The first day, the leather waterskin hanging from the branches of the dawhah began to sag under the weight of the lukewarm water. measured its contents by the slowness of the flow against the horn spout, offering her own lips only a brief gulp at midday. Beneath her garment, her breast remained heavy, swollen with thick milk that the infant took without haste in the relative cool of morning. She sat beneath the gray shade of the wild tree, the gold rings of her ears cold against her cheeks, her fingers resting on the red cord tied at her left wrist. The valley was motionless, locked in the silence of its walls of black granite.
The second day, the waterskin sounded hollow when the wind made it swing against the tree bark. The leather had gone slack, taking the flaccid shape of a dead beast. In 's arms, stirred more. His wet mouth sought the nipple, but the sucking became painful, pulling on flesh that now gave only a thin, transparent thread. closed her eyes, feeling the sweat dry in patches of salt on her forehead. She pressed the child against her left shoulder, her right hand supporting his fragile neck, while her chin came to rest on the top of his warm skull. The sky above them was lead-gray.
The third day, unhooked the waterskin. Her fingers slipped on the leather grown dry and stiff, hard as dead wood. She turned it over her right palm. A single drop, warm and heavy, fell on her dry skin before evaporating instantly. Her breast was flat, dried up by the fever of thirst.
Near her bare feet, on the dusty goatskin, stopped crying. His voice died in a dry rasp. His thin legs folded slowly against his hollow belly, and his small fingers clenched into rigid fists. His head turned to the side, his open mouth seeking in the void a source of coolness. looked at the tiny body twisting silently in the dust. She shivered despite the heat from above. She clenched the folds of her unbleached linen veil in her closed fists until her knuckles whitened. She stood up. She looked no more at the body twisting in the dust.
She set the infant down gently in the clay depression at the foot of the tree, where the shade was densest. Then, adjusting the knot of her mintaq around her waist, she turned her face toward the red mound of the rabiyah and rushed toward the rocky slope of the nearest hill.
Mount Safa was only a dome of black granite whose lower blocks slipped underfoot. climbed the slope, her heels sinking into the hot pebbles. Reaching the upper crest, she shielded her eyes with both hands, ignoring the burn of the sun on her forehead. She turned her head from east to west, scanned the northern pass, then the stony plain to the south. On the horizon, a shifting line of dust rose, tracing the outline of a caravan on the move. She stepped forward, opened her mouth to call out, but the dust collapsed abruptly in the heat shimmer. It was only a mirage born of the overheated stone.
She descended the slope, her step quick, slipping on the gravel. Reaching the flat bed of the depression, the baṭn al-wādī, the wild tree and 's silhouette disappeared behind the rise of the clay ground. She could no longer see the tree. Her legs moved before she had thought. She hitched up the bottom of her linen tunic above her knees and ran, her bare feet striking the flat stones of the depression. Her breath rasped in her dry throat, the folds of her robe sweeping the hot sand.
She slowed only when climbing the first rocks of Marwah, a hill of clear quartz that rose to the north. Reaching the rocky summit, she turned around immediately. In the distance, beneath the dawhah, the dark point of was still there, motionless. She took a ragged breath, steadying the trembling of her knees. She turned her face east, listening to the wind. A faint tinkling, like copper bells tied to the necks of camels, rang in her ears. She held her breath, her torso leaning forward. But the sound stretched out, becoming only the hot wind whistling through the cracks in the cliff.
She descended again. As soon as the valley floor hid the child, she ran. It was the second crossing. The climb to Safa was slower, her muscles protesting under the effort. Her chest felt full of hot sand; her throat was so dry that each breath caused her sharp pain. She reached the summit, called out toward the void of the valley, but her voice was only a hoarse breath that the wind carried away without echo.
The third crossing brought her back to Marwah. Her bare feet, cut by the black granite edges of the depression, had begun to bleed. Red drops marked the white limestone of the hill, drying almost immediately into brown stains. She stopped a moment, pressing her hand against the hot stone wall, the gold rings of her ears striking her neck with a sharp sound. She looked at , then at the empty sky.
On the fourth crossing, on Safa, she could no longer run. Her legs trembled under her weight, and the fold of her mintaq, heavy with dust, wound around her ankles. She advanced with a heavy step. Her feet dragged on the yellow sand, erasing the dried blood stains. The wild tree, far below, was her only landmark.
On the fifth passage, she descended into the hollow of the baṭn al-wādī. Her foot struck a block of black basalt and she fell forward, her palms scraping on the hot gravel. She stayed on her knees a moment, head low, feeling the dust seep into her dry mouth. She rose slowly, leaning on her trembling arms, and climbed Marwah without looking at the horizon. She held on, her robe stained with red clay and blood.
On the sixth crossing, she descended from Marwah, her legs buckling, her breath short. She crossed the depression without running anymore, her feet stumbling on the flat stones, and climbed slowly toward Safa, without a glance for the empty horizon.
When she reached the crest of Marwah for the seventh time, the sun had turned, casting long mineral shadows across the basin of Bakka. no longer searched the horizon for the movement of a caravan or the tents of shepherds. She stopped at the highest point of the hill. Her arms fell along her body. Her palms opened toward the white sky. Her eyes settled on the red mound of the rabiyah. She looked no more at the horizon. She remained motionless, her face lifted toward the white sky.
took a step to descend, but stopped short.
The sound of her own footsteps on the stone had died. The wind itself seemed to stop, trapped between the granite cliffs. In this sudden silence, heavier and vaster than the heat of the day, a faint sound reached her ear, like a murmur of water or the rustle of a linen garment against sand.
She set her right hand on her mouth.
"Sahi..." she murmured to herself.
She held her breath, closing her eyes to silence the hurried beating of her heart. The sound came again, more distinct, coming from the center of the valley, near the wild tree.
She opened her eyes and said aloud:
"You have made yourself heard. Do you have what it takes to save?"
She descended the hill of Marwah. Her step was slow, suspended. She no longer ran in the valley floor. Approaching the dawhah, she saw a presence standing near the infant. The silhouette was immense, motionless under the declining light, without halo or radiance, solid as a pillar of black granite standing in the dust.
The silhouette lifted its foot. Its heel struck the alluvial ground at 's feet.
The earth of gravel and dark sand darkened under the blow. A first drop of mud oozed, then a second. The mud stirred slowly at the foot of the silhouette. A thread of black water appeared, followed by a thin translucent stream that carved a path between the gray stones. Then, the water burst through the sand, bubbling up in a clear jet at the surface of the alluvial bed.
threw herself to her knees. Her nails entered the sand. She seized her waterskin and pressed the spout against the spring to fill it. With her other hand, she pushed back the earth and pebbles around the flow to make a dam. Her flesh wore against the gravel.
"Zam! Zam!" she cried.
The water gathered in the basin thus formed, rising against her wrists. The waterskin grew heavy, cold and damp against her forearms burned by the sun. She brought the spout to 's lips. The infant drank eagerly, his breath steadying as the water descended his throat.
The silhouette spoke. Its voice was low, without echo in the valley:
"There is here a House that will be built by this child and his father. Allah will not abandon you."
The presence extended its arm, pointed with a finger at the red mound of the rabiyah, then faded into the hot air. lifted her head. There was no one left under the wild tree. Only the fresh water continued to seep regularly from the clay basin she had dug.
The days passed in the solitude of the valley.
learned to live with the spring. Each morning, in the cool of dawn, she approached the basin of Zamzam and plunged her waterskin into the limpid water. A few drops fell on 's face. The infant grew rapidly beneath the shade of the dawhah, his skin regaining a healthy tone, his small hands gripping the thorny branches of the tree.
One afternoon, as she gathered dry wood on the slope of Safa, a rustling slid along the rocks. turned sharply, her hand on her veil. Her eyes searched the northern pass, seeking the silhouette of camels or the cloak of a shepherd. There was nothing. It was only the lapping of Zamzam that resonated against the granite walls. Her lips sketched a slight movement. The sound of water was enough for her.
At night, the silence of Bakka was no longer mineral. lay down on the goatskin, her head resting on her left arm where 's red cord had faded under the salt. She fell asleep lulled by the fluid and regular murmur of the water flowing into the earthen basin.
One morning, as the sun crossed the eastern crest, saw a desert falcon describing wide circles in the white sky. The bird turned endlessly, sometimes descending very low above the dawhah before rising again toward the heights.
At the northern pass of Kadāʾ, two men appeared. They wore the long brown wool cloaks of the southern nomads and black wood spears. They descended the rocky path with caution, stopping from time to time to observe the gliding bird. Seeing the wild tree and the nascent greenery around the water basin, one seized the other's arm. They stopped.
A few hours later, the caravan of made its entrance into the basin. The tired beasts, the dust-coated camels and the donkeys loaded with goat-hair tents stopped at the entrance of the valley bed. The chief of the tribe, an old man with a face tanned by the wind of Yemen, approached the spring alone. He held his hands open before him as a sign of peace.
stood near the basin, her torso straight, the train of her unbleached robe sweeping the dry clay. was asleep in her arms, wrapped in his cloak. She set her left hand on the edge of the earthen dam, feeling the cool water brush her fingers.
The chief of the caravan stopped three paces from the spring. His eyes went from the limpid water to the silent woman.
"Do you permit that we settle near this water?" he asked, his voice worn by the journey.
did not answer immediately. She looked at the basin of Zamzam where the water rose slowly. She turned her eyes toward 's sleeping face, then set her gaze on the women and children of the caravan who waited under the sun, their lips dry. The silence stretched beneath the dawhah. Her gold hoop earrings tinkled faintly at the passing of a breath of air.
"Yes," she said at last, her voice firm and clear resonating in the basin. "But you have no right of ownership over this water."
The chief of looked at the spring, then set his eyes on 's straight gaze. He inclined his head slowly in a sign of acceptance. He stepped back, seized his camel's halter and made it kneel in the dust with a guttural cry.
As the sun declined behind the granite mountains, the uncultivated valley began to fill with new sounds. remained motionless beneath the tree. Around her, the dull thud of stone mallets drove the tent pegs into the dry earth. Children ran between the beasts. Women approached the basin with clay pots, silently asking with their eyes for permission to draw the clear water. listened to this tumult of life, her gaze fixed on the first campfires that lit in the growing darkness, driving out the smell of cold sand in favor of that of grilled mutton fat and acacia wood. The hubbub of human voices rose in the cool air. A donkey brayed, then a camel answered with a low rumble. She said nothing, but her ears welcomed each laugh, each mother's call in the night.
A child of , walking with an unsteady step in the sand, approached the dawhah. He stopped before the infant who slept on the goatskin, his small chest rising regularly in the cool of evening. The child sat down in the dust. He set his hand on the goatskin, very close to . He said nothing.
looked at the two children, then lifted her eyes toward the campfires and the white constellations. Between the two children, the spring continued to sing. The valley, which had known only the wind, now kept the breath of men.