The leader kicked many stones and crushed a thick, dry plant before he replied, “The traveler on the Western Hammada road doesn’t experience thirst because he doesn’t experience suns or days. He isn’t afflicted by hunger, because he has dispensed with the land of creation that belongs to the children of creation. Leave vanities to vain people and walk with me to the place where passing clouds have freely deposited their copious rain!”
Almost prayerfully, he asked, “Does my master mean to bring us a rainfall that we have despaired of receiving for generations?”
The leader replied with a promise that the tongue did not sully: “If certainty had not been my talisman with regard to the existence of copious rainfall, I wouldn’t have dared choose my only confidant to accompany me!”
4
The barren land underwent a transformation.
The earth’s mien grew softer, and the desert began to dispense with some of its grimness, gloom, and grayness. Then brilliant clay patches, which were covered with scattered, pale-colored gravel, were clearly visible, spreading in extensive, circular expanses culminating in low hills. But their crests were spread with rocks that differed from those of the Eastern Hammada. They were brighter in color, their size was smaller, and their appearance was gentler and softer. In many places the expanses of pebbles led to shallow valleys near the riverbeds. The leader told him that these are the earth’s daughters, which gather the rains of the northern mountains to bring to the valleys of the Western Hammada. In these shallow ravines the two men found not only the plants’ fleeting green but areas that had plentiful mires, other clay-rich lands where water was still pouring from them, and rocky riverbeds over which the heavenly spring glimmered in the moonlight. They discovered that water was still flowing.
The guide cried out, “We’ve finally reached the shores of the transient clouds!”
The leader added that the earth of the Western Hammada possessed qualities that the desert had not granted to any other land, because layers of dirt had accumulated atop the surface of the naked land and throughout the year it enjoyed a more temperate climate than those of the four corners of the desert. Its sky possessed an everlasting purity, and rains did not fall on it directly but arrived from the distant northern highlands via wadis, ravines, and trenches. The ravines and shallow trenches watered the nearby plains, and the washes carried the torrents to the lower deserts. This water was not merely generous with the earth but accumulated in caverns and caves while creating astonishing fens that ruminants visited throughout the summer months and that thirsty caravans, nomads, and wayfarers sought. What was left of this noble liquid after satisfying the needs of these deep caverns liberally provided for the depths of the great lake at the far end of the sandy desert, thanks to the lay of the intervening land. For this reason, desert dwellers said that the sandy Zellaf Desert was the desert most abundantly endowed with water and never tired of repeating a maxim that their tongues converted into a time-honored proverb whenever they affirmed that only the Spirit World knows what treasures the sandy desert hides.
The grass became more plentiful in the beds of the ravines, and in other tracts the vegetation grew increasingly dense and became real grass meadows. But the two men did not discover the riches of the expansive plains and deep valleys until they had traversed many mountain passes.
Deep in the valleys, retem shrubs were in bloom, the crests of the acacias were turning green, the jujube were ripening, and this thirsty tree was absorbing a generous draught of water as its thorns turned green and its tapered tips softened till they started to resemble the stings of scorpions. From the groves, startled mola-mola birds rose, and other birds sang prophecies in the tufts of the acacias while fledglings chirped in unison from clumps of grass.
The plains that lie between the gaps of the wadis were also teeming with plants. The fragrance of the flowers rose in the air and greeted the men in the valleys with a scent in which retem blossoms dominated. He drew the edges of his veil away from his nostrils to inhale the rich fragrance, which left him feeling tipsy. Tears came to his eyes, and he stumbled. So he quickly pulled the veil over his nose again. In the plains, which were carpeted with grass, it wasn’t just flocks of birds that were circulating — herds of gazelles were grazing everywhere, racing across the grass. They plucked flower petals deliberately and lifted their heads, which were marked with white, to gaze into the distance while enjoying themselves and chewing. At the edge of the plain a wild goat leaned forward, bowed his two long, symmetrical horns, and began to scrape the earth with his hoof. He pawed away a tuft that rose some inches above the plain’s surface and extended his striped muzzle to pull out a truffle. He gnawed off the top half and left the rest still in the belly of the earth. The guide called out, “I bet we’ll find truffles too!”
But the scent of the truffles had found its way to his nose even before he heard the leader’s call. He drew his veil away from his nostrils again. He wailed like a man possessed and then released a long, painful moan that resembled a dying gasp from an ailing chest afflicted with death’s intoxication. He raced across the earth, dug out a truffle with his finger, raised it to his nose, and released another moan that was even longer than the first.
Birds hid their nests among fasis plants, bird’s-foot trefoil, in order to conceal their fledglings from the hands of wanderers. From childhood experience he had learned that birds do not merely use this strategy to hide their nestlings but also to protect the nest itself. If a nest is discovered and the bird realizes that a hand has touched it, he will abandon it forever and fly far away to search for a location that no creature’s hand can reach. In his childhood he had discovered that birds do not merely sacrifice empty nests but abandon their eggs as well if they find that human hands have touched them. A bird would stop singing and circle the nest for days during this mourning period. Then he would depart to another land where there is no trace of our filthy species.
5
In the vastness of these plains stood mounds of stones and many tombs of the forefathers. The leader provided good news that his tongue did not defile: “I promise we’ll reach the homeland shortly.”
He asked reverently, “Is the existence of these tombs of the ancients a sign we are nearing the homeland?”
The leader replied, “From now on you will walk through endless fields of tombs, because you know the Western Hammada is the first desert that the ancient ancestors settled when they arrived from the islands of the ocean, fleeing from flooding.”
He admitted, “This is actually what we have heard from the jurists. But this is one of three narratives, Master, because the first one says that they entered the desert when they obeyed an order that banned them from their first homeland in the sky, the second affirms that they approached the desert after losing Waw, and the third says that they came from the islands of the sea after the ocean swallowed their cities, which were suspended between bridges. So which narrative should we believe, Master?”
The guide replied, “What matters here is the symbolism, not the stories. Notice that all the narratives concur in the existence of a first homeland for the first generations prior to all other homelands. They also agree on the existence of some heavenly anger or curse that drove them from their venerable homeland. Then they roamed the earth, and yearning for the motherland became a malady for which they have never discovered an antidote since that day.”
They traversed another distance where the grass was more extensive, the trees were denser, and the flowers released their heartrending fragrance into the air. In the plains the gazelles bounded, and in the tracts lying between the plains and the wadis, lizards loitered. At the limits of the hills, herds of Barbary sheep accosted them.