Ukhayyad remembered his wife’s ambiguous hint, and the hidden hatred it concealed. A woman despises nothing as much as she despises a failure or a man convinced that he is a failure. Toward such a man, she can be openly hostile, even if he is her most intimate relation. How brutal woman can be! My God — where had her charms gone? Where was her poetry, her spark? He asked one of the peasants for food, but the man swore the same thing. When times get tough, all men make oaths and then break them. The peasants were terrified of the future, of the unknown, of the surprises war would bring.
Ukhayyad sat for a long time on the edge of the water channel. Then he got up to leave. But he had only gone a short distance when the peasant caught up to him. Tears glimmered in the man’s eyes. He opened his hands to reveal a few dry dates. Three, maybe four dates. The man said, “These are from my children. They are for your child. I know you have a boy.”
The man raised his face and completed the gesture by addressing his words toward heaven: “Lord, what sins have these children committed?”
Ukhayyad studied the four dates for a few moments. Tears welled in his eyes too. He hid them with his veil and hid the dates in his pocket. Before disappearing into the date grove, Ukhayyad heard the peasant cry out, “Why don’t you sell the Mahri? Why should a man like you starve when he owns a Mahri like yours?”
Ukhayyad froze. How dare he? Did the ignorant man suppose the piebald was merely a beast? Would he have Ukhayyad eat the flesh of his brother? He began to regret having taken the dates from him. He would give them back. He had to respond to the insult by returning them. People were impossible to deal with — they give generously to you with one hand, and stab you with another. But Ukhayyad did not give the dates back. He could not bring himself to go back. The memory of his child’s cries at home forced him to swallow the insult. The boy had been born sickly like Ukhayyad’s mother — skinny and pale, weak in heart and body, beset by sorrow. Since his birth, he had never once smiled. He did nothing but cry. The sound of a home filled with crying children is the only thing that can drive a free man to sell his purebred mount at the public market.
That night, Ayur stepped up her campaign against him, building upon what the peasant had said, “We will not starve to death as long as that Mahri wanders freely in front of our home.” This was the last thing he had expected her to say. A well-born woman would never ask for Mahri flesh, even if she were dying of hunger. What kind of woman would crave Mahri flesh?
She was silent for a moment, then followed with another thrust of the knife: “We have eaten nothing but alfalfa for the past few days. Like sheep.”
He tried to choke down the pain but could not. He leaped up and sarcastically said, “How do you expect us to go into the desert to use those three bullets if we have nothing to ride?” He could not escape the contempt he felt toward the woman, toward himself, toward children, toward the whole world. From the moment they emerge from their mother’s bellies, humans never truly enjoy a single moment in peace. As soon as they put one calamity behind them, they greet the next. At first they must struggle against the drought, then against the Italians. Then they have to go from the pangs of thirst to the torture of hunger. From the scoldings of fathers to the resentment of wives. From the harshness of the desert outside to the ulcers that burned inside the belly. That is how it is — each thing in its own turn. Yes, the troubles of the outside world might subside — but only so that troubles at home might begin.
In the grove, he vomited. Whenever contempt raged in his insides, this happened. He did not vomit food, but yellow bile. With it, the disease inside came spilling out.
Late that night, he came back and slept outside the hut. For two days after that, Ayur exchanged not a single word with him.
It was then that her kinsman, the stranger, returned to the oasis. Dudu went to the market and bartered two camels for some goods. Ukhayyad met him at the entrance to the market, and there he arrived at an inspired, face-saving solution. Foreigners do not understand the language of borrowing and lending, especially if they are wealthy. Ukhayyad would pawn the piebald to the man. In exchange, he would borrow a camel or two until the war subsided. Then, with luck, he would ransom the Mahri. For this loan, he would put up the most handsome Mahri in the entire Sahara as security. When Ukhayyad spoke to Dudu about the deal, he saw the spark in the man’s eyes. It was the kind of glitter that only ever flashed in the eyes of merchants who had lifelong experience trafficking in gold. It was the glitter of gold itself. Was it greed? Ukhayyad told himself that the arrangement would sustain his family until their luck changed. And at the same time, it guaranteed that he would be able to hold on to the piebald.
But Ukhayyad made one mistake: he did not understand what traders meant when they talked about offering something up as security.
18
O people! This she-camel of God is a sign unto you. Let her feed on God’s earth. Do her no harm, lest a swift penalty afflict you!
Before leaving, Ukhayyad went off to be alone with the Mahri. In the morning, he prepared himself for their private ritual. He went to the grove and begged for a handful of green alfalfa to bribe the camel with at evening. “As you can see, no sooner do we escape from one trap than we fall into another,” he told the camel. “Still, be patient. Didn’t you and I agree to be patient? Patience is life — we learned that together long ago.”
He patted the animal’s neck, and the piebald stopped its chewing. “Sometimes in this world, friends are split apart, and distance must take its share,” Ukhayyad continued. “But don’t be afraid. Our separation won’t last long. We’ll meet up again when the smoke clears and when those wretched men stop their war against us. The war can’t last forever.”
Overcome with fear, the camel protested: “A-a-a. . ”
He swallowed what was in his mouth, and rejected the proposition: “Aw-a-a-a-a-a-a.”
Ukhayyad tried to placate him: “This isn’t how nobles behave. Children cry and women cry. Grown men remain steadfast and patient.” He wiped his hands on his robe, and buried his head in its wide, loose sleeve. Man and animal embraced for a long time in the night silence.
The foreigner took the camel with him when he left the next morning. He fitted out the camel, complete with saddlebag and a harness decorated with strips of colored leather. Still, the man did not mount the camel. Instead, he tied the purebred Mahri to the tail of his own dirty mongrel. They departed for the Danbaba desert where they joined up with his herd.
But even Ukhayyad, who had been raised with camels, did not know the true extent of the animal’s character. He did not know what it meant to befriend a purebred Mahri camel. Just three weeks after leaving, the piebald returned. By that time, Ukhayyad had traded one of the two camels for dates and barley to stem the hunger of Ayur’s mouth and eyes. Using the one remaining camel, he plowed water channels for the peasants in exchange for a quarter portion of their harvests. He was out the door at dawn only to return, exhausted, in the evening. Then he would collapse and sleep like a dead man. He was content to wear himself out and sleep soundly. He had forgotten the last time he had enjoyed such deep sleep — throughout the time of famine, an obstinate insomnia had lorded over him. It had been his family, not the hunger, that was stealing his sleep. But now, able to fill his wife’s mouth and eyes, he could drift off as soon as he lay down. That pleased him, but at the same time it bothered him. He felt an unfathomable sense of dread — perhaps because he sensed his conflicting feelings might be a signal and he feared such warnings. The desert had taught him to be attuned to them, that in life, nothing was more formidable than a sign, especially if you ignored it or failed to recognize it in the first place.