J.M. le Clézio - Desert

Lalla rises onto her knees, tries to crawl along by the dune to get to the path. She makes such an intense effort that, in spite of the dawn chill, sweat streams down her face and body. She waits again, eyes fixed on the sea. She turns toward the path on the other side of the dunes, and cries, calls out: “Hartani! Hartani!” just as she used to in the old days, when she would go up on the plateau of stones, and he’d be hiding in the hollow of a rock. She tries to whistle too, like the shepherds, but her lips are chapped and trembling.

It won’t be long before people start waking up in the houses of the Project; they’ll throw back their covers, and the women will walk to the fountain to draw the morning water. Maybe the girls will wander around in the brush looking for twigs of dead wood for the fire, and the women will light the brazier, to grill a little meat, to heat up the oatmeal, the water for the tea. But all of that is far away, in another world. It’s like a dream that continues to play out over there on the muddy plain where the people live at the mouth of the big river, or else, even farther away, across the sea, in the big city of beggars and thieves, the murderous city with white buildings and booby-trapped cars. The fijar has spread its cold white glow everywhere at the very same instant in which the elderly meet with death, in silence, in fear.

Lalla can feel her body emptying, and her heart starts beating very slowly, very painfully. The waves of pain are so close together now, there is only one continuous pain undulating and throbbing inside her belly. Slowly, in an immense effort, Lalla drags her body with her forearms along the dune. Before her, a few tugs away, the silhouette of the tree stands on the pile of rocks, very black against the white sky. The fig tree has never seemed so tall to her, so strong. Its wide trunk twists backward, its thick branches are tossed back, and the lovely laced leaves are stirring slightly in the cool wind, shining in the light of day. But the most beautiful and powerful thing is the smell. It envelops Lalla, it seems to be drawing her forward, it inebriates and nauseates her at the same time, it undulates with the waves of pain. Barely breathing, Lalla heaves her body slowly over the resisting sand. Her spread legs leave a trail behind her like a boat being hauled up to dry on the beach.

Slowly, laboriously, she drags the too-heavy load, groaning when the pain gets too strong. She doesn’t take her eyes off the shape of the tree, the tall fig tree with the black trunk, with pale leaves shining in the morning light. As she approaches, the fig tree gets even taller, becomes immense, seems to fill the whole sky. Its shade spreads out all around like a dark lake in which the last colors of the night are still lingering. Slowly, pulling her body along, Lalla enters that shade, under the high powerful branches like the arms of a giant. That’s what she wants, she knows he’s the only one who can help her now. The powerful smell of the tree penetrates her, encompasses her, and soothes her tormented body, mingles with the odor of the sea and the kelp. The sand has left the rocks at the foot of the tall tree bare, rusted with the sea air, polished, worn with the wind and the rain. Between the rocks are the mighty roots, like arms of iron.

Clenching her teeth to keep from crying out, Lalla wraps her arms around the trunk of the fig tree, and slowly pulls herself up, gets in an upright position on her wobbly knees. The pain in her body is now like a wound that is gradually spreading open, tearing. Lalla can no longer think of anything but what she sees, what she hears, what she smells. Old Naman, the Hartani, Aamma, and even the photographer, who are they, what has become of them? The pain that is springing from the young woman’s womb spreads out over the whole expanse of the sea, the whole expanse of the dune, all the way out to the pale sky, it is stronger than everything, it erases everything, empties everything. Pain fills her body, like a deafening sound, it makes her body as huge as a mountain lying stretched upon the earth.

Time has slowed down because of the pain, it is beating to the rhythm of her heart, to the rhythm of her breathing lungs, to the rhythm of the contractions of her uterus. Slowly, as if she were lifting an enormous weight, Lalla raises her body up against the trunk of the fig tree. She knows he is the only one that can help her, like the tree that helped her mother long ago, on the day of her birth. Instinctively, she repeats the ancestral motions, gestures whose significance goes beyond her, without needing anyone to teach them to her. Squatting at the foot of the tall dark tree, she unties the belt of her dress. Her brown coat is spread on the ground, over the rocky earth. She loops the belt around the first main branch of the fig tree, after having twisted the fabric to make it stronger. When she hangs from the cotton belt with both hands, the tree sways a little, letting dewdrops rain down. The virgin water runs over Lalla’s face, and she drinks it in with delight, running her tongue over her lips.

In the sky, the red hour is beginning now. The last stains of night disappear, and the milky whiteness gives way to the blaze of the last dawn in the east, above the rocky hills. The sea grows darker, almost purple, while at the peaks of the waves, violet sparkles light up, and the sea foam glitters even whiter. Never has Lalla watched the coming of day so intently, eyes dilated, pained, face burning with the splendor of the light.

Just then the spasms suddenly become violent, unbearable, and the pain is like the huge blinding red light. To keep from screaming, Lalla bites the cloth of her dress on her shoulder, and her arms lifted over her head pull on the cotton belt so hard that the tree bends and her body lifts up. At each extreme pain, in rhythm, Lalla hangs from the branch of the tree. Sweat is running down her face now, blinding her; the blood-red color of the pain is before her, out on the sea, in the sky, in the foam of each wave rolling in. At times, in spite of herself, a cry escapes from between her clenched teeth, is drowned out by the sound of the sea. It’s a cry of pain and of distress at the same time, due to all of that light, all of that loneliness. The tree bows down slightly at each spasm, making its wide leaves shimmer.

In short little gulps, Lalla breathes in its odor, the odor of sugar and sap, and it’s like a familiar smell that reassures and soothes her. She pulls on the main branch, her lower back bumps against the trunk of the fig tree, the dewdrops continue to rain down on her hands, on her face, on her body. There are even very small black ants that are running along her arms as they cling to the belt, and making their way down her body to escape.

It lasts a long time, such a long time that Lalla feels the tendons in her arms have grown as hard as ropes, but her fingers are clenching the cotton belt so tightly that nothing could pry them away. Then suddenly, incredibly, she can feel her body emptying, while her arms pull fiercely on the belt. Very slowly, with the motions of a blind person, Lalla lets herself slip backwards along the cotton belt, her hips and back touch the roots of the fig tree. Air finally enters her lungs and at the same time, she hears the sharp scream of the child who is starting to cry.

On the beach, the red light has turned orange, then the color of gold. The sun must already be touching the rocky hills in the east, in the land of the shepherds. Lalla holds the child in her arms, she cuts the umbilical cord with her teeth, and knots it like a belt around the tiny belly that is jerking with sobs. Very slowly, she crawls over the hard sand toward the sea, kneels in the fluffy foam, and dips the screaming child into the saltwater; she bathes and cleans the baby carefully. Then she returns to the tree, lays the baby in the big brown coat. With the same instinctive gestures that she doesn’t understand, she digs into the sand with her hands, near the roots of the fig tree, and buries the placenta.