Benyamin - Goat Days

The realization that those plants and animals had been lying quietly — preserving their lives, withstanding the heat of the desert — filled me with delight. I saw with my own eyes how those little plants grew big, bore flowers and fruit, and concealed life for the future in the womb of the earth. How much I admired them! Those plants taught me life’s great lessons of hope. They whispered to me: Najeeb, adopted son of the desert, like us, you too must preserve your life and wrestle with this desert. Hot winds and scorching days will pass. Don’t surrender to them. Don’t grow weary, or you might have to pay with your life. Don’t give in. Lie half dead, as if meditating. Feign nothingness. Convey the impression that you will never resurrect. Secretly appeal to Allah the merciful. He will recognize your presence. He will hear your cries. And finally an opportune moment will come for you. This hot wind will blow away. This heat will dissipate. The cold wind of time will beckon you. Then, only then, should you slowly raise your head from the earth, announce your presence and, then, quickly, spring to freedom. Bloom and come to fruit in the morrow.

I lent my ears to the words of the little plants. I waited patiently for the opportune moment.

Although I feared and hated the male goats, there was also an instance when one of them happened to save my life. One day, I took them for a walk as usual. Leaving them to wander, I climbed up and sat on a sand dune. I don’t know why, memories of homeland awakened in me. All my suppressed thoughts stirred and erupted like a volcano. I must escape from here. I must go home. I must reach my ummah. I must see my Sainu. I must see my Nabeel. I must see my land. I must see my dusty roads. I must see my river. I must see my canoe. I must see my rain. I must see my earth. At such moments, I could truly comprehend the meaning of nostalgia. It is a craving. An acute craving that makes us hate our present condition. Then, that craving takes the form of a crazy urge to rush home, like a wild boar rushing wildly through sugarcane fields when it’s been shot. It happens only once in a while. But when it does, it is not easy to shut down the surge of emotions.

The arbab was standing up on his vehicle with his binoculars. As I was sitting on the other side of the sand dune, for the time being, I was outside the binoculars’ range. I took this as an opportunity to escape. I told myself that I would be doomed to this life if I hesitated. I jumped up as if on Allah’s invitation. I thought of nothing else and bolted through the desert. Alas, a billy goat that was standing near me also began to run alongside. Although I tried to dissuade it, hitting and poking it with my staff, it kept following me. Because of my extreme desire to escape, I did not look back at all. Far off, as far as possible, that was all my mind was saying. I had no idea where I was going. Just run, just escape, that’s all, I kept telling myself. The goat was just behind me, and it was running as if it would gore me down. Fearing that, I doubled my speed.

Suddenly, I heard the roar of a vehicle behind me. Fear blazed inside me like fire. The arbab had seen me running! The arbab would reach me soon and he would beat me to death. All of a sudden, a gunshot rang out. Fortunately, it did not hit me. Although I knew I would not make it, I kept running, trying to go faster. As soon as the second shot was fired, the goat came flying towards me with a loud cry and rolled over me. Blood gushed out of its chest, as if from a motor pump. Writhing in pain, it leapt up and ran. After a short distance, worn out, it fell down. By then, the arbab had reached me. I ran and fell at his feet. The arbab removed his belt and whipped me. I howled. The arbab commanded me to get into the vehicle. Like a smacked puppy whining and running into its kennel with its tail between its legs, I ran and got into the back of the arbab’s pick-up. The goat was dead by then. The arbab dragged it and flung it into the vehicle and gave me another smack. Downcast, I sat there and wailed.

Open-eyed, the corpse of the goat lay next to me. My sobs became intense as I realized that it had died because of me. My dear goat … who asked you to come after me? To show your breast to the bullet that was ordained for me? My feeling that it was time to escape was wide of the mark. I had wrongly judged Allah’s call. Often it is like that; we justify our desires as the call of Allah. But things happen only according to Allah’s will. To discern his will correctly, one has to be close to Allah. I hadn’t anticipated the signs. But Allah had protected me. Were you sacrificed instead of me? Like the goat that was sacrificed instead of the son of Prophet Ibrahim?

The vehicle stopped in front of the tent. The arbab dragged me out and locked me up in a masara after tying me up. Then he beat me to his heart’s content. Blood oozed from all parts of my body. Still, I didn’t cry. I didn’t shed a tear. I endured everything. A goat gave up its life for me. If I cry about my fate, even Allah will not forgive me.

The arbab skinned the goat right there. He chopped it into pieces and roasted it a fire in the open. He ate to his fill and brought the rest to me. When I declined, he hit me some more and forced the meat into my mouth and made me eat it. I felt nauseated, as if I was devouring my own brother’s flesh. I couldn’t eat any of it. I vomited the little that went in. Since then I have never eaten mutton. I have never felt like having it.

The arbab left me locked up in the masara that day and the next. He didn’t let me out at all, didn’t even give me a drop of water or a piece of khubus. For two days, I lay there without complaint. By the second night, I was very hungry. When I was sure that the arbab was asleep, I slowly untied my legs and, creeping out through the goats, I reached the water container and drank water till my thirst was quenched. In the next container, there were some wheat grains left uneaten by the goats. I gathered them up and ate greedily. Raw wheat. Unhusked. There was some salt in the small pail nearby. I ate the wheat with the salt. It was on that day that I realized uncooked wheat could be tasty! I guzzled water again from the container. My belly full, I was finally at ease. I slept in the masara with the goats.

By then I had indeed become a goat.

Even though summer had set in the heat was tolerable. But as I found out later that was just the beginning of the season. As the days passed, the temperature rose steadily. Heat filled the air in all its intensity. Each time the wind blew, I felt like I was inside a furnace.

What do you think I wanted most during my first summer in the desert? Freedom? Water? Good food? Seeing my child? Calling my Sainu once? No, none of those. My fervent desire was to sit in a bit of shade for some time. You can imagine my sufferings if that was what I dreamt of and longed for! I tried to make some shade with my garment. I even tried to find some shade in the shadow that fell from my staff. I had only heard about places that didn’t have shadows even the size of a crow’s wing. It was in the desert I experienced its reality.

This summer, however, I managed to make a tent by spreading the woollen blanket over my cot. When I sat under it, the heat was somewhat bearable. But I hardly found the time to relax. Work started at five in the morning. It wasn’t done even by ten at night. When I returned with the goats from one section of the masara, the arbab would have released the goats from the next. I just had time to drink two mugs of water — water that had been literally boiling in the rusty iron tank! By then the goats would be spreading out in the desert and if I didn’t get them together, they would go their separate ways. Gathering them after that would be impossible. I’d run to them without wasting a minute at the masara, frothing at the mouth like a rabid dog.