Benyamin: Goat Days

‘Ibrahim, can you see a road from there?’ I called out. He didn’t say anything, but motioned me towards him. Anxious about what awaited me, I climbed up the sand dune. Desert! A real desert! An endless stretch of sand as far as the eye could see in the front and the back, on the right and the left. A sea of undulating sand from horizon to horizon! There was nothing to hinder my sight. No tree. No plant. No hill. Nothing at all. Nothing.

It was only then that I got a general idea about the place I had reached. While running we hadn’t noticed when our feet lost contact with hard soil and sunk into loose sand. A cold fear slithered into my mind. I looked at the face of Ibrahim Khadiri. Anxiety was writ on his face too. Hakeem alone hadn’t been infected by that terror yet. He was still deep asleep.

Ibrahim and I looked at each other. Allah, where have we reached? Where did we come from? Where should we go now? Where is the world we came looking for? East, west, south or north? Which direction will take us to our destination? Who knows! There was only sand all around. Dunes of sand. Had it been another occasion, the picturesque vastness of that sea of sand would have held romantic appeal for me. But at that point, that sea really frightened me. Not even a canoe or a boat would do, one needed a big ship to cross it. Lord, how can we cross it? Without a drop of water, without a morsel of food? Once the sun is truly up, it will breathe all its heat on us. Can we make it before that? Lord, you are our refuge. May our infinite faith in you save us.

‘Ibrahim, do you remember, the whole of yesterday we were running westward. Let’s keep going in that direction. It would be impossible to not reach a highway,’ I said.

Without replying, he paced up and down anxiously. Finally, after a lot of deliberation, he said, ‘The city is in the east. We will walk towards the east.’

We woke Hakeem up. I realized something when he rose and brushed the sand off himself. Hakeem had a terrible stench — the same stench that I had identified when I first reached the masara. I had long stopped noticing that smell. But it came back after I left the masara. In fact, I too had the same stench. But it took me many more days to smell it on myself.

We began to walk. It should have been a time to rejoice as our dreams of freedom had finally materialized. But we were worried. The arbabs must have returned and would be looking for us. The realization that all three of us had escaped together would surely enrage my arbab. Where would he have taken his vehicle to find us? Anyway, arbab, we are not in the direction in which you are searching for us. We have arrived far beyond your reach.

But had we really run far enough to be safe? We had yet to cross this desert and find the highway. Some driver would have to take pity on us and take us to the city. Everything would be over if we are spotted by some Arab. From our looks and our clothes, anyone could tell at a glance that we were running away from a masara. My mind was filled with more anxiety than elation. Still, we kept walking, hope pulsating in us. Sleep had helped us regain our energy, we no longer felt the fatigue that had weighed us down the previous night. The conviction that we were not slaves but free men made us march onwards with gusto.

I had no idea that there was a momentous desert odyssey ahead of us.

The heat of the desert didn’t even touch us. We had withstood its heat and thirst every day. The desert can’t easily overpower someone who has been in a masara for many years. It is only those who live in palaces and head out to the desert out of curiosity or for fun who get tired in its heat. We would reach our destination when the desert allowed it. We had Allah with us. It was our faith and confidence that helped us bravely walk through that desert.

We started to enjoy the sights. It was as if we were going for a festival. Hakeem was the liveliest. He wanted to know the what, the why and the how of each and every thing. In a childlike manner, he asked Ibrahim many questions. Ibrahim, who had immense knowledge about the desert, patiently answered him.

We were really fascinated when we reached a forested valley that had been fossilized over time by the constant sand coatings of ceaseless sandstorms. A place beyond our imagination. Several sand mounds were scattered over a large area. Hakeem was very curious and went down into that valley to touch one. Sand began falling off that mound. I wondered how many centuries of sandstorms had resulted in the transformation of the trees and vegetation of the forest. Fearfully, I imagined the desert as a dense forest with the dust storms gradually devouring it.

‘We should not stay here for long. It could be a very dangerous place. A sandstorm might come unexpectedly. Then we might never escape,’ Ibrahim said.

We had hardly taken ten steps when, suddenly, we saw some movement in front of us. Initially we thought it was water, the alluring illusion of a mirage. Then a hissing sound became audible. Was this the sandstorm Ibrahim had warned us about, we wondered. When we looked carefully, the image ahead danced and swayed, like a garden nodding in the wind. Besides, it was inching ahead. Ibrahim cried out in dread, ‘Snakes!’ Only then did we see clearly. A battery of snakes swaying their heads and slithering forward. Not one or two. It was probably many hundreds or a thousand, in unison. Again, a sight beyond our imagination. They were marching towards us like a huge army, stirring the dust of the desert. There was a huge snake in the front, like a commander, raising its head. Behind it, many soldiers!

‘Hide your head in the sand and don’t move. There’s nothing else we can do,’ Ibrahim said.

Like ostriches we hid our heads in the sand, and lay still. After a while, the hissing approached us. My body was trembling with fear. Ten seconds would suffice for death to come if the fang of one of those creatures even slightly grazed my body. Calling out to Allah very loudly in my mind, I lay still. They moved forward, crawling above us. As each one touched my body, my skin seared as if stroked by a fiery stick. We slowly lifted our heads and looked when we felt sure that they were at a safe distance. All those parts of our bodies that were bare had been blistered as if lashed by whips.

If you are unfamiliar with deserts, you may wonder if this desert was a desert at all. Swarming with living beings it was almost a forest. Snakes, centipedes, lizards, spiders, butterflies, vultures, wolves, rabbits, mongooses and so many other creatures like them. Each with their own paths, their own territories, their own laws — man, his law and his life had no significance here. These creatures didn’t value human boundaries. They were the inheritors of the desert. Allah had bequeathed this space to them. They had been created to live here. And I was the trespasser. The blisters on my body were merely their gentle chastening.

We did not have much problem during the day but had to be careful at night. After sunset, those creatures who hid in holes emerged to catch their prey. Those snakes were dreadfully poisonous. There were more than fifty types of snakes. How many snakeskins did we see strewn all along the desert as we walked! Ibrahim would pick one up and tell us about the snake it came from, and also about the number of seconds it would take that snake to kill us with its bite. Even the bite of some desert spiders and centipedes could kill humans.

Do you know that there are tortoises in the desert? Though not as big as sea turtles, they are of a considerable size. They come out when it is not very hot. They live for about a hundred years and almost forty per cent of their body is water. Even camels, whom we call the ships of the desert, have to drink water once in three days. But the desert tortoises have the ability to store water for six months.