Tuareg Read online

  ‘The French have gone. We are a free country now.’

  For the second time in the space of a few days he was hearing the same thing and it suddenly dawned on him that neither the official nor the soldiers had been wearing the colonial uniforms they had previously so despised.

  None of them had been European and none of them had spoken with the strong accent he had been used to hearing and their vehicles had not displayed the perennial tricolor flag either.

  ‘The French always respected our traditions,’ he said. ‘Why are they not being respected now, if, moreover, we are free?’

  Mubarrak shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Times have changed…’ he said.

  ‘Not for me,’ came his reply. ‘Only when the desert becomes an oasis, the water runs freely through the wadis and the rain falls as often as we need it to, will the Tuaregs change their customs. Never before.’

  Mubarrak kept his calm as he asked:

  ‘Do you mean to say that you have come here to kill me?’

  ‘I am here for that reason.’

  Mubarrak nodded silently, in quiet acceptance of his answer, then glanced around him at the damp earth and the tiny acheb shoots that were already pushing their way up between the rocks and the pebbles.

  ‘The rain was beautiful,’ he said.

  ‘Very beautiful.’

  ‘Soon the plains will be covered with flowers and only one of us will be around to see them.’

  ‘You should have thought about that before bringing those strangers to my settlement.’

  Under his veil, a faint smile played at the corners of Mubarrak’s lips:

  ‘It had not rained then,’ he replied and then very slowly he took his tabuka out, freeing the metal blade from its embossed leather sheath.

  ‘I pray that this act does not unleash a war between our tribes,’ he said. ‘We alone must pay for our mistakes.’

  ‘So be it,’ Gazel replied solemnly, then crouched down as if ready to receive the first charge.

  But it took a while before either of them made a move, because neither Gazel nor Mubarrak were warriors of the sword or spear any longer, but gunmen. The long tabukas were rarely used in battle any more, but brought out during ceremonies or festivals for dramatic effect rather than to draw blood. During these festivities the noise of the swords smacking against the leather shield and the dodges and feints were just theatrical moves as opposed to genuine acts of combat.

  But this time round there were no shields or spectators to admire their twists and turns and the flashing blades were not for the benefit of an audience. On this occasion the opponent was brandishing his sword with the intent to kill, before being killed himself.

  How to block a blow without a shield?

  How to recover a position having fallen backwards or slipped up, when your rival was waiting to pounce?

  They studied each other, trying to work out what each other’s intentions were, circling each other, one after the other slowly. Men, women and children had started to come out of their jaimas to observe them in silence and dismay, hardly daring to believe that what they saw was for real and not just a theatrical display.

  Mubarrak finally made the first move but it was more to test the water, to see whether this really was about a fight to the death.

  The answer made him jump backwards as the blade of his furious enemy missed him by only a few centimetres and his blood turned cold. Gazel Sayah, inmouchar of the terrible Kel-Talgimus, wanted to kill him, that was for sure. There was so much hate and such a huge desire for revenge in that single blow that those unknown people that he had given refuge to might just as well have been his very own children, and he, Mubarrak-ben-Sad might just as well have been the man that had assassinated them.

  But Gazel did not really hold true hatred in his heart. Gazel was simply trying to do justice and it would not have been right to hate a Targui who had just been carrying out his work, except that his had been a wrong and unworthy line of work. Gazel knew, moreover, that hate, like anxiety, fear, love or any other deep feelings, were not good companions for a man of the desert. In order to survive in that land you had to nurture a temperament of absolute calm. You had to try and be almost cold blooded and cultivate a sense of total self control in order to rise above any sentiment that might provoke an error of judgement. In the desert, you could pay for such mistakes with your life.

  Gazel knew that he was taking on the role of the judge and possibly that of the executioner too, neither of whom had any reason to hate their victim. The strength of his blade and the hate it had seemed to carry within it had been more of a warning and a clear response to the clear question that his opponent had asked him.

  He attacked again and realised how inappropriate his long robes, his broad turban and his wide veil were. His djelabba wrapped itself around his legs and arms, his thick-soled nails, their straps made of thin strips of antelope leather, made him slip on the sharp stones and his litham prevented him from being able to see clearly and limited the amount of oxygen that he needed in his lungs at that very moment.

  But Mubarrak was dressed in the same way, which meant that his movements were equally restricted.

  Their steel blades fanned the air, buzzing furiously, slicing through the quiet of the morning stillness and a toothless old woman let out a chilling scream as she begged someone to shoot the dirty jackal that was trying to kill her son.

  Mubarrak held out his hand with authority and nobody moved. The sons of the wind had a code of honour that was quite different to the world outside, where moral codes had already been corrupted by treachery and lies. Theirs were different even to the Bedouins, the sons of the clouds and demanded that a confrontation between two warriors was clean and noble, even though a life would be lost during it.

  They had challenged each other face to face and they would kill, face to face. He sought firm ground, breathed deeply, cried out and threw himself towards the breast of his enemy, who pushed the point of his sword away with one hard, clean stroke.

  They stood quietly once again, looking at each other. Gazel brandished his tabuka like a club, throwing Mubarrak another two-hander and his sword went twisting through the air like a windmill. Any other apprentice of the sword would have taken advantage of this display and lunged at him at once, but Mubarrak preferred to dodge the blade and remain on guard, more confident of his own strength than his skills. Then, brandishing his weapon with both hands he lunged forward with such force that he could have sliced through the waist of a man much bigger than Gazel, but Gazel was nowhere near the end of his sword. The sun was getting stronger and sweat was starting to run off their bodies and their hands, making it harder to grip the swords’ metal handles firmly. They lifted them into the air once again and studied each other intently. Then they threw themselves at each other in unison and Gazel managed to pull himself back from the point of Mubarrak’s sword, which had ripped his djelabba and scraped his breast, just at the last moment. Then he, in turn, plunged the sword deep into his opponent’s stomach and held it there for a few seconds, as he twisted it further in.

  Mubarrak remained upright for a few moments, held up mainly by the sword and Gazel’s strength, rather than by his own legs, and when he finally pulled out the sword, tearing his intestines as he did so, he fell flat onto the sand, doubled over in pain, but resolved to suffer the long agony of his fate in silence.

  Some moments later, as his executioner walked away slowly, neither happy nor proud, towards his mount that awaited him, the old, toothless lady went into the biggest of the jaimas. She took out a rifle, loaded it, walked up to where her son was doubled up in pain and pointed it at his head.

  Mubarrak opened his eyes and in them she saw the infinite gratitude that he felt for her as she prepared to free him from the many long hours of suffering he would otherwise have had to endure, without hope.

  Gazel heard the shot echo across the plains as he and the camel continued on their journey, but his gaze remained fix
ed ahead.

  He sensed, before he was able to see them, a herd of antelopes in the distance, and he suddenly become aware of how hungry he was.

  He had been so worried about his confrontation with Mubarrak that he had only eaten handfuls of millet flour and dates over the last few days, but now his belly ached for a piece of meat, cooked slowly over a fire.

  He approached the edge of the grara slowly, leading his camel by the halter, making sure the wind did not carry his scent over to the beasts that he imagined to be grazing on some patches of stubby vegetation growing there in the hollow, which may have once been a pool or small stream and where there were probably still a few patches of slightly damp earth.

  A few diffident tamarisks and half a dozen dwarf acacias sprouted here and there and he saw that his hunter instinct had served him well once again. There below him, grazing or basking in the mid afternoon sun, was a family of beautiful, long-horned, reddish-coloured animals, simply waiting to be preyed upon.

  He set up his rifle, only loading one bullet in order to avoid the temptation of making a desperate second attempt, once the agile beasts had already started to flee. Gazel knew from experience that this second shot, which was usually a chance shot, rarely hit its target and was simply a waste, especially when ammunition in the desert was as rare, but as vital to survival as water itself.

  He let go of the mehari, who started to graze straight away, oblivious to anything but his food, which was succulent and tasty after the rains. Gazel moved forward silently, almost on all fours, moving swiftly from behind a rock to the twisted trunk of a small bush, then from a small dune to another bush, until finally stopping on a small stone mound, from where he could clearly observe the slender silhouette of a great stag that was grazing in the midst of the herd, some thirty meters away.

  ‘When you kill a stag, a younger member of the herd will soon takes its place and mate with the females,’ his father had told him. ‘When you kill a female you are also killing her children and their children, who you need to feed your children with and the children of you children.’

  He got his weapon ready and carefully aimed it at its front shoulder blade, level with its heart. From that distance a shot to the head would have been much more effective, but Gazel, being a good Muslim, could only eat meat from an animal that had had its throat cut whilst facing Mecca and accompanied by the correct prayers, as laid down by the prophet. To kill an antelope there and then would have meant leaving it to waste, when it was much better to run the risk of the animal fleeing wounded, since it was unlikely to get very far with a bullet in its lungs.

  The wind suddenly picked up and the animal lifted his head and sniffed the air anxiously. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, but was probably no more than a few minutes, he glanced round at the herd to check for danger before lowering its head once again to graze on the tamarisk.

  Once he was certain that he could not fail and that his prey was not going to jump or move unexpectedly, Gazel pulled back the trigger gently. The bullet sliced through the air with a shrill whistle and the antelope fell to its knees as if its legs had been chopped off, or the ground, as if by magic, had suddenly risen up beneath it.

  The females looked up at him but remained unperturbed, because although the shot had reverberated through the air, they did not associate the noise with danger or death and it was only when they saw a man running towards them waving a knife, his robes billowing out on either side of him, that they took flight and scampered back onto the plains, disappearing quickly out of sight.

  Gazel went over to the wounded animal that was struggling to stand up and follow his family, but something inside had already snapped and its body was no longer obeying its brain.

  Only its enormous and innocent eyes reflected the magnitude of its anguish as the Targui grabbed it by the antlers, pulled its head to face Mecca and slit its throat with a sharp dagger, in one clean movement.

  Blood came gushing out, spilling over his sandals and splashing his djelabba, but Gazel was oblivious to it, caught up in the moment and satisfied that his aim had been such an excellent one again, having shot his prey in exactly the right place.

  He was still eating as night fell, but asleep before the first stars appeared in the sky, sheltered from the wind under a bush, his back warmed by the fire’s dying embers.

  The jackals and the mocking call of the hyenas woke him up as they gathered round to claim the dead antelope, so he stoked up the fire until they withdrew back into the shadows. Then he lay there, looking at the sky, listening to the wind as it picked up and meditating on the fact that he had killed a man that day — the first time he had killed a human being in his life — which he knew meant that his own life would never be the same again.

  He did not feel guilty about it because he considered his cause to be a just one, but he was concerned that it might unleash a war between the tribes, of the kind that he had heard so much about from his forefathers. A war that could spiral into a senseless massacre, where nobody knew why anyone was killing anyone or indeed what had started it all in the first place. The Tuareg, the few Imohags that remained wandering through the desert’s confines, still faithful to their traditions and laws, were simply not in a position to defend themselves from this type of warfare, struggling as they were to protect themselves from the advances of civilisation alone.

  He remembered the strange sensation that had passed through his body as the sword had softly entered Mubarrak’s stomach and he could still hear the hoarse death rattle that had escaped from the back of his throat at that very same moment. As he had brought his arm back out, it was as if he had been carrying the life of his enemy on the end of his tabuka and he was already scared of having to use his sword against anyone again. He hurriedly reminded himself of the dry crack of the shot that had killed his sleeping guest and consoled himself with the fact that those men had committed an unpardonable crime.

  It dawned on him that while injustice was bitter, it was an equally bitter experience having to right that wrong, because he had not taken any pleasure in killing Mubarrak. In fact, it had simply left him with a deeply unpleasant feeling of emptiness afterwards and just as Suilem had warned, his act of revenge had not brought back the dead.

  Why, he wondered, was this unwritten law of hospitality that the Tuaregs put before all other laws so important — more important even than the laws of the Koran. He tried to imagine what kind of a place the desert would be if the traveller could not rely on their hospitality, on the help and respect that would be given to them whilst in their care.

  According to legend, there were once two men who hated each other so much that one day the weakest of the two turned up at his enemy’s jaima, asking for hospitality. In respect of their deep tradition, the Targui accepted his guest and offered him protection until finally, after some months, he tired of looking after him and giving him food and promised him that if he went on his way he would never try to kill him again. That was many years ago, but the Tuaregs have used this same method ever since to resolve their differences and put an end to their quarrels.

  How would he have reacted if Mubarrak had come to his settlement to ask for his hospitality and to beg forgiveness?

  He would never know the answer to that, but he would probably have behaved as the Targui did in the legend, otherwise he would only have ended up committing a crime in order to punish someone for having committed that very same crime.

  As the jet planes roared through the high desert skies and the lorries hurtled along its well-trodden tracks, pushing his people back into the remotest corners of the plains, it was hard to say for how much longer they would manage to resist their relentless advances. What he could say with confidence, however, was that while one of them remained on those sands, even if the rest of the infinite and stony plains were devoid of life and the hamada devoid of its horizons, the laws of hospitality would remain sacred, otherwise no traveller would ever dare to cross the desert again.

  Mubar
rak’s crime was unforgivable and he Gazel Sayah would take it upon himself to make those men that were not of the Tuareg people, aware that in the Sahara the rules of his race must continue to be respected. Those laws and customs had been created to suit an environment that had to be respected. They were intrinsic modes of behaviour that had been created to ensure their survival.

  The wind picked up as dawn broke. The hyenas and jackals, having lost all hope of getting even the smallest morsel of the dead antelope, skulked off to their dark habitats, growling at their misfortune, joined by all the other creatures of the night: the long-eared fennecs, the desert rats, snakes, hares and foxes. As the sun started to heat up the land, these creatures would be asleep, conserving their energy until the shadows of the night returned to make their lives bearable once again. It was the law of nature that there, in that most desolate place on the planet, in contrast to the rest of the world, all activity was carried out by night, while the day was for sleeping.

  Only man, despite the passage of time, had not managed to completely adapt to this nocturnal existence, and for that reason, at the first sign of light, Gazel found his camel, grazing about one kilometre away, took him by the halter and set off unhurriedly towards the east.

  The Adoras military outpost was situated in a triangular oasis made up of about one hundred palm trees and three wells. It sat right in the very middle of a long line of dunes, which made its survival something of a miracle since it was constantly threatened by the shifting sand that surrounded it. But while the sea of dunes sheltered it from the wind, it also meant that, at around midday, it became a burning furnace with temperatures often soaring to sixty degrees.

  The three dozen soldiers that made up the garrison spent half of their time under the shadow of the palm trees, cursing their bad luck, and the other half of it shovelling sand in a desperate effort to keep it at bay. They struggled on a daily basis to keep clear a small stretch of road that allowed them to communicate with the outside world and receive provisions and correspondence once every two months.