SMAÏN; and SAFTI'S SUMMER DAY. By Robert Hichens Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers Copyright, 1905 "_When the African is in love he plays upon the pipe. _" Sahara Saying. SMAÏN Far away in the desert I heard the sound of a flute, pure sound in thepure air, delicate, sometimes almost comic with the comicality of achild who bends women to kisses and to nonsense-words. We had passedthrough the sandstorm, Safti and I, over the wastes of saltpetre, andcome into a land of palm gardens where there was almost breathless calm. The feet of the camels paddled over the soft brown earth of the narrowalleys between the brown earth walls, and we looked down to right andleft into the shady enclosed spaces, seamed with water rills, dottedwith little pools of pale yellow water, and saw always giant palms, with wrinkled trunks and tufted, deep green foliage, brooding in theirsquadrons over the dimness they had made. The activity of man might bediscerned here in the regularity of the artificial rills, the orderedplacing of the trees, each of which, too, stood on its oval hump. But noman was seen; no flat-roofed huts appeared; no robe, pale blue or white, fluttered among the shadows; no dog blinked in the golden patches ofthe sun--only the sound of the flute came to us from some hidden placeceaselessly, wild and romantic, full of an odd coquetry, and of anabsurdity that was both uncivilised and touching. I stopped to listen, and looked round, searching the vistas between thepalms. "Where does it come from?" I asked of Safti. His one eye blinked languidly. "From some gardener among the trees. All who dwell in Sidi-Matou aregardeners. " The persistent flute gave forth a shower of notes that were like dropsof water flung softly in our faces. "He is in love, " added Safti with a slight yawn. "How do you know?" "When the African is in love he plays upon the pipe. That is what theysay in the Sahara. " "And you think he is alone under some palm-tree playing for himself?" "Yes; he is quite alone. If he is much in love he will play all day, and, perhaps, all night too. " "But she cannot hear him. " "That does not matter. He plays for his own heart, and his own heart canhear. " I listened. Since Safti had spoken the music meant more to me. Itried to read the player's heart in the endless song it made. Trills, twitterings, grace notes, little runs upward ending in the air--surelyit was a boy's heart, and not unhappy. "It is coming nearer, " I said. "Yes. Ah, it is Smaïn!" Safti's one eye is sharp. I had seen no one. But as he spoke a tallyouth in a single white garment glided into my view, his eyes bentdown, his brown fingers fluttering on a long reed flute covered with redarabesques. His feet were bare, and he moved slowly. Safti hailed him with the accented violence peculiar to the Arabs. Hestopped playing, looked, and smiled all over his young face. In a momenthe was on our side of the earth wall, and talking busily, staring atme the while with unabashed curiosity. For few strangers come toSidi-Amrane, and Smaïn had never wandered far. "What does he say?" I asked of Safti. "I tell him we shall be at Touggourt tomorrow night, and shall staythere a week. He answers that his heart is there with Oreïda. " "What! Does his lady-love live at Touggourt?" "Yes; she is a dancer. " Smaïn smiled. He did not understand French, but he knew we were speakingof his love affair, and he was not afflicted with shyness. As heaccompanied us to the village he played again, and I read his nature inthe soft sounds of his flute. All that day he stayed with us, and nearly all that day he played. Evenwhen he guided me through the village, where, between terraced houses, pretty children--the girls in deep purple, with yellow flowers stuck intheir left nostrils, the boys in white--danced with a boisterous graceround brushwood fires, his flute was at his lips, and his fingersfluttered ceaselessly. And as night drew on the music was surely moreamorous, and I seemed to see Oreïda drawing near over the sands. Smaïn was but sixteen, tall and slim as a reed, with a poetic face andlustrous, languid eyes. I imagined Oreïda a child too--one of thoseflowers of the desert that blossom early and fade ere noontide comes. Sometimes such flowers are very beautiful. As I heard the flute of Smaïnin the pale yellow twilight I knew that Oreïda was beautiful--with oneof those exquisite, lithe figures, whose movements make a song; withlong, narrow dark eyes, mysterious pools of light and shadow; with thickhair falling loosely round a low, broad forehead; and perfect littlehands, made for the dance of the hands that the Bedouin loves so well. All this I knew from the sound of Smain's flute. I told it to Safti, andbade him ask Smaïn if it were not true. Smain's reply was:-- "She is more beautiful than that; she is like the young gazelle, andlike the first day after the fast of Ramadan. " Then he played once more while the moon rose over the palm gardens, andSafti, lighting his pipe of keef with tender deliberateness, remarkedplacidly: "He would like to come with us to Touggourt and to die there atOreïda's feet, but his father, Said-ben-Kouïdar, wishes him to remain atSidi-Matou and to pack dates. He is young, and must obey. Therefore heis sad. " The smoke rose up in a cloud round Smaïn and his flute, and now Ithought that, indeed, there was a wild pathos in the music. The moonwent up the sky, and threw silver on the palms. The gay cries from thevillage died down. The gardeners lay upon the earth divans under thepalmwood roofs, and slept. And at last Smaïn bade us good-bye. I saw hiswhite figure glide across the great open space that the moon made whiteas it was. And when the shadows took him I still heard the faint soundof his flute, calling to his heart and to the distant Oreïda through themagical stillness of the night. The next day we reached Touggourt, and in the evening I went with Saftiand the Caïd of the Nomads to the great café of the dancers in theoutskirts of the town. At the door Arab soldiers were lounging. Thepipes squealed within like souls in torment. In the square bonfireswere blazing fiercely, and the whole desert seemed to throb with beatendrums. Within the café was a crowd of Arabs, real nomads, some in rags, some richly dressed, all gravely attentive to the dancers, who enteredfrom a court on the left, round which their rooms were built interraces, and danced in pairs between the broad divans. "Tell me when Oreïda comes, " I said to Safti, while the Caïd spreadforth his ample skirts, and turned a cigarette in his immense blackfingers. The dancers came and went. They were amazing trollops, painted until, like the picture of Balzac's madman, they were chaotic, a mere mess offrantic colours. Not for these, I thought, did Smaïn play his flute. Thetime wore on. I grew drowsy in the keef-laden air, despite the incessantuproar of the pipes. Suddenly I started--Safti had touched me. "There is Oreïda, Sidi. " I looked, and saw a lonely dancer entering from the court, large, weary, crowned with gold, tufted with feathers, wrinkled, with greedy, fatiguedeyes, and hands painted blood-red. She was like an idol in its dotage. Over her spreading bosom streamed multitudes of golden coins, and manyjewels shone upon her wrists, her arms, her withered neck. She advancedslowly, as if bored, until she was in the midst of the crowd. Thenshe wriggled, stretched forth her hands, slowly stamped her feet, andpromenaded to and fro, occasionally revolving like a child's top that ison the verge of "running down. " "That is not Oreïda, " I said to Safti, smiling at his absurd mistake. For this was the oldest and ugliest dancer of them all. "Indeed, Sidi, it is. Ask the Caïd. " I asked that enormous potentate, who was devouring the withered ladywith his eyes. He wagged his head in assent. Just then the dancer pausedbefore us, and thrusting forward her greasy forehead, enveloped us witha sphinx-like smirk. As I hastily pressed a two-franc piece above hereyebrows Safti addressed her animatedly in Arabic. I caught the word"Smaïn. " The lady smiled, and made a guttural reply; then, with asomnolent wink at me, she waddled onward, flapping the blood-red handsand stamping heavily upon the earthen floor. "Smaïn loves that!" I said to Safti. "Yes, Sidi. Oreïda is famous, and very rich. She has houses and manypalm-trees, and she is much respected by the other dancers. " A week later Safti and I were again at Sidi-Matou, on our way homewardthrough the desert. The moon was at the full now, and when we rode up tothe Bordj the open space in front of it, between us and the village, was flooded with delicate light. Against it one tree, which lookedlike Paderewski grown very old, stood up with tousled branches. Inthe village bonfires flared, and the dark figures of skipping childrenpassed and re-passed before them. We heard youthful cries echoing acrossthe sands. Soon they faded. The lights went out, and the wonderfulsilence of night in the desert came in to its heritage. I sat on the edge of an old stone well before the Bordj, while Saftismoked his keef. Near midnight, quivering across the sands, camethe faint sound of a flute moving from the village towards the deepobscurity of the palm gardens. I knew that air, those trills, thoselittle runs, those grace notes. "It is Smaïn, " I said to Safti. "Yes, Sidi. He will play all night alone among the palms. He is inlove. " "But with Oreïda! Is it possible?" "Did he not say that she was like the first day after the fast ofRamadan? When an African says that his heart is big with love. " The flute went on and on, and I said to myself and to the moon, as I hadoften said before: "He that is born in the Sahara is an impenetrable mystery. " SAFTI'S SUMMER DAY. By Robert Hichens Safti is a respectable, one-eyed married man who lives in a brown earthhouse in the Sahara Desert. He has a wife and five children, and inwinter he works for his living and theirs. When the morning dawns, andthe great red sun rises above the rim of the wide and wonderful landwhich is the only land that Safti knows, he wraps his white burnousaround him, pulls his hood up over his closely-shaven head, rolls andlights his cigarette, and sets forth to his equivalent of an office. This is the white arcade of a hotel where unbelieving dogs of travellerscome in winter. I am an unbelieving dog of a traveller, and I comethere in winter, and Safti comes there for me. I, in fact, am Safti'sprofession. Byrne, and others like me, he lives. For a considerationhe shows me round the market, which I knew by heart six years ago, andtakes me up the mosque tower, from which I gazed over the flying pigeonsand the swaying palms when Safti was comparatively young and frisky. Together we visit the gazelles in their pretty garden, and the Caïd'sMill, from which one sees the pink and purple mountains of the Aures. Weride to the Sulphur Baths, we drive to Sidi-Okba. We take our _déjeuner_out to the yellow sand dunes, and we sip our coffee among the keefsmokers in Hadj's painted café. We listen to the songs of the negrotroubadour, and we smile at Algia's dancing when the silver moon comesup and the Kabyle dogs round the nomads' tents begin their serenades. And then I give Safti five francs and my blessing, and he bids me"_Bonne nuit!_" and his ghostly figure is lost in the black shadows ofthe palm-trees. Oh, Safti works hard, very hard in winter. The other day I asked him:"Don't you get exhausted, Safti, with all this exertion to keep theSahara home together? You are getting on in years now. " "Ah yes, Sidi; I am already thirty-two, alas!" He was thirty-five when I first met him; but he is as clever atsubtraction as a London beauty. "Good heavens! So much! But, then, how can you keep up the wear and tearof this tumultuous life? You must have an iron strength. Such work asyou do would break down an American millionaire. " Safti raised his one dark eye piously towards Allah's dwelling. "Sidi, I must labour for my children. But in the summer, when youand all the travellers are gone from the Sahara to your fogs and thedarkness of your days, I take my little holiday. " "Your holiday! But is it long enough?" "It lasts for only five months, Sidi; but it is enough for me. I amstrong as the lion. " I gazed at him with an admiration I could not repress. There was, indeed, something of the hero about this simple-minded Saharaman. Wewere at the edge of the oasis, in a remote place looking towards thequivering mirage which guards dead Okba's tomb. A tiny earthen house, with a flat terrace ending in the jagged bank of the Oued Biskra, wascrouched here in the shade. From it emerged a pleasant scent of coffee. Suddenly Safti's bare legs began to "give. " I felt it would be cruel topush on farther. We entered the house, seated ourselves luxuriouslyupon a baked divan of mud, set our slippers on a reed mat, rolled ourcigarettes, and commanded our coffee. When a Kabyle boy with a rosebudstuck under his turban had brought it languidly, I said to Safti: "And now, Safti, tell me how you pass your little holiday. " Safti smiled gently in his beard. He was glad to have this moment ofrepose. "Each day is like its brother, Sidi, " he responded, gazing out throughthe low doorway to the shimmering Sahara. "Then tell me how you pass a summer day. " The coffee nerved him to this stubborn exertion, and he spoke. "_Sahah_ Sidi. " "_Merci_. " We sipped. "A day in summer, Sidi, when the great heats begin in June? Well, atfive in the morning I get up----' "And light the fire, " I murmured mechanically. The one eye stared in blank amazement. "Proceed, Safti. You get up at five. That is very early. " "The sun rises at a quarter to five. " "To call you. Well?" "I eat three fresh figs, and sometimes four. I then mount upon my mule, and I ride very quietly into Biskra to take coffee with my friends. " "That is half-an-hour's exercise?" "About half-an-hour. After taking coffee with my friends we play atdominoes. It is forbidden for the Arabs to play at cards in Biskra. Iremain in the café at the corner--" "I know--by the Garden of the Gazelles!" "--till eleven o'clock, atwhich time I again mount upon my mule, and return quietly to my home. When I reach there I eat with my wife and children sour milk, bread, anddates from my palm-trees which I have kept from the autumn. At twelve weall go to bed together in a black room. " "A black room?" "We fear the flies. " "I see. " "Till four in the afternoon I, my wife, and my children sleep in theblack room. At that hour I rise once more, and go quietly to the CaféMaure in old Biskra, near my house. I play cards there for five coffeestill seven o'clock. At seven the mosquitoes arrive, and prevent us fromplaying any more. " "How intrusive! Always at seven?" "Always at seven. I then walk very quietly with my friends to the end ofthe oasis. " "To the Tombuctou road?" "Yes, Sidi; to get the air. We come back by the same road quietly, andI go to my house, and eat a cold kous-kous with my wife and children. After this I return to the café and play ronda till one o'clock. " "One o'clock at night?" "Yes. At one o'clock I go with my friends very quietly to bathe inthe stream beneath the wall near the mosque. We stay in the water for, perhaps, an hour, and when we come out we drink lagmi. " "What's lagmi?" "Palm wine. Then at three o'clock I go to my home, mount upon the roofquietly with my wife and children, and sleep till dawn. " "And you do this for five months?" "For five months, Sidi. " "And--and your wife, Safti?" I felt that I was very indiscreet; but Safti is good-natured, and hasbought quite a number of palm-trees out of his savings when with me. "My wife, Sidi?" "What does she do all the time?" "She remains quietly in my house. " "She never goes out?" "Never, except upon the roof to take a little air. " "Doesn't she get rather bor----" The one eye began to look remarkably vague. "And you find five months of this life a sufficient rest in the courseof the year?" Safti smiled at me with resignation. "I cannot take more, Sidi; I am not a rich Englishman. " "Well, Safti, you must make the best of your fate. It is the will ofAllah that you should toil. " "_Shal-làh!_ I will take another coffee, Sidi. " "Larbi!" I called the Kabyle boy.