Gold Dust

12

But the piebald had not forgiven him. The humiliation in the dancing arena was a sign that he had not. Had Ukhayyad misjudged things? Camels do not forget wrongs. They are like slaves — and you had better watch out if you mistreat them.

Instead of celebrating him, that damned poetess had composed a nasty ode skewering the camel. “His color is spotted, but his mind is rotted,” was how it began. Within two days, echoes of the poem had traveled throughout the entire encampment. He would cut out that wretched woman’s tongue and give her a taste of his whip.

One day soon after the dance fiasco, he took the purebred to the pasture. There, away from everything else, Ukhayyad scolded him. He made the camel kneel under the lote tree and began to shout, gesturing into the air with his whip: “What did I do to you to deserve this from you? You should be thanking me, not trying to humiliate me. Just look at your colors — you’re even more dappled than before. If I hadn’t rescued you, your splendor would have disappeared altogether.”

The Mahri protested, turning his head askance, but Ukhayyad blocked him. “Don’t try to get away,” he yelled angrily. “We’re settling our accounts today. Didn’t you hear the poem that wicked poetess composed about you? She has been watching us for a long time, waiting for us to make a mistake. I commissioned her to sing your praises, and she insisted on seeing you dance before she did. Then you decided to spite me during the dance — and see what happened? She composed a poem ridiculing us instead! Are you happy now?”

He rose to his feet, clapped his hands as if to say “I’m done,” and wandered across the open desert space, kicking away rocks with his sandals. “I’m so stupid. So stupid,” he repeated. “Instead of paying our debt as quickly as possible, we argue and fight. We need to make good on the promise we made. Have you forgotten the pledge we made?” But it was Ukhayyad, and not the Mahri, who had forgotten their promise.

Still, Ukhayyad had not altogether forgotten that he had pledged to sacrifice a camel at the shrine. In fact, he had purchased a purebred camel from a sheikh who was emigrating to Mecca. Ukhayyad traded a splendid Touat kilim rug for the animal. The sheikh had come from Marrakesh, saying that he had decided to leave this world behind. He said he wanted to spend the rest of his days in Mecca where he might live near the Prophet’s grave. The tribe slaughtered a goat for the man and feted him for three days. He cast off the rest of his possessions and sold off the last of his animals. The camel had been given as a gift to Ukhayyad, the ascetic sheikh insisted. He had not bartered the camel for the rug, he said, but had accepted it because he needed a prayer rug.

Ukhayyad recalled the promise he uttered at the tomb of the ancients: “O lord of the desert, god of the ancients, I pledge to bring you a fat camel, sound of body and mind.” But that camel was not yet fat, nor yet of sound mind and body. Ukhayyad decided to wait for the animal to mature and fatten. At the time of his humiliation in the dance arena, the young purebred was still grazing hungrily in the southern pastures. Ukhayyad recognized that what had taken place was a sign of something. The lord of the desert was announcing his presence and warning him — he was demanding that the offering should not be delayed any longer.

Thereafter, other events occurred. Fate brought with it carelessness, and Ukhayyad’s life took another course. There was nothing strange about this turn at all. Like prophecies, signs flicker into view only for one moment before they disappear and are gone forever.