New Waw, Saharan Oasis

II THE PROPHECY

1

Why do the tribes move about? Why do they traverse an area and head to a more distant one? Do they do this to leave a land threatened by drought and famines in search of a land that promises ample grazing? Do they set forth because they fear the ancient prophecy that warns that remaining in one place for forty days invites servitude to the land? Do they migrate because the Law has said that death on camelback is the destiny reserved exclusively for noble nations? Or do their sages inspire the masses to migrate in search of water and grass even though they actually travel in response to another unknown call they do not disclose even to themselves?

Tribesmen understand that the turbans of the wise conceal many secrets. They know that the leader would not have become a leader, the diviner a diviner, and the sage a member of the council of noble elders if this leader, diviner, or sage had not withheld some secret, because anyone who is so tyrannized by his tongue that he fails to keep a secret isn’t granted wisdom or authority over other creatures. For this reason, tribes respond to the diviner’s prophecy, yield to the advice of the sage, and obey the leader’s order. Then they set forth in groups behind any caravan the leader allows to depart and halt when the leader orders them to.

But the tribesmen also know that misfortune awaits tribes if the age frowns on them and discord enters the council of the wise or if disorder finds its way into the leader’s tent.

2

When the tribes of the sky disappear into the sky’s labyrinth, they leave behind them stillness, despair, and sad, miserable birds that are too ill, wounded, or old and infirm to continue the migration and follow their tribe.

On this most recent journey, the departing celestial tribe left behind an aged crane. Nobody noticed him the first day, perhaps because the terrestrial tribe was consumed by the anguish that the birds’ disappearance had caused or perhaps because the sorrow that the people of the sky had left behind with the tribe was vaster than the wasteland itself, swallowing the wasteland and concealing all the creatures that moved through it. According to the revealed law of diviners, sorrow blurs vision and actually blinds the eye. It is said that the sorrow the emigrant leaves behind in the hearts of those he quits exceeds the sorrow that the deceased bequeath to their kinsfolk. Sages offer many justifications for this. They say: “Travel and death are both eternal separations, but we can erect awe-inspiring monuments for our dead, stone tombs that we visit during festivals and that we sleep on by night to gain prophecies, which warn us against an enemy, an epidemic, or a drought. Moreover, when the jinn become unruly and upset us, we go to these tombs, dig up their stones, and remove the bones of our dead to use for talismans we carry on our travels and employ to ward off the people of the Spirit World. Family members who leave to take a distant trip, however, vanish. We cannot find their burial places or locate any trace of them.”

There is, however, another cause for the painful sorrow with which desert tribes normally say farewell to travelers. This is an obscure reason that tribes sense but do not understand. Sages know it but persistently conceal it from themselves. A confused, murky token whispers in their breasts with a murmur like wind rustling. It says that only the wayfarer is promised entry to Waw, that only the traveler can locate the errant continent, and that only a traveler dandles in his heart the hope of reaching the lost oasis. All the same, the traveler is ignoble, conceals his hope by compartmentalizing it, and tries to convince himself that there is no hope, because he knows that if he does not conceal this hope from his ego, it will conquer him and he will tell someone about his hope. Once the tongue utters the secret, the secret is ruined and the treasure — the gold dust — will turn to ashes. But the people seeing off the traveler are also ignoble, because they guess the truth and detect the traveler’s intent in his eye before they learn it from a slip of his tongue. Then temptation incinerates them, their breasts flare with longing, and envy torments them. So they weep. They weep not from sorrow about this separation but about the idea that a misguided, errant creature just like them — a wretch like any of them, someone who, like them, has never known whence he came or where he is heading — will find the track they haven’t and will be guided by the Unknown to the oasis that the desert’s inhabitants have been promised since they first came to the desert. Then he will never again know the suffering of this excruciating quest and longing’s pain will vanish from his heart, because the forgetfulness that Waw affords him is a panacea for the world’s ills. Then the equilibrium of things is reestablished, and the traveler, whom the wasteland has threatened with its labyrinth, becomes a newborn while the community that said farewell to him and that considered itself safe on account of its sedentary life becomes a desperate, wretched, lost people. When they weep, they do not weep for the newly lost traveler, even if he was their closest relative, but for themselves because they realize they are lost. Then the emigrant becomes an enemy even if he had once been their dearest friend or even their brother or father.

The birds fly off during the migratory season, and everyone returns to his personal concerns while combating an indecipherable longing, his longing for the Unknown from which he came one day borne on the wings of a bird, because the bird that brought him to the desert when he was an infant wrapped in the swaddling clothes of forgetfulness won’t be able to carry him back to the Unknown, to his homeland, now that he has outgrown them.

3

In the morning the children found the venerable bird squatting on the ridgeline of a tent. The kids discovered him after the grown-ups had departed to attend to adult affairs. Then the boys surrounded the dwelling and debated how best to reach him. One fetched a long pole and beat on the corner of the tent to frighten their guest, but the haughty bird remained huddled there, holding his long neck back, shielding his head with his wings, and then extending his red beak into the air. He opened his eyelids entreatingly, revealing an anxious eye. A tall, scrawny lad picked up a stone, which he lobbed toward the bird. It rolled over the haircloth fabric and down the tent’s other side. Then some boys started yelling, waving their fists in the scrawny youth’s face.

“This is a sin. It’s like hitting your mother or father. Would you throw a rock at your mother? If the adults see you, you’ll be punished.”

A boy, whose head sported a Mohawk that resembled a hoopoe’s crest, jumped from the pack and warned, “Keep away! He’s my guest. Don’t you see that he chose our home, not any other? I knew he would come ’cause I’ve seen him in a dream three times. He brought me good news! The grown-ups say birds bring good news.”

The tall, lanky boy with the pole mocked him. “Good news? Don’t you see he’s old? Old birds bring bad luck, not good news.”

“How do you know he’s old, sourpuss?”

“Just look at him. Can’t you see he’s old?”

“Perhaps he’s tired. Don’t forget he’s come from a distant land.”

“If he weren’t old, he wouldn’t have stayed behind when his flock left.”

“Perhaps he’s ill or wounded. I don’t see anything that shows he’s old. Guys, do you?”

The children yelled, but the thin boy’s voice rang out once more. “The bird’s old, and old birds bring bad luck. Drive the ill-omened, old bird away if you don’t want misfortune to strike your house.”

The boy with the Mohawk lost his temper and shouted, “You talk this way ’cause you’re jealous. You’re a bad, hateful boy and talk that way ’cause you’re jealous.”

But the thin boy started to circle the tent, hopping on one foot, and chanted the cruel song that has been passed down from one generation to the next. The boys’ ancestors supposedly sang it over the heads of the elderly, who were thrown into pits, where they were left to their fate.

Wiggegh temmedrit atgeed ad tedwelad.

Wiggegh torna atgged at tezied.⁴

You’re not a child we’re waiting to see grow up.

You’re not a sick man we’re waiting to see recover.

A group of boys answered this call and chanted the cruel refrain, dancing along behind the thin lad. The other group stood frozen, glancing back and forth between their naughty playmates and the bird that crouched on the tent. Many of them expected to see him recoil and shrink back as the racket made by the boys reached a crescendo and their voices grew even louder to match the agonizing rhythm.

4

Around noon the bird twitched, edged up a little higher, and spread out his right wing and right leg as if stretching. Then he unfolded his left wing and held it extended over his left leg for a time. He pulled himself erect and straightened his very tall frame — his scrawny body supported by two even scrawnier legs. His long beak, which was thrust forward, was longer than his legs.

In the crowd of boys, a voice exclaimed, “This isn’t an abil-bil.”

The boy whose tent the bird had chosen retorted: “Are you adult enough to know all the kinds of birds?”

Another voice called out, “He’s right. This is some other bird, an unknown species.”

The tall, lanky boy intervened, “Whether he’s an abil-bil or some other bird, he’s certainly old, and old birds bring bad luck to camps.”

The bird flapped his wings and beat the air listlessly and desperately. He held his wings extended for a moment and then emitted a strange cry, a muffled squawk, before fluttering his wings and attempting to fly. He rose barely a foot into the air with a ponderousness, slowness, and awkwardness that did not match his meager body. He fluttered his wings with all the ponderousness, slowness, and awkwardness of chickens that rebel heroically against their nature, experiment with disavowing their origins, and take flight, becoming callow citizens of the heavens.

The bird headed toward Retem Valley, covering some distance. Then he fell, descending to the earth like a chicken. He fell ignominiously, in a manner ill-befitting a bird. He plummeted but never stopped beating the air with his large wings, which were lustrous but marked by feebleness and blackness. He touched the ground with his feet, and his toes scratched grooves into the earth for a long distance. The children pursued him, and he ran clumsily from them like a crow. He ran as if favoring his right leg and the left one as well. When the boys closed in on him, he rose again some inches into the air before falling back to earth. He landed in an embarrassing way, and his noble beak sank into the dirt. He wrested it from the furrow, from disgrace, and beat the air with it to shake off the dust and humiliation. In his tired, languid eyes the boys saw the gleam and moisture of tears.

Then the lanky lad said meanly, “Didn’t I tell you he’s old?”

5

The sun was starting to set, and shadows were stretching toward the East. The North was liberal with moist breezes, and the heat’s scattered remnants were retreating with the passing of the siesta hour. So people were emerging from their tents, and the nobles sought refuge in the shade of their homes to debate, wrangle, and enjoy the evening shade and the Northern breezes.

The leader also resorted to the shade of the tent.

He sat on an old leather mat that time’s tongue had licked, stripping it of all its hair. He began to amuse himself. In his lap he placed a piece of barley bread, which he started to crumble in his hands, throwing morsels to the bird, which proceeded to bend over these crumbs, languidly and nonchalantly plucking up bits, as if eating not because he was hungry but because he too wanted to amuse himself. The leader murmured, “You’re really old. You’re so old that your advanced age was obvious even to the youngsters.” The leader had rescued the elderly bird from the hands of those wretches some days earlier. He had gone to Retem Valley at noon and found the bird running in a ridiculous fashion, desperately fluttering in an attempt to liberate itself from the earth, from the burden of the earth, from the sovereignty of the earth — but to no avail! Creatures when they become senile, when they grow old and become weak and incapacitated, find the earth waiting for them, find that the earth is their destiny, that the earth is their eternal homeland, their last resort, even if these creatures are celestial beings, even if these creatures are one of the sky’s communities like the birds! If the earth weren’t so greedy, if the earth weren’t so ignoble, if the earth weren’t so wise, it wouldn’t have been able to find on its surface any dust from which to create creatures. What is the dust of the earth if not the bones of past creatures and the graves of the dead who in antiquity became food for the earth? How can this wise mother create a being that strives if she does not sustain herself? In ancient times, didn’t the people of the desert produce the body of the desert? This is the sign. The senile bird was a sign. An aged being weighs heavily on the earth, because she attracts him, pulling him to her. She tells him, “Your return is approaching. The time when you are destined to return to my belly is nigh. I have lavished food on you while you were alive. Today you must draw near and prepare to provide nourishment for those who come after you.” The creature is afflicted with terror. The bird was afflicted with terror, because he sensed an unaccustomed weakness and a mysterious force that was drawing him to the lowest possible level. His wings betrayed him, his body failed him, and the sky drew farther away from him, because he did not know that the sky itself, his homeland the sky, was also incapable of changing a single symbol in destiny’s Law. It had handed him over to destiny, which was ramming him downward, executing the harsh dictate to return him to the earth.

He heard the youngsters discussing old age, using the word “amghar” more than once,⁵ and did not know whether they were talking about the bird or him.

6

The diviner approached, and they discussed, again, the beauty of old age and the nobility latent in every sorrow.

The diviner squatted down beside the leader and pursued the mirage into the wasteland, following it till it swallowed the horizon and turned into tongues of diaphanous flame. He picked up a pebble and threw it toward the bird. Then he, as he usually did, made straight for his point from the farthest reaches of the earth. “I’ve never seen another bird so tame around people from day one.”

The leader tossed out some scraps of barley bread, but the bird felt dispirited and became increasingly downcast. He cowered and gazed at the bread crumbs without any interest. Then he closed his eyes and hid his head between his wings. The leader said, “He was forced to act this way against his will. He acts tame because he is alone, deserted, and lost — lost like us. Moreover, don’t forget that he’s old. The secret lies in his advanced age. Old age is ugly. Does the Law discuss anything uglier than old age?”

The diviner smiled. He circled the topic and hovered around the point, although he continued to explore the ends of the earth. “I fear that what the Law says about old age disagrees with my master’s statement.”

“I know you will lead me to the ancient kingdom to tell me about the beauty of sorrow once again. Or am I wrong?”

“You’re right, Master. But I don’t derive my views about old age and sorrow only from the satchel of the Law. Our forefathers were the first to pass down this maxim. It is the forefathers who said that the sorrow of old age is noble and that there’s nothing more beautiful in the desert than a sorrowful person. Didn’t my master disapprove of the guffaws of the masses? Didn’t my master expel Ababa from the council a few days ago when an audible laugh escaped from him? Did my master do that out of respect for the Law of Dignity or from fear of the Law of Wisdom?”

“But don’t you consider the sorrow you discuss to be the end’s shadow? Don’t you think it is death’s specter?”

“If it weren’t the end’s shadow, we wouldn’t discover in it beauty’s shadow. If it weren’t death’s specter, we wouldn’t see in it nobility’s specter. The secret is always in death.”

“Why do desert people sing the praises of the end? Why did the forefathers bequeath to us a complete Law in praise of death?”

“Because they, Master, learned from experience that there is nothing so worthy of worship as death. They worshiped it not because it is the desert’s only truth and not because it is the only antidote with which they treated the ills of yearning and the pains of the desert, but the secret, Master, is in their longing for the secret, because death is a secret, and they longed for nothing so much as they longed for the secret.”

The leader tossed out some crumbs and shook off his lap. He followed the effusion of the mirage in the wasteland. He said, “Do you mean they worshiped death, wishing for death, because it would disclose to them the secret of the Spirit World?”

“Now my master is drawing close to the secret.”

“But how would it help them to discover the secret after it was too late?”

“The truth, Master, the truth! Truth is the consolation.”

“Don’t you think it stupid for man to seek death so he can know for certain that beyond the gloom he will meet a god?”

“Do you want them to be satisfied with life in these dead boundaries? Isn’t that more heroic than life in the boundaries of the mute desert?”

“I want them to be satisfied with what they’ve been granted. I want them to be satisfied with life within the boundaries of life.”

“Does my master want a life without truth?”

“Why do you all persist in looking for truth in the Spirit World?”

“Because, Master, that’s the only place that truth exists. The only truth, Master, is in the Spirit World.”

“How harsh that is!”

The leader picked up a pebble and muttered, “How harsh that is.” Throwing the pebble aside, he continued, “Let’s return to the bird. I heard the lads say he doesn’t belong to the tribe of abil-bil birds.”

The diviner descended from his heights and approached the source. From his pocket he drew snares to bag the point. “Whether the bird is an abil-bil or another similar species, according to the Law it is a messenger.”

The leader fell silent. So the diviner continued setting his traps. “The birds have begun to migrate. Since this bird refused to migrate, that is a bad omen, Master.”

The leader’s eye gleamed with a smile. Did the leader smile because he had discovered the site of the trap? Did he smile because he had realized that the sole reason for the diviner’s visit was to continue the previous day’s discussion about the need to migrate? He asked, “How can you expect him to migrate when he’s old? How can you expect him to fly when the earth has tethered him with chains and his wings are broken?”

“The bird is a migratory creature, and a migratory creature must migrate, even if he is old, because he will contravene his nature and contravene the law of things if he doesn’t. Migration is his destiny, Master.”

“But old age cripples the body, addles the mind, and tethers the poor creature to the earth with iron chains. So how can it explore the sky and join the celestial caravan? Search your Law for another path for it; don’t ask the poor creature to oppose the will of our mother, the desert.”

The diviner took another step closer to the site and struck his hands together. He said, “O God of the desert! Does my master think that the bird is this senile? Doesn’t my master see that the bird has refused to fly not because he can’t fly but because he is carrying a prophecy to the encampment?”

Their eyes met. The two men faced off at the mysterious site. They circled round the source that is the only destination for the community of diviners when they embark on their quests. It is a shadowy spring, a melancholy source they refer to in their arcane jargon as a sign.

The diviner saw that the leader had discovered the site and shouted, “Old age is truly a noble homeland, Master, but it’s an ailment that does not yet threaten my master’s body.”

The leader turned his eyes far away. He smiled and returned to the wasteland, to the playful mirage in the wasteland. He smiled for a long time. He smiled because he had discovered the diviner’s secret, his secret reason for visiting. He had known the diviner would arrive shortly. He had known the diviner would come as a messenger from the Council of Wisdom. He had known that they would not let the matter drop easily. He had known that they would come to him individually and in groups, evenings and nights. He had known that they would not oppose him on any matter, but also that they would not yield easily, especially when the matter related to a dictate of the Law, especially when the matter related to a practice that had helped mold them since they were born and had become a religion for them, especially when the matter related to migration. He had excused them, understanding that they were right to struggle desperately to obey a command they had inherited from their grandfathers and had read in their laws, a dictate that had coursed through their blood till it became their life. But he knew as well that they did not know in which land he stood, in which desert he had found himself during recent years, and what it means for a man to discover overnight that everything he has done in life is lost, that everything he should not have done is what he has done in life, and that what he has not done, he will never be able to do, because his time is disappearing faster than he expected, what he thought was life, what he had depended on, had ended before it began, had ended at the time he had planned to begin, indeed, even before he planned to begin. He was discovering that life had passed in the hour he was preparing to begin life — what trivial people call life. Now they wanted him to move about like in the old days. They wanted him to stock up on poems of longing, to set his sights on the stern, shadowy, indifferent horizon and rush off, to dart away toward the horizon in search of what lay beyond the horizon, to hurry off toward the horizon in search of the lost oasis that he knew he would never find. He was duty-bound to hope it existed if he wanted to continue playing, because this was the basis of the game. Whenever the horizon disclosed a void — an expanse, another horizon even less forgiving, even more murky, even more cunningly indifferent — he fought back the lump in his throat, cursed Wantahet both privately and publicly,⁶ and diverted himself with songs of grief, because the nomad contents himself with the Waw he finds in poetry once he discovers that this perfect oasis does not exist on earth. But old age mocks every deception and sees what all nomads fail to see. It sees what the diviner does not see. It sees what the Law itself does not see. This is the secret of old age. This is the secret of the sorrow that the diviner saw in the old man’s eye and called beautiful.

______________

4. In Tamasheq in the original Arabic.

5. Tamasheq for shaykh, old man, leader, or grandfather.

6. The Jenny Master, a trickster figure in Tuareg lore and a passionate advocate for nomadism and for the she-ass — not the camel.