“Didn’t you tell me once that my father came to my house the day I set off to search for him in the desert’s labyrinth?”
“I did not lie.”
“You also said he followed me, to bring me back.”
“I did not lie.”
“But he brought back my mother, not me.”
“If he had not taken your mother, he would never have brought you back. If he had not taken your mother, you would not find yourself striding through the desert on two feet.”
“But how can I have searched for my father throughout the world when he was within arm’s reach?”
“All the things we search for in faraway places are actually within arm’s reach.”
Again she had begun to speak in riddles. Once more this young vixen, who had told me she had learned to speak by learning to listen, had begun to speak in the language of the priestess, with all the certainty of the priestess.
I did not listen, however, for I could not wait to ask, “But by what right did the priest become my father?”
“Priests were created to be fathers. Those men we call our fathers actually aren’t.”
“Then who are the priests? Who are the fathers?”
“The fathers are shadowy figures. The priests are real.”
“If you want me to understand the truth about the priests, then don’t speak to me in the language of the priests.”
“Fathers are always a lie.”
“You’re lying.”
“But the priest is the master of prophecy. We are the children of prophecy. All the children of the tribe are children of prophecy. All the children of the desert are children of prophecy.”
“I’d have to be a priest to understand your riddles about prophecy.”
“That’s why we’ve inherited from the ancients a saying— endorsed by our lost law — that recognizes the mother as the sole parent. We offspring are as lost as the lost law, because we are kin to prophecy on our father’s side and to the desert on our mother’s.”
“I heard my mother say something like that.”
“That’s why, according to the law, you’re not merely a patricide but a deicide.”
“Lie!”
“He who kills prophecy kills the lord.”
“Lie!”
“And that’s not all.”
Through this medium’s eyes I detected a new danger. In the eyes of this she-jinni I beheld a new prophecy. I was shaking and feverish. I was disoriented, but even so I heard correctly what she said next, “You must understand that you killed not only your own father but mine as well.”
“What are you saying?”
She cast her glance far away. She raised her index finger toward the empty space as though pointing out an unknown talisman. Then she bombarded my ears with this painful prophecy, “I’m your sister!”
Although I did not believe this, I did not enquire any further, because my chest felt weighed down. I do not know how much time I spent on that hillock. I also do not know whether it was evening or daytime, sunset, or dawn. I reflected on my reality as a creature that has been abandoned, that is lost, and that will never discover his fatherland or his father. I discovered in my reality every desert son’s true nature, since he must acknowledge his misery at having lost all trace of his paternal lineage. He is destined to fall under customary law, which traces kinship maternally. He has to content himself with his lot, which is identical to that of Anubi.
I decided to flee at once from the tribe, from the desert, and even from myself. Perhaps I could free myself from my destiny. I roamed through the wasteland; I might experience a rebirth in the settlements of the land known as Targa.
I did not feel any bitterness over losing my sense of time nor did I regret losing the savor of days; I remember that I stretched out one day in a solitary place enveloped in darkness and slept as I had never slept before, unaware of the advent of evening or of the morn of the following day.
Part Two Passionate Talk
He said to Adam: “Since you have hearkened to the words of your wife and eaten from the tree I warned you to shun, saying, ‘Don’t eat from it,’ you have brought down a curse upon the earth. You will need to toil every day of your life to wrest a living from it, and it will reward your efforts with thorns and briars. You will eat the grass of the field. By the sweat of your brow will you have bread to eat, until you return to the earth from which you sprang, because you are dirt and to the dirt you return.”
1 First Light
I AWOKE AT SUNRISE and found myself alone, abandoned, and stretched out in a harsh, solitary area into which intruded stubborn spines of sand. It was blocked to the west and north by a desert punctuated by grim mountain cliffs, around the sides of which the sands twisted in relentless swirls. A discrete, early light kissed their peaks, but the tips of the sand drifts were bathed with morning’s flood, and glinting gold specks flashed there.
I awoke but lay quiet for a long time, listening to a stillness that I was prepared to believe — I don’t know why — eternal, devoid of any precursor, the sole beloved ever to share the desert’s solitude, since it came into existence.
Surveying my surroundings, I found no food or water in sight. When I tried to stand, my body felt as heavy as if I had covered incredible distances on foot. On touching my face, I discovered that it was enveloped by a soft mask of skin that resembled a piece of silk. I ran my palm over my chest only to find it clad in soft, rich hide stamped with symbols I did not recognize. My feet were also encased in splendid shoes of costly leather decorated with talismanic charms. I did not feel hungry or thirsty.
Overcoming the heaviness of my body, I regained my feet, got my bearings, and headed east. The golden disk was concealed behind a high ridge of sand. The sandy tentacles with overbearing tops twisted one way and the other, but the valleys between them were grim and uninviting. All the same, I caught sight of a green tangle of plants clinging to the earth, which was strewn with pebbles in places and sand granules in others.
A vast mountain of sand blocked my way. At its foot, I discovered a line of luxuriant plants, massed together. These took the form of mounds, crowned with delicate, pure white florets that responded to the morning breezes by bobbing back and forth in a desperate dance, as if wishing to break free from their roots. They sighed mournfully, affording me companionship in the lonely desolation of the timeless quiet. From the canopy of one I seized a handful of flowers that oozed a white liquid. I sampled a piece of the stalk, testing its flavor with my tongue. The sap was gooey and had a bitter taste.
When I tried to scale the sandy mountain, I discovered its sand was the unstable kind that shifts and rushes downward in a flood, sweeping everything with it. I struggled for a long time and attempted to anchor my hands in the sand, but was always cast back, down to the foot of the mountain. Resolving to outwit it, I relinquished my attempts to climb straight up and edged along sideways, instead, following the protruding veins that lay along its horizontal articulations. These led me to the summit from which I beheld broad plains interspersed with green clusters of trees at four points. Meanwhile, on four sides, sandy ridges also enclosed the plains, which seemed set apart from the desert’s body, which extended and multiplied until it disappeared at what passed for the horizon. To the far southwest, at the point where the intersection of the southern mountain ranges with the western ones should have been visible, there was a cleft, which seemed the sole escape from this mighty fortress contrived by the desert’s cunning.