The Edge of the Desert

by Ianthe M. Dunbar

I. M. D.

A village Marketplace

The cultivation of olives is the chief industry of the place and I went to see a native olive press in the evening. The air was thick with the heavy cloying smell of oil, and in the long low building men were turning a press from which oozed a dark fluid. A smoky lamp was the only light, and their dark glistening arms and faces showed up fitfully as they moved. In the dim light they might have been denizens of the nether regions, busied over some horrid rite. From the shadows came the sound of muffled feet, where the gaunt pale figure of a camel circled interminably, turning a stone mill that crushed the fruit. Huge barrels, shining greasily, stood about filled with pure oil. The ground was slippery and uneven, and a heap of the crushed skins and pulp lay in the yard outside, staining the earth a dull crimson.

I seemed to be the only European traveller in the little town, and my first attempt at finding a hotel had not been very happy. There had been a doubt as to which to recommend me, and I had engaged a room by telegram in advance, but my heart sank as my dilapidated carriage drew up at it. It looked like a small drinking booth, with a floor of beaten earth and a few ricketty tables. From the background appeared a sodden-looking old man, who had evidently been sampling the hotel wine freely. He took me across a muddy yard inhabited by dejected hens and showed me through a rough room full of women ironing clothes, into a dreadful bedroom strewn with untidy garments. Out of it opened another which he offered me. But one glance was sufficient for me and I fled.

The next attempt turned out to be another little café place, but it had a block of buildings down the street where guests were put up, and which was clean and neat. No one else, not even a servant, lived in it. I was given two enormous keys, one for my bedroom and one of the front door, and after dining in the little café, where a wooden screen separated me from the Arab clientèle who were drinking coffee and playing cards, I returned to my fastness. It struck chill and bare as I locked myself in. Not a sound. Luckily the furniture was too meagre to give cover for thieves. There were about ten other rooms in the building, all empty ... no servants and no means of calling one. I woke late in the night, thinking I heard a sound in the passage. The night was pitch dark and silent, and the village seemed dead. From somewhere came the drip-drip of water. I listened, but could hear nothing else, and when I woke next, daylight was struggling through the curtains. All the accessories for a splendid ghost story had been there, but fortunately there was no actor for the chief part.

I. M. D.

The oasis is very beautiful and my guide said that in the time of orange blossom one is forced to muffle one’s face because of the overpowering scent. It may be true. He was a sallow melancholy Arab youth, who had served at Salonika and had lost an arm there. He did not talk much, but warmed up on the subject of his wound and gave me a horribly realistic account of it. “And why,” he asked, “were the English fighting the French?” I tried to enlighten him, but with little success. He had been well cared for in hospital at Salonika by a lady who was very good to the wounded. French? He did not know. Perhaps she was, or English or German. Anyway she talked French and she had wept over his wounds and had given him chocolate and had taught him to write with his left hand. So her memory is still cherished in this remote little town of Tunisia. His cousin had also been sent to the War and they were always together. They had not then felt so alone. His cousin had made him promise that if he were killed Yousuf must see he was buried as a good Moslem, and must write and tell his family. Should it be Yousuf who fell, then Ali would carry out the same good offices for him. They were together when there was a loud explosion and his cousin fell upon his face. The boy ran to pick him up and found him dead, and casting up his hands in despair, at that moment he himself was struck and his arm torn off. When he came to himself the stretcher-bearers were carrying him away. And he said “Take also my cousin, for I must see that he has proper burial,” but they answered “We must take you first,” and so he was carried into the darkness and never saw Ali’s body again. “What could I have done? They would not listen to me, and I know not how my poor cousin was buried. Ah! he knew that he would not live,” said Yousuf. “When we first put on gas-masks, then Ali wept, for he felt Death touch him. And so it happened.” He was silent.

As we rode, a sudden storm of rain came up. The mountains were blotted out, and a tiny marabou stood out startlingly white of a sudden against the blue black of the clouds. Two pigeons flew across them looking like bits of white paper, a heavy drop or two fell, digging deep into the loose sand, the palms stood motionless waiting, and then with a great rush came the rain.