See How Much I Love You (5 page)

She was about to fall asleep when her eyes opened with a start. Suddenly she couldn’t hear the wind, or the mercenaries’ voices, or the roaring of the vehicles. The absolute silence was spine chilling. She had the horrible feeling of having been buried for several days. The light that reached her through the sand felt less aggressive. She tilted her head forwards and, with great difficulty, pushed it out into the open air. Grains of sand slipped over her body. Her arms and shoulder ached. She struggled again and unearthed half her body. She removed the
melfa
and surveyed the deserted, silent
hammada
. In two hours the sun would set, so the heat was no longer so intense. With
a great effort, Aza managed to sit up. She was so frightened she didn’t dare to remove her clothes to shake the sand off her body. It was a long time before she was totally sure that the mercenaries had gone. Nevertheless, she knew that even in the immensity of the desert the men might be able to find her. The tyre tracks left by the two vehicles were all around her: from the looks of it they must have circled around for hours, probably until the petrol tanks began to run out. Although she was dying to get away, she kept her wits about her and decided to wait for the sun to set. Under the canopy of the stars it would be easier for her to orient herself, and of course her body would lose less water while walking. While she was sitting down, on the alert, she thought she saw a moving shadow in the distance. Her first reaction was to crouch down and stay still, but she soon realised what it was. She walked in the direction of the figure, glancing everywhere around her in case it was a trap. But it wasn’t. From a distance of a hundred metres she could see that it was the Spanish woman. Aza couldn’t even remember her name. She approached and knelt down beside her. The woman must have been lying there for over five hours. With a string of insults that she’d learned as a child, she cursed the men who’d abandoned her there. She turned the woman over and raised her head, but there was no reaction. She put her ear to the woman’s chest; the situation looked desperate. It took a while before she could hear the heartbeat. It was faint and irregular, arrhythmical, as if the heart was announcing that it would stop imminently. Aza looked frantically for the spot where the woman had been stung. It was too late to try to extract the poison. She knew that the woman would die, and there was nothing she could do about it. The thought of death distressed her horribly. She tried to remain calm. Soon it would be dark and her chances of escape would improve.

Without looking back, Aza started walking the minute that the blinding sphere of the sun dipped below the horizon. A few
moments later the surface of the desert started cooling down. Each time the wind blew, she got goose-pimples. She didn’t waste any time. After checking one last time that the foreign woman’s heart was still beating, she set forth towards the south-east. She weighed up her chances again. She didn’t have a clear idea of how far the nearest camp would be. Besides, although most Saharawis were capable of finding their way perfectly in the desert at night, she had had little opportunity to learn to do so. She had spent half her life in Cuba as a student. The desert, at times, was as hostile to her as to a foreigner, even though she had not left it for the last three years. In any case, she knew that if one wanted to reach a certain place it was vital to be precise and always walk in a straight line; a small deviation might mean straying several kilometres from the intended destination. She walked slowly so as not to tire herself out. She tried to ignore her thirst. If she didn’t sweat too much and lay down as soon as the sun was up, she might be able to walk for one more night. But that was just a guess. Meanwhile, her steps became clumsier and clumsier. She frequently stumbled and fell forwards. Her eyes clouded with fatigue. Although there was a full moon, she could barely make out the terrain five or six metres ahead. She hadn’t eaten anything for over a day. Eventually, a few hours before dawn, she fell to the ground and could not find the strength to pick herself up again.

A noise, almost a vibration, awoke her. Her eyelids were stuck together, and she didn’t remember where she was. She had covered herself with the
melfa
to keep insects from biting her. It was very cold. As the noise became clearer, she feared she was experiencing the onset of hallucinations. Her head ached horribly. She sat up and took a good look around, but saw nothing. The sun had been up for at least two hours. She lay back down on the ground, and this time the noise made her jump to her feet. There was no room for doubt: it was a truck engine. She listened, but the wind changed direction.
However, a plume of dust rising on the horizon revealed the presence of several vehicles. It didn’t even occur to her that it might be Le Monsieur and his mercenaries. Although she could not yet see the shining surface of the cars, she figured out that they were moving quite slowly, judging from the height of the cloud of dust. She traced a mental line in their direction and started walking over to intercept them. They were probably two kilometres away. It was difficult to calculate distances. As she pressed on she shook the dirt off her clothes, and wiped her eyes and the corners of her mouth with saliva; she cleaned her ears of sand and put on the
melfa
as if she had just got up on a normal day. About five hundred metres from them, she started waving her arms, but trying not to reveal her desperation. They saw her a moment later. Four trucks with canvas covering the back and two four-by-fours. Even from afar she could see the surprised faces of the young soldiers. In a fit of embarrassment, she prayed to Allah that none of those men would know who she was.

The convoy changed course directly after seeing the woman signal to them from the most inhospitable area of the
hammada
. As they approached, the drivers and passengers could hardly believe their eyes. They were all, staring fixedly at the same spot. One of the four-by-fours ran ahead and stopped a few metres from the woman. An officer got out. His stripes made it obvious that he was the one in charge. As he walked up to her, he took off his sunglasses and loosened his turban. He started a long formulaic greeting, all the time studying the woman. If his men had not been following his every move, he would have touched her arm to make sure she was not a mirage. The greeting finished, his neutral tone changed and his surprise showed through. ‘What are you doing here? Where did you come from?’ he asked in an obviously annoyed voice.

‘I got lost.’

‘You got lost?’ he asked again, not believing her. ‘How did you get lost?’

‘It’s a long story, and I haven’t got much time,’ she replied, respectfully. The officer seemed spooked, as though he were talking to a ghost. ‘And how did you get here? How long have you been lost?’

‘I need to drink some water, I’m about to collapse.’ The rest of the convoy had stopped in a long line, and the soldiers got out of their vehicles. The officer opened the door of the four-by-four and took out a canteen covered in leather. Aza drank as much as she could. The water went into her mouth and flowed out of her pores, as if from a fountain. Then she sought the shade of one of the trucks. The soldiers looked at her without really grasping what was going on.

With a shout, the officer ordered them to go back to their vehicles. ‘Now explain to me how it was you got lost.’

‘It’s a long story, and there are more important things to be done.’

‘More important?’

‘Yes, over in that direction there’s a dying woman. She’s foreign. She was stung by a scorpion nearly twenty-four hours ago. She may be dead already.’ The officer grew agitated. He called over the driver of one of the four-by-fours and asked Aza to tell him where the exact place was. ‘It’s in that direction. I’ve walked in a straight line for eight hours. You could get there in twenty minutes.’ The driver and two soldiers left immediately. Meanwhile, the soldiers were forming another line near the woman, trying to remain inconspicuous. The officer began to lose his patience when no more information was forthcoming. ‘I need to go to my
wilaya
8
,’ said Aza. ‘My two-year-old son needs me.’

‘What
wilaya
is that?’

‘Dajla,’ she lied.

‘God help you, woman. You’ll never get there from here.’

‘Where are you coming from?’

‘Smara’

‘Is that very far?’

‘Twenty kilometres.’ Aza saw the hand of Allah in what was happening. She looked around and mentally calculated the direction in which the Ausserd camp was. ‘I’ve got relatives in Ausserd,’ she said, trying to conceal the truth.

‘We’ll take you to Smara. As soon as they find the sick woman, a vehicle will take you to the hospital, and someone will inform your family in Dajla.’ Aza didn’t know how to get out of the situation. She was so ashamed of the truth that she would have preferred to start running and die in the desert than let those men even suspect what had happened. ‘I cannot go to Smara,’ she explained as casually as she could. ‘My sister is getting married in Ausserd in four days and she needs me.’ The lie irritated the officer.

‘You’ll go to Smara and there you’ll explain all there is to explain.’

‘If you take me to Smara I’ll accuse you of kidnapping me to the
wali
.’
9
The officer clenched his fists and put on his sunglasses to hide his rage. He looked around and then strode away towards the plain of the desert. Aza went on drinking water, but now in smaller sips. The young recruits looked at her without even blinking. No doubt, the apparition of such a beautiful woman in the most deserted area of the
hammada
seemed miraculous. ‘Have you got any food?’ she asked calmly. All at once, the soldiers rummaged in their bags and took out dry biscuits, goat’s cheese and sugar. Aza sat down in the shade of the truck and began eating slowly, savouring every bite.

Less than an hour had gone by when the four-by-four returned with the foreign woman. The officer looked inside the
vehicle and could not believe it. If the Saharawi woman had told the truth, perhaps she was not, as he had thought, crazy. ‘Is she dead?’ he asked the driver. ‘I couldn’t tell for sure.’ The officer approached Aza and pointed to the vehicle firmly.

‘Get in the car. My men will take you to Smara. Then you can go wherever you please.’ Aza stood up, put away the leftover food, drank some more water and said: ‘I need to know the way to Ausserd.’ The officer was about to lose his self-control. He bit his lip so hard he drew blood. He suspected that, if he insisted, that woman would make a fool of him in front of the troops. ‘Fine. If that’s what you want, carry on in that direction and don’t stray even this much. Walking steadily, you’ll reach Ausserd in ten hours.’ He emphasised the last sentence, in the vague hope that the woman would reconsider before walking away.

However, Aza put the water canteen on her head and approached the four-by-four where the foreign woman was. ‘Hurry up,’ she told the driver. ‘She’s been in a coma for hours.’ Then she began to walk in a straight line, without losing sight of the point on the horizon that was her only chance of salvation. The soldiers didn’t take their eyes off her until they heard their superior’s fearsome shouting.

The foreign woman’s hospital room is half in darkness, in spite of the furious sun outside. Layla is sitting on a rug on the floor, numb with heat, when the director of the hospital walks in, followed by his friend Mulud. On seeing them Layla stands up and buttons up her white coat. She exchanges an endless greeting full of formulae with the colonel. Then all three silently turn their eyes towards the patient. Layla adjusts her
melfa
and covers her head properly. The foreign woman is asleep, drawing deep breaths.

‘She’s had some food,’ explains the nurse to the director. ‘But she sleeps most of the time.’

‘Layla spends whole days here,’ the director says.

‘Only when I’m not busy,’ adds Layla.

The colonel smiles. He’s curious to learn the foreigner’s story.

‘Is she getting better?’ he asks.

‘She no longer has a fever,’ replies Layla. ‘Sometimes she hallucinates, but no fever. All I know is that her name is Montse and she’s from Spain. She’s obsessed with something, but I haven’t managed to find out what.’

‘Obsessed?’ asks the colonel.

‘She talks in her sleep and says the name Aza all the time.’

‘She’s obsessed with that name,’ echoes the director.

‘When she’s awake and I ask her about it, she says they’ve killed Aza. But she gets so upset that she can’t explain herself any further.’

Colonel Mulud stares at the foreigner. He is intrigued, but also very busy; he hasn’t got much time.

‘We need to ascertain how she arrived here,’ he says eventually. ‘Surely she hasn’t travelled alone. Someone must have reported her missing.’

‘Soon it will be a month,’ says the director. ‘It’s too long for a woman not to be missed.’

‘That’s true. The more I think about it the less sense it makes.’

‘I could try to find out,’ Layla says. ‘She’s better every day, but she’s really scared. I don’t know what happened to her, but she’s frightened. If I can get her to trust me, she might tell me.’

‘And in the meantime?’ asks the director, matter-of-factly.

‘In the meantime there’s nothing we can do,’ says the colonel. ‘We’ll ask the people who deal with Spain. If they don’t know anything, we’ll have to wait for her to get better to send her back home.’

By the time he finishes the phrase, Mulud is in the doorway. The director goes after him. Both say goodbye with a short formula, and the nurse remains alone with the patient. She sits on the edge of the bed. She has got used to the foreigner’s
presence, but she’s very curious about her story. She touches her forehead and looks one more time at her tangled hair, her white skin and soft hands. Suddenly the woman gives a start and opens her eyes. She doesn’t know where she is. Her eyes are full of fear.

‘Aza,’ she says, delirious. ‘They shot Aza. You have to tell everybody.’

‘Who’s Aza?’ asks Layla, tying to appease her.