LITMIR.BIZ

      5. THE PRICE OF SOLITUDE

      For the people of the Tassili the hunting of the waddan is unlucky. The hunter accordingly murmurs spells, places a stone on his head and leaps around on all fours before embarking on the hunt.

      —Henri Lhote, A la découverte des fresques du Tassili

      But he didn't long enjoy the contentment of solitude, there in the desert with his father. The old man went off to hunt the waddan in the mountains of western Massis, and was destined not to return. After they'd waited some days for him, his mother gave voice to her fears.

      “Your father wouldn't stay away without some reason. It's over a week since he left.”

      Asouf took dates and water and set out after him. His father was unarmed now, which was why, instead of hunting the gazelles in Massak Mallat, he'd had to go in pursuit of the charmed waddan on the tops of the harsh, rugged mountains. Since that incident he'd described to Asouf, he'd become wary of hunting the waddan, and would never venture to the majestic heights until he'd recited all the Quranic verses he'd memorized, repeated, in Hausa, all the spells of the African magicians, then hung around his neck all the snakeskin amulets he'd bought from soothsayers traveling in caravans from Kano. The day before he left, he'd sit murmuring his spells and keep strict silence otherwise, refusing to answer their questions. He'd sleep outside the tent too, to avoid having to speak with either of them, then leave at dawn on his camel, empty-handed. Yes, unarmed and empty-handed, for he'd run out of ammunition for his old rifle, and the merchant caravans traveled to Sudan or to Agades only rarely now. Months would go by without a caravan from the land of the black people passing through. He'd lost his connections, too, with the people from the oases of the Wadi Aajal, or Ghat, or Uwaynat, or Marzouq—especially since news had spread that the Italians had invaded their shores, with plans to penetrate south into the desert. This had raised the price of ammunition and made the use of weapons a forbidden, hazardous business. Every bedouin in the desert would rather hide a bullet in the pupil of his eye, ready to use it to defend his children at the dreadful moment the enemy launched its invasion of the desert—for, if the Italians did come, they'd enter every tent. Isolated though the bedouins were, in their southern wilderness, news of the invaders still came to them on the winds, as rumors always do among desert tribes—rumors of marriage and divorce and scandal, of death and the birth of new children. Nothing's ever secret in the desert, no matter what lonely spot you choose.

      Once, though, when his father was away, Asouf's mother had whispered to him of some bullets his father had hidden in the hunters' cave. He was, she said, careful how he used them. He'd laughed that day, remembering what his father had once said: “A man in the desert must be sparing with two things: water and bullets.” In the desert, he'd gone on, water and bullets were like air, the very foundation of life. If you ran out of the first, you'd die of thirst, and if you ran out of the second, some enemy, man or beast or snake, would strike you down. Water and bullets were the life blood of a lone man. He could go without anything else, but not those. Asouf had no doubt his mother was right. His father had hidden those bullets in the cave against a day of misfortune, so he'd be able to affirm his strength and manhood. He'd shoot a bullet in the enemy's face before he died himself—he wouldn't let them gloat as they dragged him along, trussed up like a lamb! It's no shame to die with your hands around a rifle. The shame is when you die bound like a lamb. The shame is to fall alive into the enemy's hands, to be a prisoner. No one falls prisoner except the coward or the man without a weapon.

      That was why his father had chosen to hide a few bullets in the hunters' cave and go off to hunt the waddan unarmed. And that was why he'd died in such a fearful way. If he hadn't been so resolved not to be taken alive, hoarding his bullets against the day of misfortune, he would have been spared that hideous death.

      For some days Asouf followed his father's tracks, and, when he found the traces of that struggle with the waddan in the Wadi Aynesis, fear gripped him. He followed the signs of the encounter, along the wadi, until he found blood spots on some stones, then drops of blood, widely scattered, on the sand in the wadi's heart. Was the wounded creature the waddan or his father? He had no way of knowing. The traces would appear, then disappear, would veer left toward the rugged slope with its covering of sharp black stones, then back to the sandy bed where palm trees and wild grasses grew here and there. Under a high palm tree the battle had grown fiercer. Traces were thick and numerous, one on the other. Had the old man tried to tie the savage beast to the trunk of this tall palm, before the waddan at last prevailed and dragged him a few steps across the wadi? Or—oh God!—had he gripped the beast by the horns, done what he himself had so often warned his son never to do? Nothing, his father had said, drove the waddan to frenzy like gripping him by the horns. It didn't matter how strong you were, how stirred by the hope of victory. If you once tried that, then the battle was lost. The waddan's madness lay in his horns. All his hidden savagery would wake, would boil over, and he'd launch his ferocious attack. The waddan was trying to escape now—he'd veered off toward the mountain. The wadi was getting deeper, the mountains higher. The waddan was drawing him on, toward that ugly, mysterious summit!

      Asouf's heart started to pound as he sent his gaze upward. There, he sensed, something had happened—beneath the peak, or on the very top, or somewhere on the slopes. There were no traces of struggle visible now. He ran, panting, across the narrow wadi, between the two mountains. Ominous shadows lay over the pass. He turned left, scrambled swiftly up the steep slope. Suddenly a fetid smell seemed to assail his nostrils. His heart leaped. Nausea swept through him, and pain beat inside his head. The nearer his mad ascent took him toward the summit, the higher and sharper and blacker the rocks became. He was clambering on all fours now. The fetid smell grew stronger. Then, just beneath the ill-omened summit, near a long rock stretching several spans across the slope, he found the old man, lying on his back, his face toward the sky and his eyes empty. The face

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