Stories of the Sahara

by Sanmao

  Khadi said, ‘She has almost nothing to eat!’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I said. I ran back home and poured out fifteen maximum-strength multivitamins for her. ‘Khadi, can you spare to slaughter a goat?’ She nodded excitedly. ‘First give your cousin these vitamins, three times a day. Besides that, prepare some goat stew for her.’

  Within a week and a half, the cousin that Khadi had described as near death paid me an unexpected visit. She lingered for a good long while before returning home, seemingly in good spirits. José laughed when he came back and saw her. ‘What’s this? You saved someone from the brink of death? So what was the disease?’

  ‘No disease,’ I replied with a chuckle. ‘Just extreme mal- nourishment!’

  ‘How did you figure that one out?’ José asked.

  ‘I gave it some thought.’ To my surprise, I realised that he now seemed quite proud of me.

  We reside on the peripheries of the small town El Aaiún. Few Europeans live here, and José and I take great pleasure in getting to know the locals. The majority of the friends we have made here are Sahrawi. I don’t have much to occupy my time, so I host a free women’s school at home. I teach the local women how to read numbers and distinguish coins. The more advanced ones move on to arithmetic (along the lines of one plus one equals two). I have between seven and fifteen female students; they’re always coming and going. You could say this school is pretty free and easy.

  My students weren’t very focused one day during class and ended up fumbling along my bookshelves. It just so happened that they discovered the book El Nacimiento de Un Bebé. This book was in Spanish and had many diagrams and drawings. There were also colour pictures depicting how women became pregnant all the way through to the baby’s birth, with clear explanations for everything. My students were immediately fascinated, so I set aside the arithmetic and taught out of this book for two weeks. They would shriek and whoop looking at the pictures, as if they had absolutely no idea how a life was made. This was in spite of the fact that quite a few of my students had three or four children of their own.

  ‘What a strange world,’ José said. ‘A teacher who’s never given birth explaining to mothers where children come from.’ He couldn’t keep from smiling.

  ‘Before they could only give birth, but now they know the ins and outs of it. I guess this kind of thing is easier to do than understand.’ At least these women could gain some more common knowledge, even if this knowledge wouldn’t make their lives easier or healthier.

  One day my student Fatima asked, ‘Sanmao, will you come when I give birth?’

  I stared at her completely dumbstruck. Fatima was someone I saw nearly every day, yet I had no idea she was pregnant. ‘You… How many months along are you?’ I asked.

  She couldn’t count, so she didn’t know how many months. I finally convinced her to take off the large piece of fabric that wrapped her head and body, revealing just the long dress beneath. ‘Who helped you the last time you gave birth?’ I knew that she had a three-year-old son already.

  ‘My mother,’ she answered.

  ‘Why don’t you ask your mother to do it again? I can’t help you.’

  She lowered her head. ‘My mother cannot come now. She is dead.’

  When I heard this, I shut my mouth. ‘How about going to the hospital?’ I tried. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

  ‘No,’ she refused immediately. ‘The doctors are men.’

  I looked at her stomach. She was probably around eight months pregnant. I spoke to her hesitantly. ‘Fatima, I’m not a doctor. I’ve never even had a baby myself. I can’t assist in this birth.’

  She suddenly seemed close to tears. ‘I beg you, it is so clear in your book. Please help me, I beg you—’

  My heart was softening at her supplication. But even after some thought, I still couldn’t agree to it. I steeled myself and told her, ‘No, don’t beg me like this. If anything happens, it’ll be on my hands.’

  ‘It will be fine. I am very healthy. I can give birth. I just need you to help a little…’

  ‘Let’s talk about it another time!’ I said, skirting the issue.

  A month passed. I had long since forgotten about this matter. Then one day at dusk, a little girl I didn’t recognise came knocking on my door. When I opened the door, all she could say was, ‘Fatima, Fatima.’ She didn’t know any Spanish.

  I came out, locking the door behind me, and spoke to the girl. ‘Go and tell her husband to come home. Do you understand?’ She nodded and ran off.

  I went to Fatima’s house to take a look. She was in pain, sweating on the ground. Her son was crying by her side. There was a pool of sweat on the mat Fatima lay on. I scooped up the small boy and carried him off for a neighbour to look after. Then I dragged a middle-aged woman back with me to Fatima’s home. The locals here are very uncooperative and have little compassion for each other. When the middle-aged woman saw Fatima in such a state, she started cursing me in Arabic. She turned around and left. (Only later did I find out that the locals considered witnessing childbirth to be unlucky.)

  ‘Don’t be scared,’ I told Fatima helplessly. ‘I’m going home to get something. I’ll be right back.’ I dashed home and ran immediately to the shelf to get that book. Opening it to the page on childbirth, I leafed through it in a hurry, thinking to myself, Scissors, cotton, alcohol, what else? What else do I need? Only then did I notice that José was already home. He was staring at me with a puzzled look on his face.

  ‘Aiya, I’m kind of in a pinch,’ I said quietly, trembling. ‘I’m not so sure I can do this.’

  ‘Do what? Do what?’ José couldn’t help but absorb my anxiety.

  ‘Assist in a birth! Her waters have already broken.’ I had the book in one hand and a large bundle of cotton in the other as I searched all over for a pair of scissors.

  ‘You’re insane. I won’t let you.’ José snatched the book from me. ‘You’ve never given birth. You’ll be the death of her!’

  I felt more clear-headed than before and started putting up an unconvincing argument. ‘I have this book. I’ve seen documentaries about childbirth—’

  ‘I won’t let you.’ José came and forcefully grabbed hold of me.

  With things in both hands, I could only jab him in the ribs with my elbow. Amid this struggle, I cried, ‘You have no compassion, you cold-blooded animal! Let go of me!’

  ‘No, I won’t let you.’ He held on to me stubbornly.

  While we were jerking this way and that in our fight, Fatima’s husband appeared in the window looking bewildered. José let go of me. ‘I won’t allow Sanmao to assist in this birth,’ he said. ‘She’ll harm Fatima. I’m going to find a car now. Your wife will have her baby at the hospital.’

  In the end, Fatima went to the government hospital and gave birth to a little boy without a hitch. The Spanish government waived the fee because they were locals. After her release, she was extremely proud of being the first woman in the region to give birth in a hospital. The matter of the male doctors was not brought up again.

  One morning, I was up on the roof hanging clothes when I realised that there were two new baby goats in the little pen that our landlord had constructed up there. I was overjoyed. ‘Come up here and see!’ I called out to José. ‘Two adorable little baby goats.’

  He ran up to take a look. ‘These kind of baby goats would be perfect for roasting,’ he said.

  I was shocked. ‘What the devil are you talking about?’ I asked him angrily. I shooed the goats over to their mother. Then I noticed there was a large, heart-shaped object still connected to the doe. I guess this was the placenta? It was so gross. Three days later, this viscera was still hanging from her body.

  ‘Let’s slaughter and eat her!’ my landlord said.

  ‘If you kill the mother, how will the babies survive?’ I came up with this excuse quickly to save the goat.

  ‘With her placenta hanging out like this, she will die anyway,’ said my landlord.

  ‘Let
me see if I can help. Don’t slaughter her yet.’ These words rushed out of my mouth, though I had no idea how to care for a doe. I mulled it over at home until an idea came to me. I got a bottle of wine and went up to the roof. Then I grabbed the doe and forced the wine down her throat. As long as she didn’t drink herself to death, I’d have half a chance at solving things. This was a technique that I’d once learned from a farmer and remembered all of a sudden.

  The next day, the landlord said, ‘She is saved. The dirty things in her stomach all came out and all is well. May I ask how you saved her? I truly give thanks to you.’

  I laughed and said softly, ‘I forced her to down big bottle of wine.’

  ‘Thank you very much!’ he said again.

  As he walked off with a helpless look on his face, it hit me that Muslims couldn’t drink alcohol and so, of course, neither could his goat.

  This old witch doctor could work her magic on almost anyone. Only José was afraid of me. He usually never gave me a chance to treat him. But I wanted nothing more than for him to have confidence in me. One day his stomach hurt, so I gave him a pack of powder called Siron-U and told him to drink it with water.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Why don’t you give it a try first?’ I said. ‘It’s very effective on me.’ I forced him to down a packet.

  Afterwards, still not quite comfortable, he examined the medicine’s plastic packaging. He couldn’t understand the Chinese, but there was some English on it – Vitamin U. ‘Is there such a thing as vitamin U?’ he asked grumpily. ‘How does it help stomach pain?’ I didn’t know either. I grabbed the package to take a look. It was as he said. I laughed hard. Sure enough, though, his stomach pain eventually subsided.

  I actually really enjoyed being a veterinarian. But after the incident with Fatima giving birth, José was frightened out of his wits. So I didn’t tell him about my foray into veterinary medicine. Gradually he got to thinking that I no longer had any interest in playing doctor.

  Last week we had three days off. The temperature was perfect, so we decided to rent a Jeep to drive across the desert and go camping. Just as we were at the doorstep loading our water tank, tent and food into the car, a dark-skinned female neighbour came by. She didn’t have her headscarf on and walked towards us confidently. Before I could even open my mouth, she said very brightly to José, ‘Your wife is truly great. My tooth hasn’t hurt ever since she helped me fix it.’

  Hearing this, I hurriedly tried to change the subject. ‘Hey, where are the sandwiches?’ I started giggling to myself. ‘Did we forget about them?’

  José looked like he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. ‘May I ask Your Excellency how long it’s been since your career change to dentistry?’

  I saw that it was no use pretending. I held my head up high, thought for a second, then told him, ‘I started last month.’

  ‘How many people’s teeth have you worked on?’ Now he was smiling too.

  ‘Two women, one child. None of them wanted to go to the hospital. There was no helping it, so… Really, they were all fine after I fixed them up, able to bite into things again.’ Everything I said was truthful.

  ‘And what materials did you use to fix them up?’

  ‘That, I can’t tell you,’ I said immediately.

  ‘I won’t go camping if you don’t tell me.’

  The rascal knew how to threaten me. Fine! I stepped back first and made sure to put enough distance between me and José. Then I said quietly, ‘Won’t come off, waterproof, very sticky, fragrantly scented, beautifully coloured. Can you guess what this nice thing is?’

  ‘What?’ he asked immediately, totally not using his brain.

  ‘Nail! Polish!’ I cried.

  ‘Whaa— Nail polish for fixing people’s teeth!’ He was so shocked that his hair stood on end like a cartoon character. It was so cute. Seeing this, I laughed and ran to my safety zone. By the time he had snapped out of it and came chasing after me, this witch doctor had already fled the scene.

  Child Bride

  I first met Gueiga around this time last year. The eldest daughter of Hamdi, a police officer, she and her family live in a large house close to my own modest home. Back then Gueiga had a thick braid and wore long African print dresses. She walked barefoot and didn’t wear a veil, nor did she cover up her body in fabric. She was often shouting after her goats outside my home, her voice crisp and lively. She was just a happy little girl.

  Eventually she came to study with me. When I asked her how old she was, she said, ‘You must ask Hamdi that. We Sahrawi women do not know how old we are.’ She and her siblings didn’t call Hamdi ‘Father’, they addressed him directly by name.

  Hamdi told me that Gueiga was ten years old. ‘You are probably around ten years old, too, right?’ he asked me in turn. ‘Gueiga gets along with you so well.’ I didn’t know how to answer this ridiculous question, so I just smiled awkwardly at him.

  Half a year passed and I became close friends with Hamdi and his entire family. We had tea together almost every day. One day I was drinking tea with just Hamdi and his wife, Tebrak. He suddenly spoke up. ‘Our daughter will get married soon. Please inform her when you have a chance.’

  I choked down some tea. ‘You mean Gueiga?’ I asked with great difficulty.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The marriage will be ten days after Ramadan.’ Ramadan, Islam’s month of fasting, was soon to begin.

  We drank another cup of tea in silence. In the end, I couldn’t help but ask Hamdi, ‘Don’t you think Gueiga is too young? She’s only ten years old.’

  Hamdi strongly disagreed. ‘Young? My wife was only eight when I married her.’

  These were Sahrawi customs, I realised. I couldn’t critique this matter from such a subjective point of view, so I shut my mouth.

  ‘Please tell Gueiga for us,’ implored Gueiga’s mother once more. ‘She still does not know.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell her yourselves?’ I asked them out of curiosity.

  ‘How can we speak of this so directly?’ Hamdi replied with an air of righteousness. They really could be so antiquated sometimes, I thought.

  After maths the next day, I asked Gueiga to stay behind to brew some tea over a charcoal fire. ‘Gueiga, it’s your turn now,’ I said, handing her tea.

  ‘What?’ She seemed confused.

  ‘Silly girl, you’re going to get married,’ I said bluntly.

  She was clearly taken aback. Her face quickly became red. ‘When?’ she whispered.

  ‘Ten days after Ramadan,’ I said. ‘Do you know who it might be?’

  Shaking her head, she set her teacup down and left without a word. It was the first time I’d seen such worry on her face.

  Some days later, I was buying groceries in town when I ran into Gueiga’s older brother and another youth. ‘Abeidy is a policeman in Hamdi’s squad,’ he said by way of introduction. ‘He is my good friend, and also Gueiga’s future husband.’ When I heard he was Gueiga’s fiancé, I purposely gave him a good look. Abeidy was tall and handsome, with a light complexion. The gentleness in his eyes and his polite manner of speaking made a very good first impression.

  I went to find Gueiga once I got home. ‘Relax!’ I said to her. ‘Your fiancé is Abeidy. He’s young and handsome, not at all a rough fellow. Hamdi didn’t pick just anyone for you.’

  Hearing this, Gueiga shyly lowered her head. Though she was silent, I could see in her eyes that she had already accepted the reality of her marriage. It was Sahrawi tradition that parents would receive a huge bride price for their daughters who were married off. In the past, when there was no currency in the desert, the bride’s family would demand a betrothal gift that included flocks of goats, camels, cloth, slaves, flour, sugar, tea leaves and so on. Now that they were a bit more civilised, they used banknotes to replace these items but kept a similar list of demands.

  The day Gueiga’s bride price arrived, José was invited to tea. I had to stay at home since I was a woman.
Less than an hour into it, José came back and announced, ‘That Abeidy gave Hamdi two hundred thousand pesetas! I never imagined Gueiga would be worth so much.’

  ‘This is practically human trafficking!’ I said disapprovingly. But somehow I was slightly jealous of Gueiga. I hadn’t earned a single goat for my parents when I got married.

  Gueiga’s appearance changed within the month. Hamdi bought several large pieces of fabric for her, all in plain black and blue. The colours would bleed onto her skin because the material was dyed very poorly. When Gueiga wrapped herself in the dark cloth, her entire body would become blue. There was a whole different aura about her. Even though she still walked barefoot, she now wore anklets of silver and gold. She began coiling her hair up. The spices applied to her body gave off a pungent scent, intermingling with her strange odour from years of not bathing. All of this made her seem like a true Sahrawi woman.

  On the last day of Ramadan, Hamdi performed the ritual of circumcision on his two small boys. Naturally, I was inclined to go and check it out. By then Gueiga was rarely seen out of the house. I went to her room and saw her there with just a soiled and tattered mat. The only new things were her clothes.

  ‘What are you taking with you after you get married?’ I asked her. ‘No new stoves or pans?’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said. ‘Hamdi is keeping me here.’

  Surprised, I asked, ‘What about your husband?’

  ‘He’s moving here, too,’ she said.

  I was really envious. ‘How long are you staying before mov­ing out?’ I asked.

  ‘Traditionally, we can stay for six full years before we have to leave.’

  No wonder Hamdi had demanded so much money for a betrothal gift. Turns out the son-in-law was to live with his bride’s family after marriage.

  The day before her marriage, as tradition dictated, Gueiga was supposed to leave home until the groom brought her back. I gave her a fake jade bracelet as a present, something she’d had her eyes on for a while. Gueiga’s aunt, a very old Sahrawi woman, came by in the afternoon before she left home. Gueiga sat while her aunt began dressing her up. She let Gueiga’s hair down and arranged it in over thirty small braids. Then she adorned the top of Gueiga’s head with a small heap of fake hair, just like the imperial maids of ancient China. Every braid had a colourful bead woven into it. The top of her head also shimmered with fake jewels. No make-up was applied to the face.