Pride of place in the epics of the ancient generations, however, was allotted to the amazing ring around the mouth of the well. This polished disc, which was no more than a single cubit across, was sternly rounded. Many agreed that its charm was attributable precisely to this severity. Its solid stone had a unique coloration. At noon when the sun’s rays ruled, the circle’s stone looked pure white. When the setting sun sowed the horizon with dusk’s rays, the ring’s color changed and borrowed its hue from the flecks of gold on the Western horizon. When evening attacked and darkness settled over the desert, the collar also became gloomy, but the stone covering the mouth continued to glow mysteriously as if calling out to its devotees among the passersby or exchanging secret messages with the distant stars. During moonlit evenings, the ring would cheer up once more and regain its merry color.
But the patterning of the stone of the circular collar was even more beautiful.
The entire rim was marked with signs that ropes had cut into it over successive generations till these cuts in the smooth, translucent rock resembled the mark on the thighs of a camel or the deep scar of ancient wounds that time had healed. In this pattern, connoisseurs of the Unknown were wont to decipher signs of the time to come. It was said that diviners in the past had sought out the well — not to provision themselves with water — but to interrogate the stone and to research news of the time that had passed and of the time that was to come.
Over the course of the generations, many poems were recited in honor of the rim, and lovesick female poets still sing of it, comparing a lover known for faithful love to the rim of the well of Harakat. They have also used it as an epithet for patient people and added its name to every matter they wanted to characterize as immortal.
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The tribe’s strongest men dug in the northern passes; they dug in the lowlands of the southern plains; and they dug as well in sinkholes adjoining the valley bottoms to the west. Then they despaired. They dug down to great depths and reached great heights without even finding moist soil. So they despaired.
They gathered in the evening shadows and lowered their gaze as they normally did when despair gripped them. With their forefingers they imprinted riddles in the dirt. But they did not consult each other orally. They did not raise their voices in debate, because gloomy silence is always the language of despair. Proceeding a long way down the path of despair is an acknowledgement of the beauty of divestiture. Divestiture is the law that comes from the Unknown with inspiration, and inspiration was what reminded them of the excavator on one of those evenings.
They remembered the stranger who had lived with the tribe for many years with his only son; they had all joked — grown men, children, and women — about the satisfactions he found in the earth. He would say that the life above ground was a mistake for a man and that a wayfarer should not trust a place that provided no opportunity for him to crawl inside the belly of the earth. So he would lift his child down from behind his camel’s hump whenever the tribe stopped traveling and decided to set up camp somewhere. Standing by the camel, he would unload from her the hoes, picks, and other stone implements that he had inherited from ancestors, who had used them as digging tools before the desert knew metals like copper and iron. Then he would stride around the area a little before choosing the suitable patch of ground to begin digging into. He would dig all day if the tribe reached the place early or dig all night long if the tribe arrived at a new site in the evening. He would dig without stopping until he had created in the belly of the earth a cave large enough to shelter him and his son. A portly man in his fourth or fifth decade, he was on the short side and wore a veil crowned with a protruding leather amulet. He encircled his belly with a thick leather girdle that extended from his ribcage to a little below his navel. Inquiring minds attributed the width of this belt to generous padding that the excavator had devised for a reason that the tribesmen only grasped the day a hostile tribe treacherously raided their encampment. Then they saw the excavator leap from his tomb beneath the earth and fight the enemies with pickaxes. When bowmen hit him with arrows, the belt deflected the blows. So he had real body armor. Then the people of the encampment knew for certain that the excavator had not adopted the broad belt, which was stuffed with straw and chaff, to help him dig, as he claimed. He had another secret reason. It was said that his strange habits dated back to an earlier period, when he married a young woman who was related to him. Then he dug an underground bed chamber for their wedding night, concealing the entrance under a blanket inside the bridal tent. He did not uncover it until the wedding officials left. At that time the naughty boys, who were accustomed to slip into the corners of tents to spy on couples on their wedding night, were flabbergasted when they saw the bride flee angrily from the tent. She reportedly said she wasn’t a snake, a rat, or some ugly reptile to consent to live in a home underground. The excavator sent her a letter advising her that he had chosen to enter the dirt not only because he could find no place more secure than the earth but for its other qualities the tribe didn’t know about. Then the bride unleashed the women poets on him. They recited deadly satires about his conduct; these were repeated by the beautiful women of neighboring tribes. But neither the satirical poems nor fear of disgrace could force the man to quit his subterranean chambers. Instead he became increasingly infatuated with this approach and dug even more. At times when the tribe settled on the earth for a long time, he made himself more than one dwelling. For her part, his bride never returned — perhaps because he made no effort to bring her back, perhaps because he never forgave her for her anger on their wedding night, and perhaps because he did not understand, or did not care to understand, what his fellows in the desert had grasped, namely that a woman is a tribulation acquired not only by renouncing pride but many other things as well.
His bride bore him a son before she disappeared from the desert in a lethal epidemic that harvested many members of the tribe. Then he took the child from the girl’s family and introduced him to his excavations. He obtained from his clan two women slaves he had inherited from his ancestors — just as he had inherited his stone tools — to supervise rearing his child. Soon, however, he rid himself of them. He remarked that anyone who chose the earth’s way and delivered his interests to the dirt would never need maids or slaves, and that caring for children even when they are quite young is less taxing than the headache of putting up with a hateful and ignoble community like that of servants. At first the tribeswomen pitied him. Later their pity turned into admiration. They would accost him and offer to help in disciplining the child, but the excavator would always thank them for their kindness and refuse their assistance with a politeness that women encountered only from hermits who had been secluded in desolate regions for long periods of time. It was said that he carried the child on his back in a rope halter when he went out to search for his camels, to gather firewood, or to collect truffles. It was said that he knew how to hide him from sight in high mountain crevices or in a hole the mouth of which only he could find. It was also said that he had taken a captivating bride who was one of the women of the Spirit World and that she took charge of the child for him. Many swore by the mightiest gods of the desert that they had repeatedly seen him in the company of this beauty on his wanderings but that she would disappear and vanish when they drew near. Others spoke of hearing him with their own ears converse with this female jinni; they had not, however, discerned her body or seen any figure.
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