...of nomads

They walked noiselessly in the sand, slowly, not watching where they were going. The wind blew relentlessly, the desert wind, hot in the daytime, cold at night. The sand swirled around them, between the legs of the camels, lashing the faces of the women, who pulled the blue veils down over their eyes. The young children ran about, the babies cried, rolled up in the blue cloth on their mother’s backs. The camels growled, sneezed. No one knew where the caravan was going.
The sun was still high in the stark sky, sounds and smells were swept away on the wind. Sweat trickled slowly down the faces of the travelers; the dark skin on their cheeks, on their arms and legs was tinted with indigo. The blue tattoos on the women’s foreheads looked like shiny little beetles. Their black eyes, like drops of molten metal, hardly seeing the immense stretch of sand, searched for signs of the trail in the rolling dunes.
There was nothing else on earth, nothing, no one. They were born of the desert, they could follow no other path. They said nothing. Wanted nothing. The wind swept over them, through them, as if there were no one on the dunes. They had been walking since the very crack of dawn without stopping, thirst and weariness hung over them like a lead weight. Their cracked lips and tongues were hard and leathery. Hunger gnawed their insides. They couldn’t have spoken. They had been as mute as the desert for so long, filled with the light of the sun burning down in the middle of the empty sky, and frozen with the night and its still stars.

[Desert, Le Clézio, J. M. G.]

...of wind and sand

They were talking now, very loudly, and the women in the stifling darkness of the tents laughed and threw little pebbles out at the children who were playing. Words gushed from the men’s mouths as if in drunkenness, words that sang, shouted, echoed with guttural sounds. Behind the tents near the walls of Smara, the wind whistled in the branches of the acacias, in the leaves of the dwarf palms. And yet, the men and women whose faces and bodies were tinted blue with indigo and sweat were still steeped in silence; they had not left the desert.
They did not forget. The great silence that swept constantly over the dunes was deep in their bodies, in their entrails. That was the true secret. Every now and again, the man with the rifle stopped talking to Nour and looked back toward the head of the valley, from where the wind was coming.
Sometimes a man from another tribe walked up to the tent and greeted them, extending his two open hands. They exchanged but a few brief words, a few names. But they were words and names that vanished immediately, simply vague traces that the wind and the sand would cover over.

[Desert, Le Clézio, J. M. G.]

...of spirit

They came up in front of the tomb. It was just four whitewashed walls set on a foundation of red stones. There was only one door, like the opening to an oven obstructed by a huge red rock. Above the walls, the white dome was shaped like an eggshell and ended in a spearhead. Now Nour saw nothing but the entrance to the tomb, and the door grew larger in his eyes, becoming the door to an immense monument with walls like cliffs of chalk, with a dome as high as a mountain. Here, the desert wind and heat, the loneliness of day stopped: here, the faint trails ended, even those where lost people walk, mad people, vanquished people. Perhaps it was the centre of the desert, the place where everything had begun long ago, when people had come here for the very first time. The tomb shone out on the slope of the red hill. The sunlight bounced off the tamped earth, burned down on the white dome, caused small trickles of red powder to sift down along the cracks in the walls from time to time. Nour and his father were along next to the tomb. A heavy silence hung over the valley of the Saguiet al-Hamra.
From the round door, as he tipped the large rock away, the guide saw the powerful cold shadows and it seemed to him that he felt a sort of breath on his face.
Around the tomb was an area of red earth, tamped with the feet of visitors. That is where the guide and Nour stopped first - to pray. Up there on top of the hill, near the tomb of the holy man, with the valley of the Saguiet al-Hamra stretching its dry streambed into the distance and the vast horizon upon which other hills, other rocks appeared against the blue sky, the silence was even more striking. It was as if the world had stopped moving and talking, had turned to stone.
From time to time, Nour could nevertheless hear the cracking of the mud walls, the buzzing of an insect, the wailing of the wind.
“I have come,” said the man kneeling on the tamped earth. “Help me, spirit of my grandfather. I have crossed the desert, I have come to ask for your blessing before I die. Help me, give me your blessing, for I am of your own flesh. I have come.”
That is the way he spoke, and Nour listened to his father’s words without understanding. He spoke, sometimes in a full voice, sometimes in a low murmuring singsong, swaying his head, constantly repeating those simple words, “I have come, I have come.”
He leaned down, took up some red dust in the hollow of his hands and let it run over his face, over his forehead, his eyelids, his lips.
Then he stood up and walked to the door. In front of the opening, he knelt down and prayed again, his forehead touching the stone on the threshold. Slowly, the darkness inside of the tomb dissipated, like a night fog. The walls of the tomb were bare and white, the same as on the outside, and the low ceiling displayed its framework of branches mixed with mud.
Nour went in now too, on all fours. He felt the hard cold floor of earth mixed with sheep’s blood under his hands. The guide was lying on his stomach at the back of the tomb on the mud floor. Palms on the ground, arms stretched out before him, melting in with the earth. Now he was no longer praying, no longer singing. He was breathing slowly, his mouth against the ground, listening to the blood beating in his throat and ears. It was as if something unknown were entering him, through his mouth, through his forehead, through the palms of his hands, and through his stomach, something that went very deep inside of him and changed him imperceptibly. Perhaps it was the silence that had come from the desert, from the sea of dunes, from the rock-filled mountains in the moonlight, or from the great plains of pink sand where the sunlight dances and wavers like a curtain of rain, the silence of the green waterholes, looking up at the sky like eyes, the silence of the cloudless, birdless sky where the wind runs free.

[Desert, Le Clézio, J. M. G.]

...of the Blue Man

It is here that the man sometimes comes to meet her. She doesn’t know who he is or where he comes from. At times he is frightening, and at other times he is very gentle and very calm, full of celestial beauty. All she sees of him are his eyes because his face is veiled with a blue cloth, like the faces of the desert warriors. He wears a long white cloak that scintillates like salt in the sun. In the shadow of the blue turban, his eyes burn with a strange dim flame, and Lalla can feel the warmth of his gaze moving over her face and body as if she were nearing a fire.
But al-Ser doesn’t always come. The man from the desert only comes when Lalla wants to see him very badly, when she really needs him, when she needs him just as much as she needs to talk, or to cry. But even when he doesn’t come, there is still a trace of him there on the plateau of stones, maybe it’s that searing look of his that lights up the landscape, that reaches from one end of the horizon to the other. So then Lalla can walk down the middle of the vast stretch of broken stones without paying attention to where she’s going, without thinking about it. On certain rocks there are strange signs that she doesn’t understand, crosses, dots, stains in the shape of suns or moons, arrows carved into the stone. They might be magic signs; that’s what the boys from the Project say, and that’s why they don’t like to come up as far as the white plateau. But Lalla isn’t afraid of the signs, or of loneliness. She knows the Blue Man from the desert is protecting her with his gaze and she is no longer afraid of the silence, or the barrenness of the wind.
There’s no one up in that place, not a soul. Only the Blue Man of the desert who is constantly watching her, without talking to her. Lalla doesn’t really know what he wants, what he’s asking for. She needs him, and he comes silently, with his powerful gaze. She is happy when she’s up on the plateau of stones, in the light of that gaze. She knows that she shouldn’t talk to anyone about it, not even to Aamma, because it’s a secret, the most important thing that’s ever happened to her. It’s also a secret because she’s the only one who isn’t afraid to come up to the plateau of stones often, in spite of the silence and the barrennes of the wind. Except maybe the Chleuh shepherd, the one they call Hartani, he also comes up on on the plateau sometimes, but that’s when one of the goats from his herd gets lost running along the ravines. He isn’t afraid of the signs on the stones either, but Lalla never dared to talk to him about her secret.
That’s the name she’s given the man who sometimes appears on the plateau of stones: al-Ser, the Secret, because no one should know his name.
He doesn’t speak. That is to say, he doesn’t speak the same language as humans. But Lalla hears his voice inside her ears, and in his language he says very beautiful things that stir her body inwardly, that make her shudder. Maybe he speaks with the faint sound of the wind that comes from the depths of space, or else with the silence between each gust of wind. Maybe he speaks with the words of light, words that explode in showers of sparks on the razor-edged rocks, with the words of sand, the words of pebbles that crumble into hard powder, also the words of the scorpions and snakes that leave tiny indistinct marks in the dust. He knows how to speak with all of those words, and his gaze leaps, swift as an animal, from one rock to another, shoots all the way out to the horizon in a single move, flies straight up into the sky, soaring higher than the birds.

[Desert, Le Clézio, J. M. G.]

...of fasting

It’s great to be in the midst of all this dryness when you’re fasting because it is as if an intense feeling of suffering were stretched tight everywhere, like an insistent gaze. At night, the moon appears on the edge of the rocky hills, completely round, dilated. Then Aamma serves the chickpea soup with bread, and everyone eats quickly; even Selim, Aamma’s husband, who is called the Soussi, eats hurriedly, without putting olive oil on his bread like he usually does. No one says a word, there are no stories. Lalla would rather like to talk, she’d have so many things to say, a little feverishly, but she knows that it’s not possible, for one mustn’t break the silence of the fast. That’s the way it is when you fast, you also fast with words and with your whole head. And you walk slowly, dragging your feet a bit, and you don’t point at things or people with your finger, you don’t whistle with your mouth.

[Desert, Le Clézio, J. M. G.]

...of a stranger

Lalla loves spending her time with the Hartani. He shows her all of those things to her alone. He’s wary of the others, because they don’t have time to wait, to seek out smells, to see desert birds fly. He’s not afraid of people. It’s rather they who are afraid of him. They say he’s mejnoun, possessed by demons, that he’s a magician, that he has the evil eye. The Hartani, he’s the one who has no father or mother, because he came out of nowhere; he’s the one a desert warrior left near the well one day, without saying a word. He’s the one who has no name. Sometimes Lalla would really like to know who he is; she’d like to ask him, “Where are you from?”
But the Hartani doesn’t understand the language of human beings; he doesn’t answer questions. Aamma’s eldest son says the Hartani doesn’t know how to speak because he’s deaf. Anyway that’s what the schoolmaster told him one day, it’s called deaf-mute. But Lalla knows very well that isn’t true, because the Hartani hears better than anyone. He knows how to hear sounds so subtle, so faint, that you can’t even hear them by putting your ear to the ground. He can hear a hare jump on the far side of the plateau of stones, or else a man who is coming along the path at the other end of the valley. He can find the place where the cricket sings or the partridge nests in the tall grasses. But the Hartani doesn’t want to hear the language of human beings because he comes from a land where there are no humans, only the sand dunes and the sky.
Sometimes Lalla speaks to the shepherd, for example she says, “Biluuu-la!” slowly, looking deep into his eyes, and a strange glimmer lights up his dark metallic eyes. He places his hand on Lalla’s lips and follows their movement when she says things like that. But he never utters a word himself.
Then after a while, he’s had enough, and he looks away; he goes to sit a little farther off, on another rock. But that’s not very important, because now Lalla knows that words don’t really count. It’s only what you mean to say, deep down inside, like a secret, like a prayer; that’s the only thing that counts. And the Hartani doesn’t speak in any other way; he knows how to give and receive that kind of message. So many things are conveyed through silence. Lalla didn’t know that either before meeting the Hartani, he looks at Lalla with his handsome metallic eyes, without saying anything, and it is through the light in his eyes that you hear what he’s saying, what he’s asking.

[Desert, Le Clézio, J. M. G.]

...of a hawk

She points to a still black spot in the middle of the air. The Hartani looks at the spot for a moment and makes the sign of a bird with his hand, crooking the index finger, and spreading the last three fingers out like the feathers of a bird. The spot glides slowly along in the centre of the sky, circling back on itself a little, dropping, coming closer. Now Lalla can see its body clearly, its head, its wings with spread quill feathers. It’s a hawk in search of its prey, sailing silently along on the wind, like a shadow.
Lalla watches for a long time, her heart pounding. She’s never seen anything as beautiful as that bird tracing its circles in the sky, so very high up above the red earth, solitary and silent in the wind, in the sunlight, and tipping down toward the desert at times as if it were going to fall. Lalla’s heart beats even harder, because the silence of the tawny bird is making its way inside of her, giving rise to fear. Her eyes are riveted on the hawk, she can’t tear them away. The awful silence in the centre of the sky, the chill of the open air, most of all the burning light, daze her, dig out a dizying void. She steadies herself, leaning her hand on the Hartani’s arm to keep from falling forward into the emptiness. He too is watching the hawk. But it’s as if the bird were his brother and nothing separated them. They both have the same look in their eyes, the same courage; they share the same interminable silence of the sky, the wind, and the desert.
When Lalla realises that the Hartani and the hawk are one and the same, a shiver runs up her spine, but the dizziness has left her. The sky spreading before her is immense, the earth is a gray- and ochre-coloured mist floating out on the horizon. Since all of this is familiar to the Hartani, Lalla is no longer afraid to enter the silence. She closes her eyes and allows herself to glide out on the air, into the centre of the sky, holding on to the young shepherd’s arm. Together, they slowly trace large circles up above the earth, so high up that not a ssingle sound can be heard, only the light ruffling of the wind in the quill feathers, so high up that the rocks, the thorn bushes, the houses of planks and tarpaper are hardly visible.

[Desert, Le Clézio, J. M. G.]

...of the walking dead

Standing by the side of the trail, he saw them walking slowly past, hardly lifting their legs, heavy with weariness. They had emaciated gray faces, eyes shiny with fever. Their lips were bleeding; their hands and chests were marked with wounds where the clotted blood had mixed with golden particles of dust. The sun beat down on them as it did on the red stones of the path, and they received a real beating. The women had no shoes, and their bare feet were burned from the sand and eaten away with the salt. But the most painful thing about them, the most disquieting thing that made pity rise in Nour’s breast, was their silence. Not one of them spoke or sang. No one cried or moaned. All of them, men, women, children with bleeding feet, plodded noiselessly forward, like a defeated people, not uttering a word. All that could be heard was the sound of their footsteps in the sand and the shallow panting of their breaths. Then they moved slowly away, bundles rocking on their backs, like strange insects after a storm.
Nour remained standing by the side of the trail, his bundle resting at his feet. From time to time, when an old woman or a wounded soldier walked in his direction, he tried to talk to them, drew near them saying, “Hello, hello, you aren’t too terribly tired, are you? Would you like me to help yo with your load?”
But they remained silent, they didn’t even look at him, and their faces were as hard as the stones in the valley, closed tight against the pain and the light.

[Desert, Le Clézio, J. M. G.]

...of men

She slowly descends the street, clacking her high-heeled shoes; she walks down to the dwarf and also stops in front of the door. The Arabs come up to her, talk to her. But Lalla doesn’t understand what they’re saying. One after the other, they walk away and stop a little farther off, eyes riveted on the two women standing there smoking. The wind gusts through the narrow street, plastering the women’s clothes against their bodies, ruffling their hair. There is so much hate and despair in this street, as if it kept drifting endlessly down through the different degrees of hell, without ever reaching the bottom, without ever stopping. There is so much hunger, unsatisfied desire, violence. The silent men look on, standing motionless on the curb like lead soldiers, their eyes glued to the women’s abdomens, to their breasts, to the curve of their hips, to the pale flesh of their throats, to their bare legs. Perhaps there is no love anywhere, no pity, no gentleness. Perhaps the white veil separating the earth from the sky has smothered the men, stopped the palpitations of their hearts, made all of their memories, all of their old desires, all of the beauty die?
Lalla can feel the relentless dizziness of the void entering her, as if the wind blowing in the street was part of a long spiralling movement. Maybe the wind is going to tear the roofs off the sordid houses, smash in doors and windows, knock down the rotten walls, heave all the cars into a pile of scrap metal. It’s bound to happen, because there’s too much hate, too much suffering… But the big building remains standing, stunting the men in its tall silhouette. They are the immobile giants, with bloody eyes, with cruel eyes, the giants who devour men and women. In their entrails, young women are thrown down on dirty old mattresses, and possessed in a few seconds by silent men with members as hot as pokers. Then they get dressed again and leave, and the cigarette - left burning on the edge of the table - hasn’t had time to go out. Inside the devouring giants, old women lie under the weight of men who are crushing them, dirtying their yellow flesh. And so, in all of those women’s wombs, the void is born, the intense and icy void that escapes from their bodies and blows like a wind along the streets and alleys, endlessly shooting out new spirals.

[Desert, Le Clézio, J. M. G.]

...of healing

Ma-al Aïnine looked at the man lying on the ground for a long time, his body shaken with sobs, his clothing in rags, his hands and feet bleeding from the journey. Without saying anything, he knelt down next to the blind man, laid his hand on the back of his neck. The blue men andd the sons of the sheik remained  standing. The silence was so great at that moment, Nour felt dizzy. A strange, unknown force was welling up from the dusty earth, enveloping the men in its whirl. It was the light of the setting sun perhaps, or the power of the gaze that had fallen upon the place, that was trying to find its way out, like trapped water. Slowly, the blind warrior raised himself up, his face appeared in the light, caked with sand and the water of his tears. Taking a corner of his sky-blue haik, Ma-al Aïnine wiped off the man’s face. Then he passed his hand over his forehead, over his burnt eyelids, as if he were trying to erase something. Moistening his fingertips with saliva, he rubbed the blind man’s eyelids, and blew softly on his face, without uttering a word. The silence lasted for such a long time that Nour couldn’t recall what had come before, what he had said. Kneeling in the sand next to the sheik, he was looking only at the blind warrior’s face, in which a new light seemed to be dawning. The man was no longer wailing. He was very still in front of the sheik, arms held slightly out from his body, his damaged eyes open very wide, as if he were slowly becoming inebriated by the gaze of the sheik.
Then Ma-al Aïnine’s sons came, and Moulay Hiba also drew near, and they helped the old man to his feet. Very gently, Nour took the warrior by the arm, and had him stand also. The man started walking, leaning on the boy’s shoulder, and the light of the setting sun shone upon his face like golden dust. He did not speak. He moved along very slowly, like a man who had gone through a long illness, placing his feet squarely on the stony ground.
He was teetering a little, but his arms were no longer held out, and his body was free of suffering. The people of the desert were standing still in silence, watching him walk out toward the other end of the plain. There was no more suffering, and now his face was calm and gentle, and his eyes were filled with the golden light of the sun, which was touching the horizon. And on Nour’s shoulder, his hand had grown light, like that of a man who knew where he was going.

[Desert, Le Clézio, J. M. G.]

...of the conquered

Its blowing here now, the malevolent wind, the warm wind that comes from the north, that brings the mist in from the sea. Scattered around Tiznit like lost animals, the blue men are waiting, sheltered by their huts of branches.
Throughout the entire camp, no other sound can be heard but that of the wind clicking in the acacia branches, and from time to time the complaint of a hobbled animal. There is a vast silence, a terrible silence that hasn’t let up since the attack of the Senegalese soldiers, in the valley of the Oued Tadla. The voices of the warriors have been stilled now; the chants have fallen silent. No one speaks about what will happen anymore, maybe because nothing will happen.
It’s the wind of death that is blowing over the dried earth, the malevolent wind coming from the lands occupied by the foreigners, in Mogador, in Rabat, in Fez, in Tangiers. The warm wind, bearing with it the murmur of the sea, and even beyond, the humming of the big white cities where the bankers, the merchants rule.

[Desert, Le Clézio, J. M. G.]