the valley, traces of human life began: fields surrounded by drystone walls, pens for camels, shacks made of the leaves of dwarf palms, large woolen tents like upturned boats. The men descended slowly, digging their heels into the sand that crumbled and shifted underfoot. The women slowed their pace and remained far behind the group of animals, suddenly frantic from the smell of the wells. Then the immense valley appeared, spreading out under the plateau of stones. Nour looked for the tall, dark green palms rising from the ground in close rows around the clear freshwater lake; he looked for the white palaces, the minarets, everything he had been told about since his childhood whenever anyone had mentioned the city of Smara. It had been so long since he’d seen trees. His arms hung loosely from his body as he walked down toward the valley bottom, eyes half shut against the sun and the sand.
As the men neared the floor of the valley, the city they had glimpsed briefly disappeared, and they found only dry, barren land. The heat was torrid, sweat streamed down Nour’s face, making his blue clothing stick to his lower back and shoulders.
Now other men, other women also appeared, as if they’d suddenly sprung up from the valley. Some women had lit their braziers for the evening meal, children, men sitting quietly in front of their dusty tents. They’d come from all parts of the desert, beyond the stony Hamada, from the mountains of Cheheiba and Ouarkziz, from Siroua, from the Oum Chakourt Mountains beyond even the great southern oases, from the underground lake of Gourara. They’d come through the mountains at Maider Pass, near Tarhamant, or lower down where the Draa joins the Tingut, through Regbat. All of the southern peoples had come, the nomads, the traders, the shepherds, the looters, the beggars. Perhaps some of them had left the Kingdom of Biru or the great oasis of Oualata. Their faces bore the ruthless mark of the sun, of the deathly-cold nights deep in the desert. Some of them were a blackish, almost red color, tall and slender, they spoke an unknown language; they were Tubbus come from across the desert, from Borku and Tibesti, eaters of kola nuts, who were going all the way to the sea.
As the troop of people and livestock approached, the black shapes of humans multiplied. Behind twisted acacias, huts of mud and branches appeared, like so many termite mounds. Houses of adobe, pillboxes of planks and mud, and most of all, those low, drystone walls, barely even knee-high — dividing the red soil into a honeycomb of tiny patches. In fields no larger than a saddle blanket, the harratin slaves tried to raise a few broad beans, peppers, some millet. The irrigation canals extended their parched ditches across the valley to capture the slightest drop of moisture.
They had arrived now in the environs of the great city of Smara. The people, the animals, all moved forward over the desiccate earth, along the bottom of the deep gash of the Saguiet Valley.
They had been waiting for so many hard flintlike days, so many hours, to see this. There was so much suffering in their aching bodies, in their bleeding lips, in their scorched gaze. They hurried toward the wells, impervious to the cries of the animals or the mumbling of the other people. Once they reached the wells and were before the stone wall holding up the soggy earth, they stopped. The children shooed off the animals by throwing stones, while the men knelt down to pray. Then each of them dipped his face in the water and drank deeply.
It was just like that, those eyes of water in the desert. But the tepid water still held the strength of the wind, the sand, and the great frozen night sky. As he drank, Nour could feel the emptiness that had driven him from one well to the next entering him. The murky and stale water nauseated him, did not quench his thirst. It was as if the silence and loneliness of the dunes and the great plateaus were settling deep inside of him. The water in the wells was still, smooth as metal, with bits of leaves and animal wool floating on its surface. At the other well, the women were washing themselves and smoothing their hair.
Near them, the goats and dromedaries stood motionless, as if they were tethered to stakes in the mud around the well.
Other men came and went between the tents. They were blue warriors of the desert, veiled, armed with daggers and long rifles, striding along, not looking at anyone; Sudanese slaves, dressed in rags, carrying loads of millet or dates, goatskins filled with oil; sons of great tents with almost black skin — dressed in white and dark blue — known as Chleuhs; sons of the coast with red hair and freckles on their skin; men of no race, no name; leprous beggars who did not go near the water. All of them were walking over the stone-strewn red dust, making their way toward the walls of the holy city of Smara. They had fled the desert for a few hours, a few days. They had unrolled the heavy cloth of their tents, wrapped themselves in their woolen cloaks, they were awaiting the night. They were eating now, ground millet mixed with sour milk, bread, dried dates that tasted of honey and of pepper. Flies and mosquitoes danced around the children’s heads in the evening air, wasps lit on their hands, their dust- stained cheeks.
They were talking now, very loudly, and the women in the stifling darkness of the tents laughed and threw little pebbles out at the children who were playing. Words gushed from the men’s mouths as if in drunkenness, words that sang, shouted, echoed with guttural sounds. Behind the tents near the walls of Smara, the wind whistled in the branches of the acacias, in the leaves of the dwarf palms. And yet, the men and women whose faces and bodies were tinted blue with indigo and sweat were still steeped in silence; they had not left the desert.
They did not forget. The great silence that swept constantly over the dunes was deep in their bodies, in their entrails. That was the true secret. Every now and again, the man with the rifle stopped talking to Nour and looked back toward the head of the valley, from where the wind was coming.
Sometimes a man from another tribe walked up to the tent and greeted them, extending his two open hands. They exchanged but a few brief words, a few names. But they were words and names that vanished immediately, simply vague traces that the wind and the sand would cover over.
When night fell over the well water there, the star-filled desert sky reigned again. In the valley of Saguiet al- Hamra, nights were milder, and the new moon rose in the dark sky. The bats began their dance around the tents, flitting over the surface of the well water. The light from the braziers flickered, giving off a smell of hot oil and smoke. Some children ran between the tents, letting out barking sounds like dogs. The beasts were already asleep, the dromedaries with their legs hobbled, the sheep and the goats in the circles of drystone.
The men let down their guard. The guide had laid his rifle on the ground at the entrance to the tent and was smoking, gazing out into the night. He was hardly listening to the soft voices and laughter of the women sitting near the braziers. Maybe he was dreaming of other evenings, other journeys, as if the burn of the sun on his skin and the aching thirst in his throat were only the beginning of some other desire.
Sleep drifted slowly over the city of Smara. Down in the south, on the great rocky Hamada, there was no sleep at night. There was the numbing cold, when the wind blew on the sand, laying the base of the mountains bare. It was impossible to sleep on the desert routes. One lived, one died, forever peering out with a steady gaze, eyes burning with weariness and with light. Sometimes the blue men came across a member of their tribe sitting up very straight in the sand, legs stretched out in front, body stock still in the shredded clothing stirring in the wind. In the gray face, the blackened eyes were set on the shifting horizon of dunes, for that is how death had come upon him.
Sleep is like water, no one could truly sleep far from the springs. The wind blew, just like the wind up in the stratosphere, depriving the earth of all warmth.
But there in the red valley the travelers could sleep.
The guide awoke before the others, he stood very still in front of the tent. He watched the haze moving slowly up the valley toward the Hamada. Night faded with the passing haze. Arms crossed on his chest, the guide was barely breathing, his eyelids did not move. He was waiting for the first light of dawn, the fijar, the white patch that is born in the east, above the hills. When the light appeared, he bent over Nour and woke him gently, putting a hand on his shoulder. Together they walked away in silence; they walked along the sandy trail that led to the wells. Dogs barked in the distance. In the gray dawn light, the man and Nour washed themselves according to the ritual, one part after another, starting over again three times. The well water was cold and pure, water born of the sand and of the night. The man and the boy washed their faces and their hands once more, then they turned toward the east for the first prayer. The sky was just beginning to light the horizon.
In the campsites, the braziers glowed in the last shadows. The women went to draw water; the little girls ran through the water shouting a little, then they came teetering back with the jars balanced on their thin necks.
The sounds of human life began to rise from the campsites and the mud houses: sounds of metal, of stone, of water. The yellow dogs gathered in the square, circling each other and yapping. The camels and the herds pawed the ground, raising the red dust.
