by Sanmao
I became silent for a moment, then shook my head. ‘I have to take care of some things. There won’t be any trouble. Thank you!’
He stood there for a while, then flicked away the cigarette butt in his hand. ‘Well, shut your windows and doors tight,’ he said, nodding to me. ‘Tomorrow morning at nine, I’ll come and get you to go to the airport.’
I closed the window and locked the dual hinges. The sound of the Jeep slowly faded into the distance and finally disappeared altogether. Heavy silence made the tiny room feel completely empty, not at all like the ambience of times past.
It felt like only yesterday that I used to stand here in just my long nightgown, a crowd of Sahrawi girls giggling and talking to me through the window. ‘Sanmao, open the door! We have waited all day. Why are you still sleeping?’
‘No class today. You’re on a break.’ I stretched and took a few deep breaths, my gaze leisurely falling on the bright and clean sand dunes in the distance.
‘No class again,’ the girls clamoured unhappily.
‘Those explosions nearly made me and José fall out of bed at three in the morning. We ran out to see what happened, but there was nothing. We couldn’t sleep until daybreak because of this. So, heh, no class. No more fussing.’
‘Let us come in, even if there is no class! Just for fun.’ The girls banged on the door again. I had to open it.
‘You sleep like dead people. That loud and you still didn’t hear anything?’ I asked them, smiling and sipping my tea.
‘Of course we did, there were three explosions,’ they piped up eagerly. ‘One in front of the military camp, another at the elementary school of the mining company, one more in front of Ajyeiba’s father’s store—’
‘News sure gets around fast. You guys don’t ever leave this street and still manage to hear about everything.’
‘It is the guerrillas. They are getting more and more fierce.’
The girls spoke completely without fear as though it were a great show, twittering and pantomiming and bubbling over with life. The room became filled with the sound of chatter and laughter.
‘Actually, the Spanish government has made reassurances on national self-determination. So what are they causing this ruckus for?’ I sighed, picked up a brush and started brushing my hair.
‘Let me braid your hair.’ A girl squatting behind me smeared saliva on her hand, then started putting my hair in thick braids with great care.
‘This is all because of Shahida,’ the girl behind me said loudly. ‘This is what happens when men and women love whoever and however they want. Ajyeiba’s store got blown up in the end.’ When she said ‘love’ the whole lot of them started shoving and teasing.
‘Shahida who works in the hospital?’ I asked.
‘Who else? Shameless woman. Ajyeiba loves her, she doesn’t love him. She still talked to him, so Ajyeiba pursued her. Then she had a change of heart and got close to Afeluat. Ajyeiba got together a group of people to teach her a lesson, but she told Afeluat. They had a fight several days ago. Then, last night, there was a bomb thrown at Ajyeiba’s father’s store.’
‘That’s bull. Afeluat isn’t that kind of person.’ I disliked this group of girls the most. At every turn, they used their imaginations to judge matters that were completely beyond their comprehension.
‘Ay! Afeluat isn’t, Shahida is! That whore knows the guerrillas…’
I grabbed my braid of hair back. ‘The word “whore” is only for cruel, dishonest women,’ I said sternly. ‘Shahida is one of the best midwives among you Sahrawi girls. How can you call her a whore? This word is truly terrible. Never call her that again.’
‘She talks to every man,’ said Fatima, Gueiga’s younger sister. An ignorant and slovenly mess, she sat in front of me biting her blackened nails, her hair hardened with red mud.
‘What’s wrong with talking to men?’ I growled. ‘I talk to men every day. Am I also a whore?’ How I wished I could knock open their silly little closed minds.
‘Not only this,’ spoke up a rather shy girl. ‘Shahida, she… she…’ She grew red in the face and couldn’t continue.
‘She sleeps with different men,’ Fatima said deliberately, rolling her eyes. She barked a cold laugh.
‘“She sleeps with different men”. You’ve seen it with your own eyes?’ I sighed, not knowing whether to laugh at or be angry at this group of girls.
‘Hmph! Of course she does! Everyone talks about it. In town, nobody wants to be friends with her, except men. The men won’t marry her, though, they just want to play with her…’
‘That’s enough! No more talk. You’re too young to be a bunch of gossipy housewives.’ I turned around to go and pour my tea out in the kitchen, irritation unexpectedly rising in my heart. First thing in the morning and they had to talk about these silly things.
The girls sat in a shapeless mass on the ground, some sooty and barelegged, others with terrible body odour or wild hair. All of their mouths were busy chattering. I didn’t understand Hassaniya, but I often heard Shahida’s name jump out from their sentences. They all bore expressions of resentment and disdain. It was really horrible to witness, this unspeakable jealousy and hatred.
I leaned against the door, looking out at them. I saw a flicker of Shahida, pale and elegant, beautiful as a flower in spring, pass before my eyes. This lovable girl from the desert had been brought up with such refinement, but her own community treated her contemptuously. It was truly difficult to understand.
In this town, we had many Sahrawi friends: the stamp-seller at the post office, the security guard at the courthouse, the company driver, the store assistant, the beggar pretending to be blind, the donkey wrangler who delivered water, the powerful tribal chief, the penniless slave, male and female neighbours young and old, policemen, thieves; people from all walks of life were our sahābi.
Afeluat was our beloved friend, a young policeman. He had received a high school education, then ended his studies after becoming a police officer. He had a childlike face and a mouth full of white teeth. People were drawn to his kind and sunny disposition, not to mention his sincerity.
In town, bombs were going off frequently these days, while business bustled on as usual. Everyone was talking about the political situation, consciously or not. But nobody was seriously bothered by these crises. Everyone took it lightly as though these troubles were far away.
One day, I was walking back from buying vegetables when Afeluat drove past me in the police car. I waved at him. He swooped out of the car.
‘Afeluat, how come you haven’t visited us in so long?’ I asked him. He laughed but didn’t say anything, walking by my side. ‘José is working the early shift this week. He’s home after three in the afternoon. Come over for a chat.’
‘Alright, I’ll definitely come by soon.’ Still smiling, he helped load my basket of vegetables into a taxi I hailed, then walked off.
A few days later, Afeluat indeed paid us a visit at night. As luck would have it, a bunch of José’s co-workers were over. He glanced in from the window. ‘Ah, you have guests!’ he said quickly. ‘I’ll come another time!’
I ran out to greet him and insisted that he come in. ‘We’re grilling beef kebabs. Come and eat with us. These are all old friends. Don’t worry about it.’
Afeluat smiled and pointed behind him. Only then did I see a girl dressed in a light-blue desert robe slowly descending from his car. Her face was covered, but a pair of eyes like autumn water shone at me warmly.
‘Shahida?’ I asked him with a chuckle.
‘How did you know?’ He looked at me with surprise. Rather than reply, I walked quickly over to welcome this rare guest whom I couldn’t have been more pleased to see. If it had been anybody but Shahida, I wouldn’t have dragged her in there since the room was all men. But Shahida was an open-minded girl. After a moment of hesitation, she crossed the threshold.
José’s co-workers had never seen a Sahrawi girl up close before. They all stood up politel
y. ‘Please sit, don’t go to any trouble.’ Shahida nodded with perfect poise. I pulled her down to sit on the mat, then spun around to pour soda water for her and Afeluat. When I looked at her again, the headscarf had already come off quite naturally.
In the light, Shahida’s features gave off an inexplicably intense appeal. Her cheeks were close to ivory, offsetting the deep black wells of her eyes. Beneath her straight nose were her clear lips, slim lines that had the flawless elegance of a statue. She unconsciously shifted her gaze around the room. The serenity of her small smile was like a freshly risen moon in the sky, enveloping the room in its brilliance. Everyone slipped into a stupor. Even I, in that sliver of a moment, was frozen in place by her radiance.
Compared with her bright and beautiful appearance in the hospital, Shahida dressed in local garb exuded a different kind of charm altogether. She transported us into an ancient reverie just by sitting there without speaking.
Everyone strained to start talking again. We all felt a bit distracted because Shahida was in the room. Afeluat sat for a while, then bade farewell with Shahida at his side. Long after she’d left, the room was still swathed in silence. This must be how it feels to witness an eternal beauty!
‘So beautiful,’ I sighed with emotion. ‘Such a beautiful woman really exists in the world. It’s not a fairy tale.’
‘She’s Afeluat’s girlfriend?’ someone asked quietly.
‘I don’t know.’ I shook my head.
‘Where is she from?’
‘I heard she’s an orphan. Her parents are both dead. She learned midwifery from the nuns at the hospital.’
‘She’s got a keen eye if she picked Afeluat. What an upstanding guy.’
‘Afeluat isn’t a good match for her.’ I shook my head. ‘He’s lacking something. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s not there.’
‘Sanmao, are you judging a book by its cover?’ José said.
‘I’m not talking about outward appearance. Just a feeling that she won’t end up with him.’
‘But Afeluat is still high society. His father owns thousands of goats and camels in the south—’
‘Although I don’t know Shahida very well, I know she doesn’t care much for wealth. I guess nobody in this desert is good enough for her!’
‘Didn’t Ajyeiba also want her?’ José spoke up again. ‘He even got in a fight with Afeluat over her a while ago!’
‘That merchant’s son does nothing all day,’ I said scornfully. ‘He lords it over everyone in town just because of his father. How can you mention such a terrible person in the same breath as Shahida?’
That first night when Shahida came to my home, a mere glimpse of her shook everyone to the core. We were reluctant to change the subject. Even I was wholly intoxicated by this stunning girl.
Gueiga was upset with me the following day. ‘How could you let that whore into your house? If you continue like this, the neighbours will shun you,’ she warned. I laughed and shrugged it off. She went on: ‘We were all watching when she got out of the car with that man. She even smiled and waved at my mother. My mother pulled us all inside and shut the door. Afeluat went red in the face.’
‘You’re all too much,’ I said. I was startled by this. I had no idea that this had happened yesterday as they were entering my home.
‘I hear she is Catholic, not Muslim. This type of person will go to hell after they die.’
I stared silently at Gueiga, not knowing how best to enlighten her. I walked out with her. Hamdi was just getting home from work. The Spanish military uniform emphasised his silver hair and brown face. He looked really rather dignified.
‘Sanmao, I am not scolding you. My daughters are at your home every day, so I hope you will teach them to be good. Now you and your husband have befriended some of the more dubious Sahrawi in town. How can I comfortably let my daughters remain your friends?’ This heavy language came to me like a slap. I grew purple in the face, unable to speak.
‘Hamdi, you must be a bit more open from having been with the Spanish government for over twenty years. Times are changing…’
‘Times change, but Sahrawi traditions do not. Your people are your people, our people are our people.’
‘Shahida is not a bad woman, Hamdi. You’re middle-aged, you must see things more clearly than others…’ I was so angry I couldn’t find the words and stopped speaking altogether.
‘Is there anything more shameful than someone who betrays the religion of their people? Ay…’ Hamdi stomped his foot, then walked towards his home with Gueiga in tow, her head lowered.
‘Fool!’ I cursed, walking into my own home and slamming the door shut.
‘It’s going to take a lot more patience and time to civilise these people,’ I couldn’t help but say to José at dinner.
‘The guerrillas say in their broadcasts all the time that they’ll liberate slaves and educate girls. But the townspeople only hear the bit about independence. They ignore the rest.’
‘Where are the guerrillas broadcasting? How come we haven’t heard it?’
‘It’s in Hassaniya. Every night there’s a broadcast from near Algeria. All the locals here are listening.’
‘José, how long do you think this situation will last?’ I asked pensively.
‘I don’t know. The Spanish governor has agreed to their national self-determination.’
‘But what happens if the Moroccans don’t agree?’ I tilted my head, playing with my chopsticks.
‘Ay! Eat your food!’
‘I don’t want to leave,’ I sighed, persisting on this topic.
José gave me a look but didn’t say anything else.
Summer in the Sahara meant endless dust filling the sky. It felt like the same day on repeat. Time became sticky in this torrid heat that made you wish for death. These slow, helpless days rendered a person lazy and tired, unable to keep interested in anything amid that sludge, mind blank and body simmering in sweat. Most of the Spanish people around here had already gone, escaping the heat for their hometowns. All that remained was a bleak and deserted ghost town.
There was news about the Sahara in the papers every day. In town there were intermittent explosions where no one got hurt. On the Moroccan side, King Hassan’s clamouring grew louder by the day. The future of the Spanish Sahara was uncertain. Meanwhile, the people who actually lived here seemed unconcerned, as though borders meant nothing to them.
Sand was still sand, sky was still sky. Tornadoes were still tornadoes. In this prehistoric piece of land isolated at the edge of the world, the United Nations, the international court at The Hague and self-determination were unfamiliar terms, wispy and unreal as a thread of blue smoke.
We lived on as usual with a wait-and-see attitude. We refused to believe that other people’s rumours might one day have any special connection with our fates and our future.
In the scorching heat of the afternoon, whenever the car was available, I would always gather a bunch of snacks and drive to the hospital to hang out with Shahida. The two of us would hide out in the cool and dark basement, breathing in the smell of disinfectant. We sat cross-legged while mending clothes, eating and talking about any number of things, all sorts of nonsense, completely unrestrained as though we were sisters. Shahida often spoke to me about her childhood, the good old days living in a tent. Her stories would quietly come to a halt at the death of her parents. Everything after that seemed to be a blank. She never talked about it, nor did I ask.
‘Shahida, if the Spaniards withdraw, what will you do?’ I asked one day out of the blue.
‘What kind of withdrawal? To give us independence or to let Morocco partition us?’
‘Both are possible,’ I said with uncertainty, shrugging my shoulders.
‘If it’s independence, I will stay. Partition, then no.’
‘I thought your heart belonged to Spain,’ I said slowly.
‘This is my land, the place where my parents are buried.’ Shahida’s eyes clouded over w
ith untold secrets and hidden pain. She sat there, dazed and silent, seeming to have forgotten to speak. ‘What about you, Sanmao?’ she asked after a long pause.
‘I don’t want to go. I like it here.’
‘What attracts you to this place?’ she asked me sceptically.
‘What attracts me to this place? The wide openness of the earth and sky, the hot sun, the windstorms. There’s joy in such a lonely life, there’s sorrow. I even love and hate these ignorant people. It’s so confusing! I can’t quite make sense of it myself.’
‘If this land were yours, what would you do?’
‘Probably the same as you, learn some medical care. Actually – what difference does it make whether it’s mine or not?’ I sighed.
‘You haven’t thought about independence?’ Shahida asked softly.
‘Sooner or later, colonialism will be a thing of the past. The real question is how long it’ll take to set things up once you’re independent. I’m not optimistic at all.’
‘One day it will happen.’
‘Shahida, you can only say these things to me. Whatever you do, please don’t go mouthing off to anyone else.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she laughed. ‘The nuns also know.’ She brightened, smiling at me, completely carefree for a moment.
‘Do you know they’re arresting guerrillas in town?’ I asked her anxiously.
She nodded pensively, standing up to brush off her clothes. The rims of her eyes were moist all of a sudden.
One afternoon, José came home and started talking as he entered the door. ‘Sanmao, have you seen it?’
‘Seen what?’ I asked dully, wiping a trickle of sweat from my neck. ‘I haven’t gone out today.’
‘Get in the car and I’ll show you.’ José dragged me out gravely and we took off straight away. He kept silent as he drove by the outskirts of town. A torrent of messages in blood red overflowed on every wall we could see, like water from a burst dam.
‘What’s this?’ I was completely dumbstruck.
‘Look closer.’
Get out of our land, Spanish dogs! Long live the Sahara, long live the guerrillas, long live Bassiri! No Morocco, no Spain, long live national self-determination! Spanish robbers! Robbers! Murderers! We love Bassiri! Spain, get out!
