Again Saba looked at him with disapproval.
“Do you think my song will carry farther than the roars of these beasts as we climb the dunes?” Judah asked.
“Silence is now our language of choice,” Saba said, voice deep and soft.
“Perhaps the language of your choice,” Judah returned. “But I feel the camels prefer song. It woos them.”
“Beasts are not wooed by song. You’ve mistaken them for women.”
“You don’t like the sound of my voice, Saba? How can you pretend to be so stiff? Around the fire, all Bedu love my song.”
“I see no fire.”
“I will teach you to sing, Saba. Before we reach the Holy Land you will sing and a hundred women will watch you with desire in their eyes.”
Saba grunted. “We search for a king, not a woman to keep you warm.”
“But I must teach you to sing. Like an eagle in the sky, calling all birds to follow. Like a wolf haunting the night with its call. Song will fill your throat and even kings will stand in wonder.”
“You speak too much. Where I come from, silence is the greatest song of the human heart. Only in silence can the call of the sands be heard. Quiet your tongue now and you will still hear the mourning of those in Dumah.”
“And does not song comfort those who mourn?” Judah looked at the sky. “I now call for God, who is in the heavens, to hear our song and comfort his people.”
Saba spoke evenly in his low voice. “There is no god in the heavens. He sits upon your camel even now.”
“Then let God sing!” Judah said.
I had to smile as I rode behind them. The Bedu cannot help but argue. Indeed, even Saba had violated his own demand for silence.
“Let him sing, Saba,” I said quietly. “The silence pulls at my heart.”
“You see!” Judah said. “We must lift her heart to the sky so that it may soar once again. Sing, Saba! Sing for us.”
Saba wasn’t impressed, and though he quit his objections he refused to sing.
Judah gave me a knowing smile and began to sing again, softly, in poetic verse, about the desert and the stars and his god, who had made all things with his breath. Judah kept his eyes ahead and looked at the sky often. And after a time, I saw that Saba had settled on his mount, accepting.
When we came to the base of the first dune, I was sure that no camel could climb its steep slope. Surely there was an easier way around. But neither Judah nor Saba appeared bothered by that wall of sand.
“We lead them from here,” Saba said, pulling up and dismounting. “Keep the camels moving.”
He dropped to the ground, gathered the lead rope, and tugged his camel forward. The unsaddled male trudged behind, tied to the tail of Saba’s mount.
I followed directly, and Judah behind me, in Saba’s tracks. These cut a line across and up the dune’s steep face. The soft sand swallowed my sandals and my feet to the ankles, and I struggled to maintain my balance while tugging on Shunu’s lead. She made her displeasure plain, moaning loudly every other step, pulling against her rope.
We were only a quarter of the way up when I stopped, thinking that even a camel knew such a path was madness. To my left the sand rose like a cliff to an insurmountable peak, black against the night sky. To my right it fell away at such a grade that I was sure one slip would send me tumbling to the bottom. It had taken us far too long to reach this unremarkable height, and we had only just begun.
“All is well, Maviah!” Judah cried behind me. “This is not too steep for Shunu.” He was pulling his own stubborn beast, and now he placed a hand on Shunu’s rump and gave her a shove. “You see? She goes.”
So I slogged forward, thinking that there was no turning back to the death in Dumah. My only hope lay ahead, over this dune and all that I couldn’t yet see.
With each step I was sure that the sand would collapse under my feet, or that one of the camels would finally tumble down. I often stumbled to a knee, clambered back to my feet, and pushed on. I was tugging Shunu, but in truth she was my anchor. Only my firm grasp on her lead rope kept me from sliding down the slope when I lost my footing.
“It is close, Maviah,” Judah would say, pushing against my camel’s hindquarters as he pulled at his own mount. “Now we can almost touch the top. And then it will be easy.”
He would say such a thing though the peak still rose like a lance far above our heads. And yet his voice soothed me like a warm wind from behind.
It took us nearly as long to climb that first behemoth as it had to cross the flats. But we finally crested the ridge and I was full of triumph until the way before us came into view.
The pale sands extended as far as I could see, hundreds and thousands of towering billows, some as high as the one we’d just ascended. My heart fell. How one could cross such a sea of sand, I didn’t know.