Stories of the Sahara

by Sanmao

  His gravestone was very simple. A long time later, I went to take a look. On it was inscribed:

  SALVA SANCHEZ TORRES, 1932–1975

  While walking home, I passed Sahrawi children banging on rubbish bins in the public square, singing a rhythmic tune. You couldn’t tell from this scene, so peaceful in the waning daylight, that war was on its way.

  Hitchhikers

  I often hear this song – the title I don’t know, the tune I can’t quite hum – but the first two lines go something like: ‘When I think of the desert, I think of water / When I think of love, I think of you.’ It’s left quite an impression on me, that’s for sure.

  It’s normal to have this kind of mental association. Water and love are both supremely important for living in the desert. I just don’t know what the rest of this song is about. When my friend Mai Ling wrote to me, she said she often fantasised about me with a colourful Arabian rug over my shoulders and bells on my feet, walking with a huge jug on my head to draw water from a well – and what a beautiful image it was.

  Mai Ling is so sweet. She even drew me a picture called ‘Slave Girl Drawing Water from the Well’, full of charm and romance. In reality, walking to fetch water is a thoroughly miserable affair. There’s nothing comfortable about it, nor would I prop up a tank of water on top of my head.

  My father and mother write to me every week, also exhorting me:

  Even though water and Coca-Cola are the same price, and you must have resigned yourself to drinking Coke every day instead of water, water is necessary for the human body. If you drink only Coke, over the years you’ll find it becomes nowhere near as refreshing anymore. Make sure you remember to drink water, no matter how expensive it is…

  Everyone who doesn’t live in the desert always brings up the matter of water. But very few people ask me what it’s like to live in this vast and boundless sea of sand with no access to transport, or how one manages to set sail on the wind and waves to the world outside of town.

  Being shut away for a long time in this tiny town with just one street, you feel the same kind of loneliness as a person with a broken leg living in an alley with no exit. In such a humdrum existence, there’s no such thing as excessive joy, yet nor is there much sorrow. This unchanging life is like the warp and weft of a loom, days and years being woven out line by line in an ever-monotonous pattern.

  The day José pulled up in our car that had been shipped over by sea, I dashed out in a frenzy to meet him. Even though it wasn’t anything like the highly practical but expensive Land Rover, nor remotely suitable for travelling through the desert, it was, for us, the perfect car. I caressed this treasure inside and out, overwhelmed with joy. In my mind there suddenly appeared the image of a desert landscape at sunset, with the catchy theme song from Born Free playing in the background. Oddly enough there seemed to be gusts of wind blowing on the car just then and tossing my hair about.

  I loved our newly arrived Boat of the Desert with all my heart. Every day after José came home from work, I would carefully polish the car with a clean piece of cloth, not letting a single speck of dirt or grime remain. I would even take tweezers to extract the little rocks that got embedded in the tyres. I just worried I wasn’t fully dedicated to servicing this companion, who was bringing us so much joy and happiness.

  ‘José, how was she running when you went to work?’ I asked, mopping the car’s big eyes.

  ‘Better than fine. She rides like the wind. She’s also pretty polite when you give her some grub. Only needs a little.’

  ‘Now we have a car, but do you remember how we used to hitchhike?’ I asked José. ‘Anxiously waiting in the wind and rain, hoping someone would stop and take pity on us.’

  ‘That was Europe,’ José chuckled. ‘You didn’t have the guts to do it in America.’

  ‘Public safety is different in America. Plus, you weren’t with me back then.’ I wiped the tender right eye of the new car as we bantered idly. ‘José, when will you let me drive?’ I asked, full of hope.

  ‘Didn’t you try it out once?’ he retorted.

  ‘That doesn’t count. You sat next to me and made me drive badly. You got me all nervous. The more you scold me, the worse I drive. You don’t understand psychology.’ I was about to get worked up talking about this again.

  ‘I’ll drive for another week. From then on, I’ll take the shuttle bus to work and you can come and pick me up in the afternoon. How about it?’

  ‘Amazing!’ I jumped for joy, feeling an urge to give the car a great big hug.

  A round trip to José’s workplace took almost two hours, but the desolate road was straight as an arrow. You could drive as fast as you wanted to. There was also no traffic to speak of. The first time I went to pick up José, I was late by almost forty minutes. He was pretty annoyed from the wait.

  ‘Sorry I’m late.’ Dripping with sweat, I jumped out of the car and used a sleeve to wipe my face.

  ‘I told you not to be nervous. It’s such a straight road, you could put the pedal to the metal and still not hit anyone.’

  ‘So many parts of the road were buried in sand. I got out of the car and dug two ditches so I wouldn’t get stuck. Of course that took up time, and then that person had to live so far away…’ I moved to the passenger side to let José drive home.

  ‘Who’s “that” person?’ He tilted his head and looked at me askance.

  ‘A Sahrawi man who was walking.’ I threw my hands up.

  ‘Sanmao, in the last letter my father wrote to me, he said you can’t even trust a Sahrawi who’s been dead and buried for forty years. And yet when you’re trekking through the desert, all by yourself. . .’ José’s undiplomatic tone really made me unhappy.

  ‘He was really old!’ I snapped back at him. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘Old or not, it’s still not OK!’

  ‘You’d better not fault me for this. How many cars stopped to pick up the two of us back in the day, even though we looked like young bandits? If those strangers weren’t holding on to the tiniest bit of faith in humanity, then they must have been blind or plain crazy.’

  ‘That was Europe. We’re in Africa now. The Sahara Desert. Let’s be clear about that.’

  ‘Oh, I’m clear, alright. That’s why I picked that person up.’

  It was different here. Back in civilisation, life was too complicated. I wouldn’t have thought other people or things had anything to do with me. But in this barren land, fierce winds howling the year round, my spirit was moved by the mere sight of a blade of grass or a drop of morning dew, let alone a human being. How could I turn a blind eye to an old man tottering on his own beneath such a lonely sky?

  José understood this, of course. He just refused to think too much about it.

  Now that we had a car, we could go out into the wilderness on the weekends and drive all over the place. We were much happier, naturally. It really changed our whole world. But on most days José went to work. He didn’t keep his promise and seized the car for days at a time. I still had to walk the long way into town, braving the intensity of the sun. The two of us often fought over the car. Sometimes I’d hear him sneak out and drive away in the early morning. By the time I ran out in my sleeping gown to chase after him, it was already too late.

  The neighbouring children used to be my friends, but once they saw José acting cocky in the car – coming and going, reversing, spinning in circles, like a circus clown doing tricks for the audience – the whole nest of them went to worship this amazing person. I always hated the sight of clowns because they make me uncomfortable. This was no exception.

  One day at dusk, I heard the sound of José parking outside after getting home from work and assumed he would be coming in. Who knew that a few moments later, he’d drive off again. He didn’t get in until after ten, looking a dreary mess.

  ‘Where were you? Food’s cold.’ I glared at him unhappily.

  ‘Out for a stroll!’ he answered with a chuckle. ‘I went for a walk.�
�� With that he went to take a shower, whistling as if nothing happened.

  I ran out to look at the car. It was still in one piece, inside and out. Opening the car door, a very particular smell wafted out immediately. The cushion in the front seat was conspicuously covered in snot. There was a pee stain on the backseat. Little handprints were all over the windows. The inside of the car was littered with biscuit crumbs. It was a total catastrophe.

  ‘José, are you running a children’s amusement park?’ I shouted from outside the bathroom.

  ‘Ah! Sherlock Holmes.’ The sound of water drifted out merrily.

  ‘Sherlock who?’ I yelled. ‘Go look in the car.’

  José turned up the water a bit, pretending he couldn’t hear me.

  ‘So you took a few dirty kids out for a spin, huh? Speak!’

  ‘Eleven of them!’ he giggled. ‘Even squeezed in little Khalifa with the rest.’

  ‘I’m going to wash the car now. You eat dinner. From now on, we each get the car for a week. You have to be fair.’ While I had him cornered like this, I seized the opportunity to bring up the matter of sharing the car again.

  ‘Fine, then! You win!’

  ‘This is for good. A done deal, then!’ I didn’t trust him and wanted to confirm again.

  He stuck out his sopping wet head and made an ugly face at me.

  Even though I had insisted on getting the car, I actually just ended up driving in circles around the post office in the morning. Afterwards, when I got home, I’d wash and iron clothes, tidy up and do all the usual household chores. Around three in the afternoon, I’d change into my going-out clothes, wrap a wet rag around the boiling hot steering wheel and put two thick books on the seat. Only then could I start doing what I’d waited to do all day, under a sun so hot it made you dizzy.

  This sort of entertainment might be totally meaningless for someone who lives in the city. Faced with a long afternoon of idleness in the dead solitude of our little home, however, I’d rather sit in the car and drive through the wilderness and back. There practically wasn’t even any choice in it.

  Tents were scattered here and there along nearly a hundred kilometres of this narrow tarmac road. When the people who lived out here needed to go into town for errands, there were no other options besides trudging along for an entire day. Around these parts, the endless undulating sand was the true master of the land. Humans who survived here were mere pebbles mixed up in the sand.

  Driving through this great wasteland, so peaceful in the afternoon it was almost frightening, it was hard not to feel some measure of loneliness. But, by the same token, to know that I was wholly alone in this unimaginably vast land was totally liberating.

  Occasionally, I’d see a little black dot moving slowly at the edge of the horizon. Without fail, I’d unconsciously slow down my speeding car each time. The figure seemed so small and frail underneath the great dome of sky. My heart could never bear it. I’d raise my head high and drive, kicking up clouds of dust, whipping past the person who was walking along with such difficulty. In order to not frighten the person, I’d always drive past first, then stop, roll down the window and wave to them.

  ‘Come on in! I’ll give you a lift.’

  More often than not, they’d look at me with shy hesitation. It was usually a really old Sahrawi carrying a sack of flour or grain on their shoulder.

  ‘Don’t be afraid. It’s too hot. Get in.’

  The people I picked up always thanked me with utmost respect when I dropped them off. Even after driving far in the distance, I still saw these humble people waving at me beneath the expanse of sky. I was often touched by the look on their face as I drove away. What honest and innocent people they were!

  One time, I had driven more than thirty kilometres out of town when I saw an old person in front of me dragging a big goat tied with a piece of cloth. He was struggling along on the side of the road, his long gown filled with wind like a blown- up sail, getting in the way of all movement.

  I stopped the car. ‘Sahābi,’ I called, using the Arabic word for friend. ‘Get in!’

  ‘My goat?’ He seemed quite embarrassed as he said this, grabbing a tight hold of his goat.

  ‘You can bring the goat, too!’

  We stuffed the goat into the backseat. The old gentleman sat next to me. Meanwhile, the goat’s head just happened to rest against my neck. Throughout the journey, the goat’s strained breathing kept tickling my neck like crazy. I stepped on it so I could get these two to their scrappy roadside tent as soon as possible. When they were getting out, the old man grabbed my hands tightly, his toothless mouth babbling expressions of gratitude to me. He didn’t let go for a long time.

  I started laughing. ‘No need to thank me,’ I said to him. ‘Just get your goat out! He’s been chewing on my hair like it’s straw.’

  ‘Now you’ve got goat shit in the car. You yelled at me last time for running a children’s amusement park. You clean it. I’m not touching this.’ José ran inside as soon as we got home. I suppressed a smile and followed him in, grabbing a broom. I collected the goat shit and dumped it in our flower pots as fertiliser. Who said there was nothing to be gained from picking up hitchhikers?

  Sometimes José’s work schedule would change and he’d go in at two in the afternoon, coming back at ten at night. Under those circumstances, if I still wanted to drive the hundred kilometres there and back, I’d have to leave with him around half past noon. Once we reached the office, he’d get out of the car and I’d come back alone.

  During sandstorm season, noon was scorching hot and the air was full of yellow dust. I would choke horribly, my lungs pained as though they were filled with sand. Visibility would be down to zero. The car would thrash like it was on stormy seas. Sand and rocks would rain down on all sides, furiously pounding the car, a deafening sound.

  It was on one of these days after I’d taken José to work that I saw a figure riding a bike through the hazy yellow sand. Shocked, I stepped on the brakes. The person on the bike immediately jumped off and ran towards me.

  ‘What is it?’ I opened the window and shielded my eyes.

  ‘Señora, may I ask if you have water?’

  I peeled away the fingers that were covering my eyes and, to my surprise, saw a young boy of ten or so. His desperate eyes stared at me with great need.

  ‘Water? I don’t have any.’

  When I said this, the boy was so full of despair that he looked as though he might cry. He wrenched his head away.

  ‘Get in, quickly!’ I rolled up the window in a haste.

  ‘My bicycle. . .’ He was unwilling to leave his bike behind.

  ‘You’ll never make it into town in this kind of weather.’ I slipped on anti-wind goggles, opened the door and ran to get his bike. It was an old-style bicycle, impossible to get into my little car, no matter what I tried.

  ‘It’s impossible,’ I yelled to him over the wind. ‘How come you didn’t bring any water? How long have you been riding?’ Grains of sand immediately flew into my mouth and nose.

  ‘Since this morning,’ the kid said in practically a whimper.

  ‘Get in the car. Let’s leave your bike here for now. Once you get home, you can find another car in town to come back and get your bike. How does that sound?’

  ‘I can’t. The sand will cover it soon and I won’t be able to find it. I can’t leave my bike.’ He was stubborn and protective of his beloved old bicycle.

  ‘Fine! I’m going then. Take these.’ I took off the anti-wind goggles, handed them over and helplessly climbed into the car.

  I tried to do some chores when I got home, but the figure of the little boy, like an apparition, had mesmerised me. Hearing the mournful wind outside the window, I sat for a few minutes and realised I didn’t have the heart to do anything. I angrily opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of water and a sandwich. Then I got one of José’s duckbill caps, went out and jumped in the car. I retraced my steps to go looking for the little lad whom I
couldn’t forget.

  The guard at the checkpoint ran over when he saw me. He leaned in to talk. ‘Sanmao, are you going to take a walk in this kind of weather?’

  ‘It’s not me who’s taking a walk, it’s that odd little rascal who’s asking for trouble.’ I stepped on the gas. My car flew into the haze of the sandstorm like a bullet.

  ‘José, you can drive the car! I don’t need to any more.’ It was the third time in one day I’d driven along this road, now frigid at night.

  ‘You can’t handle the heat!’ he laughed, pleased with himself.

  ‘I can’t handle the people on the road. So annoying, so many problems.’

  ‘What people?’ José asked with bemusement.

  ‘I run into them every few days, don’t you know?’

  ‘Why don’t you just ignore them?’

  ‘If I ignore them, then what? Should I have just stood by and watched that little rascal die of thirst?’

  ‘So you’re done with it?’

  ‘Ah, forget it!’ I slouched in the car seat and looked out of the window.

  I’m a woman of my word. For quite a few weeks, I stayed in the peace of my home mending clothes. After I finished sewing almost a hundred pieces of printed fabric into a colourful patchwork quilt, I started feeling impulsive again out of nowhere.

  ‘José, the weather’s so nice today, no sandstorms or any­thing. I’ll drive you to work!’ Standing outside in my night­gown, I looked out at the car in the morning.

  ‘It’s a public holiday today,’ José said. ‘You should go into town and have fun.’

  ‘Ah! Really? Then why are you going to work?’

  ‘The mining doesn’t stop. Of course I have to go.’

  ‘A holiday probably means there’ll be hundreds of people crowded in town. Can’t stand it. I won’t go.’

  ‘Get in the car then!’

  ‘Let me change.’ I flew into the house, put on a blouse and jeans and grabbed a plastic bag on my way out.

  ‘What’s the bag for?’