Tuareg. Alberto Vazquez-Figueroa

them as possible. He then took off his shoes and stood upright, waiting as the first raindrops began to spot the sand and the land, marking the face of the desert like an attack of small pox. Then it began to fall in sheets and the pitter-patter of drops turned into the crashing sound of water. His senses were intoxicated as the water caressed his warm body and he tasted the fresh, clean water and smelled the sodden, steamy earth underfoot.

      There it was, this marvellous and fertile union and soon, with the afternoon sun, the dormant seed of the acheb plant would burst forth violently, turning the plains green and transforming the arid landscape into one of the most beautiful regions on earth. The plants would flower magnificently, but only for a few days, before sinking back again below the surface into another long sleep, maybe for another fifteen years, until they were woken again by another storm.

      The wild acheb, when freed by the rains, was a beautiful flower, but it was impossible to grow it as a crop, even when nurtured by the gentle hand of a peasant and watered every day. The plant was just like the spirit of the Tuaregs and the only other living thing that survived in those stony, sandy regions, in a place that the rest of the human race had long since given up on.

      The water soaked his hair, washing months, if not years’ worth of dirt off of his body. He scrubbed his nails and found a flat, porous stone to rub himself down with, watching as patches of clean skin started to appear. He stood there as the encrusted earth, sweat and dust washed off him and the water that ran off and over his feet turned blue, almost indigo, as the crude dye from his clothes, that had engrained itself into his skin over time, came off.

      He remained like that for two hours under the rain, happy and shivering, battling with his desire to just turn around and head home in order to enjoy the water, plant barley and wait for the harvest. He longed to be able to return and enjoy with his own people this gift of water that the marvellous Allah had sent them, which may well have been a message to him, a warning that he should have remained with his people and ignored the insult. But for Gazel, not even all the rain from that immense cloud could wash away the gravity of such an offence.

      Gazel was a Targui, unfortunately for him perhaps and the last of the real Tuareg people of the plains, so for that reason alone his honour would never allow him to forget that a defenceless man had been murdered under his roof and another, his guest, been forcefully removed.

      So, once the cloud had moved south and the afternoon sun had dried his body and clothes, he dressed again, mounted his camel and set off on his journey, turning his back on the water and the rain; on life and hope; on something that only a few days ago would have warmed his heart and the hearts of those around him.

      When night fell he found a small dune and made a hole in it by pushing aside the still damp sand, then covered himself up with dry sand in the knowledge that dawn would bring a frost to the plains and that the wind would turn the water pools on the rocks and tumbleweed, to ice.

      The temperature in the desert can vary by as much as fifty degrees, from its maximum at midday to its minimum just before dawn. Gazel knew from experience that the cold could sink into the bones of the unsuspecting traveller, seizing up his joints and making them so painful that they eventually stopped working.

      Three hunters had been found frozen on the stony plains in the Huaila foothills and Gazel could still picture their bodies, pressed close together, joined in death, during that same cold winter when tuberculosis had taken their little Bishra away from them. They had almost appeared to be smiling as the sun had dried their bodies and with the process of dehydration, their skin had taken on a strange, leathery appearance, while their teeth had shone brilliantly.

      This was a cruel land, in which man could die of either heat or cold in the space of only a few hours and where a camel might search for water without luck for days, only to drown, unsuspectingly, in a well one morning.

      A cruel land, without doubt, but Gazel could not imagine living anywhere else. He would never have swapped the thirst, the heat and the cold of his inhospitable land without frontiers, for the comforts and limitations of other worlds without horizons. During his daily prayers, with his face turned east to Mecca, he would always give thanks to Allah for allowing him to live there and for belonging to the blessed race of the veil, spear and sword men.

      As he slept he yearned for Laila and when he awoke the hard body of the woman that had pushed against him in his sleep, became nothing more than the soft sand that now slipped through his fingers.

      The wind cried out at the hunting hour.

      He looked up at the stars to gauge how long it would be before the light erased them from the firmament. He called out to the night and his mehari, who was drinking from the damp bushes, answered him with a soft bellow. He saddled up and set off once again and by mid afternoon he could just make out in the distance, five dark smudges on the stony plains. It was Mubarrak-ben-Sad’s settlement, the Imohag of the spear people, the man who had shown the soldiers the way to his jaima.

      He said his prayers and then sat down on a smooth rock in order to think through the events that had altered his destiny so cruelly. As he sat there, lost in his black thoughts, he realised that this was the last night of his life that he would sleep in peace.

      The following dawn he would be forced to open the lid on the elgebira of wars, on revenge and hate, and no one could say how much violence it would unleash or how many deaths might follow on from this one act of revenge.

      He also tried to understand what on earth had prompted Mubarrak to break with the most sacred of Targui traditions, but he could not. He was a desert guide, a good guide without doubt, but a Targui guide was only supposed to guide caravans, track down prey, or aid the French on their strange expeditions in search of their ancestors’ relics. A Targui never had the right, under any circumstances, to enter another Imohag’s territory without permission and even less so when he was guiding foreigners, who were themselves ignorant of these ancient traditions.

      On that same dawn, when Mubarrak-ben-Sad opened his eyes, a shiver ran down his back as the terror that had consumed him in his sleep now troubled him at the waking hour and he instinctively turned his face towards the entrance of his sheriba, fearful of, but almost resigned to what he would see there.

      His fears were confirmed as standing there, some thirty meters away, gripping the hilt of his long takuba that he had thrust into the ground, was Gazel Sayah, noble inmouchar of the Kel-Talgimus, waiting for him, ready to call him to account for his actions.

      He picked up his sword and moved forward slowly, proud and dignified, stopping some five paces away from Gazel.

      ‘Metulem, metulem,’ he said, using their preferred form greeting.

      He did not receive an answer and neither had he expected one.

      He did, however, expect the to hear the question:

      ‘Why did you do it?’

      ‘The captain of the military outpost at Adoras made me.’

      ‘Nobody can make a Targui do something against his wishes.’

      ‘I’ve been working for them for three years now. I could not say no. I am the government’s official guide.’

      ‘You swore, as I did, never to work for the French.’

      ‘The French have gone. We are a free country now.’

      For the second time in the space of a few days he was hearing the same thing and it suddenly dawned on him that neither the official nor the soldiers had been wearing the colonial uniforms they had previously so despised.

      None of them had been European and none of them had spoken with the strong accent he had been used to hearing and their vehicles had not displayed the perennial tricolor flag either.

      ‘The French always respected our traditions,’ he said. ‘Why are they not being respected now, if, moreover, we are free?’

      Mubarrak shrugged his shoulders.

      ‘Times have changed…’ he said.

      ‘Not for me,’ came his reply. ‘Only when the