Bahaa Taher - Sunset Oasis

Fiona said nothing.

I felt I was having to justify myself before my sister. How would it have been if I'd told her the whole story?

It was only with the greatest difficulty that I had got myself out of the crisis. I kept to my room for a number of days after hearing of her death, days during which her image never left me, and nor did my sorrow. I would think through every second of our encounter and what it had led to. I would try to understand what had happened and to judge myself. Was it she who had seduced me? I who had seduced her? And was there in fact any seduction, or only fear? She was extremely sweet when she entered. She had grasped the impossibility of our understanding one another through language, so she'd devised the business of the two statues. But then she'd become angry with me and with herself because she'd been unable to make me understand what she wanted, either with words or with the statues. What had she wanted, in fact? When she put her arms around me, her embrace was as delicate as that of a child. It was I who allowed the idea of Sappho and her passionate words of love to women to drive everything else out of my mind. Was I really in thrall to the influence of the poetess of Lesbos, or afraid of it? Desirous of it or rejecting of it? I pushed her away and she tore my dress. She was afraid. Perhaps she'd knelt on the ground in front of me and embraced my legs to show that she didn't want to harm me. As for what happened next, there's nothing but fog in my mind. Why did she kiss my breast? What precisely happened at that instant? Did my naked breast take her by surprise and did that make her kiss it, or was it I who took her in my arms? Then it was my turn to be afraid, so I snatched up the palm rib and started beating her, pursued by those accursed verses.

I don't know exactly what was going through Maleeka's mind. It may be that she was entirely innocent. My concern was to judge my own behaviour, and I reached the conclusion that that truly was not I. At the worst, it was a moment of weakness, a moment of confusion brought about by the killing loneliness of this oasis. That was it indeed — nothing but a moment of delusion. Thus, thanks to my own strength of will and nothing else, I pulled myself back from the brink of fear and weakness. I am not responsible for what happened. What happened was not important, and I am not guilty of Maleeka's death. Given this, would Fiona too possibly understand and confirm my innocence, if I told her the whole story with all its complications? As far as I'm concerned, I've decided to turn this page once and for all.

We sat in silence in the sun waiting for a messenger from Mahmoud, who, fortunately, has not been assailed by the slightest doubt about what took place between Maleeka and me, beyond her having attacked me and torn my dress.

Finally we heard the braying of the donkeys and someone calling Mahmoud's name. I opened the door and found a tall, well-built policeman at the bottom of the stairs mounted on a donkey, and with him a glowering boy pulling two others. Fiona also came to the door and waved with her hand, her smile widening as she said, in extremely broken Arabic, 'Good morning, Mr Salmawi!'

The policeman returned her greeting and she told me in an aside, 'He was with me in the caravan. He knows a little English and he's very good hearted.'

The sun flooded the open area that stretched before us and the fortified town to her left. Nevertheless, Fiona felt a cool breeze and went back into the house, returning after a short while wearing the striped blue mantle in which the women of the oasis envelop themselves. As she pulled it tightly around her, she said, 'Isn't it pretty?' I looked at her in astonishment and said, 'Well, at least it keeps you warm.'

With a certain pride, she said, 'They call it tarfottet. A woman on the caravan gave it to me.'

The children stood watching us from a distance, calling out in their high-pitched voices what I took to be insults. Salmawi scolded them, waving his rifle jokingly at them, and the children ran away.

I asked him in Arabic, 'Is it far?' He answered, 'About a quarter of an hour.' Fiona hadn't ridden a donkey before and laughed with pleasure like a child as she tried to get on, but I warned her that the donkeys sometimes suddenly bucked and went off course, throwing their riders, and advised her to hold on tightly to the halter.

Salmawi went ahead of us on the road, the frowning boy, as usual, running behind. We left Shali behind us and turned east towards Aghurmi on the dirt track that leads to the temple. This is the path Maleeka travelled as she returned, bleeding, from our house, and was the last thing she saw in this world. Enough! Didn't I give myself an undertaking I'd never think about her again?

From behind the walls, I could hear the familiar songs of the zaggala, but the smell of figs and other summer and autumn fruits disappeared and that of manure spread on the ground took their place. I told myself bitterly that it was the first time I'd noticed the changing of the seasons. I hadn't been out of the house since Mahmoud had made me a prisoner there and Fiona arrived. It was as though my relations with the world had been cut off years before and I'd never been along this track in my life!

The columns of the temple appeared in the distance, but before we got there, Salmawi turned off to the left, so we followed.

Finally we arrived at a garden from behind whose walls all that appeared were the banners of the palm fronds as they clacked monotonously in the breeze, which also brought us the smell of mint, jasmine, lemon and many other fragrant perfumes.

We stopped in front of the open door and Salmawi sent the boy who had accompanied the two donkeys to inform the sheikh. The boy was gone for a long while and I saw Fiona, full of hope, looking around her with her ever-present smile. She said, 'This is a strange place, Catherine. When you see all this greenery and all this water you forget you're actually in the middle of a sea of sand.'

'But the sand isn't far way, all the same. If you look beyond the greenery, you'll see it everywhere.'

At that moment, the boy returned with another boy of similar age and they informed Salmawi that the sheikh was in retreat and couldn't see anyone.

I told Salmawi angrily, 'Impossible! I shall go in myself and speak to him.'

I moved towards the door and Salmawi stood in front of me, spreading his arms to block the way, and said politely, in his deep voice, 'Madame. That's impossible. Even under ordinary circumstances, women here don't go in to see a man on their own and without permission. Now, though, Our Master the Sheikh would get very angry.' Then he was silent for a moment before going on, 'And it will make His Excellency's position in the whole oasis more difficult.'

So this Salmawi knows everything.

I stopped in my tracks in impotence and frustration. Fiona asked me to tell him that we wanted to ask the sheikh's advice, and even if he refused to meet us, perhaps he could explain a treatment to us, or inform us as to the name of someone else he trusted.

Salmawi talked to the two boys again, and then we stood and waited some more. I looked at Fiona. She hadn't lost her calm but disappointment showed itself clearly on her face as she said in a tone of resignation, 'If this doesn't work either, we can only go back.'

At that moment, however, I saw the two boys returning at a run. They said something to Salmawi, whose face brightened and who gestured to me and Fiona to stand back a little from the door. After a short time, I saw approaching that same Sheikh Yahya who wore his glasses tied to his ears with string, leaning on his stick.

He seemed to me to have aged greatly since I had first seen him. He stood inside the door, his face flushed with anger.

He didn't look at me or at Fiona but addressed thunderous phrases to Salmawi in the language we don't understand, while Salmawi tried to placate him, waving his hands in supplication. The sheikh, however, was about to turn his back on us and retreat when Fiona asked me quickly to tell him that she had heard that he was in retreat, worshipping God, and that the best way to worship God, as far as she was aware, was to help those in need.