of branches mixed with mud.
Nour went in now too, on all fours. He felt the hard cold floor of earth mixed with sheep’s blood under his hands. The guide was lying on his stomach at the back of the tomb on the mud floor. Palms on the ground, arms stretched out before him, melting in with the earth. Now he was no longer praying, no longer singing. He was breathing slowly, his mouth against the ground, listening to the blood beating in his throat and ears. It was as if something unknown were entering him, through his mouth, through his forehead, through the palms of his hands, and through his stomach, something that went very deep inside of him and changed him imperceptibly. Perhaps it was the silence that had come from the desert, from the sea of dunes, from the rock-filled mountains in the moonlight, or from the great plains of pink sand where the sunlight dances and wavers like a curtain of rain, the silence of the green waterholes, looking up at the sky like eyes, the silence of the cloudless, birdless sky where the wind runs free.
The man lying on the ground felt his limbs growing numb. Darkness filled his eyes, as it does before one drifts into sleep. Yet at the same time new strength came to him through his stomach, through his hands, creeping into each of his muscles. Everything inside of him was changing, being fulfilled. There was no more suffering, no more desire, no more revenge. He forgot all of that, as if the water of the prayer had washed his mind clean. There were no more words either, the cold darkness in the tomb made them pointless. Instead there was this strange current pulsing in the earth mixed with blood, this vibration, this warmth. There wasn’t anything like it on earth. It was a direct force, without thought, that came from the depths of the earth and went out into the depths of space, as if an invisible bond united the body of the man lying there and the rest of the world.
Nour was barely breathing, watching his father in the dark tomb. His fingers were spread out on the cold earth which was pulling him through space on a dizzying course.
They remained like that for a long time, the guide lying on the ground and Nour crouching, eyes wide, staying very still. Then when it was all over, the man rose slowly and helped his son out. He went to sit down against the wall of the tomb. He seemed exhausted, as if he had walked for hours without eating or drinking. But there was a new strength deep within him, a joyfulness that lit his eyes. Now it was as if he knew what he needed to do, as if he knew in advance the path he must follow.
He pulled the flap of his woolen cloak down over his face, and he thanked the holy man without uttering a word, simply moving his head a little and humming in his throat. His long blue hands stroked the tamped earth, closed over a handful of fine dust.
Before them, the sun followed the curve of the sky, slowly descending on the other side of the Saguiet al- Hamra. The shadows of the hills and rocks grew long in the valley bottom. But the guide didn’t seem to notice. Sitting very still, his back leaning against the wall of the tomb, he had no sense of the passing day, or hunger, or thirst. He was filled with a different force, from a different time that had made him a stranger to the order of man. Perhaps he was no longer waiting for anything, no longer knew anything, and now he resembled the desert — silence, stillness, absence.
When night began to fall, Nour was frightened and he touched his father’s shoulder. The man looked at him in silence, with a slight smile on his face. Together they started down the hill toward the dry torrent. Despite the gathering night, their eyes stung and the hot wind burned their faces and hands. The man staggered a little as he walked on the path, and he needed to lean on Nour’s shoulder.
Down at the bottom of the valley, the water in the wells was black. Mosquitoes hung in the air, trying to get at the children’s eyelids. Farther on, near the red walls of Smara, bats skimmed over the tents, circled around the braziers. When they reached the first well, Nour and his father stopped again to carefully wash each part of their bodies. Then they said the last prayer, turning toward the approaching night.
THEN GREATER and greater numbers of them came to the valley of the Saguiet al-Hamra. They came from the south, some with their camels and horses, but most of them on foot, because the animals died of thirst and disease along the way. Every day the young boy saw new campsites around the mud ramparts of Smara. The brown woolen tents made new circles around the walls of the city. Every evening at nightfall, Nour watched the travelers arriving in clouds of dust. Never had he seen so many human beings. There was a constant commotion of men’s and women’s voices, of children’s shrill shouts, the weeping of infants mingled with the bleating of goats and sheep, with the clattering of gear, with the grumbling of camels. A strange smell that Nour wasn’t really familiar with drifted up from the sand and floated over in short wafts on the evening wind; it was a powerful smell, both acrid and sweet at the same time, the odor of human skin, of breathing, of sweat. The fires burning charcoal, bits of straw, and manure were being lit in the twilight. The smoke from the braziers rose up over the tents. Nour could hear the soft voices of women singing their babies to sleep.
Most of those who were arriving now were old people, women and children, exhausted from their forced march through the desert, clothing torn, feet bare or tied with rags. Their faces were black, burnt with the light, eyes like two pieces of coal. The young children went naked, wounds marking their legs, bellies bloated with hunger and thirst.
Nour wandered through the camp, weaving his way through the tents. He was astonished to see so many people, and at the same time he felt a sort of anxiety because, without really knowing why, he thought that many of those men, those women, those children would soon die.
He was constantly running into new travelers walking slowly down the aisles between the tents. Some of them, black like the Sudanese, came from farther south and spoke a language that Nour didn’t understand. Most of the men’s faces were hidden, wrapped in woolen cloaks and blue cloth; their feet were shod with sandals made of goat leather. They carried long, flintlock rifles with copper barrels, spears, daggers. Nour stepped aside to let them pass, and he watched them walk toward the gate to Smara. They were going to greet the great sheik, Moulay Ahmed ben Mohammed al-Fadel, who was called Ma al-Ainine, Water of the Eyes.
They all went and sat down on the small benches of dried mud that circled the courtyard in front of the sheik’s house. Then they went to say their prayer at sunset to the east of the well, kneeling in the sand, turning their bodies in the direction of the desert.
When night had come, Nour went back toward his father’s tent and sat down beside his older brother. On the right side of the tent his mother and sisters were talking, stretched out on the carpets between the provisions and the camel’s packsaddle. Little by little, Smara and the valley fell silent again; the sounds of human voices and animal cries faded out one after the other. The magnificently round white disk of the full moon appeared in the black sky. Despite all the heat of day accumulated in the sand, the night was cold. A few bats flew across the moon, dove suddenly toward the ground. Nour, lying on his side with his head resting against his arm, was watching them as he was waiting to doze off. He fell abruptly to sleep, without realizing it, eyes wide open.
When he awoke he had the odd impression that time had stood still. He looked around for the disk of the moon and upon seeing that it had begun its descent to the west, he realized he had slept for a long time.
The silence hanging over the campsites was oppressive. All that could be heard was the distant howling of wild dogs somewhere out on the edge of the desert.
Nour got up and saw that his father and brother were no longer in the tent. He could only make out the vague shapes of the women and children rolled up in the carpets on the left side of the tent. Nour started walking along the sandy path between the campsites toward the ramparts of Smara. The moonlit sand was very white against the blue shadows of stones and bushes. There was not a single sound, as if all the men were asleep, but Nour knew that the men weren’t in the tents. Only the children were sleeping, and the women were lying very still, rolled up in their cloaks and carpets, looking out of the tents. The night air made the young boy shiver, and the sand was cold and hard under his bare feet.
When he neared the city walls, Nour could hear the murmuring of men’s voices. A little farther on, he saw the motionless shape of a guard squatting in front of the gate to the city, his long rifle propped against his knees. But Nour knew of a place where the mud rampart had collapsed, and he was able to enter Smara without going past the sentinel.
He immediately discovered the men assembled in the courtyard of the sheik’s house. They were sitting in groups of five or six on the ground around braziers where large copper kettles held water for making green tea. Nour slipped silently into the gathering. No one looked at him. All the men were watching a group of warriors standing in front of the door to the house. There were a few soldiers from the desert, dressed in blue, standing absolutely still, staring at an old man dressed in a simple cloak of white wool that was pulled up over his head, and two armed young men who took turns speaking out vehemently.
