Bahaa Taher - Sunset Oasis

All the same, I said again, with an irritation I did not intend, 'But perhaps you could help me with something. All I want to know is whether there are carvings of characters like these in the Great Temple or elsewhere. I have been to the temple at Aghurmi, but I wasn't able to wander around or see anything. The houses have closed off the remains.'

Sheikh Yahya said slowly, in a different tone of voice, 'Then leave them closed off! I said that you were sensible, and a sensible person doesn't enter a house whose door is closed to him.'

He stood there looking straight into my eyes and I understood that he was giving me a warning, so I asked him, 'What, then, is to be done?'

'There are antiquities far from houses and there are carvings and writing everywhere in the open, and there are villages in the oasis other than Shali and Aghurmi and many temples. Look among those if you wish.'

'Have I finished searching here that I should try somewhere else? Have I started even?'

'Listen. I do not understand what it is you are looking for. However, if I were in your place, I'd think twice, after the stone that fell…'

Then he stopped for a moment before saying quietly to himself, 'No one but me will understand that you are not looking for the treasure and for gold. They see the falling of the stone as a punishment and a warning from the owner of the treasure, who has cast a spell to keep people away from it until the appointed time for it to be uncovered has come.'

I didn't understand everything he said, so I asked him, 'But you don't believe these myths yourself?'

Suddenly he grew angry again and said, pointing to the agwad, who still kept up their clamour, 'What does it matter what I believe or don't believe? What matters is what they believe. They aren't evil. On the contrary, they have good hearts, but they're afraid.' Then his face darkened further and he said, 'All people have good hearts, but they're stupid! You too, why can't you understand after everything I've told you? Goodbye! Watch out for yourself and watch out for your husband.'

He turned to go back, supporting himself on his stick and repeating in agitation, 'Goodbye!'

I almost smiled, even though he'd been rude to me. Like Sheikh Sabir before him, he'd urged me to go away, but I really believed that he wanted to help me, and that he was sending me a message.

* * *

On my way home, it occurred to me that the old man might be right to warn me. Indeed, why shouldn't I abandon everything? I could think of my whole affair with the desert, Alexander and this oasis as an adventure that failed but whose failure wouldn't be the end of the world. It wouldn't be my first failure and I've always been able to start anew, whatever happened to me. They hate me roaming among the temples and complain that I want to rob them, and my insistence on searching may increase the dangers to Mahmoud.

I've heard from him that he has enough problems with them these days. From the time he started collecting the taxes, or trying to collect them, there have been daily quarrels with one or other of the families. He told me he'd charged Sabir with collecting the various shares but they were refusing to pay, and Mahmoud has been obliged to go himself or send police troops, though it's made no difference. He says that what he's collected so far is very little and that the whole oasis is on the verge of exploding again. Would it not then be better if I were to pull back and behave inconspicuously until this crisis is over? In that case, though, what would be the point of my staying here? The best thing now might be for us to leave together. Mahmoud, though, will never consent to abandoning his duty and fleeing, for to do so would be to expose himself to disgrace, and perhaps to prison. What to do?

I reached the house and sat on the front steps. The sun today is bearable and I started watching children who were playing in the open space, stealing timid glances at me and ready to run away if I approached. I long ago gave up showing friendliness and smiling at them or trying to talk to them. There's no point. An ingrate oasis. Didn't Mahmoud expose himself to danger to save one of their children? They ought to be showing him gratitude instead of subjecting him to all these tribulations. What's more, everything that is happening now is corrupting our relationship.

He's gone back to drinking heavily since the accident at the temple, and I can't bear him when he's drunk. I can put up with him up to two glasses. That's tolerable. But I avoid him when intoxication takes over. The fact is, we've taken to avoiding one another, and we sleep in the bed like strangers most of the time. I no longer mind very much. On the contrary, it's a relief for me, especially after the night he tried to make love to me when he was drunk and failed. He became livid with fury. He kept on trying, in indignation and anger. He was muttering and cursing himself and kept getting out of bed to storm around and bang his head on the wall. Then he'd come staggering back and throw himself on top of me and try again and become even more furious. It was the first time he'd failed since I'd known him and I tried, despite my disgust with both him and myself, to offer him comfort: maybe it had been one glass too many; maybe he was more exhausted than usual. It was no good. He kept on trying till fatigue demolished us both and horrible memories of Michael returned to me.

What happened during the following days revolted me even more. The moment he came home at the end of the morning on the following day, and before having lunch, he dragged me to the bed and succeeded. Then he tried again that evening, and succeeded, and was more than usually violent, even though he knows that I hate violence. It was as though he were taking revenge on himself and on me. He went on like that for days and nights on end.

Perhaps he believed that our passion and true harmony continued as before and that my protests were a kind of coquetry or play. No, we aren't as we were. And he's like me. I felt that there wasn't an ounce of true desire or passionate enjoyment in what he did. All he wanted was to reassure himself as to his virility, and when he was so reassured, he started avoiding me again, and I was overcome by relief. In my heart, I thanked him.

It had never before occurred to me for an instant that I would be happy to see him distance himself from me, but that is what the oasis has done to us.

Perhaps I am being unfair to the oasis. Mahmoud's Mahmoud and he'll never change. Or, as is his wont, he changes all the time from mood to mood, drinking the alcohol that his religion forbids him and attending the Friday prayer in the mosque as a social obligation, so that he won't lose people's respect, though at the same time I see him some evenings jump out of bed in the darkness, wash and then, weeping, devote himself wholeheartedly to lengthy prayer. This doesn't happen often and makes me very surprised. I don't know whether to feel pity for him or to laugh at him. But I do ask myself, 'What does Mahmoud really believe?' And what do I believe too? I gave up thinking about that long ago. I no longer go to church and I no longer pray on my own. Perhaps I believe that the Divinity will reveal Himself to me one day, but the subject no longer bothers me.

I happened to glance at the children playing. How comfortable to be a child! How comfortable to be ignorant! The boys had dug channels in the ground and were pouring water into them and putting small green twigs along the length of them so that they could irrigate gardens like those of their fathers. The most important thing, though, was that they weren't forgetting to build high walls of sand around their gardens. They had been taught about the walls since they were little. The girls were playing on their own far from the boys. More walls!