Gold Dust

23

And now here he was, surprising Ukhayyad again.

The camel arrived, weak with fresh wounds, conveying a new message from Dudu. It was a cruel proposal, composed simply of wounds and new misery. This wretched skeleton was a warning, a sign, and it filled Ukhayyad with dread. The desert had taught him to fear this secret language, for it conveyed hidden truth, and it never signified in jest. The language of hidden, divine truth can kill.

Did the foreigner want to murder the piebald, or was this just a new stage of his heartless blackmail? Did he mean to extract revenge on the innocent animal for Ukhayyad’s scornful refusal to divorce Ayur, or was torture his method for forcing Ukhayyad into submission?

However much you think about the souls of foreigners, however smart you are, however many times you revise your interpretations, there are always more secrets to be found in them. It does not matter how clever or brilliant you are — the weapons of foreigners are always more lethal than your own. People never go into exile without a reason. The shrewd herder had been right about that.

That day, when the piebald appeared in tatters — emaciated, his bones sticking out — Ukhayyad saw contempt in Ayur’s eyes for the first time ever. No — he was not mistaken, she showed it on purpose. The look of contempt is unambiguous. She did not even attempt to hide it. What did it mean? Had something aroused her jealousy? Her jealousy toward the piebald had not been born just today! He was the splendid mount that had made Ukhayyad’s warrior status complete long before he got married. But he was also the mount that, after Ukhayyad’s marriage, had become like a second wife to her, that is, her opponent and even enemy. She had never dared to talk openly about any of her feelings toward the animal. But with all the hints she gave, it had not been difficult for him to understand where things stood.

They talked one night after dinner, a few months after their wedding, while they were still camping in the Hamada. “In all the desert I have never seen women as jealous as those of your tribe,” she told him. “Do you know what Tazidirt told me? She said, ‘Watch out. You cannot depend on a man who loves his Mahri the way Ukhayyad loves his piebald. It really is the most splendid Mahri in the desert, but when a rider loves his mount that much, no wife should trust him. Either his heart is with his mount, or it is split between his mount and his wife — and that is even worse! When a man loves his Mahri more than his wife, she should know this: she will soon lose him altogether.’ Did you ever hear such a ridiculous thing?”

He laughed that day and told her that Tazidirt was a wise woman who spoke only the truth. She had laughed too — but she never forgave him for turning the matter into a joke.

As soon as the famine began, she found her chance to get rid of the Mahri. At first, she had only insinuated this a number of times. Later, when she could no longer restrain her intentions, she announced her desires plainly and publicly. At the time Ukhayyad forgave her, since he could see what starvation was doing to everybody. He told himself that a mother who had to watch her son crying from hunger certainly had the right to lose her mind.

But now her jealousy was not simply due to his devotion to the piebald. It was because she had seen him struggle so much since pawning the camel to her kinsman. She had seen him advance and retreat as he went back and forth, again and again, between Danbaba and the oasis. She had closely watched his trips there and his returns. She thought it was a disgrace — and that he should be ashamed of himself. This was not just the jealousy a wife might feel toward the mount of a warrior. His stubborn attachment to the animal posed a real danger to her — a danger to her and to the child. She understood this with a woman’s intuition — and nothing is more sensitive than a woman who doubts! Her glance today was a warning and challenge — and it communicated contempt. Yes — contempt now flashed within her scorn. What does it mean to feel contempt as well as scorn? Contempt is stronger and crueler than scorn, and is something one suckles from a mother’s breast, or from the breast of the desert itself.

My God! Perhaps she truly loved her cousin — and perhaps she had meant to insult Ukhayyad so as to win her divorce papers. This fantastical idea only multiplied Ukhayyad’s distress. It dawned on him that all this time she had hidden the nature of her relationship to Dudu. Why had she not told him the whole story? Why, unless she was concealing some secret? Here was woman, the horrible noose tightening around his neck, strangling his breath. Here also the shadows crept up to swallow the light of day. That night, Ukhayyad wept.

Instead of sleep, he found two burning ribbons of tears pouring down his cheeks. He never thought he was capable of crying like this. A descendent of the great Akhenukhen crying in bed like the weakest woman! During his childhood, Ukhayyad had once fought one of his cohort to see who could hold a glowing coal in the palm of his hand the longest. The stench of burning flesh billowed from his hand, but he never let go. His opponent soon collapsed in pain and threw down his coal with a yelp. But Ukhayyad did not scream or cry, even though he was only nine at the time. Another time, when he was seven, his mother punished him by having their African servant insert hot pepper oil into his nostrils — spoonfuls of the stuff. He first passed out, then stopped breathing. But on that day, he did not cry.

Much later, he had plowed a furrow across the desert hanging from the tail of the piebald, then leaped into a bottomless black pit. He had died and returned to live again — all without tears.

Yet, here he was tonight, unable to stop himself. It was as if the person crying was not him, but someone else — his double — sleeping next to him, defying him. Someone else whose activities and deeds he could watch without being seen. Had this ever happened before to anybody in the desert?

He stole out of bed and left the hut. Outside, the glow of dawn began to split the shadows of the oasis, but the cocks had forgotten to announce the day’s birth, or maybe they had meant to conceal their secret. Only a band of crickets remained, carrying on with their late-night songs.

The piebald had also spent the night awake. Ukhayyad found him standing erect with his long frame, his head facing east. He was miserable and anxious as he silently watched the dawn’s birth. Meanwhile, the plow camel kneeled on the other side of the hut. It sat beside a thick, stooped palm, stupidly, mechanically chewing its cud. At this early hour, the melancholic piebald seemed saint-like in his pose. The other camel, whose mind remained carefree and vacant, seemed brutish and stupid in comparison. How appalling living creatures seem when their hearts are so free of worry or concern! Only sadness can implant the glow of divinity in a heart! Did this apply to people as well? Sheikh Musa always said that God loves only those worshippers who have experienced pain and suffering. Indeed, He inflicts misery only upon those whom He loves! The Sufi sheikhs in the oasis also often talked about something like this.

In the corner of the hut, he stole three handfuls of barley and snatched up his rifle. He attached the bridle through the Mahri’s nose and led him along the road to the vineyard spring.

On the road, Ukhayyad found himself repeating a refrain as if he were singing, “Patience is prayer. Patience is worship. Patience is life itself.” He took comfort repeating the words into the piebald’s ears, telling himself that the song was meant for the suffering Mahri. Inside he knew that this time the words were addressed to himself. That other person who had wept tonight, that other he had discovered living in his body — he was the one chanting the incantation. This other would be the one who would transform his sense of unrest into living deed. Since last night, this other had become his hand, his tongue, his eye. Those eyes with which he had cried — they belonged to this other. How long had this other lived inside his breast — since birth? Why had he woken up only yesterday?

Ukhayyad crossed through the palm forests and drew up beside the southern sand dune. He forced the camel to kneel, then unrolled a tatter of burlap cloth. He pulled out the packet of barley and spread it before the camel. But the piebald turned his nose up with disdain and stared at the desolate horizon.

The first fiery thread of the sun’s rays now burst forth. He sat on his toes across from the camel. Leaning on his rifle, Ukhayyad stared intensely at the piebald.

And then, though he did not know how, he raised the barrel of the rifle and pointed it directly at his companion. He stood up slowly, as if being plucked up by strings, and drew the gun barrel toward the camel’s head. He took a step forward, then another, until the rifle mouth pressed against the camel’s forehead. He clutched the weapon with both hands, and placed it directly between the camel’s eyes. Ukhayyad’s hands were steady and his eyes shone with resolute determination and something dark. The piebald also surrendered to the moment. Their eyes met. There was no astonishment in the camel’s eyes. On the contrary, the camel seemed to bless what was happening. “Pull the trigger,” his eyes seemed to encourage Ukhayyad. Those deep eyes were as pure as the water in the vineyard spring, and now they were telling him: “Put out this fire, if you wish to live apart. The shadows that hang about us cannot be worse than the fire of Asyar. They cannot match the cruelty of the road to Awal. Put out this fire inside me!”

Their eyes locked for what seemed like forever. Finally, Ukhayyad’s resolve broke, and his hand began to tremble. He shoved the rifle barrel into the sand beside the camel’s folded leg and trembled there for a few moments. Then he felt the water begin to roil down his cheeks again. His breast seethed and flared with anger and rage. How would he put out the fire?

He began to bash the rifle butt against his head until his turban fell off. Blow after blow, and the blood began to pour, splattering on his hands, across the sand, and across the burlap cloth and into the barley. Blood splattered over the piebald’s face as he nervously watched the burst of madness. With each blow, the distress in his eyes developed into fear. Perhaps this was because he did not know what madness was. Perhaps it was because he believed that man alone was blessed with the gift of reason and that he had no right to lose it and behave like a beast. Ukhayyad had indeed now lost his mind. Who was this person then? What would he do to himself? How far would he go?

The camel suddenly opened his mouth and bellowed, “Aw-a-a-a-a-a-a.”

The open desert quickly swallowed the pained cry and Ukhayyad stopped and fell on the sand.

It was now late afternoon.

He found himself in a fever, drenched in sweat and blood. He did not know when or how he had passed out. The pain of the gashes split his head. The time had come for the pains of the body to vanquish those of the heart. If only there was a way for the pains of the body to absorb these others — then no one would ever feel any pain. As soon as he came to and remembered what had happened, his headache dissolved — and with it, the sufferings of his body. Heartache had consumed all other pain.

Ukhayyad went and washed in the vineyard spring. He concealed his wounds beneath his veil and rested in the shady thicket of palms that surrounded the pool of water. He drank, and drenched his chest, clothes, and head with water. He eventually got up and headed for the oasis village.

He found the man he sought sitting in the circle of sheikhs. The cadi was taking refuge from the scorching afternoon sun behind the courtyard wall and was absorbed in fighting off flies with a palm frond swatter. Ukhayyad asked to speak to the man alone, and then demanded a writ of divorce. The cadi attempted to dissuade him, and tried to postpone drafting the document. The man said, “Though frowned upon, a divorce was permitted by God’s law. There is nothing easier.” It was better — though harder, he said — to restrain one’s impulses than regret one’s actions later. But, confronted with Ukhayyad’s determination, the cadi abandoned his sermon and resorted to a trick that he thought would delay the process and muddle Ukhayyad’s passion: he demanded that a witness be present. Ukhayyad went out and grabbed the first peasant he met in the square, dragging him back to the cadi. “When Satan sets his heart on something, he makes it happen,” the cadi sighed. “When he wants to push someone over a cliff, he removes all the obstacles that stand in his way. May God prevail!” He then gave the ill-omened document to Ukhayyad, who then folded it, pressed it into his pocket, and departed for Danbaba.

He met alone with Dudu and handed him the paper, the document of his surrender and deliverance. The writ was his emancipation from the noose, the doll, and the illusion — forever. Dudu was ecstatic. He ordered his servants to bring some tea and prepare them supper. “I knew you’d do it,” he exclaimed. “And it’s a good thing you did, too. You have broken your fetters and regained a true friend. I could see it in your eyes and his since the very first day. The truth was right there, hidden in your eyes.”

He smiled and went on, “Who would ever trade a giraffe like this piebald of yours for a woman, even if she were a goddess of beauty like Tanit? God forbid you ever did such a thing! But isn’t our entire fate inscribed on our foreheads for all to see?”

From an iron box he took out an old leather pouch engraved with magic amulets. He dipped a teacup into it twice. The gold dust flashed, blinding the eye.

The yellow rays of twilight were reflected in the yellow specks and, in seeming response, the gold appeared to radiate from within.

Dudu pushed the pouch toward Ukhayyad, saying, “Don’t think of this as a bribe. Think of it as protection from the evil of necessity until the famine has passed.”

Ukhayyad answered, “I don’t think I’ll need it. In our tribe, gold is said to bring bad luck.”

The man ignored the second half of what Ukhayyad had just said. Instead, he commented on the first part: “Not only do humans need gold, but jinn need it as well. It is the source of the struggles between humans and jinn, between humans and Satan, and also among humans. How could you not need it? Because of it, I was held prisoner and tortured by the blacks of Bambara. But also, without it, I could not have accomplished what I have.”

He waved the piece of paper in the air and smiled. Ukhayyad reminded him with naive determination, “But they say it is cursed and brings bad luck.”

“Those are myths spread by people incapable of attaining it. Gold is the goal of every person, from when they are born till the moment they die. It’s what everyone wants, everyone that is, except losers and Sufi dervishes. Losers and dervishes revile it and spread their nasty rumors about it for only one reason: they don’t know how to get it! Believe me!”

A flash sparkled in the man’s eye as he spoke.