Luis Leante - See How Much I Love You

The Spanish Army had abandoned the Tifariti square. The soldiers’ barracks and the souk had been captured by the Saharawis. Around these, in an area of several square kilometres, the new arrivals were settling down. The nomads who already lived in the area offered their jaimas to others. Each family tried to organise themselves as best they could. Corrals for the animals were cobbled together. They even built a precarious hospital for small children. Trucks and vehicles of all kinds kept arriving. Although the newcomers spread encouraging news, some Saharawis had been there for two months. Little by little they were beginning to move east, in search of security on the other side of the border, in the not very hospitable Algerian hammada .

On the evening Santiago reached Tifariti a sandstorm broke out such as he had never seen in the whole year he’d been in the Sahara. The whirlwinds pulled out the jaimas and whipped up clouds of dust. Their camp came apart in barely a few minutes. The women dug holes in the sand, put the children in and lay on top, trying to protect themselves with their melfas . One couldn’t see further away than two metres. Santiago and Andía stayed inside the Land Rover. Wind and sand came in through every tiny aperture. The lack of water vapour was so pronounced that he felt his eyeballs were drying out — a very unpleasant sensation. He told Andía, worriedly, and the girl licked his eyelids, but a moment later they were dry again. For a while he thought he was going blind. The dryness was unbearable. Andía tried to calm him down. At daybreak, when the wind had finally abated, Santiago couldn’t open his eyes. He lay still, and very afraid, under the tent the boys had promptly put up, while Andía stayed, caressing his arm.

The girl’s brothers looked for Lazaar everywhere, but he was nowhere to be found. They asked around for him for three days. It was almost impossible to find a single person in the camp. The number of Saharawis living there increased daily. Although no official estimates existed, there must have been about fifty thousand refugees. In the daytime the sun blazed on the sand, and in the hours before dawn the dry cold would creep into the bones of those forced to sleep more or less in the open air. The army got water from those oases which had not been poisoned, but food was scarce. Under the circumstances, everything they had managed to transport on the Land Rover was considered a treasure. The few eggs laid by the chickens and the goat’s milk continued to feed the family. The tea was also much appreciated — until it ran out, as did the sugar.

Santiago’s eyes got better, but he was very weak. The water from the wells gave him terrible diarrhoea. Andía did not leave his side. His body did not adjust to the rigours of the desert until mid-January. By then he was pretty sure he would never see Lazaar again. But one cold morning the Saharawi turned up accompanied by one of his brothers, with an old Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder. He kissed his mother and a moment later hugged his close fried Santiago.

‘They tell me you’ve been ill.’

‘No, no. It’s the water from the wells and the wind, I’m not used to them.’

Lazaar looked at his sister, who was, as always, smiling.

‘Does Andía look after you properly?’

Santiago was overcome with emotion. His eyes filled with scalding tears.

‘Better than anyone…’ he trailed off. ‘I didn’t keep my promise. The roads in your country are not as good as you think.’

Lazaar hugged him again.

‘Look who’s here.’

Only with difficulty did Santiago recognise Sid-Ahmed. His eyes were not as good as they used to be. The former shopkeeper now had a camera hanging from his neck.

‘Are you going to take a picture of me, Sid-Ahmed?’

‘Right now if you like.’

‘Sid-Ahmed works for the Polisario now. He’s in charge of documenting what’s happening, for the world to see.’

‘Stand over there, in front of the car.’

The friends did as they were told. Behind them the Bedouins’ tents flapped in the wind. Santiago adjusted his blue derraha and undid his turban, letting it down over his shoulders. He smoothed down the moustache he’d grown in the last month. Then he took Lazaar’s Kalashnikov and held it up in his left hand. The Saharawi, in turn, lifted his hand and made the ‘V’ sign. They both threw an arm around the other’s shoulder and, beaming at the camera, held their heads together, as though they feared they wouldn’t fit into the picture.

That evening, sheltered under the awning that served as a jaima , they related their difficult exodus to Lazaar and Sid-Ahmed. Lazaar filled them in on the current situation. The Saharawi population was fleeing towards the Algerian desert, many of them on foot. News of those who’d stayed in the cities was in short supply, but no one envied them, in spite of the suffering experienced on the journey.

Once the wind died down, a deadening silence seized the camp. Neither the goats nor the dogs made a noise. Someone said, a long time later, that that silence seemed like an omen of what was to come. But on that night no one could imagine what the new day had in store.

At nine in the morning, on Monday 19th of January, nothing indicated that that day in Tifariti would be any different for those who had already lost everything. Except for the absence of wind, the morning was identical to so many others in the last few months. It had been a very cold, restless night before the wind abated. Lazaar’s brothers had already gone to fetch water and were tidying the jaima . Santiago was still asleep, cuddled around Andía to keep her warm. The girl was awake but liked to stay like that, lying still until the legionnaire woke up. Yet a sudden noise shook her out of her stillness under the blanket. Santiago awoke.

‘What is it, Andía? Do you want to get up already?’

‘It’s not that. Listen, Santi.’

Santiago didn’t know what she meant. All he heard was the clinking of the teapot and the glasses. Or a goat braying in the silence. But Andía knew what she’d heard. She knew what planes sounded like.

‘I can hear a plane.’

Once again Santiago failed to hear it. He only realised how serious it was when one of Andía’s brothers came running into the jaima , shouting.

The attack came from the north. The planes flew in low from behind the rocks, where no one would be able to see them until they were almost above the camp. They didn’t even do a reconnaissance flight. It seemed as though they knew exactly where they were heading. San Román went out and shaded his eyes with his hand so he could see them. Three French F1 Mirages. He knew them well: the best aircraft in the Moroccan army. They approached in a ‘V’ formation, accurately dropping their deadly load. The first bombs threw the whole camp into a panic. Napalm and white phosphorous razed the jaimas to the ground as if they were made of paper. The noise of the explosions was followed by the flash of flames and gusts of hot air that swept everything in its wake. As the planes flew over they left a scar of fire and destruction in the village. But they were certainly coming back, and everyone ran for cover. The craters made by the bombs were so big that they could comfortably hold a person standing upright. For some the fire blocked the escape. Santiago looked for Andía, but she wasn’t there. A hundred metres off he saw some tent canvases on fire. Suddenly it was very hot. There was a nauseating smell of burnt things. Santiago ran the other way and saw what was happening. The planes were once again discharging napalm over Tifariti. Whoever was caught near the explosion died instantly, but even several metres away the women’s melfas would light up on contact with the hot air. Some people, burnt from head to toe, managed to run for a bit before dropping dead, charred by the phosphorous. No one knew where to run. They all bumped into one another. Amid the confusion Santiago stopped and looked at the sky. He felt the ground shake beneath his feet. Then a blast threw him into the air. He landed on his back, but couldn’t sit up. His body felt heavy. He knew his face was scorched. The voices died down in his head until he was completely deaf. His left arm, he realised, was badly burnt. He looked at it and saw a mass of flesh and blood. His hand and half his forearm were missing, but it barely hurt. He understood how useless it would be to stand up and run. The sky became red with fire. A moment later he felt someone grab him by the neck, trying to make him sit up. It was Andía. Her face was filled with horror. She was crying and shouting, although he couldn’t hear her. He told her that he loved her, that it was going to be all right, and his words echoed in his chest as in an empty box. Andía pressed her face to his chest and hugged him as if she were trying to keep him from going over the edge of an abyss. Then Santiago San Román no longer felt anything.