3
They slaughtered the black goat and brought a boy with a thick shock of hair dividing his head in two parts, like a cock’s comb. They plunged his hands in the sacrificial offering’s blood and dragged him to the tomb, where they placed his hands on its stones. His ten fingers made the sign that had been passed down through the generations. With this sign, recorded in blood, the fingers said, “This is our blood, Master, that has been redeemed by the blood of our son. This is our son’s blood, Master, that has been redeemed by the black goat’s blood.” The noble elders stood nearby and humbly recited this talisman: “This is our blood. This is our blood. This is our blood.” They were silent for a short time. Then they picked up the second talisman. “This is our son’s blood. This is our son’s blood. This is our son’s blood.” Then they paused again before competing with each other to recite the final talisman three times as welclass="underline" “This is the blood of the black goat, our sacrificial offering to you. …” Next they knelt, swayed, and sang near the leader’s head, the maxim of their forefathers: “Ikrahkay akahal, tamosad akedag. You have become a possession of every time and a sovereign over every place.”
They chanted till their eyes swam with tears. Then they sat down to savor the grilled meat and to debate the question of a successor. Imaswan pointed out that tribes normally chose the leader’s sister’s son as the leader’s successor and that if no nephew was available, then the leader’s son, and when no son was available, the lot fell to the wisest sage. Emmamma, however, left his homeland, which encompassed all lands because it was the homeland of every space, and liberated himself from the time of every time, because it was the time of all times. He returned to the desert, to the tribe, to the council, and to the meeting near the tomb. With his forefinger he cautioned Imaswan and said in jest, “I see you have jumped to a conclusion. Allow me to correct this maxim for you. The Law states that tribes choose the diviner if the leader leaves behind no nephew or son. The diviner appears in the dictum before the wisest sage. Or, has memory failed me once again, causing me to see what is invisible, hear what is inaudible, and say what is unspoken?”
The diviner smiled and then remarked with a diviner’s cunning: “The Law never went beyond sons. The Law left the sages’ hands free to choose the successor if the leader lacked sons. In the opinion of other tribes, Anhi washed its hands of the entire affair if the leader lacked a sister’s son. Then councils chose a person from outside the leader’s family, even if he had sons. With regard to the diviner, all the laws have established that his place is beside the leader, not as the leader. This has been true since the earliest times. Why would our master Emmamma attempt to evade this practice and recite maxims to us from the Lost Book, ones that we have never read or heard of before today?”8
The elderly man swayed right and left and stared dejectedly at the diviner, but his was a look that spoke more of the impetuousness of his inner boy than of old age’s fatigue. He asked, “Haven’t you heard that the Book said, ‘The wisest of the wise,’ or has my hearing betrayed me once again? Do you retain such a good opinion of Emmamma, who long ago succumbed to dementia and whose primary homeland years ago became forgetfulness, that you would have him assume charge of the tribe and of you?”
Imaswan replied, “A sage whose homeland has become forgetfulness is easier to bear than idiots who boast about being intellectuals and who — if time should frown and danger lurk — threaten our lives and those of the tribe with their minds.”
The hero Ahallum interjected, “Our only option is to allow the Spirit World to guide us by casting lots.”
But Emmamma gruffly rebutted him, “No, let’s seek the advice of the commander.”
More than one voice asked, “The commander?”
Emmamma, who was preparing to return to his homeland, said, “The leader! We must seek the leader’s advice.”
Glancing at one another, they embraced this idea joyfully and said, “You’re right. You’re right. Why didn’t we think of the leader at the outset?”
4
In the tent, the women sat in a circle around the virgin. They washed her virginal body with precious cologne and rubbed her with salves prepared from retem blossoms. They combed her hair into splendid plaits. Then the older women trilled jubilantly, announcing the good news that she was to become the leader’s bride.
They brought her out of the tent at dusk but only reached the hill crowned by the tomb shortly before the sun disappeared. The older women escorted her with their ululations and sad ballads. On the way, the poetess sang verses about yearning, death, and marriage. Her companions repeated the heartrending refrains after her, and then ecstasy seized hold of the young men, who trembled, wept, and leapt out of their dwellings to follow this noble cortege, without daring to draw a single step closer. The procession crossed the level, open space spread with depressing gray stones that had witnessed the fires of their ancient forefathers, because these were piles of more ancient gravestones. Their ancestors had stacked these stones when they cremated their dead. Time, however, had scattered these stones, and the centuries had leveled them with the ground. Then the wind had turned them to their original course, lining them up across the space and arranging them in the wasteland, in the Hammada, which was well endowed with rocks, returning them to their original condition. Save for their color, save for their mysterious darkness, save for the coat of ash cloaking these stones, no one would have realized that this area was the exact location of an awe-inspiring cemetery of the ancients.
When the procession neared the tomb, the women’s steps slowed, because the original rites that prescribed the path of the bride to her fiancé’s dwelling also prescribed the law for her progress there and decreed that the female should model her departure from her home on the first time a female had set forth resolutely and been spirited away from her father’s dwelling to her fiancé’s abode. In this way, hesitation became the norm for the bride’s procession. The female took one step toward her destiny and one step back out of fear and wariness. She ventured forward, because she knew that it was inevitable that she would set forth one day. She proceeded slowly, dawdled, and felt regretful, because she knew she would never go back. Then she asked the group to assist her with poetry’s treasures and to help her in her crisis with sad songs appealing to the fiancé to be kind to his bride. These were songs that encouraged the groom to view his bride as a pitiable creature kidnapped against her wishes from her family’s home and that encouraged the bride to play the earth for her spouse, who would represent the sky for her.