The piebald opened his jaws as wide as they would go. The outlines of a wicked laugh twinkled in his keen eyes. “I get it,” Ukhayyad also laughed. “You mean to say that females are more beautiful still! No — don’t lie, by God! Women are beautiful, yes. Even lovely. But so are snakes. And like snakes, they bite. You’ve been bitten by one, and look what her venom did to you the last time. Wasn’t that enough? Have some shame — turn your back on the ways of the Devil!”
He stroked the Mahri’s neck and inspected his hide, whispering, “When we get through this ordeal, we’ll begin something new. We’ll learn how to dance. Purebred camels must know how to dance, and you have never tried. It’ll make you forget all about love. Trust me. You’ll soar through the air, and sail through the heavens. It’s more dignified to see God in heaven, isn’t it, than to chase after silly she-camels on earth?”
He sat in front of the camel in the open desert, his hands wrapped around his knees. “There’s no way around it,” he said. “Without purification, you will never attain beauty and never meet God. Without purity, nothing. I admit it is a nasty business, but we have no other choice.”
Then summer arrived and with it came time to perform all manner of work. Ukhayyad disappeared, using the pretext of traveling to the oasis of Gariyat to retrieve camels that had strayed there. He left the piebald in the hands of executioners. Only Sheikh Musa was aware that Ukhayyad had left, not to chase after camels, but to flee from the appointed day.
The day after he departed, the men gathered around the poor camel. They spent the morning struggling to remove the scourge from his body. They spent the afternoon, in accordance with custom, making the camel swallow his own testicles.
When Ukhayyad returned from his journey, he found the Mahri anxious. He stroked the animal’s body and massaged the mended skin. The piebald’s eyes were swollen with sadness. He led the camel into the southern pastures where they could be alone. Ukhayyad took some barley out of his sack and held the grain in his hands. The camel turned away. Ukhayyad followed after him with the food, but the animal stubbornly refused his advances. “I know why you’re so rough with me,” Ukhayyad said, returning the grain to his knapsack. “You’re angry because I left you and went off. I did not abandon you. We had agreed to it together. We’ve guaranteed the return of your color. Now, you’ll return to being a piebald like before. Aren’t you looking forward to seeing yourself dappled, beautiful, and rare?”
The piebald’s eyes welled up with tears and Ukhayyad hugged him. They stood a while embracing in the infinite expanse just as the night began to thicken.
12
The gods do not forgive those who break promises.
But the piebald had not forgiven him. The humiliation in the dancing arena was a sign that he had not. Had Ukhayyad misjudged things? Camels do not forget wrongs. They are like slaves — and you had better watch out if you mistreat them.
Instead of celebrating him, that damned poetess had composed a nasty ode skewering the camel. “His color is spotted, but his mind is rotted,” was how it began. Within two days, echoes of the poem had traveled throughout the entire encampment. He would cut out that wretched woman’s tongue and give her a taste of his whip.
One day soon after the dance fiasco, he took the purebred to the pasture. There, away from everything else, Ukhayyad scolded him. He made the camel kneel under the lote tree and began to shout, gesturing into the air with his whip: “What did I do to you to deserve this from you? You should be thanking me, not trying to humiliate me. Just look at your colors — you’re even more dappled than before. If I hadn’t rescued you, your splendor would have disappeared altogether.”
The Mahri protested, turning his head askance, but Ukhayyad blocked him. “Don’t try to get away,” he yelled angrily. “We’re settling our accounts today. Didn’t you hear the poem that wicked poetess composed about you? She has been watching us for a long time, waiting for us to make a mistake. I commissioned her to sing your praises, and she insisted on seeing you dance before she did. Then you decided to spite me during the dance — and see what happened? She composed a poem ridiculing us instead! Are you happy now?”
He rose to his feet, clapped his hands as if to say “I’m done,” and wandered across the open desert space, kicking away rocks with his sandals. “I’m so stupid. So stupid,” he repeated. “Instead of paying our debt as quickly as possible, we argue and fight. We need to make good on the promise we made. Have you forgotten the pledge we made?” But it was Ukhayyad, and not the Mahri, who had forgotten their promise.
Still, Ukhayyad had not altogether forgotten that he had pledged to sacrifice a camel at the shrine. In fact, he had purchased a purebred camel from a sheikh who was emigrating to Mecca. Ukhayyad traded a splendid Touat kilim rug for the animal. The sheikh had come from Marrakesh, saying that he had decided to leave this world behind. He said he wanted to spend the rest of his days in Mecca where he might live near the Prophet’s grave. The tribe slaughtered a goat for the man and feted him for three days. He cast off the rest of his possessions and sold off the last of his animals. The camel had been given as a gift to Ukhayyad, the ascetic sheikh insisted. He had not bartered the camel for the rug, he said, but had accepted it because he needed a prayer rug.
Ukhayyad recalled the promise he uttered at the tomb of the ancients: “O lord of the desert, god of the ancients, I pledge to bring you a fat camel, sound of body and mind.” But that camel was not yet fat, nor yet of sound mind and body. Ukhayyad decided to wait for the animal to mature and fatten. At the time of his humiliation in the dance arena, the young purebred was still grazing hungrily in the southern pastures. Ukhayyad recognized that what had taken place was a sign of something. The lord of the desert was announcing his presence and warning him — he was demanding that the offering should not be delayed any longer.
Thereafter, other events occurred. Fate brought with it carelessness, and Ukhayyad’s life took another course. There was nothing strange about this turn at all. Like prophecies, signs flicker into view only for one moment before they disappear and are gone forever.
13
Marry her and be damned.”
This was the message Ukhayyad’s father sent him through Sheikh Musa. He had not expected this sort of response, and it filled his eyes with a cloud of rage. Sheikh Musa tried to warn him. “Gently,” he said as he shook his finger. “Fathers may speak to sons however they like, but a son cannot answer his father in kind.” Ukhayyad swallowed his anger and rose to hide his humiliation in the desert.
The reason for all this was that an Eve had joined the tribe to help herd the skinny she-goats. The gorgeous girl came with her kin from Aïr, fleeing the drought that had gripped that part of the desert over the last five years. While unmistakable signs of affliction showed on the miserable beasts of her tribe, her beauty remained in full bloom. Not even the dusty road had stripped her of her splendor. Besides her beauty, she had a light spirit and a great deal of charm. It was this charm that slew Ukhayyad the first time they met.
Beware the charms of women! Their allure is a mystery — it is as plain and simple as the desert itself and yet there is nothing more obscure or indecipherable. Their charm is like the murmuring of jinn on Jebel Hasawna — you hear it, but cannot make out the words, or you hear the sounds, but their meaning escapes you. A look might suggest a woman’s charm — or an offhand smile, passing glance, shake of the head, or the way a word is spoken. Or it might be nothing more than a musical ring in her voice. The allure of women was something created just to slay men like Ukhayyad.