So when he realized there was nothing left to hope for, that they would all die, one after the other, on the scorching riverbed, in front of the ramparts of the merciless city, Ma al-Ainine gave the signal to move on northward. This time there was no praying or chanting or dancing. One after the other, slowly, like sick animals straightening up on their legs, teetering, the blue men left the riverbed, struck out again, walking toward the unknown.
Then the troop of the sheik’s warriors no longer looked the same. They walked along with the convoy of men and animals, as haggard as they were, their clothing in tatters, their eyes blank and feverish. Maybe they’d stopped believing in the reasons for this long march; they continued moving forward simply out of habit, at the end of their strength, ready to collapse at any minute. The women bent over as they walked, their faces hidden by their blue veils, and many of them no longer had a child on her back, because he’d been left in the red earth of the Souss Valley. Then, at the end of the convoy, which stretched out over the whole valley, were the children, the old people, the wounded warriors, everyone who walked slowly. Nour was among them, guiding the blind warrior. He didn’t even know where his family was anymore, lost somewhere in the cloud of dust. Only a few warriors were still mounted. The great sheik was traveling with them, on his white camel, wrapped in his cloak.
No one spoke. They walked on, each man keeping to himself, burned faces, feverish eyes trained on the red earth of the hills in the west, in order to spot the trail leading over the mountains to the city of Marrakech. They walked on with the light beating down on their skulls, their necks, making pain throb through their limbs, burning down into the very quick of their bodies. They could no longer hear the wind, or the sound of the people’s feet scuffing over the desert. They could only hear the sound of their hearts, the sound of their nerves, the pain whistling and grating behind their eardrums.
Nour could no longer feel the hand of the blind warrior gripping his shoulder. He was just moving forward, without knowing why, with no hope of ever stopping. Maybe the day his mother and father decided to leave the camps in the South, they had been condemned to wander for the rest of their lives on this endless march, from well to well, along dried valleys? But were there other lands on earth apart from these infinite stretches in which the dust mingled with the sky, stark mountains, sharp stones, rivers with no water, thorn bushes, each of which could bring death with the slightest wound? Each day, off in the distance, on the hillsides near the wells, the people saw more houses, fortresses of red mud surrounded with fields and palm groves. But they saw them as one sees mirages, shimmering in the burning hot air, remote, inaccessible. The inhabitants of the villages didn’t show themselves. They had fled into the mountains or they were hiding behind their ramparts, ready to combat the blue men of the desert.
At the head of the caravan, on their horses, the sons of Ma al-Ainine pointed to the narrow opening of the valley surrounded by the chaos of the mountains.
“The trail! The trail to the North!”
So they walked through the mountains for days. The burning wind blew through the ravines. The blue sky was immense above the red rocks. There wasn’t a soul up there, not a person or an animal, only the tracks of a snake in the sand once in a while, or, very high up in the sky, the shadow of a vulture. They walked on without looking for life, without seeing a sign of hope. Like blind people, the men and women made their way along in single file, placing their feet in the footsteps that preceded them, mixed in with the herd animals. Who was guiding them? The dirt trail snaked through ravines, over rockslides, merged with dried torrent beds.
Finally, the travelers arrived on the edge of Oued Issene, swollen with melting snow. The water was lovely and pure; it leapt between the arid banks. But the people looked at it without emotion, because the water was not theirs; they could not retain it. They stayed on the banks of the stream for several days, while the warriors of the great sheik, accompanied by Larhdaf and Saadbou, went up the Chichaoua trail.
“Have we arrived, is this our land?” the blind warrior always asked. The cold water of the stream tumbled down over the rocks in cascades, and the path was getting more difficult. Then the caravan arrived in front of a Chleuh village at the end of the valley. The sheik’s warriors were waiting for them there. They had raised their large tent, and the sheiks of the mountains had sacrificed sheep to welcome Ma al-Ainine. It was the village of Aglagla, at the foot of the high mountains. The people of the desert set up camp near the walls of the village, without even asking. That evening, children from the village came, bringing grilled meat and sour milk, and they were all able to eat their fill, which they hadn’t done in a long time. Then they lit big fires of cedar wood, because the night was cold.
Nour watched the flames dancing in the pitch-black night for a long time. There was chanting too, strange music the likes of which he’d never heard, sad and slow, accompanied by the sound of the flute. The men and women of the village asked for Ma al-Ainine’s blessing, asked him to heal them of their illnesses.
Then the travelers started out for the other side of the mountains, in the direction of the holy city. It just might prove to be the place where the people of the desert would know an end to their suffering, according to what Ma al-Ainine’s blue warriors said, because it was in Marrakech that Ma al-Ainine had given his oath of allegiance to Moulay Hafid, the Leader of the Faithful, fourteen years earlier. It was there that the king had given the sheik a piece of land, so that he could build the house for teaching the Goudfia. And it was also in the holy city that the eldest son of Ma al-Ainine was waiting for his father in order to join the holy war; and everyone venerated Moulay Hiba, he who was called Dehiba, the Particle of Gold, he who was called Moulay Sebaa, the Lion, for it was he whom they had chosen to be king of the lands of the South.
In the evening, when the caravan stopped and the fires were being lit, Nour led the blind warrior over to where Ma al-Ainine’s warriors were sitting, and they listened to the stories of what had come to pass when the great sheik and his sons had arrived with the warriors from the desert, all mounted on swift camels, and how they had entered the holy city; they had been welcomed by the king along with Ma al-Ainine’s two sons, Moulay Sebaa, the Lion, and Mohammed al-Shems, he who was called the Sun; they also told of the offerings the king had made, so the sheik could build the ramparts of the city of Smara; and the journey they had undertaken with such large herds of camels, they covered the entire plain, while the women and the children and the equipment and the food supplies were all loaded aboard the big steamship called Bashir, and sailed several days and several nights from Mogador to Marsa Tarfaya.
They also recounted the legend of Ma al-Ainine, in their slightly singsong voices, and it was as if they were telling about a dream they had once had. The voice of the warriors mingled with the sound of the flames, and every now and again, Nour caught a glimpse of the frail shape of the old man through the plumes of smoke, like a flame, in the center of the camp.
“The great sheik was born far from here, to the south, in the country that is called Hodh, and his father was the son of Moulay Idriss, and his mother was a descendant of the Prophet. When the great sheik was born, his father named him Ahmed, but his mother named him Ma al-Ainine, Water of the Eyes, because she had wept with joy when he was born….”
Nour listened in the night, beside the blind warrior, his head resting against a stone.
“When he turned seven, he recited the Koran without making a single mistake, so his father, Mohammed al- Fadel, sent him to the great holy city of Mecca, and on the way, the child performed miracles… He knew how to heal the sick, and to those who asked him for water, he said, the heavens will give you water, and immediately heavy rains streamed over the earth…”
The blind warrior was swaying his head slightly, as if he were marking time to the words, and Nour was drifting slowly off to sleep.
“Then people from all corners of the desert came to see the child who could perform miracles, and the child, the son of the great Mohammed Fadel ben Maminna, simply put a little saliva on the eyes of the sick person, he blew on his lips and the sick person immediately stood up and kissed the child’s hand, for he had been healed…”
Nour could feel the body of the blind warrior trembling against him, as he rocked his head slowly from shoulder to shoulder. It was the monotone voice of the storyteller and the wavering of the smoke and the flames: the earth itself seemed to be moving in time with the rhythm of the voice.
“So then the great sheik settled in the holy city of Chinguetti, at the Nazaran well, near al-Dakhla, to give his teachings, for he knew the science of the stars and of numbers, and the word of God. So the men of the desert became his disciples, and they were called Berik Allah, those who have received the blessing of God…”
The voice of the blue warrior droned on in the night, before the leaping dancing flames, with the smoke enveloping the men and making them cough. Nour listened to the stories of the miracles, the springs gushing forth in the desert, the rainwater covering the arid fields, and the words of the great sheik in the square of Chinguetti, or
