Luis Leante - See How Much I Love You

When she heard the engines of the truck and the four by four, her body tensed up once again. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed — perhaps several hours. The wind had dropped. However, she could still hear the roaring engines, as though the mercenaries were driving in widening circles and then closing in on themselves until they were very near her. Aza thought of the Spanish woman who had stayed in the Toyota. Although she hadn’t heard any more shots, she was sure that the woman would soon die. Aza herself had seen the scorpion that had stung her, but she hadn’t had enough time to warn her. If those men had not already killed her, the poison would spread through her veins and cause cardiac arrest. She pitied the woman. The noise of the vehicles was unnerving. The more upset she felt, the drier her throat became. Now and again she noticed the sweat on her skin. She didn’t remember ever having been so thirsty. She tried not to think about what would become of her if those bandits didn’t find her and she stayed at the mercy of the desert. She knew that the feeling of thirst started after the body lost half a litre of water. After two litres, the stomach shrank and it was no longer capable of holding the amount of water the body needed. She’d seen cases like that, especially in old people. People suffering from this condition stopped drinking long before the body had met its needs. Doctors called it ‘voluntary dehydration’. Still, that wasn’t the worst case scenario. If the body lost five litres, symptoms of fatigue and fever would appear, one’s pulse would quicken and one’s skin would turn very red. After that came dizziness, intense headache, absence of saliva and circulatory problems. In a less hostile environment, you reached that phase in three days, but in the Sahara you could get there in twelve hours of intense heat. Buried in the sun, with her mouth all doughy, she knew she was sweating, but found it impossible to estimate how much water she’d lost. She had a momentary panic attack. It felt as though her skin had stuck to her bones and was beginning to harden and crack. She even felt that her eyes had sunk into their sockets as the hours had gone by. However, she drew some comfort from the fact that she could still hear very clearly what was going on, even in the distance. What she feared most was delirium, and so she tried to calm down once again so as not to be overwhelmed by the heat. Aza couldn’t get the idea out of her head that death was not caused by thirst, but by excess heat: the blood thickened in one’s veins and couldn’t carry the internal body heat to the surface of the skin. Indeed, what ended up killing you was the heat, as your body temperature rose unexpectedly and irrevocably.

She was about to fall asleep when her eyes opened with a start. Suddenly she couldn’t hear the wind, or the mercenaries’ voices, or the roaring of the vehicles. The absolute silence was spine chilling. She had the horrible feeling of having been buried for several days. The light that reached her through the sand felt less aggressive. She tilted her head forwards and, with great difficulty, pushed it out into the open air. Grains of sand slipped over her body. Her arms and shoulder ached. She struggled again and unearthed half her body. She removed the melfa and surveyed the deserted, silent hammada . In two hours the sun would set, so the heat was no longer so intense. With a great effort, Aza managed to sit up. She was so frightened she didn’t dare to remove her clothes to shake the sand off her body. It was a long time before she was totally sure that the mercenaries had gone. Nevertheless, she knew that even in the immensity of the desert the men might be able to find her. The tyre tracks left by the two vehicles were all around her: from the looks of it they must have circled around for hours, probably until the petrol tanks began to run out. Although she was dying to get away, she kept her wits about her and decided to wait for the sun to set. Under the canopy of the stars it would be easier for her to orient herself, and of course her body would lose less water while walking. While she was sitting down, on the alert, she thought she saw a moving shadow in the distance. Her first reaction was to crouch down and stay still, but she soon realised what it was. She walked in the direction of the figure, glancing everywhere around her in case it was a trap. But it wasn’t. From a distance of a hundred metres she could see that it was the Spanish woman. Aza couldn’t even remember her name. She approached and knelt down beside her. The woman must have been lying there for over five hours. With a string of insults that she’d learned as a child, she cursed the men who’d abandoned her there. She turned the woman over and raised her head, but there was no reaction. She put her ear to the woman’s chest; the situation looked desperate. It took a while before she could hear the heartbeat. It was faint and irregular, arrhythmical, as if the heart was announcing that it would stop imminently. Aza looked frantically for the spot where the woman had been stung. It was too late to try to extract the poison. She knew that the woman would die, and there was nothing she could do about it. The thought of death distressed her horribly. She tried to remain calm. Soon it would be dark and her chances of escape would improve.

Without looking back, Aza started walking the minute that the blinding sphere of the sun dipped below the horizon. A few moments later the surface of the desert started cooling down. Each time the wind blew, she got goose-pimples. She didn’t waste any time. After checking one last time that the foreign woman’s heart was still beating, she set forth towards the south-east. She weighed up her chances again. She didn’t have a clear idea of how far the nearest camp would be. Besides, although most Saharawis were capable of finding their way perfectly in the desert at night, she had had little opportunity to learn to do so. She had spent half her life in Cuba as a student. The desert, at times, was as hostile to her as to a foreigner, even though she had not left it for the last three years. In any case, she knew that if one wanted to reach a certain place it was vital to be precise and always walk in a straight line; a small deviation might mean straying several kilometres from the intended destination. She walked slowly so as not to tire herself out. She tried to ignore her thirst. If she didn’t sweat too much and lay down as soon as the sun was up, she might be able to walk for one more night. But that was just a guess. Meanwhile, her steps became clumsier and clumsier. She frequently stumbled and fell forwards. Her eyes clouded with fatigue. Although there was a full moon, she could barely make out the terrain five or six metres ahead. She hadn’t eaten anything for over a day. Eventually, a few hours before dawn, she fell to the ground and could not find the strength to pick herself up again.

A noise, almost a vibration, awoke her. Her eyelids were stuck together, and she didn’t remember where she was. She had covered herself with the melfa to keep insects from biting her. It was very cold. As the noise became clearer, she feared she was experiencing the onset of hallucinations. Her head ached horribly. She sat up and took a good look around, but saw nothing. The sun had been up for at least two hours. She lay back down on the ground, and this time the noise made her jump to her feet. There was no room for doubt: it was a truck engine. She listened, but the wind changed direction. However, a plume of dust rising on the horizon revealed the presence of several vehicles. It didn’t even occur to her that it might be Le Monsieur and his mercenaries. Although she could not yet see the shining surface of the cars, she figured out that they were moving quite slowly, judging from the height of the cloud of dust. She traced a mental line in their direction and started walking over to intercept them. They were probably two kilometres away. It was difficult to calculate distances. As she pressed on she shook the dirt off her clothes, and wiped her eyes and the corners of her mouth with saliva; she cleaned her ears of sand and put on the melfa as if she had just got up on a normal day. About five hundred metres from them, she started waving her arms, but trying not to reveal her desperation. They saw her a moment later. Four trucks with canvas covering the back and two four-by-fours. Even from afar she could see the surprised faces of the young soldiers. In a fit of embarrassment, she prayed to Allah that none of those men would know who she was.