campsites or out in the open. I did not understand how the scamp had transformed herself and assumed the cursed hare’s body to stand before me like an apparition of demonic height but still with the hare’s challenging expression. Then the apparition acquired the features of a man, a real man, a repulsive fellow with fiery eyes and teeth the length of knife blades. I was so terrified I awoke to find that my body, which was bathed in the rays of the god of the rising sun, was releasing its last beads of sweat. On glancing around, I observed the desolate plain, which stretched away with an ever harsher aspect. All the way to the horizon, there was no hint of a well or of life. I surveyed my surroundings and discovered that the trail I had followed all night long was not the caravan route but a track that herds of migrating gazelles had made when driven by drought to seek pasture in another land. Had that illomened hare, exploiting the evening’s gloom, succeeded in leading me astray, luring me into the labyrinth?

I remembered my Ma’s tales about the misfortunes occasioned by the nation of hares, who were not always animals. They originated long ago with a female demon who disguised herself in a hare’s skin when people tried to set her on fire as punishment for luring away the sons of the tribe and selling them to the jinn tribes for treasures of gold dust, a substance this invisible tribe despises. I felt even more unlucky when I remembered that this cursed female jinni had deliberately led me to the gazelle track, because gazelles, as my mother had told me, are the livestock of the people of the spirit world. The jinn like to ride them.

To the west, across the desolate plain, figures were visible along the horizon. Streams of mirages raised them into the air, distorted and dismantled them for a time, and then reconstituted them again. Hope whispered inside me that these figures might be a caravan heading east, west, north, or south, and that I ought to catch up with it before it moved too far away.

As Ragh rose higher in the cloudless sky, the mirages persisted. I decided I ought to hurry before thirst felled me. Though the shadowy images did not vanish, the distance I traversed in search of them brought me no closer. I hurried on at a faster pace and hastened forward until midday, when the desert experienced noon’s conflagrations. At that time, the capricious, fluid veils began to disperse, revealing the true nature of the shadowy apparitions. On the horizon I could make out a mountain chain that interrupted the flat desert’s extension to the west, blocking its endless expanse. The earth’s surface changed and was interspersed with ravines along the bottoms of which were scattered retem trees and some wild plants with dried-out tops, but which underneath had desperately fought to remain green.

I restrained myself from approaching the retem trees’ plumes, which I remembered cause insanity, but could not keep myself from attacking the plants. I stripped off the dry tops and swallowed their green parts. I started to chew and chew and chew. I sucked the sap, paying no attention to all the bitter tastes I swallowed from each plant. I ate for a long time. I ate not to satisfy my hunger but to quench my thirst, although eventually I felt dizzy, dropped to the ground, and began vomiting. I threw up all the different kinds of plants I had consumed, but their bitterness flowed through my body. I went into convulsions and began to shake. I remembered what people say about the desert’s poisonous plants and realized for a fact that the insanity caused by thirst is a greater handicap to clear vision than the insanity that strikes us when we ingest the twigs of retem trees.

I thought I had purged my system of all these poisons, but now my body was overwhelmed by fever. I began to stagger and sought refuge, trembling, in the shade of a retem tree. I struggled with my dizziness, sweated profusely, and then felt hungry and enfeebled, as if I had not been sweating but bleeding. In my dazed condition, I fought off shadowy apparitions and sought to escape an attack from the ugly hare’s fang. He stalked me, assuming at times the body of the playful lass, then of a viper, and of the despicable female demon at other moments. I do not know how long this nightmare lasted, but when I regained consciousness, I found it was late afternoon. I imagined it was the afternoon of the next day, or the third or fourth one, because my thirst had intensified, even though my fever had gone down. It was not merely thirst but a curse more wretched than thirst. I attempted to stand up, but found I could not. So I crept forward on my hands and knees across the soft earth of the ravine, brushing against various plants. Each time I caught sight of one of the green plants, I got the shakes.

As I continued crawling, the earth grew firmer with slabs of rock here and there. Next to a shrubby retem, on some rocky ground, I discovered a pile of dung. The dung was fresh, so fresh that moisture dripped from it as I crushed it between my fingers. Beside the pile of dung, on the hard surface, there gleamed an astonishing liquid that seemed a legendary treasure. Vapor hovered over it, and I feared it would all evaporate. I fell on it and began to lap it up. It tasted bitter, but I consumed all of it. As I felt it circulate through my body, my blurred vision began to clear. When I regained my sight, I noticed the gazelle, which was standing beside the retem tree, looking haughtily toward me. No, that’s not right: its haughtiness was suggested, rather, by its posture. What I observed in its large, intelligent, black eyes was an inscrutable mystery. Were they really eyes, or, a strange well that spoke in that painful language, the true language: the forgotten language? I felt inspiration course through my body just as the gazelle’s urine had. I found within me the ability to understand, the ability to comprehend the forgotten language, which reconciled my tongue with the gazelle’s, united my destiny to the gazelle’s, and created from my spirit and the gazelle’s a single spirit. It was only at this moment that the coal burst into flame and that the revelation achieved a perfect form in my heart. I remembered that a tragic story from bygone generations recounted how Wannas turned into an odious creature with the head and body of a ghoul, because he had disobeyed the advice of his sister Tannas and — when overcome by thirst during his return to the campsite where he had forgotten his amulets — had drunk the urine of a gazelle. Still chewing, the gazelle’s spectral figure advanced toward me. Perhaps she was chewing her cud. She drew ever closer with her haughty figure. She was gazing into the unknown, and this expression added to the profundity, seduction, and splendor of her eyes. It was a splendor we observe only in eyes that have gazed into the eye of eternity till absence becomes second nature to them. Her black eyes grew wider and turned into a brilliant, distressing, unfathomable lake. I drank as greedily from them as I had drunk the urine moments before. I began to liberate myself, not only from pain, bitterness, and weakness but from my body as well.

I threw myself into this lake, into the sea of brilliance, distress, and mystery. Instead of a sweet sense of being inundated, I felt myself become a feather, fluttering back and forth between earth and sky.

4 Late Afternoon

I AWOKE FROM my sleep, feeling shattered … the way a person feels when wresting himself from the jumbled confusions of a nightmare. My body seemed sunk in the ground, as if buried under a mountain, and my limbs felt like rocks. My head throbbed with unbearable pain, and my tongue was paralyzed. Although I could open my eyes, my tongue refused to budge. What was the meaning of this?

I found myself imprisoned inside a tent within a tent. Even though I was restrained, I could see outside, through the entrance, and discern the time of day. I observed that the prophecy of Ragh was a timid flow moving through the empty countryside and therefore assumed it was morning. Was it a birth? Was it my first birth or my second? If it really was a birth, it must have been my second, since a quiet voice informed me that I had been born before. Light’s prophetic message, which my eyes discerned outside, was not a lie, because its root was a hidden revelation, planted so deep in my heart that I had no right to doubt it. Another revelation was unveiled in my chest, saying that I could doubt anything except my inspiration, no matter how much I wanted to, since this would mean betraying myself.

Then … then my heart’s revelation unveiled another treasure, for I remembered a matter of sublime importance; I remembered that I had been free. How had I become a captive? I remembered that I had liberated myself from all my burdens and had shot off. I remembered that I had floated freely through space, because I had been able to rid myself of the snail’s shell that harbored me. What cunning had trapped me in the snare once again? How had my liberation been effected, how had it so transformed me that I could roam freely with neither body nor tongue, and how had this liberation changed into a tribulation that constricted my breathing as if I were weighed down by a mountain?

Then I heard a voice say clearly, “This is the price of departure.”

At first, I thought that this voice issued from my chest rather than my tongue, because I was certain that my tongue was paralyzed and had not stirred. This prophecy, however, was repeated with even greater clarity, and I was able, with some effort, to ascertain that it originated with a figure — crouching in a corner of the tent — who had borrowed his features from the denizens of the spirit world. A black veil enveloped his head, and an amulet chain, which was thrust into a leather pouch, protected his body. His head was crowned with a talisman, as were his shoulders. His chest was decorated with an awe-inspiring string of these talismans. His forearms were also safeguarded by two more. Had it not been for this alarming concentration of charms, I would have assumed he belonged to one of the jinn tribes that populate the desert from Tinghart to Tiniri, but concern with the forefathers’ symbols buried in these districts is a matter reserved for human priests alone.

At that moment my tongue sprang to life with a facility that took me by surprise. I heard myself ask, “To which departure does my master refer?”

The question did not surprise him, I sensed, nor was he surprised by the liberation of my tongue. He proceeded to draw some designs on the ground. Then he replied, without looking my way, “A departure to search for a father.”

“But … who are you?”

He glanced at me for the first time, and I saw in his eyes everything that should appear in the eye of a genuine priest: mystery, sorrow, prophecy, and the pain that is said to be married to every prophecy.

He replied, “You would do well to ask yourself, ‘Who am I?’ instead of asking me, ‘Who are you?’”

I thought that the pained look in his eyes intensified then and almost turned into real suffering. I was touched by his pain but could not grasp its cause. Then I discovered he was correct: I could not say anything for certain about myself or the world, despite the precious revelation granted me that I had been born one day, had gained knowledge one day, and had been liberated one day.

I said, “You’re right, master. Who might I be?”

“I almost lost the world to return you to the world.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you remember anything at all?”

“I remember that I was free!”

I caught the gleam of a smile in his eyes. He faced toward the entrance to allow his eyes to roam the vacant wasteland. He replied, “You’re not mistaken about that. You truly were free. You were so free that you almost lost yourself on account of this freedom.”

“Does freedom cause us to lose ourselves, master?”

“Freedom, my son, is about living, not about dying.”

“But I was happy.”

“Happy like a living person or a dead one?”

“Enshrined in my memory is the treasured saying of a wise man who claimed that in happiness life becomes equivalent to death.”

“Watch out! True heroism is to live, not to die.”

“Are you saying that heroism is living, not dying?”

“Absolutely.”

“I like that, but is it possible for us to find a place for freedom in this heroism?”

“Where did you get your ability to debate? Unless he’s well along in years, it’s inappropriate for a man to pelt a priest with questions.”

“The child isn’t the author of his questions, master. The author of his questions is the freedom dormant in the child’s breast.”

“This is a malady. It’s a curse. Watch out!”

“Yes, of course, master. Freedom is always a disease, always a curse, but — like prophecy — it’s a curse we worship.”

“For boys to utter prophecy is a sign of misfortune, even if their prophecy is genuine.”

“Am I a boy?”

“Your tongue has actually made me wonder whether you are.”

Silence reigned. Outside, the light’s color faded. So I asked, “Is it dawn or dusk?”

“Late afternoon.”

“I’ve been feeling I’m experiencing my birth.”

“Yes, that’s right. You are experiencing your birth. There’s no doubt about that.”

“Is it my second birth?”

“Yes, indeed. You have every right to feel sure of that.”

“Is the second birth paradise?”

“We cannot live once without hoping we’ll be born a second time.”

I repeated after him: “‘We cannot live once without hoping we’ll be born a second time’ … but, master, you speak of the price we must pay for departing to search for our fathers.”

“The price of searching for fathers is metamorphosis.”

“Metamorphosis?”

“Yes, indeed. I had to wage a lethal combat with the most wicked jinn before I could liberate you from the evil of metamorphoses.”

“Of what metamorphoses are you speaking, master?”

“Some shepherds were peacefully pasturing their flocks in Retem Ravine when they were taken by surprise by a despicable specter that terrified their animals.”

“A despicable specter?”

“It was an ugly, composite creature, half-man, half-beast.”

“Was it a jinni?”

Ignoring my question, he continued his tale. “He was creeping on all fours, competing for grass with the livestock. Around his neck hung some talismans. Wretch, did you drink gazelle urine?”

“Did you say ‘gazelle urine’? I think I saw something wondrous in the gazelle’s eye. I drank the urine and then saw the wondrous thing. Now I remember. The despicable hare crossed my path and led me off the trail. My thirst robbed me of my reason and I drank. I admit I drank gazelle urine. Had it not been for the gazelle’s urine, I would not have been liberated. Had it not been for the gazelle’s urine, I would not have been saved. Had it not been for the gazelle’s urine, I would not have witnessed my second birth.”

“You achieved your second birth, but your departure cost you your mother.”

“What?”

“You will never see her again, from this day on.”

I remembered again. I remembered that I had burst forth from the womb of my Ma one day. I remembered that she had taught me the names one day. I remembered that she had forbidden my search for my father, explaining that the homeland of fathers is the sky, not the desert. I remembered. I remembered.

“You set forth to find your father and thus lost both your mother and father.”

“From my mother I came. By my mother I lived, and to the embrace of my mother I will return. How can I believe that I could ever lose my mother?”

“From today onwards, you will never see her again.”

“I shall never believe that. But … what happened?”

“She only forbade you to search for your father because she was afraid of being separated from you. When she was told that you had fled to search for your father, she realized that she had lost you for good. When she went with the other women to draw water from the well, she surprised them and threw herself down its shaft.”

“No!”

“You killed her.”

“No!”

“You’re not just any kind of killer; you’re a matricide.”

At that moment I liberated myself. I liberated my body this time. The oppressive weight on my chest was lifted. I sprang up like someone springing free of a nightmare.

Yes, yes, it had to be another nightmare. The nightmare had continued, and the priest crouching opposite me was just the spectral figure of one of the jinn at whom I should throw a rock or a handful of pebbles. I reached to fill my hand with pebbles, which I threw at the figure’s face, but he did not disappear or dissolve the way an apparition would have. I recited a charm so ancient I did not know the meaning of the words, but he did not budge. I crept toward him until I could almost touch his intimidating turban with my head. I stared into his eyes for a long time and then asked, “Why don’t you tell me how you liberated me from the metamorphoses?”

5 Dusk

AS DUSK DESCENDED, she chased me between the tents and pursued me out into the nearby open areas. She positioned her index finger in her mouth, just as she had so often done while a babe in the cradle. She crept after me as obstinately as a fly, just as she had done when she was still a toddler. For the twentieth time she said, “If you accompany me to Retem Ravine, I’ll tell you a secret.”

“You’re lying!”

“You won’t regret it.”

“I know this trick.”

“You won’t regret it.”

She spoke while continuing to suck on her finger. Seduction flashed in her eyes. She walked seductively and bore herself seductively. O Lord Ragh, how quickly the daughters of the desert mature! They are like desert plants that send up spiky stalks the day after it rains. Every part of our neighbor-girl had ripened and filled out: cheeks, breasts, and hips. When we were playing around the campsite, the naughty girl had grown accustomed to putting an index finger in her mouth while slipping her other hand stealthily between my legs. She would fool around there while she laughed and continued to suck on her finger. One time, I asked her straight out what was the secret of this tail boys have. She said that boys don’t play with dolls because they have a tail, whereas girls want a doll, since they do not have a tail. Then, laughing shamelessly, she placed her hand between my thighs and began to press what lay there. One day when I accompanied her to the pasture, she tried to pull my clothes off. I resisted her, but she calmly tore my shirt in two and dragged me under a bushy retem tree to be alone with me there. This evening also I yielded and accompanied her to nearby Retem Ravine.

When we were alone, I asked her what the secret was. Placing her index finger in her mouth and then withdrawing it, she said, “I wanted to tell you the secret about your mother.”

I replied with idiotic naiveté, “The priest told me I’d killed her.”

“Never believe a priest.”

“How can we doubt a priest who’s the author of a prophecy?”

She entertained herself by sucking on the invisible nectar of her slender finger. Her large black eyes, which resembled a gazelle’s, gazed into mine. Within her eyes there was a profound, secret treasure. She dropped her eyelids to veil the treasure. Then she withdrew her finger to say, “It was the priest who killed your mother.”

I did not believe her. I suddenly felt weak. My powers flagged. I stammered, “You’re lying!”

In her eyes, however, I saw what I did not want to see. I saw something the tongue could never convey. I saw the truth. I asked, “But why did the priest kill my mother?”

Sucking on her finger, she stuttered, “It was your mother who wished it.”

“What?”

“To pay for your return to the world.”

“What are you saying?”

“When you set out to search for your father, the men of the tribe set out to search for you. She vowed to sacrifice a she camel to the goddess Tanit if they found you alive. When they gave you up for lost, she vowed to give her entire herd to the goddess. When you entered the pasture lands with the body of a gazelle and the head of a man, as the news spread through the tribe, she offered her neck to the priest if he would return you to the world.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“He slaughtered her like a ewe on the tomb of the ancestors.”

“Shut up.”

“It’s said this wily strategist sought her life as the price of your deliverance from the reign of metamorphoses.”

“I asked him to tell me about my release. He said he freed me with the ancients’ charms, with those only the shrewdest magicians know.”

“They say that when she lay down to be slaughtered, she declared: ‘It’s not important whether I die. What’s important is for him to live. I didn’t come into the world to stay here. I came into the world so he could be.’”

We fell silent. Dusk changed into nightfall, indeed into the dark of night, but my eye could still see the treasure and the invisible universe in her eyes, just as I had seen it in the eyes of the gazelle that day.

She said, “That’s not all.” She closed her eyes. Her finger continued to poke around in her mouth but did not prevent her from saying, “Your father!”

She fell silent, and I could not bear it. I asked, “What do you want to say about my father?”

She replied coldly, “He followed you home after you departed.”

“That’s a lie.”

“I know no one will ever tell you the truth. My grandmother says that we have to learn to read people’s eyes, if we want to know anything.”

“Why did the priest conceal the truth from me?”

“Because the priest is a member of the tribe, and the tribe does not want us to trail after our fathers, because that’s a violation of the teachings of the ancient law.”

“The lost law?”

“The law that everyone refers to as lost, even though its presence among us is more powerful than that of breathing.”

“Who taught you this?”

“I know this because I’ve learned to listen. Learn to listen if you want to know things.”

“I think I’ve also heard that the law is hostile toward fathers and anyone wishing to affiliate himself with the race of fathers.”

“In the customary practice of the law, fathers have no legal standing.”

“But what’s the secret behind the law’s hostility toward fathers?”

“For us to learn the true reason for this hostility, we must live a long time and listen a long time.”

I was trembling. My body had begun to burn with emotion, fever, and misery. I asked, “But why didn’t he wait for me?”

“He didn’t leave until he had given up all hope.”

“How did the law-abiding folk treat his arrival?”

“They thought it ill-omened.”

“Ill-omened?”

“The truth is that their prophecy was soon fulfilled, because a curse fell on your dwelling the moment he left.”

“What curse?”

“Is there a curse more dreadful than for the tent post to collapse and for the home to be destroyed? Is there a fouler curse than for the mistress of the home to fall? Is there any curse more evil than for the family’s son to be transformed into a creature with a monster’s body?”

Silence sank deep roots, and the dark of night did as well. Her distant eyes were now veiled from me, and my mind soared far away. I obstinately focused on the foyers of my first birth. I scrutinized them but gained nothing more from this trip than a vision. I gained nothing beyond that figure who had appeared to me one day, squatting beside the tent post and conversing with my mother about the riddle, back when I spoke the prophecy.

Without meaning to, I said, “I saw him one day. I saw my father once. How can I see him again?”

I heard her voice in the dark but did not see her eyes. I could not see the truth. It seemed to me I was hearing the voice of the priestess: “We only see our fathers once. A father must show us his face once, so we can lose him for good thereafter.”

“I saw him like an apparition beside the tent post. He seemed to be one of the prophets.”

“All fathers are prophets.”

“Since then, he’s remained hidden.”

“Our fathers vanish, because they are prophets.”

I implored the priestess of the darkness, without realizing what I was saying: “I want to see him. How can I see him? Can’t the priest summon him for me?”

In the darkness, prophecy issued from the tongue of the priestess, “The priest can summon your father’s shadow, but he will never be able to produce your father for you.”

I was convulsed by anxiety. I trembled and fell backwards. Overhead I saw the stars.

6 Night

THOSE VIPERS KNOWN as women bit me early in life: an émigrée visitor to the villages bit me on the hand. The tribe, for some reason I never knew, called her Tamnukalt, or “Princess,” and treated her with respect and pomp. She was rather haughty with an imperious bearing, a full body, a white complexion, and a beautiful face. Her eyes had an expression I understood only with hindsight; as that fang the tribe’s sages call “lust.” As I later realized, she was able to infect me with it, because I did not know its name. She moved from tent to tent with the grandeur befitting a woman of her wealth, beauty, and mystery. She would visit with the women, who treated her to banquets of meat and to singing parties, which would occasionally last until dawn. Several times I accompanied my mother to these parties, where I played with friendly girls, who liked to take me off into the corners of the tents. There I would hide with them and fall asleep before the evening’s entertainment began. My Ma would search for me to no avail and, when she despaired of finding me, return home alone. I would rejoin her only the next morning.

At one of these parties, the émigrée pinched me secretly on my buttocks. The first time, I doubted whether she had actually done it, but the act was repeated several times. I was astonished and then repulsed, but she leaned over my face until her braids buried it. As the scent of her body assailed my nostrils, I began to feel dizzy. I closed my eyes and found that she was putting a handful of dates on my lap. Then she brought her face so close to me that I felt her breath caressing my neck. Her lips touched the flesh of my right ear as she whispered in a sibilant voice, “If you visit me, I’ll give you a lot more. If you visit me, I’ll fill your arms with fresh dates dripping with honey.”

That night I did not find dry dates in my lap; I found truly fresh dates. I found the most delicious fresh dates of the oases, and honey actually oozed from them, as if a generous hand had plucked them from the palm trees of distant oases and fled with them to the desert with the speed of the jinn. The fruit’s delightfulness did not rest in its sweet juiciness, its tremulous mass, or its succulence, but in its taste, which I would never forget. It was a mythic taste that shook and provoked me, awakening in me forgotten moments I had not experienced in this lifetime. The taste made me sense that this birth was not my first, that I had been born a thousand years, indeed a million years, before. The suppressed memory awakened by the wondrous taste of that amazing fruit did not hail just from ancient times but harked back to ages that could not be reckoned in years and for which the concept of time itself was meaningless, to that secret entity wise men call “eternity.” Could it be what these sages term “immortality”? Was the taste concealed in the fruit a magic potion created as an antidote to the fearful disease people term “forgetfulness”? Against this malady even the elixirs of the magicians have been powerless.

Does this not imply that I am a creature without end or beginning, enjoying in this respect the same status as the desert, so that my death is merely a disappearance, an inevitable consequence of being asleep, and my life is simply an appearance, an inevitable consequence of being awake?

For several days I wandered about dazed, but I could not bear to wait long. I determined that I would vanquish forgetfulness and recapture that lost life, my true life, no matter what the cost.

I went to her tent, where I found her bowing in the direction of the forenoon’s Ragh to plait her luxuriant hair into slender braids. She intimated with a glance of her eye that I should approach, and I crept a few inches closer. The perfume of her body assailed my nostrils. I staggered and shut my eyes to ward off dizziness, but she stretched out her hand and seized me. With a bold palm she grasped me and pulled me into her arms. No, that was not it; I did not find myself in her arms but snuggled against her full bosom. I was inside her flowing gown, in a vale between two astounding breasts crowned with prominent nipples. My body fell atop a taut ivory expanse. I became lost in this labyrinth of ivory and slid ever farther down. I clung to the only outcropping my hand could reach and grabbed hold of her breasts, but they escaped from my hand, because they were larger than my palm. So I struggled desperately and grabbed the jaunty, protruding nipples at the tips of her breasts.

Then I heard her say in the same hoarse, sibilant voice, “The women say you like to fool around. The women say you’ve taught their daughters several games. Even your mother wants you to be playful, because she thinks a playful boy is a successful one. Now you can play. Hee, hee, hee.” She chortled for a long time, until the chortling turned into a deep moan.

While struggling to keep from slipping ever lower, I remembered her promise and shouted to remind her what she owed me. “Dates! You promised to give me dates.”

She crooned, “Is any date in the desert tastier than the one you grasp, rascal?”

The jaunty nipple escaped from my fingers, which had become slippery because of some liquid, either sweat from my hand or moisture oozing from the teat. So I skidded further down the soft, ivory-colored body. I found myself in another valley at the center of which lay a thicket of dense undergrowth. As I grasped this undergrowth, my nostrils were met by a fragrance I could taste with my tongue. It was the secret taste that disperses forgetfulness and lights the path to immortality.

I began to visit her tent every day to savor that taste until the day of separation dawned. I awoke one morning to discover that her tent had been struck and that the mistress of the taste had departed. I could not believe it, perhaps because I had never imagined I could lose this taste and fall prisoner to forgetfulness again.

Forgetfulness felt like a mountain crushing my chest, and I resolved to liberate myself. I asked which way she had headed and set off in pursuit. I raced after her like a madman but found only mirages waiting at the horizons. I became exhausted and dehydrated, while the sun-baked earth scorched my bare feet. I fell to the ground and began to creep on all fours. As I crept forward, the path skinned my knees and hands, and I began to bleed. Finally unable to proceed any further, I experienced bitterness, not the taste of the lost fruit. My only consolation lay in weeping. I wept and wept, until night fell and sleep overtook me.

7 Last Watch of the Night

I SET OUT TO SEARCH for the priest, but he had disappeared from the settlement. I consulted the nobles, but they all agreed that they knew nothing of his whereabouts. I asked the matriarchs, and one of them commented that priests are a race comparable to the jinn’s offspring, who disappear whenever we search for them and reappear only when we do not expect them.

I went to the grisly tomb whose stones the priest had soaked with my mother’s blood, according to the neighbor-girl’s account, but did not find him there either. I traveled to the pastures and questioned the camel herders, who told me he had branded his camel with the sign of the goddess Tanit to protect her from thieves and since then had allowed her to roam untended in the desert of Tinghart for several years. I finally lost all hope of finding him and decided to bury my anxiety in forgetfulness. Since this world was the ablest assistant I had found, I headed for Targa to search for the camel my mother had given me just before that ill-omened day of separation. I had entrusted her to a fellow tribesman who said he was related to me in some way. So I headed out to the open country nearby to watch for caravans heading south.

Using my wrist for a pillow, I stretched out under an acacia tree to spend my first night. I was just drifting off to sleep, as dreams hovered around me, when the priest’s figure appeared, standing above my head. At first I imagined he was a fragment that had split off from a dream. Then I was able to recognize him by the light of the stars, even though he was partially concealed by his garments, which were of a gloomy color. He stood by my head for what felt like a lifetime before he observed coldly, “I was told you’ve been looking for me.”

When I did not reply, he dropped down on his haunches, facing me. I stared at his face in order to read the prophecy in his eyes, to read the certainty in them, but the cloak of darkness concealed their silent expression. So I said, “I thought priests were people like anyone else, not specters.”

Without any hesitation, as if he had been expecting this remark, he answered, “Where would priests obtain their prophecies if they couldn’t change into specters?”

I stared at him again. I thought I detected a glint of covert disdain flash through his eyes. The sight provoked me, but I swallowed the anger I felt like a lump in my throat and said, “Priests have a right to turn into specters or jinn, but they have no right to turn into killers.”

“Killers?”

“You killed my mother.”

I said this coldly, even though my whole body was trembling and shaking. He continued to stare at me calmly. The disdain visible in his eyes seemed stronger. With the same detestable coldness he said, “Of course! Priests also kill. They only kill, however, in order to bring someone back to life.”

My body’s trembling increased as I began to develop a fever. I saw my mother dandling me. I saw her teaching me the names of things. I saw her teaching me the prophecy. I saw her bringing me outside so I could bathe in the light of Ragh and grasping me back to cherish me in her embrace. I began to choke. I tried to speak, but my tongue, which was all twisted up in my mouth, failed me. So he spoke, instead of me. He spoke to complete his victory. Yes, indeed, victory always belongs to the side that speaks. Victory always falls to the side that can make the best use of the tongue. Truth is also the tongue’s sweetheart. He who fails to use his tongue is left falsehood’s side. So, blessings on anyone who makes excellent use of the tongue and woe to anyone who fails to employ it successfully.

The cunning strategist spoke coldly because he perceived that his coldness provoked me and that coldness could slay me, “How could I have brought you back to life without killing her?”

“Rubbish!”

It cost me a heroic effort to spit out this word, even though I knew how silly it sounded. I was certain “rubbish” was something I had uttered and not something he had said. It seems the wily strategist sensed my impotence, for he brazenly demonstrated his mastery over the tongue. “Don’t you know that it was her death that restored you to life? Don’t you know that the birth of children presupposes the destruction of their mothers?”

I heard this statement but did not understand its import. I did not understand, because I suddenly woke up, just as I once woke up to find myself imprisoned by my mother’s embrace. I had stammered then, because I had been deprived of the use of my tongue. So, speaking for me, my mother had told the story, just as the priest was now speaking for me. The wily schemer seized the opportunity to monopolize the conversation. He talked and talked and talked, but I did not understand. Perhaps I did not understand because I did not listen. I did not listen because I was feverishly wrestling a knife from the sleeve of my robe. The fates had it that my dread knife should sink into his throat just when he had finished declaring: “This is the law of sacrifice!” So he became the sacrifice, because the weapon’s blade plunged deep into his throat. The plentiful, warm, viscous blood gushed out and stained my fingers, my wrist, and even my face, flowing down to soak the desert’s earth, which has been thirsty for millions of years. I had to wait a very long time to witness that haughty creature fall upon my lap: a wasted body, empty, and as light as a pile of feathers.

8 Dawn

WE MET AT THE CURVE of the ravine as she headed toward the pasture with her flocks. When she caught sight of my bloodstained shirt, she gasped in alarm but did not release her index finger, which she sucked to mask her alarm. She was hard to understand while she chewed on her finger. “What’s this? Did you slaughter a kid or a billygoat?”

“Yes, indeed; I’ve slaughtered a billygoat. Yesterday I slaughtered a black goat.”

She stared at me skeptically before continuing: “Was it a sacrifice?”

“Yes, indeed, a sacrifice.”

I gazed at her black eyes, which were as deep as the gazelle’s, before adding, “I slaughtered the goat as a sacrifice for my mother’s spirit.”

Her eyes gleamed with the sparkle we see only in gazelles’ eyes. This sparkle is not to be understood, investigated, or resisted. I turned my face away and allowed my gaze to soar across the open lands in search of some inspiration to help me express my secret, “Didn’t you say he slaughtered her on the tomb the way you’d slaughter a ewe?”

She stopped chewing on her finger. The color of kohl spread through her eyes, and blackness dominated them so entirely that they became even deeper, more beautiful, and more enigmatic. I got the shakes and felt feverish again.

I saw him fall to his haunches, balancing himself on the tips of his fingers opposite me, bleeding, bleeding, bleeding. Not a single moan of suffering or groan of pain escaped him when the knife settled in his throat. In fact, he stayed erect so long I was convinced he was a demonic child of the jinn. He fell in my lap, however, just when I had decided to flee. He fell into my lap like a pile of chaff or feathers. He fell into my lap as if wishing to seek refuge with me. He fell into my lap, because the slain person must seek refuge with his killer. He fell into my lap because it is decreed that slain men take refuge with their slayers.

I gazed into her eyes. I gazed until I disappeared into their depths. I pulled the knife from my sleeve and flourished it in the air as if combating an invisible enemy. In a stranger’s voice I croaked, “I stabbed him like this. I stabbed him in the throat. Like this! And this! Ha, ha, ha ….”

I swallowed my laughter and exhaled. I blew out all my breath until I began to suffocate for lack of air. I was drenched with sweat, and my eyes found nothing to focus on until they settled on the knife fouled by the victim’s blood. At that moment I heard her voice and was astonished. I was astonished, because I had forgotten her. I had thought myself alone in the wilderness and so had forgotten her. She took me by the hand and sat me down beside her on a hill overlooking the ravine. She said quite distinctly: “You don’t know what you’ve done.”

Then she paraphrased her words in the same authoritative tone, “Oh, if you only knew what you’ve done!”

I interrupted her, with even more authority, “I did what I had to do! I never regret an act I’ve committed.”

She bit her finger and rocked as if ready to emit a wail of mourning, “But it’s an act that makes repentance for any other deed you commit superfluous.”

I did not understand her and kept silent. We were both silent for a time. I tried to catch my breath, but she showed me no mercy. “You’ve killed your father! You’ve killed your dad!”

I thought she was affecting the language that elders use when they speak equivocally. I thought she was reciting a story of past generations, one that would end with a moral, aphorism, or a saying with a hidden reference, but she turned toward me and stated with a clarity that banished all doubt, “Don’t you realize that you’ve killed your father, wretch?”

Dumbfounded, I protested, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“The priest was your father.”

I laughed. I laughed even though I was short of breath. I said with great certainty, “If the priest was my father, then I would never have lost my father.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Didn’t you tell me once that my father came to my house the day I set off to search for him in the desert’s labyrinth?”

“I did not lie.”

“You also said he followed me, to bring me back.”

“I did not lie.”

“But he brought back my mother, not me.”

“If he had not taken your mother, he would never have brought you back. If he had not taken your mother, you would not find yourself striding through the desert on two feet.”

“But how can I have searched for my father throughout the world when he was within arm’s reach?”

“All the things we search for in faraway places are actually within arm’s reach.”

Again she had begun to speak in riddles. Once more this young vixen, who had told me she had learned to speak by learning to listen, had begun to speak in the language of the priestess, with all the certainty of the priestess.

I did not listen, however, for I could not wait to ask, “But by what right did the priest become my father?”

“Priests were created to be fathers. Those men we call our fathers actually aren’t.”

“Then who are the priests? Who are the fathers?”

“The fathers are shadowy figures. The priests are real.”

“If you want me to understand the truth about the priests, then don’t speak to me in the language of the priests.”

“Fathers are always a lie.”

“You’re lying.”

“But the priest is the master of prophecy. We are the children of prophecy. All the children of the tribe are children of prophecy. All the children of the desert are children of prophecy.”

“I’d have to be a priest to understand your riddles about prophecy.”

“That’s why we’ve inherited from the ancients a saying— endorsed by our lost law — that recognizes the mother as the sole parent. We offspring are as lost as the lost law, because we are kin to prophecy on our father’s side and to the desert on our mother’s.”

“I heard my mother say something like that.”

“That’s why, according to the law, you’re not merely a patricide but a deicide.”

“Lie!”

“He who kills prophecy kills the lord.”

“Lie!”

“And that’s not all.”

Through this medium’s eyes I detected a new danger. In the eyes of this she-jinni I beheld a new prophecy. I was shaking and feverish. I was disoriented, but even so I heard correctly what she said next, “You must understand that you killed not only your own father but mine as well.”

“What are you saying?”

She cast her glance far away. She raised her index finger toward the empty space as though pointing out an unknown talisman. Then she bombarded my ears with this painful prophecy, “I’m your sister!”

Although I did not believe this, I did not enquire any further, because my chest felt weighed down. I do not know how much time I spent on that hillock. I also do not know whether it was evening or daytime, sunset, or dawn. I reflected on my reality as a creature that has been abandoned, that is lost, and that will never discover his fatherland or his father. I discovered in my reality every desert son’s true nature, since he must acknowledge his misery at having lost all trace of his paternal lineage. He is destined to fall under customary law, which traces kinship maternally. He has to content himself with his lot, which is identical to that of Anubi.

I decided to flee at once from the tribe, from the desert, and even from myself. Perhaps I could free myself from my destiny. I roamed through the wasteland; I might experience a rebirth in the settlements of the land known as Targa.

I did not feel any bitterness over losing my sense of time nor did I regret losing the savor of days; I remember that I stretched out one day in a solitary place enveloped in darkness and slept as I had never slept before, unaware of the advent of evening or of the morn of the following day.