Gold Dust

1

When Ukhayyad received the camel as a gift from the chief of the Ahaggar tribes, he was still a young colt. Back then, on moonlit nights, Ukhayyad liked to brag about the thoroughbred camel to the other young men of the tribe, taking pleasure in posing questions to himself and then answering them.

“Have any of you ever seen a piebald Mahri before?”

“Never!”

“Have you ever seen a thoroughbred so graceful, so light of foot and so well proportioned?”

“Not until now.”

“Have you ever seen a Mahri who could compete with him in pride, fierceness, and loyalty?”

“Not like this one.”

“Have you ever seen a gazelle who took on the form of a camel?”

“Of course not.”

“Did you ever see anything more beautiful or noble?

“No, no, no! Admit it — you’ve never seen such a thing before and you never will again!” He would leap into the open skipping like a dancing madman until, exhausted, he would collapse on his back on the sand. There, he would raise his voice, singing one of those bewitching songs, like charms against loneliness that riders take refuge in whenever they travel across waterless deserts. He would sing his sad ballad and close with well-known lines taken from the epic of Amud’s war against the French invasion of the desert:

How well did we receive Amud when he approached!

We gave him thoroughbreds dressed for war

And lent him riders who never miss their mark. .

Ukhayyad’s passion for the piebald thoroughbred grew so intense that he finally sought out a famous poetess of the Kel Abada tribes. He asked her to compose a poem glorifying the Mahri’s innate qualities and extolling his talents, likening him to warrior heroes.

All night long the young man sat enumerating the qualities of the piebald: “He’s piebald. He’s graceful and long legged. He’s well bred. He’s fierce and loyal.”

“It’s not wrong for a rider to laud the qualities of his mount or to sing about him like an angel,” the experienced poetess abruptly interrupted. “But when you decide to commit praise to verse, you must follow convention. Poetry has its rules, after all! Your Mahri has never raised a battle cry nor made a name for himself at dancing festivals.”

Confused, Ukhayyad tried to hide his embarrassment behind his veil. “But he’s piebald,” he blurted out. “It’s enough that he’s piebald. Did you ever see a piebald Mahri before?”

In the past, he had entrusted the vassals of the tribe with the job of breaking in the Mahri and getting him used to the bridle. But that had to change now — it would be wrong for him to rely on vassals to teach him to dance too. In the desert, only noblemen trained camels to dance in front of the womenfolk.