He followed the path that wended around the green thicket of trees. At the entrance, he met a peasant. He asked the man where he could find Dudu. The farmer stuttered and hesitated, standing there in seeming astonishment. Confounded, he finally pointed toward the east and uttered, “You’ll find him over there — at the vineyard spring.”
Ukhayyad led the piebald into the palm groves. The man stood, watching him with bewilderment. What did his look mean? Was he staring at Ukhayyad simply because he had returned to the oasis, or had another rumor gone around that Ukhayyad had died? Had the poor man heard the story of Ukhayyad’s horrible deed — was he stunned to see him show his face again? Or had the man simply noticed something in Ukhayyad’s eyes? Only God knows what goes on in the minds of peasants.
From the west, from beyond the groves, ululations exploded from a distant celebration. Had the wedding begun?
Around the vineyard spring all was silent except for the crickets that began to compete with one another in song.
He heard the noise of water tumbling from the basin of the spring into small channels below. Ukhayyad walked toward it.
The spring was surrounded by a thick ring of date palms, and fig and pomegranate trees. The basin of the spring was round and wide. From its mouth gushed pure, still waters, which then poured over the lip into conduits below. There was only one path that led from this dense copse toward the eastern desert. Through this opening the peaks of sand dunes appeared in the distance.
Ukhayyad turned right. He hoped to approach the spring from the path on the eastern side, he wanted to keep the Mahri close by him. Before he even reached the pool, he saw the man’s loose-fitting robes — they had been thrown over a bramble of palm. As Ukhayyad’s heart raced, the universe seemed to grow increasingly quiet. It seemed that now even the trees were listening to him, thinking, observing and. . waiting. As the silence intensified, the singing of the crickets became more raucous. He heard the sound of water in the spring — the man was taking a bath. The groom was bathing — and getting ready to slip into bed next to his wife. The man had certainly known how to steal her. He had set up Ukhayyad to act as his accomplice — and then he snatched her away. He was the worst kind of bandit — no: bandits steal only camels, but this devil steals other people’s wives! This was unheard of in the desert — and Ukhayyad had been the man’s first victim. But it was worse than this — the thief had then gone and told people that he had bought her, fair and square, with his gold. His slaves were his witnesses — and they would swear to it. They had already sworn to it — Dudu had been confident that people would not talk. He had been sure that people would happily accept his fait accompli. He had come from Aïr to retrieve his kinswoman — his cousin, no less! — and had used his own money to do so. Who could object to such a thing? On the contrary — they would think him a brave man for doing what he did — a hero. And they would believe that Ukhayyad — descendant of the great Akhenukhen, son of the most venerable of the desert tribes — had sold his wife and child for a handful of dirt. To them, he would be a villain stained with shame. And what shame!
The afternoon sun was slanting its way toward sunset as Ukhayyad came to a halt. He looked down on his opponent’s head. The two men stared at each other for a long time.
Dudu cast a feeble glance up at Ukhayyad and stopped splashing in the water. His gaze was now unveiled. His bare head was exposed, as were his eyes. He had been caught undressed, with no veil to cover his heart. His ears were suddenly huge, and flopped around like those of a donkey. His pate was bald and eggish, and his beard was a billygoat’s. His body was suddenly all skin and bones — none of this had ever shown under the flowing robes he always wore. Puffed out and colorful, this man’s clothes had made his corpse look imposing. Everything about the man was a fraud. Ukhayyad now stood amazed at how easily this dull monster of a man had fooled him. His vision and judgment had been completely blinded by this sorcerer. There was no doubt about it — he was a witch doctor. Was he not from Aïr — that land of sorcerers and witches?
He opened the palm of his hand and raised it toward his head. It did not take long for Ukhayyad to aim. Never lifting his gaze, he pulled the trigger. The shot exploded. . but missed. Dudu rose, his eyes now begged and pleaded for mercy. The man’s lips moved as if he had something to say. Right then the second shot ripped through his throat. Dudu disappeared into the water, his eyes and mouth wide open, the words dead on his lips. The bullet had given him no time to utter what he had to say. As blood mixed with water, red billows began to ripple and spread, until they consumed the pure waters of the spring.
“This is a gift from the giraffe,” Ukhayyad said as he opened the pouch of gold dust and poured it over where the body had vanished into the spring.
Beneath the rays of the setting sun, gold flecks sparkled in the glimmering blood-red waters.
To the distant west, beyond the palm grove, another wedding song sounded.
28
Ukhayyad flew toward the desert. His aim was to reach Jebel Hasawna in whose caves he would find refuge. He spent the first night after the incident out in the open wilderness. There, the vision that had abandoned him now returned. It was the same dream — with the same dark phantom that concealed itself in the folds of the shadows and in the debris-strewn rooms. It was the same decrepit house, still sealed securely though without windows and doors, and despite the fact that it was crumbling apart. The house was like a closed circle. And all the while, he searched around — through the chimeric hallways, on the roof that was always on the verge of collapse. As he searched for the being, for the secret, he felt a breeze on his skin. Now he stumbled, now he used his hands instead of his eyes to look. Now he avoided the imaginary walls. He could not see these walls, nor could he touch them, but he knew they were there — sturdy, thick, and impenetrable.
This final vision was not a dream at all. It had started while he was asleep, but continued after he awoke. He deliberately kept his eyes open during the dream so as to pass through it. But the shadows were too thick, and the roof under him continued to shake, threatening to collapse at any second. And although the invisible being made its presence felt, it never showed itself. This strange, wakeful state went on and on for what seemed like hours. When Ukhayyad finally sat up in the glow of dawn, his head ached. He lay down again and went back to sleep.
In the following days, the dream vanished once again. Throughout this time, Ukhayyad kept to the outskirts of the mountain.
The foreign invasion still threatened the road toward the Hamada desert, the merciful realms across whose western and southern edges his tribesmen had scattered. Ukhayyad knew that after all that had happened, his blood ties to them had been severed. And not just his ties to his own tribe, but to everybody. The blood he had spilled would never wash away the shame attached to him — only death would clean his slate. He had been sentenced to live in isolation forever. It would be folly for him to speak with any person now, or to look anybody in the eyes again. Now, his sole friend would be the piebald. He had wanted to remain by the piebald’s side — and now God had granted this wish and decreed it so for eternity. The piebald now belonged to him and he to the piebald — and nothing but death would pull them apart. Not even death would separate them. They would depart together, and together they would return to their original state, to what they had been before birth.
Perhaps what had happened was a blessing, and not just a curse: Yes — with this damnation was also a kind of salvation. When a curse is eternal, it contains its own form of release: it drives one toward exile, and in exile safety is found.