Bahaa Taher: Catherine

Mahmoud sinks deep within himself. I see him sinking deeper and deeper. Now he's riding his camel, his head bowed as though sleeping and looking at nothing around him. I had thought this desert would bring him out of his shell a little, that he would see how different it is from any place in Egypt we've seen together, but he asks me in amazement, 'What it is that you like about it?' How can he not see? I read everything about this desert and about Siwa before we began the journey - all the books of the travellers and historians that I brought with me from Ireland and everything I could find in the bookshops of Cairo. I thought I'd never find out anything new and that nothing would surprise me. I studied everything written about the route and the wells, the dunes and the storms, but the books didn't tell me about the real desert. I didn't learn from them how the colours change above the sea of sand through the hours of the day, and I didn't find a word in them about the movement of the shadows as they trace a thin grey cowl over the peak of a yellow hill or open up a dark door in its centre, and they didn't teach me how the small high clouds are reflected on the dunes as hurrying flocks of grey birds, and they didn't speak to me of the dawn - above all the dawn - when it shifts from a thin white line on the horizon to a red blush that slowly pushes the darkness aside until, with the first rays of the sun, the sand blazes like a golden sea, at which moment a smell penetrates my nose that I have never known before, of the mixture of the dawn's dew, the sun, and the sand. An erotic smell that not only steals into my nose but to which all the pores of my body open

themselves so that I could almost, were it not for shyness, and were it not for the cries of the men of the caravan, who have woken up outside my tent, seize Mahmoud's hand and say, 'Come here, right now! On this damp sand!'

And I ask myself in amazement, 'How can he not also feel what I feel? Why doesn't he embrace me, or kiss me at least?'

At every moment, this desert brings me something new, but it is Mahmoud that takes me by surprise. He says the desert reaches are inside him. Would that were true! How rich this desert is! But I hadn't previously noticed in him any attraction to nature outside the desert. He never stops in front of trees or flowers. He has never said that the sea enchants him, or rivers. And when we visit antiquities, boredom overcomes him in five minutes. He never contemplates the construction of a building, or a painting on a wall.

I don't mean to say that I am more intelligent than he or that I see things he is incapable of seeing. It may be that it is I who am incapable of understanding what interests him, though I have tried and am still trying. This is the man I'm in love with. I encouraged him to take the posting in the hope that the long journey would change him and the danger revive his flagging spirit. Though I'm not being wholly honest when I say that. I too am crossing this desert to carry out a mission! But let us wait now; it's still too early to think about that and you, Mahmoud, right now, are my mission, you are my real work. What was it that made you so delighted with the idea of dying in the sandstorm instead of its driving you to cling on to life, like Ibraheem and like all of them? And did you change your mind suddenly to please me, or was that an example of your switches of mood, which are incomprehensible to me? And among all these moods, where shall I find the true Mahmoud? I shall find you out, no matter how long it takes. And perhaps, along with you, I shall find a real Catherine of whom I'm ignorant. Who knows?

The caravan makes its way over the desert towards the west and day by day draws closer to the oasis. I truly long to reach it. Everything about it is like a myth - the place, the people, the history, the geography. It is, as I have read, part of an ancient sea and even now, in its sands and hills, seashells are to be found. Its inhabitants belong to the west, not the east, to the Zenata tribe of Berbers in Morocco, and they speak a Berber dialect. Despite this, in ancient times they were part of the Egypt of the pharaohs and a centre for the worship of their great god, Amun. And there's the story of the forty men who left the village of Aghurmi with its ancient ruins to build to the west of it, in the midst of the vast desert, and to surround with walls the city where now they live.

I truly long to see all that and understand it and I am convinced that the oasis will meet my longing with its own. I don't suppose anyone like me has visited it. All those who visited it before me were content to describe its ancient ruins from the outside, and some of them drew them, but which of those could read the language of the Ancient Egyptians or of the Greeks? Even those who copied the carvings from the temples made horrible mistakes, because they copied the hieroglyphs as though they were just pictures. I could tell the mistakes just by looking at them. Only I am capable of revealing your secrets, Oasis!

A modicum of modesty, Catherine!

Why? Isn't that the truth? Nevertheless, I shall hold my tongue, lest I be afflicted by that hubris which the Greeks believed to be the origin of all life's tragedies. Let me be humble, then. I have no need of new tragedies. All I need to do is open my eyes to the grandeur of this desert.

The mounds and hills have disappeared now and we are moving through soft sand stretching to a horizon in whose expanse only the blue shimmerings of the mirage can be seen. Despite this, as we cross these flat reaches of yellow sand, we are surprised by vast lakes of white sand, or by round dunes like little shrines or jutting breasts on the desert's bosom. I sense that the camels' pace increases when passing over these smooth sands and that the ground gives way beneath their hoofs, the camels moving forwards nimbly and energetically, as though skating over the sand. Do their hearts beat hard to the joltings of the descent, as mine does? I realize that we have entered at last the large depression that leads to the oasis and which centuries and centuries ago was a part of the great blue sea. For the last three days we haven't come across anything green on our path, not even those little cacti that defy the dryness and get their water from the drops of dew. At the last well that we passed, the guide said we should take all the water we needed because we wouldn't see another until we reached the oasis.

On the appointed morning, I heard a view halloo and sudden shouting among the Bedouin and traders of the caravan. At last, in the distance, the far distance, the sands gave way to reveal the tops of palms, and everyone waved, myself along with them, at the life that had suddenly been born out of what was dead, and the exhausted camels ran, sharing in the clamour and understanding that they had at last reached the end of their toils.

As we arrived, men of the small village on the outskirts of the oasis came to meet us in an open courtyard surrounded by walls. I noticed that they were wearing neither the flowing robes of the Bedouin nor the trailing gallabiyas of the peasants. Their gallabiyas were white and short, like wide shirts, and under them they wore long drawers, and most of them were barefoot. They surrounded us and offered us sugary dates and almonds from baskets of palm fronds, then gave us milk to drink in vessels of earthenware.

Mahmoud was standing by my side with the soldiers around him. I noticed that whenever they came close to us looks of hostility, which they attempted to hide by lowering their eyelids, darted from the eyes of the natives, who were exchanging conversation and laughter with the Bedouin and traders, and that they would hasten their steps so as to get past us as fast as they could, then move away muttering angrily. Sergeant Ibraheem told us in embarrassment that they were astonished and perplexed because this was the first time they had seen an unveiled woman, dressed like a man, in the oasis. I smiled into their faces and raised my hand in greeting but they gathered far from me in small knots from which they directed surreptitious looks towards me and whispered to the Bedouin of the caravan, who had likewise avoided me throughout the journey. I supposed that they were most probably asking them about me, and I noted that a few of the people of the oasis spoke Arabic with the Bedouin, though among themselves they loudly spoke their own language, which we could not understand. They went on muttering, shaking their heads, and shifting their glances from me to Mahmoud. He noticed this and remained by my side, holding on to my arm the whole time, the soldiers in attendance. I myself paid no attention.

I started moving around from place to place in the crowded courtyard, my inescapable guard sticking close, and I enquired of Ibraheem what was going on between the traders and the village men who had gathered around them. I asked him, 'Why are the traders offering only perfume bottles and bead necklaces and not selling anything else from their stock of goods?' and he whispered to me that they postponed their real work until they reached the main market of the town and met with its traders. Here, however, they might sell some clothes, for this was the custom of the oasis from ancient times: they wore only clothes that were made especially for them in Kerdasa and brought to them in the caravans.

Evening came and it was decided that we should spend the night in the village to rest the exhausted camels, which they drove off to be watered from a nearby spring. Mahmoud ordered the men to set up the usual tent in this space with its surrounding walls.

I asked Mahmoud, 'Have you noticed that we haven't seen any of the women of the village? Even the children were all boys.'

Mahmoud smiled and said, 'I'm not thinking about women

at the moment.' Then his face turned serious and he said, 'We have to think

about work now.'

He called Ibraheem and told him, 'Ask if any of the agwad are present in this village for me to speak with.'

Ibraheem laughed and said,'What village, Your Excellency? There's no village here.'

I asked him in confusion, 'And these men who came to meet us, then, where do they live?'

'These, madame, are cultivators, zaggala. They work and sleep in the gardens around here, which are enclosed behind walls. The agwad and great men who own the gardens live in the large town which we shall be making for tomorrow morning, and that's where we'll see them. They will certainly have sent one of the zaggala by now to inform them of the caravan's arrival, and of that of His Excellency the district commissioner.'

Mahmoud said, 'Brigadier General Saeed Bey wasn't wrong when he told me that you knew a lot about the people of the

oasis.'

'No one knows much about them, Your Excellency. I came here, as you know, with an army expedition twenty years ago and stayed a while, during which all I saw was war and

fighting ...'

Smiling, Mahmoud asked him, 'Why, then, did you come

back?'

T told Your Excellency that too,' said Ibraheem. 'For the

sake of the little ones.'

Ibraheem was truly an old man. His face indicated that he was past sixty, though his leanness and agility might make one think that he was younger. So what did he mean by 'the little ones' ?

I interrupted and asked, 'But surely your children are grown now, Ibraheem.' He avoided answering me directly and said after a moment of silence, They're my grandchildren, madame.'

I sensed that there was something there, so I stopped talking, but Mahmoud asked quite simply, 'And where are their fathers?'

Ibraheem raised his face and said in his village accent, 'Fate and fortune!' Then he fell silent once more.

Mahmoud fell silent too, but Ibraheem resumed quite naturally, 'As Your Excellency can see, they choose as they will. My children went in the prime of youth. I wish I could have taken the place of even one of them when the plague struck our town, but it was Divine Providence. They left me a tribe of grandchildren that the cholera passed over just as it did me. It may be for their sake that God has given me long life. It's for them that Brigadier General Saeed Bey, God protect him, helped me to get work with you here, so that I could put a little money aside for them.' Then Ibraheem attempted a smile and said, 'As you can see, I survived the cholera, and the war of the oasis and the war of the British that they call "the Riots", and here I am before Your Excellency, as strong as a horse.'

'God grant you long life, Ibraheem,' said Mahmoud.

He replied with a small laugh, 'More life? All I ask of God is that He send me back safe to my village.' Then he suddenly changed the subject with another laugh and said, 'Did you hear? The Bedouin asked the zaggala to put on a drumming party for us tonight. You'll see something you've never seen the like of before! If you'll excuse me, Excellency, I'll put the tent up.'

When he had left, Mahmoud said with a certain astonishment, 'He takes life just as he finds it!'

'Is there any other way, Mahmoud?' I responded.

T don't have time even to think about that now. The agwad

are getting ready for me and I must get ready for them.' Then he left me, saying, 'Hold on a moment, Ibraheem!'

No one learns anything from anybody!

The drumming party, as Ibraheem called it, did, however, teach me something.

The whole caravan attended the singing, which took place in the sandy enclosure, open to a black sky and a large moon by whose light people appeared as animated shadows. The chanting of the zaggala, who sat in a circle on the ground surrounded by a few high torches, started to the accompaniment of great excitement and shouts of encouragement from the Bedouin, who were, I believe, as ignorant as I of the meaning of the words of the songs and merely pleased, as I was, by the chanting. This started so softly that it was close to a woman's whisper, full of drawn-out sighs, and moved seamlessly into a drumbeat of screaming roughness as rapid as the crackling of bullets, while primitive oboes emitted their own moans and shrieks. The singers then stood up, to be joined by the other men, with dozens of hands clapping to the rapid rhythm, the melodious cries growing louder till they seemed to be coming from everywhere in space. And they were not finished yet, for the chanters then formed a circle, each of whose members took hold of his companion's waist, and they revolved in a headlong ring, the dancing bodies staggering to the beat of the lewd singing, which rose to a tumultuous roar. I felt my heart racing as though it were about to burst with the reverberating rhythms, and I looked surreptitiously around me and found that even Mahmoud was spellbound by that vortex, as were the Bedouin, who sat silent and open mouthed.

That night, in the tent, Mahmoud made love to me, or I made love to him, with ardour and passion, the two of us sating our bodies after a long hunger, though careful, all the same, to make no sound. The sounds that we suppressed, however, increased the tension of our bodies, and how we pounced, taut as bows, each separately burrowing into the other's skin, seeking release, and the two of us together burrowing into a soft cradle of sand. Not a bad beginning for the oasis!

At sunrise, the caravan resumed its progress towards the main town. The camels, which had baulked at the brackish water of the desert wells, had drunk sweet water and appeared refreshed and happy, and I too was refreshed and wide eyed at every new thing that met us on the road. For most of the way, it was still sand, hills and small brown mountains far off to the right, but from time to time we passed wells and lakes from which branched channels that extended to the cultivated lands behind the walls, above which nothing could be seen except the fronds of tall palm trees embracing clusters of dates, some of which were still green, though I could smell the penetrating scent of figs and other fruit and became aware of the incessant singing from behind the walls.

I realized that these were the work chants of the zaggala, of which I had heard - songs for every type of sowing and harvesting. Whenever one singer stopped chanting, I would hear another take up the song, from the same garden or from behind the walls of another, and the song, unbroken for the length of the road, completed the enchantment of the previous evening's party. At the same time, I recalled that, in the context of the rivalry between the oasis's two clans, battles had arisen over the right to the sole use of these songs. Could they have reached a solution by which the songs had become common property?

On our way, we passed a broad lake shining with the blue of the sky in the midst of the sand, and on which little waves shivered. It must have been a salt lake.

The caravan had not spent more than two hours on the road before we reached the heart of the oasis.

We had come across no buildings beside the track, only the walls of the gardens, which no one can see inside. From the moment we had entered the oasis, my attention had been drawn to the large number of palm trees near the springs; indeed, I had even seen palms drowned in the lakes, only their tops showing. Now, however, suddenly, as we crested a hill, the whole horizon turned green before my eyes - a forest, too large for the eyes to take in at once, of palm fronds interlocking in space, a dark green sea, thick and undulating, above which the town, with its grey walls and yellowish-brown dwellings, rose like an island, atop a pyramid-shaped hill.

Mahmoud brought his camel up alongside mine and stood, looking out like me at the town, in silence. Taken aback by what my eyes beheld, I said to him, without turning my head, 'I've never seen anything like it in my life - a grey volcano emerging from green waves.'

'Or a step pyramid such as none of our ancestors ever thought to build. A pyramid with a round base,' said Mahmoud.

He was right. The greyish-yellow houses, each stuck to the other, climb up in narrowing ranks to the top of the hill, after which there is nothing to be seen but the blue of the sky.

I didn't take my eyes from the town when the caravan started to move once more towards it, and Mahmoud startled me when he repeated, 'Indeed. A large pyramid, Catherine. And what did our ancestors use the pyramids for?'

Sunset Oasis, chapter 4
Translated fromt the Arabic by Humphrey Davies