Gold Dust

22

As the dreams of night scatter with the glowing embers of dawn, Ukhayyad’s resolve vanished as soon as he saw Dudu wrapped in his blue cloak, standing in the doorway. At that moment, he realized that a person is who he is because of what he drinks in his mother’s milk. He knew it would be difficult to remove the noose, the toy, and the illusion from his head, unless he were to suddenly become another person altogether. “As a person is prisoner to his body, so too he is hostage to his worldly possessions,” Sheikh Musa often liked to say. By that, did he mean that people are unable to change themselves — just as they are unable to trade their bodies for others? But, could he really be content to sell the piebald and surrender himself to them — that noose of a woman, doll of a boy, and illusion of shame? Could he pawn himself to them simply because everybody else does that — abandoning the only sincere friend he had in this world?

Could he commit this betrayal without despising himself?

Descending through the valley, he had no sooner awoken from these thoughts when the Mahri rushed toward him, his forelegs still hobbled, froth spitting, and sweat pouring from his body. There was the old sadness in his eyes. He brought the plow camel to a halt off at a distance, and went down the hill on foot. They embraced.

Ukhayyad meant to be severe with the camel. “Are you a stud or a mare? What you are doing does not befit Mahris. Do you understand? I’ve told you a hundred times: be patient, it is the only thing that can protect you if you want to survive in the desert. Patience is prayer, it’s worship. Have you forgotten our journey to the fields of Maimoun? Have you forgotten our trip to Awal? Forgetting is your weakness and in the desert, it causes nothing but problems.”

The camel’s heart was not soothed. Distress flickered from his fear-stricken eye sockets. Those eyes spoke as eloquently as those of a gazelle.

Ukhayyad continued to talk to the camel, rubbing him gently, consoling him until midday. But no sooner did Ukhayyad leave than the camel bellowed in complaint. It sounded like the moans of a dying man.

To Ukhayyad’s ears, the piebald’s cries were unlike those of any other camel.