New Waw, Saharan Oasis

V THE SUCCESSOR

1

They came that day too.

They came the way they had always come; Emmamma led the way, grasping his polished staff. The diviner walked beside him as he usually did. They came swathed in flowing, lustrous garments accented by bands of blue cloth — the mark of special occasions — one above the veil and the second over the shoulders. They came as they were wont to come whenever the specter of an important affair hovered over the tribe. They came as they were wont to come when the awe-inspiring drum, which was decorated with designs of the ancients, was struck in the leader’s tent, when they had contacted each other, assembled, and come in response to the leader’s appeal. They came today again while fear circulated and fright was on the prowl in the settlement. Then young warriors, old codgers, women, and children emerged from their dwellings and stood humbly by the entrances to their tents as if waiting for something dreadful to happen or expecting an earthquake. People who have savored a sedentary life and have yielded to the land’s temptation also grow accustomed to viewing the noble blue-clad council, which looks black from a distance, as a council of crows and a threat to their sedentary life: a convulsion, a blotting out of indolence, an end to muddling through, and the beginning of every futile deed.

They came today as well, and their arrival frightened the tribe, even though it varied today from those over the past decades. It was different because these elders had before always visited an inhabited residence; today they found the leader’s tent vacant.

The immortal Emmamma stopped at the tent’s entrance to release a long moan of sorrow, to emit a savage groan of farewell, the groan of a dying man, the distressing groan that ends the life of many people, a groan elders that day heard as a lethal lament. Tears flowed from their eyes, and their hearts bled grievously. The venerable elder swayed like someone in an ecstatic trance. So the diviner supported him on one side and Imaswan on the other.

The aged man rapped the tent pole at the entrance with his burnished stick and shouted, “How many times, House, have we entered to find you inhabited? Today we come and find you vacant?”

He released a moan of lament once more. Imaswan protested, “Noble Grandfather, this isn’t appropriate!”

Emmamma wiped the tears from his eyes and from his eyelids, which were lined with rugged wrinkles where tears collected. He retorted, “This is appropriate; this isn’t appropriate! This is done; this isn’t done! Is this all we know how to say in the tribe’s language? Haven’t we killed the leader himself with such talk? When he tried to convince us that a poet is ill-suited to serve as leader, didn’t we tell him, ‘This isn’t appropriate’? Didn’t we tell him when his heart went pit-a-pat long ago and he wanted to marry the poet, ‘This isn’t appropriate’? When he wanted to help us and thought we should tarry in a bountiful land, which has nourished and sheltered us, didn’t we say, ‘This isn’t appropriate’? So why shouldn’t we admit that we’re the ones who killed him with a dagger called ‘This isn’t appropriate’?”

The diviner said, “It would be better for my master to preside over the council and thus honor the master of the house, because the leader will continue to fret uncomfortably in his new home and won’t rest until we finish choosing a successor for the master of this house.”

Everyone murmured his agreement. The diviner seated the venerable elder near the tent pole at the center of the assembly and sat down beside him to his right. The venerable elder swayed again and said, “We have sought refuge with you from iniquity, and you have kept us safe. We have appealed to you for judgment, and you have treated us fairly. We have relied on you, and you have fed us. House, where has your master gone? Where has our master vanished?”

He tried to trace some characters on the ground but found he was shaking too hard. He thrust both hands in the dirt (the way sorcerers do when they fear some evil) and sighed. This wasn’t merely a sigh; it was another moan, a deep groan that poets use to express painful sorrow and that a sage uses to extinguish anguish: “Hi … yi … yi … yi … yeh.” Then everyone repeated this moan after him. The noble elders repeated it as if responding to a mysterious call. This emerged from their chests like the groan of a dying person taking his last breath.

2

The sorrow did not dissipate and, beneath the ashes, the glowing ember of pain did not die out. The elders’ sense of decorum, however, did not prevent them from yielding to their sorrows for a long time. They substituted for the story of parting the narrative of memorable deeds and replaced chanting with panegyric. They said he had not merely been a leader; he had been a brother to every member of the tribe. They said he had lived like an orphan, lacking family and relatives. To their amazement they hadn’t realized, until they lost him, that he had lost his mother and father, his brother and sister, and his friend and consort. They said he had been born alone, had lived alone, and had left the life of the tribe alone. They said he was the only leader in the tribe’s history not to have privileged his own opinion, not to have rejected a request from the council, and not to have made a decision without recourse to it. They said in the tribe’s history he was the only leader who from the beginning had dedicated his life to the tribe. Even so, the council had been stingy with him about everything, refusing to back down and grant his least request. They commented that his parents had been too stingy to grant him a sister who might have given birth to a nephew to serve as his successor and that they, the council members, had been too stingy to grant him a wife to bear a son to serve as his heir when he lacked a sister’s son. They concluded by acknowledging that their misfortune on losing him would be all the greater because they wouldn’t be able to find a suitable replacement for his eminence. Emmamma swayed once more; this venerable elder almost led them back to the land they had fled. Then the diviner intervened and told them they should sacrifice an animal on behalf of the deceased man’s soul. This suggestion pleased them. They joyously expressed their approval, and the slaves rushed to bring a black goat to the awe-inspiring tomb.

3

They slaughtered the black goat and brought a boy with a thick shock of hair dividing his head in two parts, like a cock’s comb. They plunged his hands in the sacrificial offering’s blood and dragged him to the tomb, where they placed his hands on its stones. His ten fingers made the sign that had been passed down through the generations. With this sign, recorded in blood, the fingers said, “This is our blood, Master, that has been redeemed by the blood of our son. This is our son’s blood, Master, that has been redeemed by the black goat’s blood.” The noble elders stood nearby and humbly recited this talisman: “This is our blood. This is our blood. This is our blood.” They were silent for a short time. Then they picked up the second talisman. “This is our son’s blood. This is our son’s blood. This is our son’s blood.” Then they paused again before competing with each other to recite the final talisman three times as well: “This is the blood of the black goat, our sacrificial offering to you. …” Next they knelt, swayed, and sang near the leader’s head, the maxim of their forefathers: “Ikrahkay akahal, tamosad akedag. You have become a possession of every time and a sovereign over every place.”

They chanted till their eyes swam with tears. Then they sat down to savor the grilled meat and to debate the question of a successor. Imaswan pointed out that tribes normally chose the leader’s sister’s son as the leader’s successor and that if no nephew was available, then the leader’s son, and when no son was available, the lot fell to the wisest sage. Emmamma, however, left his homeland, which encompassed all lands because it was the homeland of every space, and liberated himself from the time of every time, because it was the time of all times. He returned to the desert, to the tribe, to the council, and to the meeting near the tomb. With his forefinger he cautioned Imaswan and said in jest, “I see you have jumped to a conclusion. Allow me to correct this maxim for you. The Law states that tribes choose the diviner if the leader leaves behind no nephew or son. The diviner appears in the dictum before the wisest sage. Or, has memory failed me once again, causing me to see what is invisible, hear what is inaudible, and say what is unspoken?”

The diviner smiled and then remarked with a diviner’s cunning: “The Law never went beyond sons. The Law left the sages’ hands free to choose the successor if the leader lacked sons. In the opinion of other tribes, Anhi washed its hands of the entire affair if the leader lacked a sister’s son. Then councils chose a person from outside the leader’s family, even if he had sons. With regard to the diviner, all the laws have established that his place is beside the leader, not as the leader. This has been true since the earliest times. Why would our master Emmamma attempt to evade this practice and recite maxims to us from the Lost Book, ones that we have never read or heard of before today?”⁸

The elderly man swayed right and left and stared dejectedly at the diviner, but his was a look that spoke more of the impetuousness of his inner boy than of old age’s fatigue. He asked, “Haven’t you heard that the Book said, ‘The wisest of the wise,’ or has my hearing betrayed me once again? Do you retain such a good opinion of Emmamma, who long ago succumbed to dementia and whose primary homeland years ago became forgetfulness, that you would have him assume charge of the tribe and of you?”

Imaswan replied, “A sage whose homeland has become forgetfulness is easier to bear than idiots who boast about being intellectuals and who — if time should frown and danger lurk — threaten our lives and those of the tribe with their minds.”

The hero Ahallum interjected, “Our only option is to allow the Spirit World to guide us by casting lots.”

But Emmamma gruffly rebutted him, “No, let’s seek the advice of the commander.”

More than one voice asked, “The commander?”

Emmamma, who was preparing to return to his homeland, said, “The leader! We must seek the leader’s advice.”

Glancing at one another, they embraced this idea joyfully and said, “You’re right. You’re right. Why didn’t we think of the leader at the outset?”

4

In the tent, the women sat in a circle around the virgin. They washed her virginal body with precious cologne and rubbed her with salves prepared from retem blossoms. They combed her hair into splendid plaits. Then the older women trilled jubilantly, announcing the good news that she was to become the leader’s bride.

They brought her out of the tent at dusk but only reached the hill crowned by the tomb shortly before the sun disappeared. The older women escorted her with their ululations and sad ballads. On the way, the poetess sang verses about yearning, death, and marriage. Her companions repeated the heartrending refrains after her, and then ecstasy seized hold of the young men, who trembled, wept, and leapt out of their dwellings to follow this noble cortege, without daring to draw a single step closer. The procession crossed the level, open space spread with depressing gray stones that had witnessed the fires of their ancient forefathers, because these were piles of more ancient gravestones. Their ancestors had stacked these stones when they cremated their dead. Time, however, had scattered these stones, and the centuries had leveled them with the ground. Then the wind had turned them to their original course, lining them up across the space and arranging them in the wasteland, in the Hammada, which was well endowed with rocks, returning them to their original condition. Save for their color, save for their mysterious darkness, save for the coat of ash cloaking these stones, no one would have realized that this area was the exact location of an awe-inspiring cemetery of the ancients.

When the procession neared the tomb, the women’s steps slowed, because the original rites that prescribed the path of the bride to her fiancé’s dwelling also prescribed the law for her progress there and decreed that the female should model her departure from her home on the first time a female had set forth resolutely and been spirited away from her father’s dwelling to her fiancé’s abode. In this way, hesitation became the norm for the bride’s procession. The female took one step toward her destiny and one step back out of fear and wariness. She ventured forward, because she knew that it was inevitable that she would set forth one day. She proceeded slowly, dawdled, and felt regretful, because she knew she would never go back. Then she asked the group to assist her with poetry’s treasures and to help her in her crisis with sad songs appealing to the fiancé to be kind to his bride. These were songs that encouraged the groom to view his bride as a pitiable creature kidnapped against her wishes from her family’s home and that encouraged the bride to play the earth for her spouse, who would represent the sky for her.

The cortege reached the tomb’s perimeter, and the council of wise elders sent a messenger to represent them and negotiate with the women. These discussions began in veiled language as the women chanted many demands on behalf of the virgin. Then the envoy would rush back to the council with these before returning to the cortege, saying each time that the groom’s spokesmen had pledged to fulfill these demands and that they would even build for the virgin, should she want it, a house located between the earth and the sky.

The women gained courage from this and took a step closer to the tomb and then more steps. Finally the women knelt and wept grievously before they handed over their treasure, placing the bride’s hand in the diviner’s.

5

The wedding ceremonies ended.

The prophetic rituals commenced.

The crowd dispersed, and the noble elders went their separate ways. Inside the tent that had been erected over the tomb, the diviner sat mumbling secret talismans while clutching the beauty’s wrist. He began his instructions in a mysterious voice. “Every woman will find herself wailing in a corner one day while a man holds her wrist. The beauty is luckier than all the other girls because she has been chosen to enter the leader’s eternal home.”

The young woman’s wail grew louder. She muttered softly, “But I’m afraid.”

“A young woman has a right to be afraid on entering the house of a man who holds her wrist, because man is the spouse of pain. But what right does the beauty have to be afraid when she sleeps beside a man who has dozed off eternally?”

The girl’s wail died away, and her virginal breathing became more regular. In a voice like the wind whispering in the retem groves, she murmured, “I’m afraid of the dark. I’m afraid of being alone. I’m afraid … of the tomb!”

“Solitude is a necessary precondition for prophecy, my daughter. Don’t forget that you will bring a prophecy back to the tribe tomorrow.”

She sighed deeply, as if relieved of a burden, but her wrist continued to tremble in the diviner’s hand.

The diviner returned to his instructions. “You will lie down soon and rest your head on the stone of the sanctuary. Have no fear, because I’ll be near you. Know that there is no reason for you to fear loneliness or solitude or the Spirit World in a place the diviner frequents. I will be near you, because I am a diviner, and the diviner is destined not to sleep. You will feel drowsy. When you sleep, you will hear a commotion. Don’t be afraid then. After the commotion, the bee will come. You will hear the bee buzzing, but don’t be afraid. Once this buzzing ceases, our master will arrive immediately. He will come to speak. Listen very carefully to what he says. Listen and remember every word. His remarks may seem strange or cryptic to you or even laughable, but beware: Don’t forget or disdain what he says. Don’t forget what is said. Don’t underrate an expression that may seem devoid of meaning, because words you think lack meaning may be more important than those you find meaningful. So beware!”

The virgin whispered with a virgin’s curiosity, “But does my master think that my master will show himself?”

“He may if he feels like it, but what’s important is what he says. Remember that the bee’s buzzing will precede it. In any event, pay attention!”

6

The diviner arrived at first light and was surprised to find people hovering around the tent. He assumed they were curiosity seekers from the hoi polloi. When he made out the features of the hero, however, he shouted, “I thought only diviners were entitled to stay up nights; reading the news in the hordes of stars is their calling.”

The hero jokingly replied, “But my master forgets that the tribes don’t wake the diviner when danger threatens the campsite. Instead they rush to the hero’s tent.”

The diviner inquired anxiously, “Danger?”

“The bride of our master, the leader, has had a mishap.”

“A mishap?”

“Her body is feverish, there is a crazed look in her eyes, and her breathing is so labored she seems to be taking a bitter last gasp.”

The diviner rushed at the group blocking the tent’s entrance. They parted ranks for him. Inside, women were gathered around the girl, and a few old men sat off in a corner. The tent’s air was stifling. Foul-smelling, acrid salves mixed with the stench of suspect herbs the old women had squirreled away in their belongings for a long time — the way amulets are tucked away — till they had acquired the musty smell of old bones burning. The only scent he could identify in this upsetting potpourri was wormwood. He felt suffocated by the smoke, and the burning incense made him dizzy. He confronted the women and scolded them loudly, “Stop this! Get this out of here!”

They made a path for him through the group, and he scrutinized the girl. Her face’s pallor resembled a corpse’s, but her whole body was burning with fever. She was shaking, stretching, and trembling violently. Thick foam oozed from her lips, and trails of saliva ran from her mouth. Her charming plaits hung loosely down, and her braids had divided into matted little hairs covered with dust.

The women surrounded her. One morose old lady was pressing the girl’s body with thin, twiglike hands crisscrossed by many braids of veins. By the girl’s head stood another equally stern woman from whose hands dangled a ceramic censer. Long use had marked it and the burning incense had charred it, turning it as black as a piece of coal. Lethal, legendary fragrances emanated from this pottery vessel. The sullen woman went back and forth between the hearth at the entrance and the group of women each time the incense burned out.

He shot a threatening glance at this woman and said in a harsh voice, “Go away!”

The old woman took a step back and replied just as threateningly, ‘‘Would the diviner interfere when he knows better than anyone that when morning comes and the bride leaves her husband’s tent she becomes the women’s responsibility?”

“But the husband whose home the virgin has left isn’t just any husband. When the virgin leaves the dwelling of a slumbering leader she becomes the diviner’s responsibility, because you know that the fruit of the union in this case is a prophecy, not a child.”

“See what the diviner’s prophecy has done to the tribe’s virgin! She went to seek a prophecy and returned from the Spirit World crazed.”

“People like you can become crazed even when loitering in the open countryside — why should you criticize the possession of someone begging for a prophecy from a man who resides in the Spirit World?”

“But she, Master, will die. The girl will soon join the leader and live in the tomb if you don’t bring a sorcerer to free her from captivity by the jinn.”

“Has she said anything? Anyone who got here before me must repeat every word she said, even if it seems nonsense or idle chatter.”

“She has been raving; the poor dear hasn’t stopped raving since her first scream woke us.”

The diviner leaned over the old woman’s head till the end of his turban touched the covers. In a self-controlled voice like a whisper he asked, “What did she say while she was raving? If you collect your wits and remember one statement from what you call raving, I will reward you handsomely.”

The old woman’s eyes glowed in the firelight. They gleamed mysteriously, and her upper lip, which was a network of wrinkles, rose. She remarked, “It’s really hard to recall a dying person’s delirious words, the words of a person who has left the land of games and dolls and reached the far side of the valley.”

The diviner drew closer to the old woman’s ear and insisted in a voice like a hiss, “In delirium the secret is concealed. In the nonsensical raving of a possessed person is hidden the prophecy.”

He whistled and added with all the certainty of a diviner, “In the prattle of a possessed person is hidden the supreme prophecy. So watch out!”

The old woman was silent. She lowered her eyelids, which were also covered with wrinkles. But her hands never stopped massaging the girl’s body. Finally she spoke; she spoke without opening her eyes. She spoke like a real diviner: “Tekrahame eddaragh.”

She stopped. Her face’s wrinkles trembled and its folds expanded. The veins of her slender neck bulged and became a web of veins. She said with the girl’s voice, with the voice of prophecy: “Tekrahame eddaragh. Ekaoankrahagh ammutagh. You possessed me when I was alive. Now that I’m dead, I’ll possess you.”

The diviner repeated numbly, “Tekrahame eddaragh. Ekaoankrahagh ammutagh.”

He repeated this prophecy once, twice, several times. Then he straightened himself and lifted his head to look up. As if addressing the heavens he said, “The prophecy! This is the prophecy. We slaughter sacrificial offerings and race off to search for it across the generations, forgetting that it lies between the lips of a possessed person or is hidden in the mouth of a creature we call crazed, for what would become of the desert’s tribes if the desert lacked prophecy? What would happen to settlements if the desert lost its leaders and if leaders from the realm of the Spirit World didn’t send prophecies via the tongues of possessed people to provide illumination for their tribes’ path during the leaders’ occultation? Have you finally heard your leader’s voice? Isn’t this his language? Didn’t he always like to speak in riddles?”

He moved to the other corner, where the elders were huddled, and said as though addressing all of them or no one at all — because at that moment he was preoccupied by addressing the tribes of the Unknown, “Isn’t what you just heard the wise answer befitting a leader? Hasn’t he told you something he wasn’t able to tell you while among you? Didn’t we possess him while he was alive? Didn’t we prevent him from marrying his beloved poet? Didn’t we require him to accept the position of leader, which was a shackle for him? Didn’t we visit him with groups of people to force him to take trips through the wasteland against his will? Weren’t we too stingy to let him enjoy the bird’s song? Do you doubt now that the voice we heard is your former leader’s? Will you doubt again the power of the dead to carry out a threat? Do you intend to disdain a promise? Or will you heed the advice of wisdom and accept the leadership of a man whom you possessed while he was alive and who has sworn to possess all of you now from behind the curtain? Do you still doubt that your leader will remain your leader forever?”

He turned to the crowd gathered at the tent’s entrance and screamed a command: “Slaughter a sacrificial beast! How can a prophecy be taken seriously unless the blood of sacrificial offerings is shed? How do you expect the goddess of this prophecy to recover from the grip of the Spirit World before she’s been washed by blood? Bring a black goat if you want the girl to recover. Bring your blackest goats, if you want a real cure that has nothing in common with grannies’ nasty incense.”

The vassals and slaves rushed off and brought back from the open country the blackest goats. They handed the diviner a bronze dagger. The diviner rushed at the cluster of women and ordered that the sacrificial offering be flung beside the body of the possessed woman. He recited ancient talismans of which no one ever understood a single word. Passing generations had labeled these “arcane” because of their age. They were said to be puzzling because they had been written in the first language, which had become obsolete, vanished, and been forgotten, bequeathing to the tribes only some mystifying words spoken as talismans that not even the diviner himself understood.

He drew the dagger from the scabbard, which was also adorned with talismans. The dagger’s blade shone in the firelight and its path traced a design in the void. The soothsayer brought the thirsty blade down on the victim’s throat, and blood gushed out copiously. The animal emitted a death rattle and choked with the pains of its dying gasp. More blood flowed from its throat. The blood splattered and stained the maiden’s throat, nape, and face. Her body underwent a transformation. The overstressed frame began to relax, the tension left her facial muscles, the possessed look left her eyes, the foam ceased oozing from her mouth, and her breathing became more regular and regained its lost harmony.

A profound stillness settled over the miserable body, and her lips muttered in a sleepy daze, “Tekrahame eddaragh. Ekaoankrahagh ammutagh.”

Outside the tent, in the arc of the Eastern horizon, a newborn firebrand appeared, signaling the birth of a new dawn. The diviner muttered, “You’re right. Like any other people, we understand nothing about our situation; but we do know that truly no one is better suited to succeed the leader than the leader himself.”

______________

8. Anhi and Lost Book are other ways of referring to al-Namus, the Law.