Visions of Isabelle (25 page)

He stares into her eyes, she into his. She sees caldrons that glisten like black mica, a pair of furnaces where history will be forged. For the first time since she's been in the desert, someone is speaking to her with a vision that goes beyond the next well. The man's dominance reminds her of Vava, and she feels the same weakness before him that her father once inspired. Impossible, she thinks, to resist a man who is obsessed. But Sidi Lachmi's obsession is grand, not some petty scheme to manufacture perfume. It's a will to power, a dark instinct to rule and revenge. He has everything she ever hoped to find in a Saharan sheik–greatness, ruthlessness, strength.

"Why," she asks finally, "do you take me?"

The sheik closes his eyes, is quiet for a long while.

"I like you," he says, and waves his hand to dismiss.

She stands, backs away from his throne of piled sheepskins. Sidi Lachmi does not look at her again.

A
few days later, at her initiation, she learns the special way of reciting "there is no God but God," with heavy breathing and a contortion of her body, and also how to handle a string of beads placed about her neck so she will be recognized by her "brothers" everywhere. She recites a pledge, gives ritual answers to catechistic questions and is finally embraced by the three wise men.

She finds the ceremony boring, though she suspects that if Sidi Lachmi hadn't told her it was devised for fools, she might have been thrilled.

H
e has use for her. She drafts his letters in Arabic and French, sits behind him at meetings with his counselors, takes notes as they discuss their strategies against the Tidjani and the French. If the religious purposes of the sect seem cynically contrived, the political machinations of a desert sheik are a fascinating revelation.

Sidi Lachmi treats her sternly, always maintains his reserve. But she often feels he is watching her, thinking about her, and she cannot forget that he knows people who have wanted her killed. She is, as he promised, under his protection, and though this gives her some comfort, she wonders occasionally for what purpose he will finally decide she should be used.

They play chess often–he finds relaxation in the game. But she is never able to defeat him, no matter how hard she tries. For a time it seems important that she gain at least one victory, if only to raise his estimation of her worth. But his duplicities are without end, and always, when he has checkmated her or forced her to resign, he repeats his remark that she is insufficient in deceit.

"That's one thing," he tells her, late one evening after a particularly strenuous and protracted game, "that the Europeans have never understood. They know all about how we dress and pray and speak, even how we wage war, but they don't see the principle of deception that lies behind everything we do. It's the single great principle of survival in the Sahara. Here mirage is everything, and we who rule in the sands not only know how to make mirages, but also how to recognize them as our enemy's deceits."

She is surprised at his monologues, unexpectedly delivered in the most lucid French. Also by their aftermath–the manner in which he shuts his eyes and waves her away. It is as if Sidi Lachmi is speaking to himself, and her purpose is to be a mute witness, an acknowledgment that his mighty words do not fall with silence like a landslide in an uninhabited gorge.

S
limen is not forgotten, for though she spends much time with Sidi Lachmi, often staying with him late into the night, she always returns to the house in El Oued, and then, no matter how late, she and Slimen ride out upon the sand. She has two separate lives now, almost as she dreamed. She divides her time between her medical ministrations and the politics of the desert, between her role as wife and brother to Slimen, and secretary to the sheik. Often she asks herself which role she prefers. But the answer, always, is that she loves them both.

For a time after she joins the Kadrya, Slimen's mood is depressed. But he regains his good humor when he sees that his possession of her is not impaired. By then they have explored all the outlands of El Oued, and so devote themselves to revisiting places they especially like. Here they play their various games of love, games in which they enact the roles of horses, camels, gazelles.

For her there is still nothing better than feeling that some violent creature, far stronger than herself, is crushing her, annihilating her in the empty wastes of sand. There is tragic poetry in this, an escape from being remarkable and strong. She knows that she is extraordinary, but there are times in the desert when she wishes she were dust.

S
limen shows little interest in the intrigues of the Kadrya, perhaps because as a French soldier he knows it is best to remain aloof. But on one occasion he thanks God that Isabelle has joined the sect.

In late November they depart for a journey of several days. They ride south, to the great emptiness east of Touggourt, and here set up their tent in a small valley between high dunes. The air is clear, made brilliant by the winter sun. All sorts of strange plants have sprung out of the sand on account of violent autumn rains. They wander in this thwarted scrub, chasing Saharan rabbits, pausing often to stare at the vast horizon of monotonous sands. Isabelle is struck by the intensity of the calm. The silence of the desert is so strong that it lulls her, and then Slimen complains. He misses her energy, even her diatribes. He is bored and wants to return to El Oued.

On their third night, while they are sleeping, wrapped in burnooses against the cold, a violent south wind rips across the sands. Suddenly a gust destroys the tent, which nearly smothers them as it collapses about their heads. They crawl out, only to have their faces lashed by sharp blowing sand.

Since it is impossible to go back to sleep, they huddle together until the storm subsides. Then, at dawn, disgusted at the wreckage of their little camp, they ride off at a gallop to clear their heads, leaving everything–their revolvers, goatskins, even their compasses behind.

The winds have slightly changed the dunes, new curves and ridges confuse them, and after a while they realize they are lost. They have only their belt flasks full of water, and just as their horses begin to tire, the winds blow again.

No refuge now, no place for them to huddle. They wander for hours, their faces covered with cloth, their eyes squinting against the wind that increases slowly until it reaches gale force. The storm of the previous night has deposited dustlike sand everywhere, and now the new storm blows it furiously so that all the air is filled with fine powder and they can see nothing, not even the outlines of the dunes.

They wander in circles, frightened, unnerved. They are in a limbo and Isabelle feels surrounded, oppressed. She begins to fear the desert, and, at the same time, to feel sorry for Slimen who, mumbling frightened incoherent prayers, reminds her suddenly of Augustin.

When she is finally ready to dismount and lie face down and wait for some horrible dehydrating death, the wind stops, the dust falls back upon the earth, and she sees they are on a great empty plain, without even a tuft of weeds in sight.

"We shall die." Slimen's sand-crusted face is streaked with tears.

"No, brother, we have luck."

"It's all over. We've been stupid, and now everything is finished."

She looks with pity at his stricken face and marvels at how weak he is compared to her.

"Gather strength, my brother," she says. "Better to struggle until the end."

They wander on, and then, turning behind some dunes, they see a valley, and in its center some scraggly trees. They descend and find a well.

Bent over, in the act of filling their empty bottles after laughing, embracing, dancing about, they hear the sudden click of rifles being cocked.

They turn to find three men, faces almost black, wrapped in multi-colored robes, approaching from three sides.

"You cannot use this well!"

"We are thirsty," Isabelle replies. "We are lost."

"Stand back!" The man in the center motions with his gun. "This is a well of the Rebaia tribe. You are not Rebaia. I forbid you to drink."

The two men on his flanks inspect their horses. Isabelle feels she is going to be killed. She begins to mumble the recitation of the Kadrya, "there is no God but God," breathing the special way she's been taught.

"You are Kadrya?" asks the leader.

"Thanks be to God!" she says.

The tall black man pulls roughly at the collar of her robe, strokes the rosary beneath. Then he peers into her eyes.

"We are brothers," he says. He lowers his rifle, throws it to the ground and embraces her with both his arms. "You will spend the night with us. Then, in the morning, we will show you your way."

She does not sleep, but listens all night to tales of life in this desolate quarter, learning much about the mysteries of shifting dunes.

F
or weeks she broods over the incident, asks herself what it means. She knows the odds against stumbling across a well, though Slimen is more impressed by the coincidence of meeting Kadrya.

"Thirst or a bullet," he tells her, "it's the same death in the end."

But still she wonders if God has saved her for something, some destiny yet to be revealed. She decides to ask Sidi Lachmi, the most cynical man she knows. She finds him with his retinue hunting gazelles in the desert with a fierce-looking falcon perched on his wrist.

"It is interesting that you began to pray," he tells her, releasing the gigantic bird. "I'm not sure that I would have done the same. Perhaps your salvation is a sign. Perhaps you are a mystic, or even a saint."

To his surprise she takes him seriously.

"Do you think so?" she asks.

"Already," he says, laughing, hoping to deflate her with ridicule, "I see the signs in your face. Fanatic's eyes!"

The next morning she rides west to the great dunes which she crossed the first time coming from Touggourt. The air is still and cold, the bones of fallen camels bleached a chalky white, and each grain of the desert seems etched by the brilliant winter sun. She stands at the crest for a long time, waiting for a revelation, some sign that she has a destiny, that God has saved her for something great. But there is only silence, and after a while she shrugs, falls to her knees, kisses the shimmering sand.

S
uddenly, in January–disaster. All the money from the marquise is spent; her letters to Eugène, Samuel and Augustin are unanswered; the café refuses to extend her credit; she has not even enough to buy absinthe. For a moment she considers selling Souf, but knows this is impossible, that without him she will not be able to ride at night.

And then, just as she is grasping the awful reality of her financial condition, Slimen comes home with the news that he is to be transferred to Batna in two days. There is not even the possibility of a postponement–his pleas have already been rebuffed.

"But why?" she asks. "Don't your officers understand our hardship? Don't they understand what this will mean?"

"They understand very well. I was led to believe that the transfer is deliberate–that the Arab Bureau doesn't like you and wants us kept apart."

"They hate us, of course."

Slimen nods.

"So much so that they said I would have to live inside the garrison–just in case you were thinking of coming along."

"Oh, they hate us because we are free."

They discuss desertion but it is impossible for Slimen, and, besides, they would have no way of earning money to live. Over the next twenty-four hours they become possessed by a kind of madness. Anxious, depressed, they ride around the dunes discussing alternatives, realizing that all they have together is soon to be lost.

"There is always suicide," says Slimen, cheerfully. "We could make a pact."

"Oh, how stupid..."

She stops herself, looks at his fallen face, is seized by an enormous fondness for his romantic heart.

He shrugs and bows his head.

"Then it is written, Si Mahmoud. It is God's will. We have no choice–we will be separated. That is our destiny, and we must submit."

"Oh, brother," she cries, dazzled by the depth of his resignation. And then she begins to weep.

She can think of no other man, no other kind of marriage than theirs. That he never tries to dominate, except when she insists; that he offers her total freedom and total friendship without jealousy or cant; that she can be both brother and wife–these are things she doubts she will ever find again. Faced with separation and utter penury, she tells herself her life is ruined, though she is not yet twenty-four years old.

On the morning of their last day together Slimen's hand trembles as he lifts his tea. There is a strange hysterical look in his eyes, red from crying, that moves her to pity.

"Don't worry," she tells him, "somehow we'll survive. I'll find some money, pay our debts and move to Batna. They'll never be able to keep us apart. We'll find some way to end your enlistment, and then move back here and ride the dunes."