Tuareg Read online

  For the last thirty years, ever since a crazy colonel had become obsessed with the idea that the army should have control of those four wells, which were the only ones around for about one hundred kilometers, Adoras had become the “accursed destiny,” both for the colonial troops then and for the natives there now. Of the tombs lined up on the edge of the palm grove, nine of them were due to “death by natural causes,” while another six were due to suicides committed by men who simply could not bear the idea of living in that inferno for another day.

  When a tribunal was unsure as to whether they should condemn an offender to the firing squad, life imprisonment or commute his sentence to fifteen years of compulsory service in Adoras, it was quite aware that all three punishments were of equal measure, even if the offender was under some illusion that by having his sentence commuted and being sent to Adoras, he was being let off lightly.

  Captain Kaleb-el-Fasi was commander in chief of the garrison and supreme authority over a region that was as large as half of Italy, but where only a little over eight hundred people lived. He had been there for seven years as punishment for having killed a young lieutenant who had threatened to expose irregularities in the regiment’s accounts at his previous posting. Condemned to death, his uncle, the famous General Obeid-el-Fasi, the independence hero who Kaleb had worked for as an assistant and confident during the War of Liberation, managed to get him a rehabilitation posting to a place that no other person in the military would ever have been sent, unless of course, their predicament had been similarly precarious.

  Three years previously Capitain Kaleb, using only the files that had been made available to him, had worked out that in his regiment, twenty of the men were guilty of murder, fifteen of rape, sixty of armed robbery and countless others of theft, fraud, desertion and petty crime. These statistics, he had quickly realised, meant that he would have to draw on every drop of his experience and employ every ounce of shrewdness and brute force that he possessed in order to stay on top.

  The respect he inspired was second only to the fear that the men there felt for his right-hand man, Sergeant Malik-el-Haideri. He was a thin, small man who looked weak and ill, but who was so cruel, shrewd and brave that he had managed to control that gang of beasts and survived five attempts on his life and two knife fights. Malik was, more often than not, behind the deaths labelled “natural causes,” while two of the men who had committed suicide, had blown their brains out just to get away from him.

  Now, seated on the peak of the highest dune that looked over the eastern side of the oasis, which was more than one hundred meters high and gilded with age, its core hard, the sand inside it having almost turned to stone, Sergeant Malik watched his men disinterestedly as they shovelled sand off the smaller dunes, which were threatening to engulf the furthest of the wells. Through his binoculars his eyes suddenly came to rest on a solitary rider who had just appeared on a white mehari and who seemed to be approaching the post, in no apparent hurry. He wondered what a Targui was doing in that godforsaken place since they had stopped using the Adoras wells about six years ago and had not made any contact with them since. The Bedouin caravans arrived less and less frequently and when they did, they would make a watering hole, rest for a few days on the furthest side of the oasis, keeping their women hidden and ensuring that they had absolutely no contact with the soldiers there. Then they would get on their way quickly, relieved that there had not been any trouble during their stay. But the Tuaregs were different. When the Tuaregs stopped to use the wells they would walk around with their heads held high, almost defiantly, allowing their woman to walk around freely, their faces uncovered and their legs and arms exposed to the air, despite the fact that the men living there had not enjoyed a woman for many years. They were also quick to reach for their rifles or sharp, curved daggers if anyone dared to cross them.

  But after two warriors and three soldiers died once during a brawl, the sons of the wind had preferred to put a distance between themselves and the military post. But this solitary rider was coming resolutely towards them, approaching the last crest, silhouetted against the afternoon sun and his clothes billowing in the wind. Finally, he entered the palm grove and stopped next to the northern well, some one hundred meters from the first of the camp’s huts.

  He slid down the dune unhurriedly, crossed the camp and went over to the Targui who was giving water to his camel, this animal that was capable of drinking one hundred litres of water in one sitting alone.

  ‘Aselam, aleikum!’

  ‘Metulem, metulem,’ Gazel replied.

  ‘That is a fine beast you have there. And very thirsty.’

  ‘We’ve come a long way.’

  ‘Where from?’

  ‘From the north.’

  Sergeant Malik-el-Haideri hated the Targui veil because he took pride in being able to judge from a man’s expression whether or not he was lying. This was never possible with a Targui as you could only see their eyes and they were only ever partially exposed and usually became smaller whenever they began to talk. Their voices were also distorted by it, which meant that he no choice but to believe him, since he had seen him arrive from the north and had no reason to suspect that Gazel would have made a huge diversion in order to make it appear that he was coming from any other direction.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘South.’

  He left his camel sprawled out, his belly full to bursting with water, satisfied and bloated, and started collecting wood with which to make himself a small fire.

  ‘You can eat with the soldiers,’ he told him.

  Gazel pulled back a piece of cloth revealing the still succulent antelope, covered in dry blood.

  ‘You can eat with me if you want. In exchange for your water.’

  Sergeant Malik’s stomach cried out. It had been more than fifteen days since the hunters had caught any prey. Over the years the animals had moved away from the surrounding area and there was not one true Bedouin among them, so their knowledge of the desert and its inhabitants was very limited.

  ‘The water is for everyone,’ he replied. ‘But I would very much like to take you up on your offer. Where did you catch it?’

  Gazel laughed inwardly at the clumsiness of his deception.

  ‘In the north,’ he replied.

  He had gathered all the wood he now needed and taking a seat on the saddle blanket, he took out some flint and a wick, but Malik offered him some matches.

  ‘Use these,’ he said. ‘They’re easier.’

  Once the fire was lit, he refused to take them back.

  ‘Keep them. We’ve got lots more in the store.’

  He sat down opposite him and watched as he hooked the antelope’s legs over the ramrod of his rifle and prepared it for a slow roast over a gentle fire.

  ‘Are you looking for work in the south?’

  ‘I’m looking for a caravan.’

  ‘Caravans don’t pass by here much at this time of year. The last one came through about a month ago.’

  ‘Mine awaits me,’ came his enigmatic reply. The sergeant stared at him blankly.

  ‘It has been waiting for me for over fifty years,’ he added.

  ‘The “great caravan?”’ he finally exclaimed. ‘You’re in search of the legendary “great caravan?” Are you mad?’

  ‘It’s not a legend. My uncle was in it and I am not mad. But my cousin Suleiman, who spends his miserable days lugging bricks back and forth, he is, however, mad.’

  ‘Nobody comes back alive when they go off in search of that caravan.’

  Gazel gestured with his head to the stone graves that could just be made out between a few palm trees at the end of the oasis.

  ‘They are no more dead than they are over there. And if they’d found it they’d be rich forever.’

  ‘But these “lost lands” are unforgiving: there’s no water or vegetation for your camel to eat, shade for shelter or any point of reference to help guide you. It’s hell!’

 
; ‘I know,’ the Targui conceded. ‘I’ve crossed one twice’

  ‘You’ve crossed a “lost land?”’ he repeated, aghast.

  ‘Twice.’

  Sergeant Malik did not need to see his face to realise that he was telling the truth and this piece of news suddenly roused his interest. He had spent long enough in the Sahara to know the value of a man who had been to a “lost land” and returned. He could count on his hands how many he had met, from Morocco to Egypt, and even Mubarrak-ben-Sad, the outpost’s official guide, whom he regarded as one of the greatest masters of the desert and the stony plains, had once admitted that he would not dare to go there.

  ‘But I do know of one man. I met him during a long expedition we went on to explore the Huaila. An inmouchar of the Kel-Talgimus, who crossed one and returned. How do you feel when you are in there?’

  Gazel looked at him for some time then shrugged his shoulders:

  ‘You feel nothing. You have to leave sentiment behind you. You have to rid yourself of all ideas and live like a stone, careful not to make any movement that uses up water. Even at night you have to move slowly, like a chameleon and then, once you have become desensitized to the heat and thirst and above all once you have overcome panic and found calm, only then do you have the remotest chance of survival.’

  ‘Why did you do it? Were you in search of the “great caravan?”’

  ‘No. I was looking to find something of my ancestors within me. They conquered the “lost lands.”’

  The other man shook his head in disbelief.

  ‘Nobody has conquered the “lost lands,”’ he said, shaking his head emphatically. ‘Proof of which lies in the fact that all of your descendents are dead and those areas remains as hostile as when Allah first created them.’ He paused and shook his head again and then asked, more to himself than to his listener: ‘Why would you do that? Why did He, who was so capable of creating such wonderful things, also create the desert?’

  His reply was not arrogant, even though it might have been interpreted that way.

  ‘In order to create the Imohag.’

  Malik smiled in amusement.

  ‘Is that right,’ he said.

  He pointed to the antelope’s leg.

  ‘I don’t like my meat too well cooked,’ he said. ‘It’s fine like that.’

  Moving the ramrod away, Gazel took two pieces of meat, offered him a piece and then, using his very sharp dagger, began to shave thick slices of meat off of the other piece.

  ‘If ever you are in difficulty,’ he pointed out, ‘don’t cook the meat. Eat it raw. Eat any animal you can find and drink its blood. But don’t move, above all don’t ever move.’

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ the sergeant said. ‘I’ll bear that in mind but pray to Allah that I never find myself in that predicament.’

  They finished their meal in silence then drank some fresh water from the well. Malik got up and stretched satisfactorily.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to take over from the captain and check that everything’s in order. How long will you be staying for?’

  Gazel shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I understand. Stay as long as you like, but don’t come anywhere near the huts. The guards are under instruction to shoot to kill.’

  ‘Why?’

  Sergeant Malik-el-Haideri smiled enigmatically and nodded his head towards the wooden shack that was furthest away.

  ‘The captain does not have many friends,’ he said matter-offactly. ‘Neither of us do, but I know how to look out for myself.’

  He got up and left just as the night began to descend on the oasis, slowly enveloping the palm grove. He could hear the sound of the soldiers’ voices as they returned. The came straggling in with their spades over their shoulders, tired, sweaty and desperate for food and a straw bed that would carry them away for a few hours to a world of dreams and away from the living hell that was Adoras.

  Twilight made a brief appearance as the sky turned seamlessly from red to black and the carbide lights in the cabins started to flicker in the darkness.

  Only the captain’s living quarters had shutters on the windows to stop anyone from seeing inside and as darkness descended, a sentry turned up to stand guard, some twenty metres from his door, gun at the ready.

  Half an hour later the door opened and he could make out the silhouette of a tall, strong man. Gazel did not need to see the stars on his uniform to know that he was the man who had killed his guest. He watched him as he stood there for a few minutes, breathing in the night air deeply and then as he lit a cigarette. The match lit up the man’s features and Gazel was reminded of the steely, contemptuous look he had given him, whilst insisting that he represented the law. He was tempted to finish him off with just one shot, there and then. From such a short distance, so clearly silhouetted against the light coming from the shack, he could have put a bullet in his head and put out the cigarette at the same time, but he decided not to. He just remained there watching him, some one hundred meters away, trying to imagine what the man would do if he knew that the Targui, whom he had offended and spurned, was sitting there in front of him. That he was there, leaning against a palm tree next to the dying embers of a fire, contemplating whether to kill him there and then, or at a later date.

  These men who had been plucked out of the city and transplanted to the desert would never learn to love it, in fact they would always loathe it and long to escape from it, whatever the price. The Tuaregs were to them just another part of that hostile landscape and they were incapable of telling one man from another, as incapable as they were of differentiating between one long saber crest, sif dune and another, even if there was half a day’s walk between the two of them.

  They had no concept of time and space there, no notion of the desert’s smells and colours and no ability to distinguish between a warrior of the veil people, or an Imohag of the spear people, an inmouchar from a servant, or a true Targui woman, strong and free, from a poor Bedouin harem slave.

  He could have gone up to him and chatted for half an hour about the night and the stars, the winds and the gazelles and the captain would not have recognised that “accursed, stinking man, dressed in rags” who had tried to block his path only five days ago. The French had tried for years, in vain, to get the Tuaregs people to remove their veils. After realising that they would never abandon their veils and that it was impossible to tell one from the other by the sound of their voice and their gestures alone, they had given up on trying to distinguish between them at all.

  Neither Malik, nor the officer, nor the men shovelling sand were French, but they still resembled them in their ignorance and contempt for the desert and its inhabitants.

  When the captain had finished his cigarette he threw the butt in the sand, half-heartedly saluted his sentry, then closed his door, sliding a heavy bolt across it from the inside. The lights went off one after the other and silence hung over the camp and the oasis; a silence broken only occasionally by the rustle of the palm trees in the light breeze or the call of a hungry jackal.

  Gazel wrapped himself up in his blanket, rested his head on his saddle, looked around him one last time at the huts and the line of vehicles parked up underneath a canvas make-shift garage, then fell asleep.

  Dawn found him at the top of the highest and most heavily laden palm tree, throwing down heavy bunches of mature dates. He stuffed his sack with them, filled up his gerbas with water and then saddled up his mehari, who protested loudly, preferring to remain in the shade, near the well.

  The soldiers had started to appear, urinating against the dunes and washing their faces in a water trough next to the biggest of the wells. Sergeant Malik-el-Haideri came out of his quarters and walked over towards him, his stride quick and confident.

  ‘Are you going?’ he asked, even though his question was, to all intents and purposes, pointless. ‘I thought you wanted to rest for a few days.’

  ‘I am not tired.’

  ‘I
can see that. And I’m sorry that is the case. It’s good to talk with a stranger, this bunch of losers don’t think about anything other than stealing or women.’

  Gazel did not reply, being too busy securing the saddlebags so that they would not fall off with the swinging motion of the camel some five hundred meters into their journey and Malik gave him a hand on the other side of the animal, as he asked:

  ‘If the captain gave me permission, would you take me with you in your search for the “great caravan?”’

  The Targui shook his head:

  ‘The “lost lands” are no place for a man like you. Only the Imohag can go there.’

  ‘I could bring three camels with me. We would be able to take more water and provisions with us. There’s enough money in that caravan. I could give some to the captain and with the rest I’d buy my transfer out of here and I’d still have enough to survive on for the rest of my life. Take me with you!’

  ‘No.’

  Sergeant Malik did not insist but looked over at the palm trees, the huts and the sand dunes, that enclosed them on all four sides. The dunes that imprisoned the outpost were like the bars on a cell, forever threatening to bury them alive.

  ‘Eleven years more of this!’ he grumbled to himself. ‘If I manage to survive that long, I’ll be an old man, and they’ll still have taken away my right to retirement and a pension. Where will I go?’

  He turned to the Targui once again. ‘Would it not be better to die with some dignity in the desert, in the belief that a bit of luck might change everything?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘It’s what you’re trying to do isn’t it? You’d rather risk your life than spend the rest of it lugging bricks back and forth?’

  ‘I am a Targui, you are not…’

  ‘Oh go to hell with your stupid racial pride!’ he protested angrily. ‘You think you are superior just because you’ve put up with the heat and the thirst since you were a child. I’ve had to put up with this bunch of wasters here but I’m not sure who is worse. Go then! When I want to look for the “great caravan” I’ll do so alone. I don’t need you.’