Yes, I fear death, but despite that I was prepared, at one time, to meet it without hesitation. In those days there was meaning, but that's over and done with. The only thing that still reminds me of it is the intermittent pain left by the bullet that smashed the bones of my arm. Now, though, what am I supposed to die for in this forgotten oasis among these Bedouin whom I hate? Catherine says the inhabitants of the oasis aren't Bedouin, but all the inhabitants of the desert are Bedouin and I know them more than well enough. She too will regret her insistence on making the journey. I warned her often and she kept repeating that nothing could make her regret so long as she had chosen. Despite this, I can't understand the secret of her eagerness to make the journey. I think that, once again, it's about the antiquities. She exhausted me at the Luxor temple and in Upper Egypt and at Saqqara and Dahshur, and in the end I grew accustomed to leaving her to go where she wanted with an orderly as guard. Now she speaks with passion of Alexander the Great and his visit to the oasis and can't believe that she's travelling where he travelled! She wants to cross the desert so she can follow in his footsteps and search for his remains, and it doesn't matter if it costs her her life. A brave woman? A madwoman! I was only just able to convince her to abandon her idea of letting ourselves be bitten by snakes before the journey so that we could gain immunity to the reptiles of the desert! The sheikhs of the Rifa'i order I had advised her to consult contented themselves with giving her phials containing liquids of whose benefits I know nothing. But it may be that it is this madness which binds me to her. No sane woman ever convinced me to take on the bonds of marriage. Of course, before her there was Dusky Ni'ma, but I was the one who drove her away and it never occurred to me to marry her. Enough!
In any case, I am not travelling now for the sake of Catherine or the promotion which Harvey insisted on reminding me of. Perhaps, had it not been for the stigma of the court martial to which Saeed alluded, and had I not been ignorant of any other profession, I would have refused the promotion and the journey with it. Enough! Let happen what may. I remember from my school days a line of verse that goes:
Of today I know what may be known, and of the day before,
But to tomorrow I am blind
Would that it were the other way around — that I were ignorant of what happened yesterday and knew what will happen tomorrow. In fact, I'd even accept blindness to what tomorrow might bring on condition that yesterday would go away too. I'd agree to even less — that morning would come and I'd live one day at a time, with all memories gone from my mind. What a comfortable arrangement of life it would be if we could live today without the disquiet of either yesterday or tomorrow! In this desert, though, there's nothing in my mind except yesterday, and I do not like it.
By day, the same scenes are repeated, their monotony broken only by tracts, each far from the others, where the colour of the sands changes from red to white, or the appearance of dunes, which the camels make hard work of climbing, their pace slowing. Every two or three days, the guide cries out, giving us the glad tidings of our imminent arrival at a well or small, uninhabited oasis where we rest in the hope that the camels will find water. My eyes pass fleetingly over the landmarks, but I steal a glance at Catherine and behold her on the back of her camel, turning her head right and left with an unquenchable amazement in her eyes. Does she too see the 'garden' of Brigadier General Saeed? What is there new to keep catching her attention like that?
I asked her one night as we sat in front of our tent and she was gazing in absorption at the sky with its host of stars, and she answered, 'Can't you see for yourself? These stars, for example. Never in the city have I seen them so many or so bright.'
I raised my eyes to the sky, saying, 'Because the moon is still small.'
She responded, 'I know. But here the stars seem to me bigger and closer. They twinkle as though they were in constant motion towards me, so that I can almost touch them with my hand, as though they were swimming fast through the sky and will soon fall to earth.'
I laughed quietly as I said, 'I know a lot of Irish are poets but the desert affects us all differently.'
'And how does it affect you?'
'I have another desert stretching inside me, with nothing in it of the silence of this desert we are crossing — a desert full of voices and people and images.'
'That's very beautiful.'
'It would be beautiful if the images weren't also sterile, like the desert. All of them hark back to a past that is dead, but they pursue me all the time.'
She sighed as she said, 'It may not be the desert's fault. Perhaps you brought these things to it.'
'Perhaps,' I mumbled, as I stood up.
Our conversations on the road grew shorter too, day after day.
Despite which, the desert had something else in store for us. On the ninth night of our journey, the caravan came to a halt far from any of the small wayside oases. In the morning, the light was pallid and the sun's rays did not bathe us. It remained a mere orange ball in the sky, veiled in mist and thick flying dust. The guide looked grim and irritable. He was urging his men to hurry with the loading of the camels and to tie the loads well when a light southerly wind, accompanied by a low whistling sound, began and stirred up scattered devils of white dust that flew here and there in little vortices, then fell back on to the sand.
When the guide passed close to us as he trotted by, he advised us to wrap our faces well to protect our noses and eyes. The caravan started on its way as usual, however; indeed, it advanced faster than normal. It seemed to me that the winds were driving the camels over the sands like boats over water. The men's robes ballooned out behind them and we all bent our heads to avoid the rushing air and the sand. Then the camels started to cry out, sometimes running and sometimes stopping, and on the far horizon a large oval cloud appeared, like a spiral-shaped hill, which crept slowly towards us over the sands. Screaming at the top of his voice, the guide ordered the whole company to dismount, make our camels kneel, and take a firm grip of their reins, but by the time the command was issued two camels had shaken off their loads and set off, running aimlessly in different directions. One load of fabrics flew into the sky, scattering like coloured sails escaping into space, and metal pots and pans tumbled against one another with a repeated ringing sound that could be heard through the roaring of the camels and the shouting of the men, while the spiralling hill crept quickly towards us, driving before it wisps of sand that penetrated to our muffled faces like arrows. As the cloud got closer, the whistling of the dust devils was transformed into a thundering roar and no one could hear any longer what the guide was screaming. Catherine threw her arms around me and we staggered like the rest, were forced to our knees, then got up and staggered about again in the middle of the circle of kneeling camels while I tried to protect her and myself from the hail of gravel and small stones that pelted us. Then total darkness fell upon us and the roaring enveloped us. I could no longer hear the voice even of Catherine, who was screaming at me as she clung to me. All that existed was a deluge of sand and stones that came from all directions and piled up on top of us, so that every time I tried to shake them off they weighed the more heavily on my head and shoulders and I thought to myself that they would bury us for ever.
And in those moments when I was incapable of breathing and a terrible constriction pressed down on my chest, I wished for death with all my heart. The thought 'Let it come!' flashed into my mind as I held Catherine's shaking body to me. It was painful but not frightening. Let it come quickly! I want the end, as a beautiful relief from a burden I can no longer carry. Let it come!