The Eye of Ra

by Michael Asher

  ‘Come! Come to the village,’ he said. ‘Mukhtar’s longing to see you. We’ve missed you, by God. You get on that contraption and I’ll lead you down.’

  Within minutes al-Maqs village lay below us, a gaggle of dilapidated mud-houses tucked in among sharp crescent dunes and unkempt clusters of date-palms. The peaks of black tents showed above the fractured mud-walled yards, and other tents were pitched in the streets outside, where dozens of camels mooched about chewing the cud amid the debris of clover-stalks. Clusters of small black goats prowled the alleys and there were sleek saluqis resting in slats of shade. Mansur slithered down the dune ahead, while Elena and I manhandled the bike through the sand. ‘I hope they’re not all going to greet us at the point of a gun,’ she said, ‘or we won’t last very long.’

  ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘look who’s talking.’

  ‘That was different.’

  ‘Not from where I stood.’

  ‘I thought you said they were hospitable?’

  ‘They are, but they’re not stupid. People have been raiding them for centuries and they like to know whose side you’re on before they welcome you. From their point of view we snook up on them from the back.’

  The bike stuck in the sand for a moment, and we halted to catch our breath. Below us Mansur stopped and looked up. ‘Need any help?’ he shouted.

  ‘No, that’s all right,’ I said.

  ‘Who is that guy, anyway?’ Elena asked.

  ‘He’s Mukhtar’s eldest son — they call him the One-Eyed Warrior. Used to work the salt-caravans into the Sudan — a very tough guy. He’s been doing it since he was a kid — it’s a fifty-day journey in absolute emptiness, so it’s not a jaunt for the faint-hearted. Anyway, the very first time he went they loaded up with salt and set off back. I suppose Mansur was about ten, and there was only him and his cousin Zaki, who must have been twenty-five or so. No sooner had night fallen than they got jumped by a big gang of Gor’an — black nomads from Chad — who shot them up. Zaki took a bullet in the guts, and Mansur was hit in the eye by a sharp rock from a ricochet. The Gor’an took all the salt and most of the camels, but Mansur managed to get away on one camel with Zaki slung over the saddle. He travelled day and night with Zaki delirious, but by the time he reached Salima Oasis, Zaki’d pegged out. Mansur buried him there, and made it home alone.’

  ‘That’s an incredible feat for a ten-year-old.’

  ‘Yeah, but not only that. When he was about fifteen, Mansur went off back to the salt-place with his half-brother Ahmad, tracked down the Gor’an who’d killed Zaki and wasted them one by one. I told you: “Forty years later the Hazmi got his revenge.” They’re not people who forget things easily.’

  We heaved the Honda out of the sand and wheeled it down to where Mansur was standing. He led us through the camel-herd, and I noticed that the animals bore the distinctive ‘lizard’ brand of my mother’s family. He halted us in the square between the houses, and at once six or seven small boys came screeching out of the shadows, with a pack of saluqis barking at their heels. The boys were dusty, barefooted and half-naked with shocks of curly black hair, and their sudden appearance brought a lump to my throat. Once, I thought, I’d been just like them, and as happy as a sandgrouse. Inquisitive faces appeared at door and windows, and as Elena and I stepped off the bike, tribesmen flowed out.

  Wedge-like faces peered into mine — there were loud exclamations of ‘Omar! Omar!’, and the men pressed around me, slapping my shoulders, clasping and releasing my hand. There were shrieks and ululations as a swarm of women in woad-blue shawls and loose trousers came gushing out, patting Elena’s shoulders and even touching her long hair. Some of these women were strikingly beautiful, their faces traced with blue tattoos, their oiled hair hanging in tight braids. In their own camps, Hawazim women never wore the face-mask or burqa — and had no shame about showing their hair. They were as tough and resourceful as their menfolk — they could shoot and fight, and each carried a khanjar. Suddenly there was a hush among the crowd. They stopped shaking hands and someone whispered ‘The amnir’. I looked up to see a sinewy brown figure coming towards me. His face was a net of lines, his body as knotted as a rope, so lean that you could have delineated each muscle. His hair was pure silver and hung in eldritch locks about his shoulders. He was barefooted, dressed only in a pair of sirwal, with a rosary-set around his neck, and an old khanjar strapped on his forearm. His face was wispily bearded and looked as if it was carved out of granite, his nose like the beak of an old eagle, his eyes slate-grey and penetrating, smouldering with suppressed fire. He held a six-shot rifle in the crook of his elbow, walking with an electric, springy stride which seemed to belong to a much younger man, and with a pride and dignity which were almost palpable. It was Mukhtar wald Salim, my uncle.

  For a second he stared at me in silence. Then, in a low, strong voice, he said, ‘Omar, inta wahashtana, wallahi. By God, you have left us in the wilderness.’

  I presented my hands, palms towards me, fingertips upwards, in the traditional gesture of supplication to God for the spirit of the recently departed. Mukhtar made the same gesture, and every-one else present followed him. ‘Al-Fatih,’ I said, and the Hawazim began to recite the first verse of the Quran in low voices. ‘Man’s life is short,’ Mukhtar said finally, ‘but the Divine Spirit endures for ever. Welcome back, Omar.’ He advanced on me and embraced me, giving me the triple nose-kiss, his eyes filling with tears of obvious delight. ‘Upon you be no evil,’ he chanted. ‘May the Divine Spirit grant you long life.’

  ‘No evil. May the Divine Spirit grant long life to you and yours.’

  He placed both hands on my shoulders and stared into my eyes steadily. ‘It is said,’ he quoted, ‘that he who strips himself naked will one day get cold.’

  I stared back, slightly embarrassed. I took his meaning at once: those who turned their backs on their family would suffer for it. It might be an admonition for my long absence, but I knew it could also be a warning.

  Mukhtar led us away from the crowd, beyond the square to where a large goat’s and camel’s hair tent had been pitched on the side of a dune, and from where you could see the dune-crests aboil with sandsmoke, and taste the spice-scent of the desert wind. The tent enclosed a cool oblong of shade. It was open on one side, decorated with richly woven carpets, leather pads, hard cushions, hand-made camel-saddles, saddle-bags and camel hangings stitched with cowrie shells. As we entered a very pretty young girl rose to meet us. She was clad in vivid black and red sirwal, with a coarse blue cotton shawl covering her midriff and breasts, but exposing patches of copper-coloured skin. Her eyes were outlined in kohl, and she wore a single silver stud on her nose, her braided hair falling half-way down her back. ‘You remember Aysha?’ Mukhtar growled at me, proudly. ‘My latest wife — my tenth. Of course, she’s young — but that’s what keeps you on your toes, I always say.’ I squinted at Aysha and she smiled with full, coconut-white teeth. ‘Aysha,’ I said, ‘the little girl who used to sit on my knee. You’ve certainly grown up.’

  ‘Thanks to God for your safe return, Omar,’ she said. ‘Mukhtar said you would come.’

  ‘You saw me in the Shining?’ I asked my uncle.

  He shrugged. ‘I have no power in the Shining. Best of a bad bunch. The Hawazim haven’t had a good amnir in seven generations, the last was al-Ghami, back in Turkish times.’

  ‘That’s modesty, Uncle.’

  ‘No, I’m not modest. The tribe is not what it used to be. It used to be strong, united against the outside. Now it’s fragmenting. People are even going to the cities, by God. We’ve actually had men joining the army of their own free will. That has all come about because we’ve had no strong amnir to guide us.’ He examined my face reproachfully. ‘There’s but one Hazmi alive blessed with the power in the Shining, worthy of amnirs of the past, and he has always turned his back on it.’

  I felt myself blushing. I knew Mukhtar was talking about me. In my childhood, he’d claimed that he’d recognised
special abilities in me. He’d encouraged me to train as amnir, and even shown me his pharmacopoeia of dried plants, including the tuffah al jinn used to induce the trance state the Hawazim called the Shining. But I’d never had much interest. I’d been more intent on school and conventional studies. I’d wanted to be a ‘civilised’ man so much that I’d dismissed it all as primitive hocus-pocus.

  ‘When you were an infant,’ he went on, ‘I never felt the power in anyone so strongly.’

  ‘I never even predicted my mother’s...disappearance.’

  ‘You deliberately suppressed the power as you got older. A gift must be used. As a tiny child you were richly gifted.’

  ‘A few coincidences,’ I said. ‘Luck, chance. If I had it, I would know, Uncle.’

  He looked at me through narrowed eyes. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, slowly, ‘perhaps not.’

  We sat down on a rich carpet, and watched while Mukhtar kindled the fire in a pit in the centre of the floor, his calloused hands working deftly with spills of wood. ‘Aysha. Bring the coffee-set,’ he shouted, and almost at once his young wife appeared with a brass tray on which stood a large hornbill-spouted coffee-pot, and three thimble-shaped cups. Coffee making was a ritual to the Hawazim and not a thing to be rushed. My uncle sank to his haunches, and we looked on as he teased coffee-beans out of an embroidered bag on to a long iron spatula and began to roast them, shaking the instrument sharply as he held it over the flames of the fire. The delicious scent of roast coffee permeated the air. When the beans were ready he scraped them into a brass mortar and began to crush them powerfully with a pestle, making dring-drang notes that rang out as clearly as a bell. The ring of the coffee mortar was an open invitation, and each hawazim family had its own signature-rhythm, so that everyone would know at once who was making coffee and head for their tent.

  By the time Mukhtar was pouring out the first cinnamon-spiced cupfuls for myself and Elena, tribesmen had begun to enter. They came in one by one, moving with an almost feline grace — thickly bearded men whose wild hair was bleached with camel-urine and greased with animal-fat, and whose faces seemed to shine with a kind of joyous, elven life. They were almost uniformly small and spare, bodies whittled down by hunger, thirst and fatigue, with gymnasts’ broad shoulders and slim waists. Most were barefooted, clad only in sirwal, cartridge-belts and woollen shawls — their necks decorated with strings of rosary-beads, their ears with the familiar earring. Each wore a khanjar on his lower arm, and each carried a rifle as lightly as if it were an extension of himself. They seated themselves crosslegged and straight-backed around our rug, their rifles over their knees, while the women pressed in behind them, all of them firing direct questions at us without restraint: Why hadn’t I been to see them for five years? Where had I been? What had I been doing? Why was I here? How long was I staying? Where was I going? Was Elena my wife? They wanted to know everything I’d seen, done and even thought since I’d last seen them; no detail was too trivial to be mentioned, no fact too unimportant to be left out. Like all illiterate peoples the Hawazim had acute memories. Whenever two parties met in the desert it was the custom to sit down and spend time exchanging what they called saqanab — information, news, experience — and nothing was omitted. They knew that even the most insignificant trifle might mean life or death. I saw their faces closely intent on us, their eyes full of genuine interest, real concern. No people, I thought, could ever be more welcoming than this.

  When the coffee had done its rounds, the food was brought in on three great brass trays. My cousin Mansur had slipped out to slaughter a couple of goats while we’d been talking, and the freshly grilled meat was piled on beds of rice drenched in fat.

  ‘Come, eat,’ Mukhtar ordered Elena and myself. ‘We have a special delicacy for you.’ He took a steaming earthware pot the size of a football from Aysha, and removed its woven raffia lid. Inside were some revolting-looking soft eggs set on rice. I saw Elena’s nostrils flare slightly. ‘You don’t recognise it, Omar?’ Mukhtar enquired. ‘By God, you have been away a long time. It’s boiled monitor-lizard eggs. A real rarity. Come on. Eat.’

  The eyes of the whole company were on us now. I took an egg and a handful of rice with my right hand. Elena was hanging back, and I guessed she was fighting to prevent herself from gagging. ‘Eat,’ I whispered to her rapidly in English. ‘They’ll be mortally offended if you don’t.’ I ate my lizard-egg with every show of enjoyment, and as I watched out of the corner of my eye, I saw Elena steeling herself, almost visibly to do the same. She put an egg in her mouth, chewed slowly and gulped it down, then forced herself to take another one. She even ate a third, then smiled and said: ‘That’s good.’ The Hawazim cheered. I felt a flush of warmth at Elena’s determination. ‘Come on. Come on,’ Mukhtar shouted. ‘What about the goat? It’s getting cold.’ The tribesmen and women crouched round the trays with gusto, and began to devour the rice and meat.

  After everyone had eaten their fill we cleaned our hands in soft sand outside the tent. Here, not a single drop of water could be obtained without effort, so not a drop was wasted for washing. By sunset the crowd had thinned out. One of my cousins made sweet, red tea while the others took out their carved and ornamented pipes. I broke out my own pipe and passed my tobacco pouch around.

  ‘Good tobacco,’ Mukhtar said, letting out a long jet of smoke. ‘We don’t get Afrangi tobacco any more.’

  ‘You don’t send caravans to Daraw?’

  ‘It’s difficult now, Omar. The government are always on the watch for us. When we go into town now we have to cover our earrings and put on peasant garb.’

  ‘Why are the government out to get you?’

  ‘It’s always been the same, Omar. They hate us because we don’t pay taxes or submit to military service. They try to find any excuse to throw us in jail. They know that no Hazmi can stand being confined, so it’s a punishment worse than death for us.’

  ‘How are your relations with the tribes?’

  He scoffed. ‘Still trouble. Always trouble. Last year some “noble” Harba went out into the fringe pastures in their noisy motor-trucks and found two little Hawazim girls guarding twenty head of camels. They thought they’d have the camels for wealth and the girls for fun. Hawazim girls are beautiful but deadly —they should have known. As soon as the Harba laid their hands on them, out came the khanjars. One of the Harba won’t be siring any more sons, by God, and another will have to shoot left-handed for the rest of his days, that’s if he can hold a rifle at all. The other Harba got their clubs out and would have finished the girls, but just then their little brother — a boy about knee high, comes over the dune with a rifle, kneels down cool as a lizard, and pots them all — one, two, three, four, five. Five shots, five hits. The wounded Harba dragged the dead back to their trucks and off they went. Of course, they had to inform the police, carefully leaving out their own intentions, no doubt, and the police came down here to arrest us.’

  ‘And did they succeed?’ Elena asked, fascinated.

  Mukhtar blew out a ring of smoke and grinned at her half mockingly. ‘All they found was an empty village. We know the police. Our people never had anything from them but persecution. That’s why our ancestors moved farther and farther out into the desert where no one else would live. I knew they were coming almost before they knew themselves, and we moved into al-Ghul. No one can track us there. Out there we don’t need anyone. Our camels live on the secret pastures only we know about, and we live on their milk, and on insects, rats, lizards, anything we can find. We can stay out there for years if need be. Omar knows that. He knows the life of the Hawazim.’

  ‘Yes, I know. So did my mother. Didn’t do her any good, though.’

  ‘Maryam — may God’s mercy be upon her — was taken by the Divine Spirit, Omar. Everything that happens is His will: everything that happens is for the best. We are all in His hands, Omar. We all die when it is time for us to die.’

  ‘Amen.’

  In the hour before sunset, Mukhtar a
nd Mansur took us around the village and showed us the deep well, where tribesmen and women, naked but for sirwal, were drawing huge buckets of water on a sweep-arm — a timber balanced on a pedestal, counterweighted by a basket full of heavy stones. The water was poured into an intricate system of feeder canals that brought it to the gardens and palmeries.

  ‘Everyone takes it in turn to draw water,’ Mansur told Elena. ‘Only women near their time are exempt.’

  ‘How do you regulate the supply?’ Elena asked.

  ‘It’s turned on and off by a system of stones. Each family is assigned so many periods of flow, according to their needs and according to the time each has spent working at the well. The periods are judged by the movement of the sun. As Water-Bailiff it’s my job to work out just how long each family gets. Every single drop of water has to be accounted for.’

  Two big bull camels were standing nearby gulping water from a catch-basin, their great crane-like necks bowed, their neck muscles working like water-pumps. As they drank, they staled backwards, and a man squatted under their tails catching the pungent urine in a wooden bowl.

  ‘Ugh,’ Elena gasped. ‘He’s not going to drink that is he?’

  Mansur chuckled. ‘We don’t drink camel-piss,’ he said, ‘but it’s very useful as bleach or for washing wounds.’

  ‘The camel is God’s gift,’ Mukhtar said. ‘We use every part of it, even its urine, and its manure for lighting fires.’

  Elena seemed intrigued by everything she saw. She asked end-less questions and my uncle and cousin never tired of answering her. We walked past the well and into the palm-groves, where we were halted by the sudden crack of a whip, a grunt of pain and a burst of applause. A few paces further on we saw a group of young men and women — some of them only children — gathered around a muscular young boy lying almost naked, face down, in the sand, with a bloody streak from the base of his neck down to the small of his back, a diagonal groove where the flesh had been deeply ruptured. Another boy, about the same age, clad only in sirwal, was standing over him with a vicious-looking hippo-hide whip, poised to strike, while the other youngsters pressed around fascinated. ‘You want more?’ the boy with the whip was saying. The youth on the ground grunted again and the whip snaked down, slicing into the broken flesh. The boy stiffened as if electrified. Every muscle tensed as he arched momentarily out of the sand, his mouth rounded with shock. ‘Aaaaaaargh!’ he screamed. Fresh blood pumped wetly from the new wound. The audience cheered, clapped and ululated, and Elena looked at me, pale with shock. ‘Stop it, Jamie, please!’ she winced.