My own cloak was the color of the sand. I wore my long black hair bound up beneath a dark blue mantle, which kept the sun from my head and face.
That second night we made camp early in a parched wadi, and after eating my meal of bread with dates and butter, I wanted only to sleep. But try as I might, I could not. Judah’s camel, Raza, lay close and he reclined against her leg, ignoring her grunts and complaints. The other camels wanted also to be near, so we were surrounded by three of the beasts. I wasn’t accustomed to such smells and so much noise so close.
In addition to this, Judah set Saba to talking, and neither showed any interest in sleep. I didn’t want to leave the camp, so I turned away from them, closed my eyes, and silently offered prayers to Isis, who might be watching and listening, however unlikely it was.
“Tell me why a man makes himself the slave of a god he cannot hear or see,” Saba said.
“God is heard through the prophets and seen in the stars,” Judah said.
“And how will you know that what you hear from these prophets is spoken by your god?”
“It is also written on stone and parchment,” Judah said.
“And how do you know that what is written are the words of this god, not mere man?”
“Because what is written will come to pass.”
“Then you believe blindly in the future as foretold by men who only say they have heard from the heavens. And for this, you will die?”
“I am not righteous enough to know and observe the Law as some do, because I’m a warrior from the desert who only knows a little,” Judah said. “And yet I know that my God sends the Anointed One to free the Jew from the Roman. I will find this Messiah and I will wage war in his army to scatter the Roman and restore holiness to our sacred land. You will see. It is written.”
“And if he does not?”
“But he will.”
“Neither Jew nor Bedu understands that he has made the gods in his own likeness,” Saba said. “Gods who become angry and kill and inflict great suffering when offended by man.”
“You are Bedu, Saba,” Judah scolded. “All Bedu serve the gods. And yet you have turned your back? Why is this?”
Saba seemed reluctant to answer, and when he did his voice was low.
“Before coming to the Kalb, my people in the north traveled the trade paths to the distant east, far beyond Babylon to the lands called China. I took my gods with me as a boy and learned that they did not hear me in that distant place. Only much later did I also learn that they are deaf in the desert as well.”
“How can you gaze at a child’s face and not see his maker?” Judah pressed. “Or into a woman’s eyes and not see a greater truth?”
“No god saved my family when they were slaughtered,” Saba said. There was such sadness in his voice.
“But you have a woman, yes?” Judah asked. “A wife in the north?”
“I have no wife,” Saba said. “Nor do I long for one.”
“Then I pity you, Saba. I loved a woman once. She was killed by the Thamud in a raid, as were my mother and father. As you know, it’s the reason I first came to the Kalb three years ago, knowing Rami stood against the Thamud.”
All the world was filled with death.
“I long for this love once again,” Judah said. “Perhaps the love of a woman surpasses even the love of God.”
Saba grunted. “Perhaps.”
One of them poked the fire with a stick.
“I think we are in the presence of a queen,” Judah said softly. “And one so beautiful I have never seen.”
“The Bedu know no queen.”
“She is a star in the night sky, I can see it in her eyes. A woman who shed the blood of the Thamud and escaped their clutches.” Judah gave a soft chuckle.
“You would do well to remember that it is Rami you serve. She’s only a woman. A woman who knows how to draw blood will bring much bloodshed.”
“May the Thamud and Roman both drown in it,” Judah replied. “Through Maviah, salvation comes to the Kalb.”
And this was the last either spoke.
I fell asleep with Judah’s tender words whispering through my head. Perhaps the love of a woman surpasses even the love of God. I dreamed of Johnin’s breath on my cheek in Egypt. Such love felt distant here in the desert. And yet Judah’s words brought it one stage closer.
FOR SIX days we traveled through that inferno called the Nafud without any terrible trouble. Each day seemed hotter than the one before. My throat returned to its cotton state within minutes of my taking milk, and from head to toe my skin was surely made of sand. My cloak was dusty and my hair in need of washing. Many Bedu of the deep desert cleanse their hair in camel urine, which kills any flea or mite, but this was not my way. As a slave in Egypt I’d learned to bathe frequently using perfumed soap.