through the open sky.
EACH DAY ADDED a little more land. The caravan had been divided into three sections, separated by a two- or three-hour march. The one headed by Larhdaf was on the left, over by the foothills of the Haua, on the route to Sidi al-Hach. Saadbou, the youngest son of the great sheik, was leading the one on the far right, following the dried riverbed of the Jang Saccum up through the middle of the valley of the Saguiet al-Hamra. In the middle, and hanging back, Ma al-Ainine moved along with his warriors on camelback. Then came the caravan of men, women, and children prodding their livestock out in front, following the huge cloud of red dust rising into the sky ahead of them.
Each day, they walked along the bottom of the immense valley while the sun over their heads followed the opposite path. It was the end of winter, and the rains had not yet assuaged the earth. The bottom of the Saguiet al-Hamra was as hard and crackled as an old goatskin. Even its red color burned their eyes and the skin on their faces.
In the morning, before the sun was even up, the call for the first prayer rang out. Then the sounds of the animals arose. The smoke from the braziers filled the valley. In the distance, Larhdaf’s soldiers called out their chants and were answered by Saadbou’s men. But the blue men of the great sheik prayed in silence. When the first signs of red dust rose into the air, the men set the herds to moving. Everyone picked up their bundles and started walking again over the earth, which was still cold and gray.
Slowly, day broke on the horizon, up above the Hamada. The men watched as the gleaming disk lit up the valley bottom and, already, they squinted their eyes and leaned slightly forward, as if to resist the weight and pain of the light on their brows and shoulders.
At times Larhdaf’s and Saadbou’s troops were so close that the sound of their horses’ hooves and the grumbling of their camels could be heard. Then the three dust clouds blended together in the sky and almost obscured the sun.
When the sun was at its zenith, the wind rose and swept everything clean, driving away the high walls of red dust and sand. The men stopped their herds in half circles and took shelter behind the reclining camels or up against the thorn bushes. The earth seemed as vast as the sky, as barren, as blinding.
Nour walked behind the great sheik’s troops, carrying his load of provisions in a large piece of canvas knotted around his chest. Each day from dawn to dusk, he walked in the tracks of horses and men without knowing where he was going, without being able to see his father, or his mother, or his sisters. Sometimes he would meet back up with them in the evening, when the travelers lit their twig fires for tea and porridge. He spoke to no one, and no one spoke to him. It was as if the fatigue and dryness had burned up the words in his throat.
When night was falling, and the animals had pawed out a hollow in which to sleep, Nour was able to take a look at the immense deserted valley surrounding him. Walking out a little ways from the camp, standing upon the desiccated plain, Nour felt as if he were as tall as a tree. The valley seemed boundless, an infinite expanse of stones and red sand, unchanged since the beginning of time. Scattered in the distance were the burnt shapes of small acacias, bushes, and tufts of cactuses and dwarf palms, in places where the moisture in the valley made faint dark marks. The earth took on a mineral color in the twilight. Nour stood absolutely still, waiting for darkness to descend and fill up the valley, slowly, like impalpable water.
Later, other parties of nomads came to join Ma al-Ainine’s group. They conferred with the chieftains of the tribes, asking them where they were going and then followed the same route. Now there were several thousand of them walking along the valley toward the wells of Hausa, al-Faunat, and Yorf.
Nour no longer knew how many days it had been since the journey began. Maybe it was only one single and interminable day unfolding like that, while the sun rose and set again in the blazing sky, and the cloud of dust swirled in on itself, churning like a wave. The men following Ma al-Ainine’s sons were far ahead; they had probably already reached the end of the Saguiet al-Hamra, beyond the tomb of Mohammed Embarek, the place where the lunar wasteland of the valley of Mesuar opens out on the plateau of the Hamada. Maybe their horses were already climbing the slopes of the rocky hills, and seeing the immense valley of the Saguiet al-Hamra opening out behind them with the billowing red-ochre clouds of Ma al-Ainine’s people and herds.
Now, the men and women in the last column were beginning to slow down. From time to time, Nour stopped to wait for his mother and sisters’ group. He sat down on the hot stones, a flap of his cloak pulled over his head, and watched the horde moving slowly along the trail. The unmounted warriors walked bent over, staggering under the loads on their shoulders. Some of them were leaning on their rifles, their spears. Their faces were black, and through the crunching of their footsteps in the sand, Nour could hear the sound of their labored breathing.
Behind them came the children and the shepherds, pursuing the herds of goats and sheep, throwing stones to drive them onward. The swirls of dust enveloped them like a red fog, and Nour watched the strange, disheveled shapes that seemed to be dancing in the dust. The women walked alongside the pack camels, some were carrying babies in their cloaks, slowly making their way barefoot over the scorching earth. Nour could hear the clear tinkling of their gold and copper necklaces, the bangles on their ankles. They walked along humming a sad interminable song that came and went like the sound of the wind.
But at the very end came those who could not go on, the aged, the infants, the wounded, young women whose men were dead and who no longer had anyone to help them find food or water. There were many of them, scattered along the trail in the valley of the Saguiet, and they kept coming for hours after the soldiers of the sheik had passed. They were the ones Nour looked upon with special compassion.
Standing by the side of the trail, he saw them walking slowly past, hardly lifting their legs, heavy with weariness. They had emaciated gray faces, eyes shiny with fever. Their lips were bleeding; their hands and chests were marked with wounds where the clotted blood had mixed with golden particles of dust. The sun beat down on them as it did on the red stones of the path, and they received a real beating. The women had no shoes, and their bare feet were burned from the sand and eaten away with the salt. But the most painful thing about them, the most disquieting thing that made pity rise in Nour’s breast, was their silence. Not one of them spoke or sang. No one cried or moaned. All of them, men, women, children with bleeding feet, plodded noiselessly forward, like a defeated people, not uttering a word. All that could be heard was the sound of their footsteps in the sand and the shallow panting of their breaths. Then they moved slowly away, bundles rocking on their backs, like strange insects after a storm.
Nour remained standing by the side of the trail, his bundle resting at his feet. From time to time, when an old woman or a wounded soldier walked in his direction, he tried to talk to them, drew near them saying, “Hello, hello, you aren’t too terribly tired, are you? Would you like me to help you with your load?”
But they remained silent, they didn’t even look at him, and their faces were as hard as the stones in the valley, closed tight against the pain and the light.
A group of men from the desert came, warriors from Chinguetti. Their ample sky-blue cloaks were in shreds. They had bound up their legs and feet with bloodstained rags. They were carrying nothing, not even a bag of rice, not even a flask of water. They had nothing left but their rifles and their spears and they struggled along, like the old people and children.
One of them was blind, and he was holding on to the group by a flap of cloak, staggering over the rocks in the path, tripping against the roots of shrubs.
When he passed near Nour and heard the voice of the young boy greeting them, he stopped and let go of his companion’s cloak.
“Have we arrived?” he asked.
The others kept on walking without even looking back. The desert warrior’s face was still young, but wasted with fatigue, and a dirty piece of cloth was tied across his burned eyes.
Nour gave him a little of his water to drink, put his load back on his shoulders, and placed the warrior’s hand on his cloak.
“Come, I’ll be your guide now.”
They struck out walking on the path again, toward the end of the valley, pursuing the huge cloud of red dust.
The man did not speak. His hand was gripping Nour’s shoulder so tightly it was painful. In the evening, when they stopped at the Yorf well, the boy was exhausted. They had now reached the foot of the red cliffs, where the mesas of the Haua and the valley leading northward began.
All the caravans had come together there: Larhdaf’s, Saadbou’s and the great sheik’s, with his blue men. In
