Out of kindness and respect they never look directly at me, but I am very curious about them. Through the interpreter, I am always eavesdropping on their conversations. They speak of the desert as if it is a woman—wild, unforgiving, mysterious, magnificent… In their blood. They beseech the clouds above to rain on their woman. ‘Why not burst a moment here?’ they entreat poetically.
Wrapped in thick blankets I sit apart from them in the icy cold and watch the moon, the whitest, roundest melon. It is still dark and utterly silent when the camel drivers begin to stir and greet each other good morning. It is a surprisingly long process. Again and again they ask each other, ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, I am. What about you?’
‘I’m fine. You sure you’re all right, though?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m good. Really, are you?’
‘Me, I’m fine. You are OK too?’
It seems they never tire of repeating the process at every dawn. No one looks at me as I slip between the camels huddled together, their backs white with snow and pieces of mud and ice stuck to the strips of cloth tied to their footpads.
Lizards are drinking the condensation off the frosted sand, when I lift our tent flap. It is lovely and warm, but too dark to see. I pause to allow my eyes to adjust, but I still manage to trip on the carpet’s edge. A small sound escapes me and Blake whips his head around to look at me. It never ceases to surprise me how quickly alert and watchful his eyes can become. A stranger’s eyes.
‘Where have you been?’
‘Watching the moon.’
‘Without me?’
‘I didn’t want to wake you,’ I say, coming closer. I light a lamp.
He sits up and the light oils his back so it gleams bronze. I sit next to him and run a cold finger down the bronze back. He shivers.
‘Next time I’ll wake you,’ I say, and grasping his hair, tug it with me as I fall backward into the rumpled silk sheets. He lets me pull him down until he is only inches from my face, and then he stills and turns to look at me. His eyes are unreadable—wet leaves in summer. I stare into the wet leaves. Part the leaves, Lana—behind them is the man.
‘Lie back, husband of mine,’ I say softly, sitting up.
He obeys and I hold my hands over the heat of the lamp. Then I pour heavily musk-scented oil into the palm of my hand and rub the two together. Warming the oil, oiling the skin. Very gently, I take his hand in my upturned one.
He whispers in wonder, ‘It never fails to amaze me how such a tiny hand can make me feel so vulnerable and exposed. How odd that a giant like me should be undone by such a simple thing!’
I stare at him in surprise, and then I lie him on his front, straddle his buttocks and laying both palms on the small of his back take the first long sweeping stroke.
Afterwards, we eat bowls of gruel and drink goat’s milk covered with a film of ice. He talks and I listen, bowl suspended between lip and floor. He is not soft. He cannot be soft. He wants me to know that. He has thrived on sharp arrows whizzing past his head, slicing his ears.
‘I don’t care,’ I interrupt suddenly.
We are still whispering when the sky brightens. It is time to be gone. Outside the men burden the animals once more. And as they do, every time, the poor things snarl, groan, and protest.
Blake helps me onto the camel’s back, and I am borne up. Perched high atop the animal, its disdainful, hairy head swaying from side to side, its large eyes rolling, we resume our journey. The sensation is like being a tick on a gold beast. Hanging fast. Unwelcome.
A little while into the desert, and the cameleers start singing to their animals, their lusty, deep voices carrying far into the dunes. Each line the length of a man’s breath, and each breath the length of a camel’s stride. The songs turn that ocean of heat, sand and blinding light into a dream, hypnotizing both man and camel so they become one graceful creature.
Hour after hour we head east, rocking in the unbearable, scorching heat, mouth tightly shut against the sand in the wind, not stopping even to eat, only to pray. When the camel drivers, burnt and glorious, stop to pray, I want to lie down on the sand, but Blake, his face wrapped in a blue and white cloth against the burning wind, so only his eyes remain as cerulean as the sky, will not let me.
‘You will only collect more heat from the ground.’ He holds out a water skin. ‘Drink, drink. In this heat one must drink—little but often—to be well.’
There is a sediment of black dust, but the water is cool. And in the desert water never tastes bad. Everyone drinks noisily, exhales noisily. I sip the discolored water, eat millet, dates and goat’s cheese and wish for a gust of wind, but when it comes, it is a fiery blast that sears my lungs.
Queasy, dizzy, my vision ill with the glare and the bending waves of heat, we persist. What a strange place the desert! The emptiness of it. Indescribable. Animal droppings dried to ash in hours. Where there is grass it is scorched white. And yet I find it incredibly beautiful, and the experience unforgettable. Finally, the camels’ bells stop, and Blake reaches up and takes me into his arms.
On foot, I watch the sun become red and the air orange. The temperature drops quickly. Darkness falls even faster. The men set up camp and water their animals. Fires are lit. Men crouch over their flames, blowing. The fires become beautiful orange flowers.
‘Ain’t you gonna wash me? I’m dirtier than a sweat hog,’ Blake teases.
I grin at him.
Water is precious. We wash each other with wrung out washcloths.
When we come out of our tent, hours later, the men are huddled around the fire eating a sort of mutton stew, olive bread cooked on hot stones, and drinking date spirit. Abdul brings us our food on lovely blue glass plates. Hard to imagine they have saved these pretty pieces just for us. Such beautiful manners, these wild desert travelers. I smile my thanks.
‘The desert mushrooms,’ the interpreter tells us in his distinctly mannered accent, bowing his head politely, ‘are for later. Desert luxuries.’
I nod. There is a world of difference between him and the cameleers. He is sly and gallant, and they are as noble and heroic as warhorses.
I work the tough, fatty chunks of meat with my teeth while I watch the warhorses enthusiastically lick their fingers, their wooden plates. Afterwards Abdul brings us delicately perfumed tea in dainty gold-rimmed glasses.
The desert makes no sound unless we make it. And so the men make their sounds, they chant their holy invocations to their God. The resonating sounds become part of the timeless desert landscape. I imagine the sound moving through the endless expanses of sand. Where does it go? Who catches it eventually?
It is when we stop for morning prayers the next day that the radio message comes through. At first I don’t bother to listen, but the immediate stiffening of Blake’s body alerts me. I turn to watch him curiously. The hardening of his eyes, the thinning of his mouth as he listens… Until he is a stranger.
‘No,’ he says finally. ‘Give me two minutes then call me back.’ He meets my eyes.
‘What is it?’ I whisper, my feet shifting nervously from side to side on the burning sand, my heart thudding in my chest.
‘My mother is in Bangkok.’
Whatever I had expected, I had not expected that. I pull my hand away from my mouth, and, baffled, demand, ‘Why?’
‘She wants to meet Sorab.’
I shake my head in disbelief. ‘Without us being there?’
‘You decide. We can either stay and keep to the schedule or we can leave today.’
I don’t have to think. Even if he had stiffened and become hard and cold I would not have trusted my son with her. His family give me the creeps. I want to leave at that very moment. ‘Can we leave now, please?’