The red sand of the southern desert had slipped into the straps of his sandals, wearing the skin of his ankles to the blood. walked slowly, his torso bent forward, leaning all his weight on his olive-wood staff. Each step on the overheated rubble resonated in his knees like a dull shock. Around him, the mountains of black granite and white limestone rose like calcined walls, closing the horizon beneath a leaden sky. The path southward was no longer a caravan track, but a defile of dry stones where the wind turned in circles, raising whirls of sterile dust.
When he reached the crest of the last pass overlooking the depression of Bakka, stopped. He wiped the sweat that burned his eyelids with the back of his gray wool sleeve.
The wind blew hard at this height. It was a warm, constant breath that came from the east and poured into the ravine. But in the middle of the whistle of air against the rock walls, another sound rose. A sharp crack rang out in the hot air, followed by a faint vibration.
narrowed his eyes. On the opposite slope, halfway up an unstable schist incline, a silhouette stood out against the pale sky. A young boy, his torso bare and browned by the sun, his feet anchored in the scree. He held between his hands a bow of wild jujube, short and stocky, bent to the breaking point. His shoulders were broad, his shoulder blades taut beneath fine skin. The boy released the string.
The arrow flew, invisible, but the whistle of its vulture-feather fletching split the hot air before striking a block of white sandstone three hundred paces below. The projectile bounced off in a spray of dust. The young man did not run after his target. He remained motionless, his right hand brought back against his temple, his eyes fixed on the point of impact. Then, with a fluid gesture, without looking at his feet, his fingers slid along his thigh to touch the spare string knotted at his waist.
did not call out to him. The wind between them was too wide, too heavy with heat. He watched the boy descend the slope with a supple and elastic step, leaping from stone to stone without ever losing balance. It was the gait of a desert man, a step that weighed nothing on the ground. had grown. The infant left beneath the carob bush had become this solitary hunter who listened to the wind. looked at the backs of his own hands, whose skin had thinned over the seasons. This hunter had built himself without his help, sharpened by rock and wind.
He descended toward the bottom of the valley.
The camp of the had spread around the mound of red earth. The black goat-hair tents, more numerous now, were arranged in a semicircle to shelter from the winter floods of the wadi. But beneath 's tent, near the well of Zamzam, no fire burned.
walked toward the mound of red earth.
There, apart from the dwellings, rose a pile of raw stones, carefully stacked to protect the ground from the digging of jackals. The wind had accumulated a thin film of gray sand there.
It was 's grave.
stopped at the edge of the tumulus. He did not fall to his knees. He merely placed the palm of his hand on the highest stone, still burning from the midday sun. No sound rose from the plain.
removed a small white pebble resting on the red sandstone. He rolled it between his dusty fingers, then set it at the foot of the tumulus. He passed his hand over an unstable stone to wedge it into the dry clay. The wind passed, raising a little gray dust, but said nothing.
An old man of the tribe, his back bent and his beard yellowed by hearth smoke, approached with slow steps. His feet left vague prints in the dust. He stopped three paces from , respecting his meditation.
"She left in the middle of summer," said the old man in a low voice, studded with the rough dialect of the South. "The heat had dried up the mountain streams. She lay down beneath the tent and moved no more."
did not turn his head. His hand remained motionless on the rough sandstone.
" dug himself," the old Jurhumite continued. "His hands were full of red earth."
The old man slid his gnarled fingers along his belt to mime the boy's gesture.
"Before laying the stones, he took the red wool ribbon his mother wore on her left wrist. The one faded by the salt and the water of the well. He placed it on her chest, beneath the coarse linen shroud. Then he threw the first handful of clay."
closed his eyes. 's red ribbon, the last physical link with Hebron and the household of Ur, was now buried beneath the rock of Bakka. The earth had taken everything.
"The boy has become strong," the old man murmured again. "He speaks our language, but his words are not like ours. When we speak, our voices are like stones being dragged. He... when he pronounces a word, the sound is so pure one would think one heard the whistle of a well-fletched arrow. His sentences cut through the wind. The elders listen to him in the evening without understanding where this clarity comes from."
withdrew his hand from the grave. His fingers were covered in red dust. He looked toward the black ridges where his son hunted game. He did not wait for 's return. He took up his staff again.
Before leaving the basin of Bakka, as the path rose again toward the mountain gap, turned his gaze toward a sandstone promontory. was sitting alone there, sheltered by an overhanging rock. He was not hunting. His knees were bent, and he held his unstrung bow on his thighs. With his right hand, he made a flat stone slide along the jujube wood to polish its curve. He worked without haste, his face lowered, his hair stirred by the wind. Around him, the mountains offered no shelter, no shade. The boy remained there, in the great void of the valley, with no one to speak to, repeating the same slow and regular gesture to sharpen his tool. watched him for a long moment, then he resumed his walk, carrying with him the image of that silent grave and the song of nascent Arabic already vibrating in his son's throat.
The years slipped over the valley like storm water over granite.
When returned for the first time after his son's marriage, his hair was entirely white, fine as carded wool. His steps were shorter. The camp of Bakka had changed: the tents had drawn closer to the well, and thorn enclosures for the goats marked the ground.
He stopped before 's tent. His son was not there. At the entrance, the threshold was nothing but a dried acacia branch, half worm-eaten, on which sand accumulated without anyone sweeping it away.
A young woman emerged from the shadow of the canvas. Her hair was poorly tied, her hands reddened by the work of tanning. She had chapped palms, streaked with whitish cuts caused by the friction of the well rope. Against the side of the tent, a stillborn kid goat, wrapped in flies, rested beneath a dry goat hide. She looked at this unknown old man with a crease of mistrust on her brow, rubbing her dusty forehead with a tired gesture.
"What do you want, old man?" she asked without taking a step toward him.
"I am a passing traveler," replied , remaining standing beneath the sun. "My waterskin is empty. Is your husband here?"
"He has gone into the eastern ravines to seek meat," she said in a dry and plaintive voice. "The game flees the valley. There is nothing left to hunt here."
"How do you live in this dwelling?" asked gently.
The woman let the tent flap fall with a gesture of weariness.
"We are in hardship and misery," she said, showing the sterile desert. "The heat burns everything. The well is deep and the water is heavy to draw up. The goats abort before term and my husband spends his days tracking lean beasts that are nothing but skin on bone. We do not have enough dates for the winter. This land is but a prison of stone."
listened to her complaint. His eyes descended to the acacia branch that served as a threshold. The wood was split, devoured by insects. Through these cracks, the desert sand slipped freely beneath the canvas. looked at the young woman's chapped palms and the dead kid beneath the flies. The distress of this dwelling was real, but this woman spoke without once laying her eyes on the well of Zamzam whose water flowed yet a few steps away.
"I will not stay," said , leaning on his staff. "When your husband returns, convey my greeting to him. Tell him that the traveler passed by, and tell him to change the threshold of his tent."
He turned away and took the northern track again before dusk.
Time passed again, marking the rocks of Bakka with new trails of salt.
undertook his second journey when his strength had almost entirely declined. He walked slowly, stopping in the shade of each rock to catch his breath, but his eyes kept the same fixed clarity.
When he reached 's tent, he saw that the threshold had changed. A large slab of black basalt, precisely cut from the volcanic rock of the neighboring hills, was firmly planted in the clay. The ground before the entrance was clean, swept of all dust.
was still absent, tracking wild beasts on the heights.
Another woman emerged from the tent. Her hair was carefully braided, and her movements were calm. Seeing the tired old man, she immediately advanced toward him, her hands open.
"Sit in the shade, father," she said, pointing to the basalt slab. "You have walked long beneath the sun. Let me wash the dust from your feet."
She entered the tent and returned with a fresh skin of water and a wooden platter containing pieces of gazelle meat cooked beneath the ashes. She set everything before him.
"Drink of this water, it is fresh and comes from the blessed well. And eat of this meat that my husband brought back from the hunt."
drank a gulp of water. It was sweet to his dry throat. He took a piece of meat, whose fat was tender and well cooked.
"How do you live here?" asked , looking at the arid mountains that encircled the valley.
The young woman smiled, her eyes fixed on the horizon of stone.
"We are in well-being and abundance, praised be Allah for what He gives us. We lack nothing. The well is always full and the mountain sends us its sustenance each day. My husband is strong and his hand is just."
placed his hands on the basalt slab. The wood of his staff rested against his knee. He saw the firmness of this dwelling, the solidity of the threshold that held back the wind and the dust. The desert was the same, hunger and heat were identical, but this woman washed the basalt slabs with care and shared what she had without counting.
"My husband is hunting on the heights," she added in a low voice. "But he told me that an old man with white hair had passed by one day, before our marriage. My husband had smelled his scent of wool and olive from Canaan on the wood of the old threshold. It is for that reason that he changed the entrance, placing this black stone, and he told me to always watch for the traveler. He still seeks your trace in the wind of the valley."
slowly inclined his head. The warm east wind blew gently, making the tent flaps tremble. He raised his two hands toward the sky, palms open. His voice, though tired, resonated with force in the silence of Bakka:
"O Allah, bless their meat and their water."
Then he turned toward the woman.
"When your husband returns, convey my greeting to him. Tell him that the traveler has passed by again, and tell him to keep the threshold of his door."
He rose and resumed his walk toward the north. The afternoon wind rose, blowing from the mountain, carrying his prayer over the whole valley of Bakka.