darkness of dawn.
At night he liked to make green tea and talk to Asouf about the qualities of the different animals and birds in the desert. He'd remove any stones, lie down on the sand, then unveil his mouth and his beard shot through with white. He'd smile, then say:
“What do you think? What does the gazelle tell himself when he sees the enemy of all creatures? He says, ‘the plain.' And what does the waddan say to himself when he sees the enemy of all creatures? He says, ‘the mountain.' The mountain's a trap for the gazelle, the plain's a trap for the waddan.”
He'd raise his head toward the skies and sing a sad muwwal, then return to his old story about the waddan.
“I saw a waddan who'd lost his way on the wide plains. I chased him, on my camel, until he was exhausted. And do you know what he did, as his strength drained away? He turned and attacked the camel, thrusting at it with those vicious horns of his, until the camel took fright and turned back. I had to dismount and take on the furious beast. All I had was the rope in my hand. I tried to choke him with it, but he thrust at me and flung me to the ground. I grasped his long horns. And, believe me, I've never known anything stronger than a waddan's horns. God, how strong they are! With one movement he plucked me up and flung me through the air. Then he came at me with his devilish weapon, and I only just swerved in time from the sharp tips. He pawed savagely at the stones, and in that short moment I saw rancor and wretchedness together in his eyes. I saw stubbornness and wildness, and many other things I didn't even understand. His lips were covered with foam, his shaggy coat was caked with dung and mud. Knowing I'd never get the better of him with my bare hands, I leaped up and ran to my camel to snatch the rifle hanging from the saddle.”
He fell silent suddenly, gazing into the thick darkness of the wilderness. There was a sudden wretchedness in his eyes. He got up and clasped his hands over his chest, still looking into the darkness and space.
“I forgot to tell you,” he said, “that our battle happened in a wadi well away from the mountains. The waddan knew he couldn't escape because he was so far from his mountain stronghold. In the middle of the wadi there was a small hill covered with high, smooth rocks. When he saw I'd taken my rifle, he climbed the rocks in a single swift movement, then leaped to the ground and broke his neck. The blood gushed out from his nostrils, and, after he was dead, his eyes were open and that strange look was still there—the mixture of wretchedness and rancor and helplessness.”
“Did you slaughter it,” Asouf asked, “and make its flesh lawful?”
“How could I slaughter an animal that had killed itself? In any case, he'd died at once. I told you, his neck was broken. He was already dead.”vi
He sighed, put on some sticks to feed the dwindling fire, then said sadly:
“I can't get that strange, possessed waddan out of my mind. How could I forget that fearful, despairing look he gave me when he saw the rifle in my hands and knew all hope of escape was gone? Poor, possessed waddan !”
He waited until the moon had risen, then told Asouf how the waddan was the spirit of the mountains. Once long ago, he said, the mountain desert waged constant war with the sandy desert, and the heavenly gods would descend to earth to separate the pair, calming the fire of enmity between them. But no sooner had the gods left the battlefield, and the rains stopped pouring down, than war would break out once more between the two eternal enemies. One day, the gods grew angry in their high heavens and sent down their punishment on the fighters. They froze the mountains in Massak Satfat, and they stopped the persistent advance of the sands on the borders of Massak Mallat. Then the sands found a way to enter the spirit of the gazelles, while the mountains found a way into the spirit of the waddan. And from that day on, the waddan was possessed by the spirit of the mountains.
Asouf reflected on this tale.
“But,” he said, “gazelles and waddan don't fight now.”
His father let out a great laugh. Then, gazing at the magical moon as it rose from out of the heart of darkness, he said in a mysterious tone: “That's because God visited a greater disaster on earth, one that fought the two sides at once. Man came, to be the enemy of gazelles and waddan alike. The gods had grown tired of all the silly complaints. Sometimes the sands would rise to make their case to the heavens—it was the mountains, they said, that had started things. And sometimes it was the mountain tops that would go to the gods, complaining of the raids made by the sands. So the gods, in their anger, punished them both with a devil called man. They placed the matter in his hands, and he came to live in the wadi between the two. Now the gods could have a little peace at last, and they've heard no more complaints since.”
He turned to Asouf and went on in the same mysterious tone.
“How can I be a neighbor of men? Your mother keeps scolding me—she wants me to go back and live near the tribe in Abrahoh. She says she's lonely and she weeps at night. You know how she weeps. I'm the one, she says, who's the jinni, the devil, and not the other people. But I can't live near anyone. That's what my grandfather taught me, and that's what I must teach you. All I want is peace. Do you understand?”
Then he raised his voice in the same sad muwwal.
5. THE PRICE OF SOLITUDE
For the people of the Tassili the hunting of the waddan is unlucky. The hunter accordingly murmurs spells, places a stone on his head and leaps around on all fours before embarking on the hunt.
—Henri Lhote, A la découverte des fresques du Tassili
But he didn't long enjoy the contentment of solitude, there in the desert with his father. The old man went off to hunt the waddan in the mountains of western Massis, and was destined not to return. After they'd waited some days for him, his mother gave voice to her fears.
“Your father wouldn't stay away without some reason. It's over a week since he left.”
Asouf took dates and water and set out after him. His father was unarmed now, which was why, instead of hunting the gazelles in Massak Mallat, he'd had to go in pursuit of the charmed waddan on the tops of the harsh, rugged mountains. Since that incident he'd described to Asouf, he'd become wary of hunting the waddan, and would never venture to the majestic heights until he'd recited all the Quranic verses he'd memorized, repeated, in Hausa, all the spells of the African magicians, then hung around his neck all the snakeskin amulets he'd bought from soothsayers traveling in caravans from Kano. The day before he left, he'd sit murmuring his spells and keep strict silence otherwise, refusing to answer their questions. He'd sleep outside the tent too, to avoid having to speak with either of them, then leave at dawn on his camel, empty-handed. Yes, unarmed and empty-handed, for he'd run out of ammunition for his old rifle, and the merchant caravans traveled to Sudan or to Agades only rarely now. Months would go by without a caravan from the land of the black people passing through. He'd lost his connections, too, with the people from the oases of the Wadi Aajal, or Ghat, or Uwaynat, or Marzouq—especially since news had spread that the Italians had invaded their shores, with plans to penetrate south into the desert. This had raised the price of ammunition and made the use of weapons a forbidden, hazardous business. Every bedouin in the desert would rather hide a bullet in the pupil of his eye, ready to use it to defend his children at the dreadful moment the enemy launched its invasion of the desert—for, if the Italians did come, they'd enter every tent. Isolated though the bedouins were, in their southern wilderness, news of the invaders still came to them on the winds, as rumors always do among desert tribes—rumors of marriage and
