Deserted
post
By
Khaled Diab
Somewhere
in the vast Egyptian desert.
Somewhere
in the middle of nowhere.
Somewhere amongst the yellow dunes and shifting sands; amongst the
thirsty, parched, and cracked land – there lies a solitary watch post. A token
marker left by man in this great and insurmountable void, as evidence that it
too one day is conquerable.
The more immediate purpose of this post, exiled to a no-man’s-land, is
to warn of on-coming enemy attacks or invasions and radio the cavalry. Another
use is to track the area for any clandestine or illegitimate activities – such
as we know occur in the Sinai, where the authorities have less reach. Yes, even
this post is rather out of their reach, too. As far as desert military-posts go
it is obscure. So much so that central command have, at best, only a vague idea
that it exists. It stands as an insignificant speck of dust on their grand and
gleaming computer and wall master-charts, with the detailed local map banished
to some dark and unvisited corner of the archives. The local administration is
responsible for keeping tabs on such minor positions, where it is all quiet on
every front.
‘Quiet’ may be a bit of a positive description – lifeless is much nearer
the mark. The only thing that seems to come to life is sand when it is whipped
up and carried by a storm. It can become rather frantic at times, piling-up,
first, at one end of the valley (which surrounds our post with oblivion), then,
at the other; with the wooden hut the battered piggy-in-the-middle.
This is where the luckless few end up. Those who have fallen out of (or
were never in) favour, those who have committed unspeakable crimes that weren’t
quite punishable, or simply (and more likely) just those surplus conscripts,
with no ‘friends-in-high-places’, that the forces just don’t know what to do
with. Sent here to guard a ghost-post, where the only evident enemies are the
elements, where the only clandestine activity is the conspiratorial whisperings
(and occasional wailings) of the wind at night. At least this is the case
according to Saber, the commander of this coveted post.
Saber is a poor village boy from Upper Egypt who completed his primary
education and dropped out of school and, then, had to leave his home-village
for the first time to serve his country in the army (a necessary evil in a
hot-spot such as the Middle-East). Being only marginally educated, his stint in
the army was to be three long years. He has, so far, served two of those three
years.
Saber, being a patient and fatalistic soul, has occupied his time, in
between the drudgery of his daily chores, dreaming of and planning for his
eventual home-coming to take care of his ageing parents and to complete his
religious mission in life by marrying his cousin, Samah, who has been marked as
his destiny ever since they were children.
Saber comes from a small, out of the way farming community, where he
helped, along with his two brothers, to tend his father’s small plot; which,
with hard work, a good pick, and the right amount of precious water, supports
them all the year round. The water was moved by means of a primitive
contraption known in Arabic as ‘Sakeya’: a blind-folded buffalo, tied to a
horizontal wooden plank that is connected to a large wheel, pushes this wheel
as it moves around in a circle. The wheel moves a succession of other wheels,
clogs, and gears; and raises water from the stream up to the land that needs
irrigating. The blind-fold is to keep the buffalo from getting dizzy as it
travels around and around in circles all day long.
Saber longs for the day when he can depart this unfamiliar monotony and
return to a more familiar one: one that is close to his heart, one that he
calls home, with it myriad family and friends, and the centre-piece – his
lady-in-waiting, his wife-to-be. Within himself, he is eager and impatient for
the day they finally come together and the locks to the dams holding back his
desires can, at last, be broken. Where he can satisfy the longings of the
flesh, his need to procreate and attain a form of immortality, and his desire
to graduate to a higher level of responsibility, where he would take charge of
a wife and home. But all that must wait! There are more immediate and pressing
concerns that require his attention, such as his daily duties.
Saber, with a conscious mental effort, opens his eyes to greet a new
day, which experience has taught him won’t be much different from the old one.
Unfortunately for Saber he has been having a recurring dream that haunts him
quite regularly. The central image of this dream is Saber as blind-folded
buffalo, going round and around in large circles. The wheel is gradually
becoming heavier and more cumbersome to push. He is frustrated, both within the
dream and out of it, by the repetitiveness of his actions. Another major
element of frustrations is that he does not know what his indefinite cyclical
activities will achieve. A bit like the poor buffalo back home, with whom Saber
is beginning to sympathise.
He is pulled out of bed by sheer will-power, although he, himself, is
not so eager to rise. It is as though his will-power has taken on physical
proportions, become separate from him, an entity in its own right that no
longer resides within his mind; it is as though it is kneeling over him,
prodding and jabbing him, stirring him into action.
The last of his dream, along with the corresponding ill feeling, washes
away as consciousness and reality impose their tyrannical command that focuses
his energies on the task at hand. That is, until darkness descends, or when
they lose their grip through short-lived (but turbulent) coups of the soul.
The first (and perhaps only, except for three hours a week when the
supply truck visits) living human his eyes encounter as they wander around the
tight quarters, like many mornings, is the sleeping bundle that goes by the
name of Hassan El-Nahas: his fellow conscript in the wilderness. El-Nahas is
the name he was born with, but his, not too thrilling, experiences at his
previous station led his fellow soldiers to rename him ‘Nahs’, because of his
tendency and innate ability to attract trouble in ever-unique, ever-changing,
new and improved formats. He made trouble-making and trouble-taking a precise
and explosive art-form. Exciting, even funny to watch. Detrimental, even fatal
to experience.
To keep heart while practising this art requires the development of a
perpetually-amused, ever-baffled inclination; where the obssessive need to
interpret and justify the inexplicable, and to observe the ironic tint, act as
a buffer-zone against insanity. Although there are many who wouldn’t testify,
in any offical context, to his sanity; he still pretty much had most of his set
of marbles intact. It seems that this perverse streak for the ludicrous really
came into its own in the army; or perhaps before that, it went more unnoticed
because it was practised amongst people he knew and they had learnt to cope
with and tolerate the more bizarre aspects of his behaviour. Also, there were
always people around willing and able to bail him out of trouble, and the rest
of the time he managed to charm and smooth-talk himself out of inevitable
pitfalls.
I suppose certain questions are bound to come to mind, for instance, why
would any rational person stick by such a disaster-magnet? Well, the easiest
answer to that is that love and friendship aren’t always rational creatures. If
you want to delve deeper after other justifications, you might find that he
satisfied an assortment of needs and intrinsic, as well as extrinsic, desires
for those he came into contact with, such as;
The need to break with convention and do crazy things, and the easiest
way to achieve that is by proxy – through a soul-mate. This, of course, carries
a sub-conscious price-tag of guilt which is alleviated by standing by to offer
a helping hand if matters get too messy;
The desire, that some have, to protect and guide other less fortunate
souls;
Or perhaps, more simply, that, in return for the occasional irritations
he caused, he lent an element of fun and excitement to his fellows’ day.
He, most definitely, gave colour to the lives of his fellow soldiers. He
refused to take the army or anything in it seriously. He despised his drill
sergeants for the way they had it in for college graduates, like himself, as if
they were directly to blame for their missed opportunity at a good education.
But Nahs knew how to get back at them, how to hit where it hurt: by exercising
his superior wit. This got them wound-up for two reasons; first, sometimes they
couldn’t return an equivalently witty reply; or second, they simply could not
comprehend the crack and at whom it was directed. Both of these sent them up
the wall because it showed their vulnerabilities. Nahs’s major problem was he
had never learnt how to keep his tongue under control, which kept the rank and
file entertained, but didn’t do him much good with his superiors.
One visiting officer of high rank his hyper-active tongue fell prey to,
had a moustache that seemed to have a life of its own. In addition, he was
short, squat, and the alien-growth on his upper lip was his only dominating
(but not necessarily redeeming) feature.
I am sure you don’t need much imagination to guess what a man with
Nahs’s background, runaway tongue, and unfailing witty inclination would do
under such overwhelming external provocation. And, throwing prudence to the hot
desert-wind, he did!
Needless to say, you don’t need brains or a pocket-calculator to figure
out what our high-ranking visitor’s reaction was. One thing it wasn’t was
friendly.
Let us suffice it to say that things didn’t work out or get any better
for our fellow of Masoch. He was marked down as a trouble-maker and make
trouble he did. Until his superiors at the camp, who could not bring themselves
to actually dislike him, decided, out of despair, to move him out of harm’s
reach. And that, reader, is how he landed himself here and became Saber’s
companion; and where he and trouble would finally part and each go their
separate way, or would they?
Hassan has been less apt than Saber at reconciling himself to his new
surroundings. Being a city-boy from Cairo, he has found the absence of noise,
haunting; the absence of people, taunting. Hassan comes from one of the more
populated areas of the city, where, for the greater span of his life, the most
consistent element was the background ding of on-moving traffic and the
over-zealous horn-honkers.
Now that he has been deprived of the background rabble, he feels
insecure and restless; though if you asked him the reasons for his feelings he
would probably say that he misses the life and excitement of being home and
that he is bored here.
Another thing he was unaccustomed to was all the wide, open spaces. He
was probably bothered by them because, where he came from, you shared this sort
of space with tens of thousands of other humans; and, deep-down inside, he
thought it was practically criminal to have all this land to oneself. Another
cause of his woes might be that, as a city dweller, he required a constant
bombardment of short-lived and powerful stimuli to his senses – not the subtle,
mellow, and (perhaps) monotonous ones the desert delivered. Unlike Saber, who
didn’t view this as much of an obstacle, since he was taken to sitting, half in
this world, half out; where he’d let himself drift in the flow around him.
Letting his surroundings push him in a certain direction, and with his mood as
the driver, he’d let his thoughts wander to pasture new and explore.
We could go on for an entire volume telling the sweet and sour story of
our ‘down-and-out’ friend, which would read rather like an omnibus collection of
anecdotes that revolve around a central theme – Hassan El-Nahas. However, he is
not our concern here and, therefore, we must revisit Saber, where we have left
him inanimate, waiting for his day to unfold.
Saber walks past the sleeping pile that is Hassan. He is careful not to
disturb his slumber. One advantage of being your own boss, and one of the few
redeeming features of this station, was the fact that they had decided between
them (or rather Hassan had) to take it in turns to have a day of leisure followed
by a day of work – today was Saber’s turn to sweat.
Saber walks up to the radio unit and switches it on. The radio emits a
high-pitched screech, like a dying feline angered that it should have been
disturbed from its rest by such an insignificant life-form. Their only link
with the outside world had finally decided to conk-out a couple of days
earlier. It had, wisely, resolved that it was high time to retire and that it
was old enough to die gracefully. Saber agreed with the sentiment and was willing
to personally walk it to the grave and give it a decent, well-earned burial as
befits any medium that has given thirty years of selfless service to the
forces. But his wish is not likely to come true in the near future and no saucy
new howler would arrive with the next dispatch. Instead a technician and parts
would come with the supply truck after tomorrow and perform emergency surgery
on our radio at Death’s door.
That is not to say Saber didn’t feel for the old dear. She was like an
elegant maiden of old who has fallen on hard times: dust-laden but not without
dignity.
Saber quickly switches off the machine before it wakes his room-mate
and, then decides to start on his duties. He opens the door of the dim room and
is momentarily blinded by the outside brightness. His eyes take a painful
moment to adjust. Even though it is still early, the sun is more than half-way
up in the sky. The sand is beginning to warm, but it still has a long way to go
before it reaches the feet-burning temperatures of the afternoon. The first
thing Saber notices is the crunching sound of sand on tile under his boots,
which was probably blown on to the tiled entrance of the hut during the night.
He goes back in to fetch a broom to sweep up the mess left over by last night’s
party. Saber realises that sweeping sand in the desert is a futile occupation
and that he is fighting a losing battle, but he reckons that if they left it
that way, then one morning they would awaken to find themselves trapped inside.
Besides, Saber is one of those clinically tidy individuals (much to Hassan’s
disappointment, who has to bear his incessant nagging over domestic
arrangements). So, Saber gets on with his sweeping which he finds strangely
soothing today.
After he is done with the sweeping and a few other odd chores, he
decides to patrol the surrounding area: a good excuse for a stroll before the
day gets too hot. He steps back into the hut to pick up his indispensable
desert companion – his canteen. He wonders jokingly to himself whether he’d be
delivered any surprises on today’s beat. Who knows? Maybe he will come across
some fugitive who has decided to take refuge somewhere close by. Or possibly,
adventurers out on a desert trek, who lost their guide or path, would run into
him after days of frustrated wandering: exhausted, thirsty, and ruffled. He
would then lead them to his humble hut which would, however, appear to them as
a beautiful oasis in the middle of a dry desert. After offering them water and
a bite to eat, he would call in a rescue party to pick them up and take them
home!
Or, then again, maybe not – and not only was it because the radio was a
goner; but, more realistically, who would be crazy enough to get lost here in a
place free of man-made and natural attractions.
He marches around mock-seriously for a few minutes in search of
fugitives-in-hiding and lost travellers, but alas, none materialise and he soon
tires of the game.
He strolls aimlessly for a while, but inside he knows where he is headed
– to his secret retreat: a place he has not told Hassan about (which lends it a
scent of the forbidden).
Over a small precipice, hugged in a tiny depression, lies Saber’s secret
hide-out. A place that, by some freak of nature Saber hasn’t even begun to
fathom, remains surprisingly cool while everywhere else bakes – no matter the
time of day (except at night when it is freezing).
Saber settles himself into the depression, back up against his favourite
rock: a big, smooth bastard that Hercules might have had his work cut out
lifting. He relaxes and decides that patrolling is thirsty work. He removes the
cap from his canteen and swallows down a couple of satisfying gulps.
His thoughts begin to scatter and they drift afar. Saber tries to keep
up with them, but he loses the thread, consciousness unravels around him, and
he descends into a pleasant doze. His sleep is a refreshingly blank one: pure,
free of pollutants such as dreams and thoughts. The only image he sees is the
red and orange psychedellic patterns caused by the interplay of the light of the
bright day beyond the shelter of his eye lids.
________________________________
Saber’s first thought, as he regains his coherence, is that a locust
invasion, similar to the one he experienced back home as a child, was in
progress. The incessant buzzing noise, then, the sudden darkness that had
descended about him, all seemed eerily familiar.
Then, as it dawns upon him exactly where he is, he realises that locust
don’t visit the Sinai (even if they are hopelessly lost).
After rechecking with his senses, he concludes that he is in the middle
of a sandstorm.
Panic sets in! It is the first time he has been caught out in the open
in a sandstorm. His first urge is to head to the safety of the station to reassure
Nahs (who is probably awake by now).
He climbs out of the safe haven afforded him by his retreat and
immediately finds himself full face with the disgruntled sand. He is
momentarily disorientated by the surprise attack but, through presence of mind,
he regains his footing.
He tucks his head down, closes his eyes, and charges headlong and
blindly into the onslaught. He takes an additional three clumsy steps forward,
and on the fourth he steps on something uneven and jagged. It slips out of the
loose sand keeping it in place and takes him with it. He pinwheels desperately.
In the critical instant separating him from a fall, gravity gets the upper hand
and he tumbles.
He feels his head explode against something hard. His senses are drowned
in an immense tidal wave of darkness.
. . . . . . . . . .
He is numb as he travels up through the black, heavy waters shrouding
him. He hears the outraged whooshings and thrashings on an angry sea. A trickle
of thick, viscous, and grainy liquid flows into his right eye and dims his
already blurred vision. He shuts his eye and wipes at it frantically. He moves
his index finger up over his brow and traces an open gash covered by a layer of
fine sand.
He is now sensible enough to feel the sadistic lashings he is being delivered
by a genocidal sandstorm in a tantrum.
Shaken, he rises and resumes his staggery course home. His eyes shut
tight against the beating sands, he heads off in what he remembers to be the
right direction. The sand gnaws away at every exposed millimetre of skin – he
imagines that this is how it must feel to be sand-blasted. The howling wind
drums insanely in his ears and, being robbed of all other sounds – bar the
urgent, unnerving, and overwhelming rebukes delivered by the wind – makes him
feel as though he is in some unholy womb: closing in on him, ejecting him to
the hanging darkness beyond.
He gets the impression that he isn’t going forward, as if on a crazed
treadmill, he is walking flat out just to stand still. After an eternity of
struggled wandering, he can no longer be certain that he is going in the right
direction. He isn’t even certain that he is going anywhere. He feels more like
he is being led, led by a harsh slave driver: whipping, clawing at him,
torturing his mind. His puny attempts at resisting the influence of the storm
by pushing against it almost brought him to his knees or sent him tumbling –
twenty strokes for the insolent prisoner. One thing he has certainly resolved
is that he will bear the shackles and go where his accidental master wills; and
if his master is merciful, he will be returned home and set free.
The millions of grains of sand that ricochet off his skin are like
minute pinpricks when taken in isolation but, together, in simultaneous,
constant, unison, they are like lethal lashings of an exuberant whip. Sand
collects in every tuck and turn of skin and clothing, weighing him down, making
his footsteps heavier than they already are.
A little further along, Saber finds that merely lifting one of his
booted feet in an approximate imitation of a step is an unbearable hardship.
This most basic human manoeuvre becomes an impossibly sophisticated feat. Saber
is similar, in this respect, to an infant at the outset of life, or an old man
wearing down towards the end.
Saber, worn down, collapses onto the ground. Giving the invading sand
further claim to proprietorship. He lies there awaiting the sand to submerge
him, thwart him, swallow him. He feels too weak to resist the final
consumption: to become an integral part of the storm and, when the wrath
finally subsides, to become another living sacrifice to the stretching
tentacles of the inanimate desert.
Even though Saber has surrendered himself fully, the storm, unsatisfied
at this meagre sacrifice, mercilessly beats on. Saber knows not what more he
can give up. He decides to wait out the storm (to see which one of them will
last the longer). He tries to afford himself whatever protection he can, which
is none, by curling up in a foetal position and shielding his head within the loop
of his body.
__________________________
Barely this side of sensibility, Saber feels the storm loosen its grip
on him. Is he slipping away? Or is the sandstorm, finally, dying down?
Saber feels the bombardment taper off. His first impulse is that he is,
at last, being plunged into the darkness beyond the womb. Moments pass and he
can still feel his aching body. He remains uneasy about uncurling himself and
opening his eyes – he fears what he will behold.
Saber feels a constant heat beating on his back. There is brightness
behind his sealed eyelids. He opens his eyes. The sun breathes fire in a flash
of furious brightness that scorches his pupils – singeing perceptibly into his
vision. He turns his head away and tries to blink out the purple burn marks
impairing his eyesight.
He, achingly, lifts himself to a standing position. Every joint and
muscle petitions its case against movement, but his brain vetoes the motion;
and, although outraged, they grudgingly carry on. The lack of bodily unison is
clearly visible as Saber prances about, trying to steady himself and gain
control over the mutineers. He has been reduced to a wobbily collection of
exhausted and divided organs and limbs.
After Saber has regained some co-ordination and composure, he scans the
surrounding area for home-base . . . But where has it gone? None of the
immediate surroundings seem familiar. Gone is the hill he uses to mark his
watch-post. He is at a temporary loss while he tries to assimilate the
unfamiliar scenery. He searches hopefully for recognisable land-marks, but none
present themselves. Could he have verged so far from home?
All of a suddent the broken pieces of the picture slot into place. He
sees the sloping sand to his right – one and a half times a man’s height – that
blocks his view of the landscape beyond (Home!).
He rushes towards the slope and clears it in four large strides. He
experiences a rush of disappointment as the other side comes into view. His
hopes are dashed in one fouls swoop. What he sees, though breath-taking, is not
what he was expecting. Stretching out before him to the distant horizon (and
merging with it in a hue of yellow) is an enormous area of open low-land: it is
breath-taking in its sheer scale, but depressing in its monotony – and, for
Saber, in its foreignness.
The first whispers of worry echo inside his head. He sets himself down
heavily on the tip of the slope to consider his options. The loose sand gives
slightly under his weight. He notices the strangely shaped elliptical grooves
left on the slope as remnants of his climb, until the next wind comes and
smoothes them down and nothing will be left to tell posterity that Saber walked
here.
The sun is almost directly overhead. He does not know whether that means
it is late morning or early afternoon, since he has no indication of how long
the storm lasted. He looks at his watch, beneath the cracked glass, it says
9:40. But how long has it been since he took the heavy fall? Two hours? Four
hours? More? Less?
The heat is getting unbearable. Saber is becoming consciously aware of
his nagging thirst. The gritty interior of his throat hurts. It is as void of
moisture as the air he inhales, as sandy as the storm in which he was caught.
He fights the urge to gulp down the contents of his canteen. He knows that his
condition is bound to get worse before it gets any better. The rational thing
to do would be to ration his remaining water – to stretch it as far as it will
go. He removes his handkerchief from his pocket and, as he uncurls it, it drops
its worthless cargo of sand. He shakes it clean. He undoes the cap of his
canteen, screws up the top-end of his handkerchief into a thin sausage shape.
He is about to dip it into the water when he hesitates . . . .
“FUCK RATIONALITY!!”, is the signal that rushes through his system.
Rejuvenate me today and I will gladly die tomorrow. Give me my sustenance now
and let the future sort itself out. He puts the canteen to his dry lips, ready
to let the waters flow down: invigorating, rushing down to reclaim the
dust-bowl in his throat. His hand rises slowly . . . . But NO!!!
Rationality rushes in with a counter-offensive. She slaps him out of his
temporary lapse into the murky waters of insanity. He lets the canteen drop
from his lips and, more sensibly, dips his handkerchief into the water. After
removing it, he places it into his mouth and sucks on it. The rush of saliva,
along with the moist cloth in his mouth, succeeds in partially quenching his
thirst.
He cannot put the inevitable off much longer. He must work out a course
of action. What are his current bearings? In which direction should he head?
Two questions to which he has no definite answers.
If he waits for an hour or two for the sun to complete its upward
course, or descend further in the sky, he can figure out his absolute bearings
– but what then? He does not know where he stands relative to the watch-post.
Then it strikes him that he may be missing his noon prayers (if, in
fact, noon has passed). He decides to postpone all further ponderings until he
has fulfilled his immediate obligation to his maker; he will, as a believer,
resign his will to Allah, surrender himself to His infinite wisdom.
Saber is faced with a practical problem: there is no water with which to
cleanse before prayers. So he does the next best thing, he performs a token wedoe. He takes off his boots and
empties them like a silo of grain. He pats the sand three times with the palms
of his hands. Next, he takes some sand in his hands and wipes his face with it.
Then he cups up some more that he brushes across his right forearm, then his
left.
Now, virtually cleansed, he is ready to pray. He rises from the ground
to resolve the second practical problem: in which direction does Mecca lie? The
sun, being almost directly overhead, is no help in this problem. He decides
that in his present demise it is arbitrary where Mecca lies geographically.
More important is Mecca’s position to the soul. Inside he is facing it.
With that in mind, Saber takes a blind guess at the right direction and
recites the call to prayer. Then he raises his hands, palms facing each other,
thumbs hooked behind his ears and calls out, “Allahu Akbar”. After which, he brings his hands down, palms turned
inwards, right hand over left, and clasped over his waist.
Upon completing his prayers, Saber feels strangely calm. A peaceful
indifference has descended upon him, relegating all other feelings of panic and
doom to secondary status – at least for the time being. Saber is now
clear-headed enough to think reasonably.
He won’t risk the lowlands he just saw since they stretch forever and he
would surely perish (if no one found him) before he had even covered half the
distance. It is also impractical to head for home for the obvious reason that
he doesn’t know where home is.
After some deliberation he decides on a game-plan. When the sun figures
out whether it is still rising or setting, he will follow it west; towards the
nearest coast. In that direction he thinks he runs a good chance of coming across
a Bedouin guide or army recruits out on a desert survival exercise.
Half an hour later the sun has made its mind up. It has visibly
descended from its former position. Saber has found west. He stands up and
heads coastward. He walks through a large valley. The ground has a hard-baked,
reddish texture. The immediate terrain is littered with small rocks and large
stones of the same colour. Up ahead to the left and some way off, is a
medium-sized chain of mountains. Saber estimates they are half a day’s walk
away. With any luck he’ll have reached them by sundown.
His thirst and growing hunger are a below-the-surface influence
threatening to erupt and flood him at an unspecified time in the near future.
They are a sort of undertone, a background rhythm that beats in time to the
steady stride he has built up. He wills his hunger to the back of his head – to
keep it buried there until the throb becomes unbearable.
As he walks he wants to keep his mind off the hopeless state he is in.
He resorts to a method he has found successful in the past. He rummages through
his personal archives in search of a pleasant memory on which to fix his
thoughts.
Good as any, he recalls his first (and deadly secret) encounter with his
wife-to-be. He recalls vividly her reluctant acceptance to meet him outside the
clan (with all the corresponding moral questioning) and the fantastic pretext
with which she got out of the house. In retrospect he wonders if matters would
have been so complicated with a city-girl (he has heard some incredible stories
about city-girls round the village in his time. He knows many are not to be
believed, but he could always wish and live in hope). He knows that these
thoughts are pure folly and that he would only settle for a girl of the same
mould, who could understand his wishes and aspirations. Naturally the only
woman that fits this bill to perfection –with the added bonus of looks– is
Sabrien.
He remembers fondly the sleepless nights of nervous plotting and
preparation he went through during the run up to their rendez-vous. They had
met in a secluded, tranquil spot by the stream. A scenic backdrop for love’s
young dream (especially chosen for its power to make the romantic spark catch).
He remembers the awkward, muttered exchange of greeting, the period of extended
and tense silence, the excessive blushing (both of them, though maybe first
prize goes to her). He, out of a desire to seem, in her eyes, the village
sophisticate, had magically transformed into the village Don Juan. Well, it all
went sadly wrong. To this day he doesn’t know whether it was what he said, his
intonation, or his posture, that sent her running and made him feel like the
village fool. He hasn’t had the heart or guts to raise the spectre again and
she seems to have experienced a lapse of memory – a mutually convenient
arrangement.
However, there is a danger to this technique of distraction. There is a
tendency for one train of thought to trigger a chain-reaction of vaguely
related other thoughts. Of course, the real risk lies in that the thoughts will
turn in on themselves, do some dare-devil back-tracking, and end up in the very
pitfall one has been trying to avoid. And with the way Saber’s luck has been
going that would not be, at all, surprising.
His sub-conscious serves up a cruel blow to his antagonised body as it
makes its merry way down memory lane. He recalls his first memorable moment of
true jealousy.
A long lost uncle and his family (who had moved away from the village a
generation earlier) had come home to visit after 15 years in Europe. He can
feel the excitement of the big day: the hectic activity, the frantic
preparations, and the last minute touches of the perfectionist of the house
(his mother). He can hear everyone enthralled in curious chatter and inspired
speculation.
The big moment arrives. His big shot uncle; his smooth, arrogant son;
and his skinny, condescending daughter, get out of their gleaming car and into
full view, for all to see. Comments are muttered under the breath about the
girl’s clothes, which are just a tad tighter than any that have been viewed
around these parts. This gets a mixed reaction of outrage, awe and wonder; none
articulated to the visitors – their initiation would have to wait to a later
date for the sake of courtesy.
Saber’s father rushes out to greet his cousin and family. He, then,
walks them into the house to introduce them to their extended family. The new
arrivals are bombarded with smothering kisses and impassioned hugs – something
they are obviously unaccustomed to.
The exchange that has been scorched into his memory with a hot poker is
about to occur. The moment in which his poor heart sank, got inflamed in the
furnace raging in his bowels, only to erupt through every pore in his body.
His long-lost-cousin’s eyes rove across the gathered company, until they
fall upon Sabrien and lock with her eyes for an endless moment. He can see the
interest and attraction in their eye . . . . In her eyes . . . . Yes, that
look!!
He savours the bitter taste of jealousy. He is possessed with one
thought – to get Sabrien on her own and avenge his devastated heart.
When he did, finally, get her alone all pretensions to reason had been
effectively rinsed out of his system. He became judge, jury, and hangman all at
once, and broke into a litany of passionate accusations that climaxed in a slap
intended to maime.
Sabrien refused to talk to him for two weeks, during which time he got
ample opportunity to regret his rashness and fast temper. He promised himself
and begged, appealed and grovelled to her that he would never let mindless
jealousy get to him again. Ultimately, she accepted, but not before making him
suffer double-measure for the insult and injury he had delivered her.
His subconscious changes track once more: unannounced and undeclared –
to inflict a baser pain. It detours back to the historic banquet held in honour
of his long-lost uncle. The house is a tapestry of delicious smells. Some
distinct, others blend into a potent hybrid. He can make out the dominating
aroma of roast duck . . . . errrrhh
“NOOOO
ENOUGH!!”
His throat clenches in anger. His stomach growls in agony. Hunger breaks
loose and overpowers him in its escape.
Saber stops walking, distressed. Worry, done with echoing, sings out in
high-pitched panic. Saber grapples desperately with the beasts he has released.
It takes a colossal effort to tame them again and banish them from his mind –
though they still purr and roar ceaselessly in the background.
He wills his mind blank. He focuses his attention on an oddly shaped
rock in the distance. He watches it shift its shape as he closes the distance
separating them. After a while he becomes strangely transfixed – he harnesses
all his power to the task of observing the demonic rock. He can barely feel his
aching, boiling feet in his army-issue boots as he treads the hard surface of
the ground. Gone is the irritation caused by the muck of sweat and sand that
plaster his clothes to his body.
He eventually passes the rock, whereupon he experiences an odd loss: a
hollowness similar to that which accompanies an emotional trauma. He cannot
comprehend how a rock could have such an impact on his psyche. He begins to
doubt his sanity. He is now much closer to the mountains, which dominate the
area from 9 o’clock to 10 o’clock. He performs his afternoon prayers.
Nightfall finally descends and with it his drive. He decides to settle
down for the night. He finds an area of soft sand on which to rest. He feels
the desert grow quieter, which he knows is untrue; but the day seems to be loud,
the sun makes its own variety of sound – it speaks through light and heat. They
seem to have presence, they are noisy, overbearing companions.
One thing is certain. One thing that unsettles Saber is that the sharp
edges and lines of the day become blurred and dismantled under the dark veil of
night. An assortment of jumping shadows and monstrous shapes that could strike
apprehension into the most ardent cynic’s heart – especially when left to
confront them alone. In the distance, adding substance to this horror scene,
disembodied sounds echo in the shifting void that is the desert.
Exhausted! But sleep is elusive – as graspless as the sources of the
sounds of the night. The weather is starting to cool. Saber feels a chill bite
in. He bakes by day, is feverish by night, he is thirsty and hungry, his
endurance is wearing thin and with it his sanity. What more does the desert
want of him?
He eventually falls into a fitful parody of sleep. It relaxes his
tensed, battered muscles, but offers no relief to his mind.
_______________________
Saber is jerked awake just before dawn by a chill that plunges deep into
the marrow. There is a cold twilight surrounding him. He rises to a sitting
position. His joints are stiff from the cold and from exhaustion. His eyes rove
blankly around his temporary refuge. He wets his handkerchief and takes his
first suck of the day.
He performs his dawn prayers. However, this time they are not the
fulfilment of an obligation, but a desperate call for salvation.
He watches the sun rise majestically over the horizon. This is the dawn
sun which is like a kind deity: lighting your path, warming your soul. At noon
it is like the devil incarnate: like that demon it is of fire, like that demon
it resides in hell! It is a taste of hell.
He decides it would be wisest to start now. To cover the greatest
distance in comfort before it gets too hot. The saintly sun warms his back as
he walks.
What’s that? Saber spots movement in his periphery vision – to his left.
He snaps his head around. Yes!! Elation rises from his gut. He sees the
silhouette of a woman leading a goat through an opening between two hills. He
calls out to her. She disappears through the gap. She doesn’t hear him. He
sprints towards the portal as fast as his tired legs will carry him.
Once there, he climbs through the gap and steps into a new world. A
world that does not contain the woman, as void as the one he just departed. He
is standing in what appears to be a dried up river. A river that, over the
aeons, has been carved into the solid greyness of the surrounding mountains by
countless flash floods. As is the case with the desert which lies dormant,
unchanging, quiet; but when change does arrive it comes in violent upheavals.
Bordering on despair, he searches for the woman, her goat, her tribe,
anything. But all sign of her has vanished (consumed by the scornful desert in
a cruel gesture of mockery).
He sees another opening in the mountain at the other bank of the
part-time river. He crosses to investigate. He steps through the gap but finds
no sign of the woman outside. He backtracks. En route, he stops again at the
one-time river. He pats the river-bed hopefully. It is stone dry. Water has not
visited this area in some time. The river lies dormant, like an abandoned
lover, in wistful anticipation of a return to the good old days of glory.
Saber returns to the old world - dejected, head bent low - he resumes
his previous course. But he has changed. He is one giant leap nearer the land
of the depraved. His hunger nags at him like a disillusioned spouse. It reminds
him that it has been thirty hours since he last ate. He is now actively on the
look out for food, or any plausible substitute. He has been coming across
interspersed samples of foliage for the last couple of kilometres. The terrain
has also changed to a soft, yellow sand – it’s almost like walking on sponge.
It didn’t change gradually, it was abrupt. There was a borderline dividing the
reddish brown hardground from the fine sand. Saber, in a semi-delirious state,
wonders how it is that the sand is a bright yellow while the rock-faces and
stones are a scorched red (almost a burgundy). Stranger things have happened in
the desert. This was probably, just simply, blown her by the wind.
An hour or so later, possessed by hunger, he sees a small snake scurry
past. It meanders along, cutting a thin channel into the sand. His memory is
thrown back to the brief survival training he had taken. He remembers that he
is supposed to edge up to the snake slowly, to make no sudden movements, and
get as close as possible. When he gets a clear shot at the snake’s head, he is
supposed to bring the butt-end of his rifle down heavily on it. Immediately
afterwards, he must follow through with another sharp blow designed to shatter
the skull. Next, he is to get his knife and slit the skin at the head, and then
peel it off in a single movement. Then you have your instant feast?
Saber is sickened by the prospect but hunger necessitates.
Unfortunately, he has got no rifle, he has not even got a stick. He searches
for a make-shift weapon. His options are depressingly few. There is nothing but
sand and stone. He pauses a moment to think. He rummages around for a good
rock. He finds a heavy one that is jagged on one side. It won’t be very good at
keeping the snake at a safe distance, but he’ll have to take his chances.
He approaches the snake, who has come to rest and half-buried itself in
the sand (to cool off), with the rock raised at shoulder height. He is almost
within striking distance. The snake surfaces from the sand as it senses Saber
nearing. He gets the bizarre sensation that the snake, out of pity, is
accommodating him, making itself an open target, because it sympathises with
this hungry desperado.
The snake raises its head in curiosity, decides it’s not in danger, and
settles down, once more, to its siesta. Saber tenses in concentration, he
purses his lips and his brows knit together. He lifts the rock high, ready to
bring it down heavily on the snake’s skull. A vision is projected across his
mind’s eye.
He sees himself skinning the snake: his hands and clothes all bloodied,
digging into the raw flesh with his teeth like a savage. The image disagrees
with him. He feels degraded. He feels sick as his stomach flips in repulsion.
Eating an animal raw is equivalent to cannibalism to him. He lets his arm flop
uselessly to his side. He is not yet ready to descend this far. He is not
hungry enough. He is not desperate enough. He leaves his brooding hunger to
wallow in self-pity, unsatiated.
The snake looks up with renewed interest at the sudden movement. Stupid
snake, the danger has passed (the hungry man has given up). The snake does not
agree. It starts weaving from side to side as it climbs through the air in a
primeval predatory dance. Saber, hastily, takes flight.
After Saber has put a safe distance between himself and the snake and
the excitement has passed, he reverts to his new humdrum habit of hiking ever
westward. By way of refreshment after all the action, he dips his handkerchief
into the water and sucks on it steadily. He shakes the canteen, it is only
about one-fifth full. At this rate of consumption Saber calculates that it will
only last him 36-48 hours at most. He verges on delirium again as his mind
shifts up a gear thinking about water. He treads on warily and heavily. His
route now goes down-hill at a very slight slope.
In the distance ahead of him, Saber spots a dark area of land under a
cliff. It is about the size and the rough shape of a football pitch. An oasis?
Could it be? Yes!!
Nooo ! It is just a trick of the light and the desert as they are
distorted and bent by the heat.
Yes, yes, yes!! He has found his salvation. An oasis means water and
food. Water and food mean people. Saber pushes forward in high spirits.
“NO! NO!! NO!!!”, reverberates through his fatigued mind. Reality reels
him down to earth. This time the landing is not a soft one – he is shaken to
the core. This represents the proverbial last straw.
What he sees before him, rather than being an oasis, resembles more a
fallen forest turned to stone (cursed by a sorceror). It contains stone pillars
of different thicknesses and sizes. Most are leaning, pulled down by an
unsteady balance of weight, but some still stand erect. The stone pillars are
of a dark green emerald colour. It looks like an ancient forest razed in an
apocalyptic battle and then frozen perpetually inanimate by a Medusa-like
creature. Of course, these are not the ruins of some ancient clash between
titans – they are an even more ancient sign of natural craftsmanship.
Saber feels constricted, on the edge of fury. He breathes distressfully,
in a rapid fire succession of short gasps. He stares intently -his eyes glazed
over- at the traitor, the devious impostor. The sight of the forest does not,
ultimately, fail to impress Saber. But admiration, as well as bafflement,
registers somewhere beyond his immediate awareness (which is overcome with
anger, distress and fear).
Saber looks to the forest for a more practical purpose: some shade. He
scans the pillars, none seem to be useful. The ground everywhere is littered
with sharp rocks and what looks like flint. Then he spots it. At the far end,
the corner pillars stand erect and are surrounded by sand. Now he can give his
throbbing head, which feels as though it has a large, beating heart inside it,
some relief. He can feel his pulse in his temples.
After he has
rested, he sets off again. He walks on almost mindlessly: all his energies
focused on the action of putting one foot in front of the other until his
strength runs out or the desert does.
1995-6
ã2006 K. Diab. Unless otherwise stated, all the content on this website is the copyright of Khaled Diab.
