New Waw, Saharan Oasis

XII THE TORRENTS

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The north breathed winds that diffused the fragrance of moisture; the gloomy horizon encircled the northern mountains with a noble belt that always took on the color of dawn; the distant clouds grew thicker, presaging an assault; bolts of lightning ripped through their august gloom with an insistent gleam that twisted in tongues as fast as fiery whips only to die out with a swiftness reminiscent of the mystery of prophecy.

The wait did not last long.

The black clouds assaulted the thirsty wasteland like enemy hordes. The storm advanced as if wishing to caress the naked badlands and threw down at first large drops the size of the foam that fine camel stallions expectorate in mating season. Then the rain poured down. It poured down plentifully. The downfall stirred up dust in the void and the thirsty earth was taken by surprise. It spluttered with the insatiable appetite of someone who always wants more and then, overcome by greed, chokes on his serving and spits back up what he has swallowed. The expanses paved with stone slabs drank first; then the deserts covered with carpets of pebbles imitated them. Next the deluge flooded the terraces and slipped secretly down natural conduits to the ravines, which carried it to washes coated with layers of soft earth. Then the sandy valley bottoms seized the water with the longing of passionate lovers. Meanwhile the clay lowlands drank in less time and the water rose again to collect in level patches, but this stasis did not last long. The ravines pushed down a new heavenly stream, and the earth received from the sky a new supplement. The upper valleys brought a greater share. Then the demon in the flask of the patch of ground grew restless and rushed off on a course that began with a humane, rational chain but that increased in insanity as it advanced. This insanity was fed by the many ravines that intersected the valley’s banks, and the flood borrowed nourishing momentum from the sky. As these gifts accumulated, the frenzy increased. The water abandoned its own name to become a demon that had appropriated the name torrent!

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The torrent outstripped the cloud’s slow advance and reached the farthest deserts downstream, surprising creatures that roamed the wasteland over which shone the harsh rays of a cloud-free sun.

The demon grew increasingly delirious and stretched out a stealthy hand to seize sacrificial offerings. It snatched bird nests from the trunks of the retem shrubs. Small eggs marked with murky, dark colors floated to the surface, and newborn chicks covered in yellow down appeared at the tip of the voracious tongue, fussing and releasing cries of farewell. Meanwhile the mothers fluttered over the insane current with the alarm of a tribe subjected unexpectedly to a raid.

In areas further downstream, in the expanses where the earth of the valley bottoms was soft and the burrows many, the demon’s hand reached down to extract victims from the deepest holes. Mice fled from aggressive snakes, snakes fled from brutal hedgehogs, and hedgehogs fled from terrifying men. The demon put its sacrificial victims in its satchel and stormed through other clefts to take other victims from other species: hares, dung beetles, lizards large and small, and young gazelles. It did not acquire more significant victims until it reached the wide lower valleys, where herds of sheep and camels grazed and herdsmen chatted around bonfires, entertaining themselves by exchanging riddles, vying in poetry, and raising their voices in mournful songs. Then they returned from the realms of longing to discuss again the punishing drought and the vacillating flow of time. The demon surprised the lower pastures to seize the most significant sacrificial offerings.

It surprised the herdsmen by night. Then it caught the sheep, goats, and kids off guard and claimed a terrifying share of the herds. Next it attacked the owners of the herds, corralling them on small islands that rose in the hearts of the large, flooded lower valleys. At first it carefully laid siege to its victims while waiting for the support it would receive from the deluge via other tributary ravines, water courses, and wadis. It grew stronger with the abundant rain in the North when the earth became saturated with water and propelled a plentiful amount to the lower valleys. The deluge poured forth, the water level rose in the valley bottoms, and frightening waves gushed on to the farthest plains. The current swept away the meager islands, and the demon washed over its stranded victims to throw them into the dreadful floodwaters. The herdsmen fought back courageously. They clung to retem trees and deployed palm-fiber ropes, contending with the rising waters with poles, but the demon also fought desperately and did not yield until it had seized human victims.

The torrent dragged its victims to the lowlands in the Southern desert. There sand swords — longitudinal dunes — obstructed it. So it slowed, became calmer, and its tongue plunged underground to bury in the abyss the victims it had carried from the Northern deserts.

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On the heights, on the open plateau of the Hammada, the tribe abandoned their tents, which were threatened with flooding, and fled to the hills, to high places, and to the mountain slopes. In these locations, groups of children, women, and old men gathered. They wrapped themselves in whatever covers they had been able to carry, and the clever strategists among them pulled from their clothes treasured sticks of firewood they had brought wrapped in scraps of linen to keep them from getting wet. They stretched themselves over their wood to protect it from the rain with their bodies. As the children’s crying grew louder and adults started complaining they were cold and hungry, the cunning planners gathered in circles, shielding their heads and bodies with cloths, and began to struggle with their flints to beg for fire. They struggled for a long time before sparks shot out. Then they struggled for an even longer period before these sparks ignited the linen wicks and the smell of smoke rose from the scraps of fabric. They struggled further before successfully setting the wood on fire as a tongue of flame rose from it. Then they began to blow on the nascent tongues of flame to encourage the fire to crave the sticks, which none of their precautions had kept from growing damp.

The herdsmen in the lower valleys, for their part, hastened to move their herds from the deep valley bottoms during the rain’s first assault and sought refuge on the heights overlooking the valleys. They grieved over their lost livestock and helped each other rescue victims stranded by the torrents on islands in the wadis. They threw them ropes or tossed them poles to use in fending off the current when the flood waters spread and the rising water level threatened them. When evening fell, the herdsmen discovered that the lethal demon had separated their company and scattered them over the heights, hills, and banks. They called loudly to one another, asking in the first hours of the night about losses. Then they were still for a long time. The sound of the surging water rose; the water dominated the conversation instead of them for a long time. But the words of the torrent frightened them and roused the ghoul of loneliness in their souls. So they raised their voices in song and sang all night long.

In the wadi bottoms, the torrent sang.

On the cliff tops, the shepherds sang.

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The clouds’ assault lasted a day, two, or three before the Unknown drew a sign across the horizon; a rainbow appeared to indicate that the storm clouds had withdrawn.

In the sky the sun’s disc, deprived of its fiery rays, shone myopically through bands of cloud and fog — like a full moon over the desert. Even after these diaphanous clouds dissipated and the fogs lifted, the celestial goddess cast a tolerant eye at the wasteland’s creatures — as if she had finally decided to relax her former oppression. The humidity, however, evaporated once the clouds had scattered. Then the barren lands paved with slabs of stone dried out, followed by the terraces carpeted with pebbles and small gravel. The moisture burned off the body of the clay lands and then the sandy tracts till no trace of the rain lingered in the upper desert except for low-lying washes soaked by the deluge. All the same, the torrent continued to rave, jabber, and prattle in the valley bottoms.

The scattered remnants of the tribe returned from their sojourn in the heights. They moved through their retreats, set out foundations, raised the tent poles, searched for lost possessions and missing items that they typically forfeited whenever a blessing arrived and when the Unknown granted them rains.

They were so preoccupied by searching for necessities, possessions, and chattels that they forgot about themselves and ignored the birth of birds in the skies, which were still obscured by fogs. The children would go out to play in the mud puddles in the neighboring plains. So they were the first to discover the appearance of sprouts growing from cracks in the rocks and raced home with the good news.