I crossed over the northern hills to circle back on the herd from the spines of sand, but the mires slowed my pace. I did not reach the lower valleys until late that afternoon. The sky had cleared, although the shells of a few clouds loitered in the void. In the valleys, moist vapors continued to rise, carrying to my nostrils the earth’s prophetic counsel. Looking down over the depression below me, I spotted the herd grazing in its hollow. I fell to my knees and watched from my vantage point.
The gazelles were roaming peacefully, munching on plants as dry as chaff down to their roots, since they had appealed for sustenance to an earth reduced to powder by the intense drought. The gazelles lowered their heads to pluck at the stalks and then began to glance around nervously, as if sensing danger. They turned to the right and left and kept flicking their tails, another sign they thought danger was nigh.
Some of the fawns bounded hither and yon, while others were busy drawing milk from their mothers’ teats. Males with horns haughtily patrolled the circumference, not stooping to nibble the grass. Instead, they stood guard over the herd, earnestly endeavoring to protect it. I watched a male that kept staring at my hill, as if he had found me out. Then I saw the prophecy in his eyes, despite his arrogance. I saw the prophetic message in his stance, physique, build, coloring, posture, nobility, and in his eyes, which gazed into the void of eternity, staring at the spirit world, which I could not see. Was it beauty? Was this the beauty that had disowned me and was too hardhearted to pardon me? How could I live without beauty? How could beauty be retrieved?
I crept on all fours across the top of the hill and continued in the same fashion down its flank. I approached the nearest doe and gazed into her eyes. She stared back at me, stopped chewing, and stamped the earth with her hoof. I used my eyes to show her my affection. I entreated her with my eyes. I told her I was the same creature who had played with her the day before and who had shared her hiding place this very day, but she rejected me. She kicked the ground with her front hoof. Then she bolted, and the herd bolted with her. They shot off like an arrow in the air and vanished from sight. This was how I realized that my tie to the herd had been severed. I admitted to myself that I had not merely lost beauty but had emerged as beauty’s eternal foe. Still, I did not capitulate.
I left the gazelles, resolving to try my luck with the nation of Barbary sheep. I galloped across the ravine, traversed the valleys, and then plunged into the muddy wallows of the plains, as if pursued by a demon from the spirit world. I fell many times, and my feet sank into the mud up to my knees. I do not know how I reached the bare, rocky area adjacent to the southern mountain’s cliff face, which was cloaked by sandy deposits that twisted like serpents’ bodies. Apparently my struggle through the mires had transformed me into a monster uglier than any other, for the sight of me caused the herds of Barbary sheep to bolt from the mountain’s foot and to gallop en masse uphill. I scaled the cliff face behind them, as if possessed, and did not slow my pace until I caught up with a pregnant ewe, whose progress was hampered by the creature she bore in her belly. As she raced higher, she stepped on a friable layer of rock that time had weakened. Her two rear hooves slipped so that her belly hit the ground, and she began to slide back. She attempted to stop her fall with her front hooves but failed. Then she tried to save herself with her head, planting her muzzle in crevices between brittle layers of stone, but she could not hold on and continued to slide ever lower in a slow, grievous descent. I reached her, or more precisely she reached me, for her descent rather than my effort to catch her placed her before me. I seized her rear hoof, gasping to catch my breath, but she stamped her hoof in a murderous way to free herself. I recklessly grabbed hold of her hoof with both hands. She was quiet then only because she was too weak to resist, not because she felt reassured. She turned her head toward me, and in her eyes I perceived not only dust, mucous, and grains of sand but terror, revulsion, and agony.
I was so hurt by the agony visible in her weeping eyes that a tear sprang from my eye too. I massaged her body, which was shaking violently. Seeking a way to regain her trust, I whispered to her, in Tuareg, “It’s me. Have you forgotten me?”
Her response, however, was a rude kick to my right cheek. Then she struggled to break free. She succeeded and began bravely climbing higher, but the eroding layers of rock failed her once more, and she slid back down to find herself in my grasp again. Then she bleated desperately before turning toward me. I could read in her eyes a plea and an admission of impotence. She collapsed on her right side and gazed at me in despair. I stroked her neck to reassure her but noticed that her misery continued to show in her eyes. She was allowing me to touch her only because she was too weak to resist, not because she liked me. I wondered what secret had separated me from these docile creatures, which only the day before had been my family, my race, and my clan. The only answer I could find to this puzzle was the hunk of meat. Had I been transformed, in one fell swoop, into a predator in their eyes? Was I a monster that had denied his true nature by swallowing the morsel and had then become a different creature that deserved to be shunned?
The sheets of crumbling rock collapsed under our combined weight, and we tumbled downhill. I found myself hugging her body with both hands as we fell. I put my arms around her neck, which I pressed against mine. I sensed the moisture of her snot on my face, her breathing in my ear, her heartbeats in my heart, and the pulsing fetus in her belly with my pulse. We were united during our descent, for I felt she was part of me and I part of her. I regained my sense of wellbeing and composure, since I had regained my feeling of affiliation.
The rocks scraped my skin grievously, and I bled profusely. I did not feel the pain, however, until some time after we landed. The trip down did not take long, but it was long enough for that emotion I learned priests call “happiness” to be sparked for a few moments in my soul. This flighty emotion does not tarry with us long. A boulder blocked our path and brought us to a halt. When we came to a stop, our union terminated and a painful estrangement ensued. Our bodies separated, and exile reasserted its sovereignty over my world. The ewe kicked me in the chest with her two front hooves and forced me, against my will, to release my hold on her neck. She shook herself free and rose to her four feet to confront me. She panted. From her nostrils she discharged dust, mixed with drops of the snot that had spattered over me. She glared at my face. She stared at my eyes, at my pupils, and at whatever lay behind my pupils. She saw, or so it seemed, everything in my eyes. The slow deliberation with which she backed away revealed her terror, alarm, and revulsion. Without meaning to, I crawled toward her. I crept after her to reclaim her. I crawled toward her to restore our harmony and to recreate our bond. I stretched out my hand, both my hands, as if begging, but she backed away from me with a strange zeal, never ceasing to stare at my eyes with that terrifying look.
I trailed after her. I found myself pulled toward her. I could not bear to be separated from her. I could not stand to be parted from her. She continued to retreat. She backed until a boulder blocked her from the rear. Her pupils narrowed. She was swept by a fear greater than any I had ever witnessed. It was a mixture of despair, grief, and impotence. When she opened her eyes, a liquid flowed from them. I saw it glide down her muzzle till drops fell on the rocks of the cliff face. She closed her eyes and began to tremble once more. She shook violently before reopening them. Then I detected a new gleam, a different one, a look of genuine determination and of the courage a creature feels when it decides to terminate a problem and to be heroic. Then … suddenly, she sprang. She shot toward me in a lethal leap, which I dodged only at the last second, by tumbling over backwards. Then I saw her bound into the air and disappear behind the boulder. Before I came to terms with what had happened I heard the heavy crash of her body against the earth. Leaping up, I discovered that only the boulder that had stopped our descent had prevented our conjoined bodies from falling into an abyss. My eyes searched for her from my lofty perch but could not make her out among the rocks below. I bounded down the cliff face, although my progress was hampered by rocks I repeatedly had to sidestep. Eventually I tripped over a stone, fell to the ground, and began to roll down the hill. I tumbled a long way. I tumbled the whole way down till I reached the chasm’s floor. My limbs were bathed in blood, but I felt numb all over. As I stood above her body, I saw that, although she was still breathing, she was dying. Her swollen belly rose and fell. Blood trickled from her muzzle and flowed over the rocks of the pit. Blood also spouted from her rump. She bellowed profoundly while the sides of her abdomen stretched taut and contracted. She discharged a lot of mucous and blood, before discharging the fetus in one fell swoop.