A squeeze to the arm, a tongue click, my name.
Jemal sits by the opening of the hut. 8 AM. “Manger,” he softly instructs. I collect myself, my things, and I come for breakfast. Ruth, an Austrian radical carving her way to home-base in Burkina Faso, gives me a “yoo-hoo”. I follow it to the tree basin. Today, Ruth wants to see La Source, so I accompany her alongside Jemal. Jemal is the Chief of the Oasis. We follow his footsteps to freshwater palms in a shaded cavern. There, we linger, planning to bathe in the transparent ponds before our projected plateau climb. At the pond, I see a card folded and face down beneath the water. I beam. I collect found cards, I speak to Ruth’s curious ears. Her eyes catch the curiosity and she asks, “What’s this one?” Without undressing, I submerge and retrieve the numerical trophy. It’s a 3, I reverb. Now, her smile is the last to fall victim to that dastardly curiosity. I go on about the history and significance of repeatedly finding this number. Her response exudes casualness. “There you have it,” she declares, “Not lost in paradise, but found.”
Here, schools of inch-long fish nibble at your skin, picking and cleaning. She freely removes her top and implies that I am free, as well, to do the same. She asks Jemal to give us some privacy, and he saunters off into a shaded bunk beneath the cavern’s walls. (It is all his land. Four families share the freshwater from the oasis, but the land is his. Camp. The house in Atar. Everything.) Anyway, I relinquish and I feel present. Ruth tells me she learned a very important fact recently, and she was going to share it with me. Here goes: Everyone is always, no matter how it seems, doing the best that they know how at any time. She elaborates. Topics mix and morph, tangents begin. She carries on, telling how she entertains the confident assertion that she is not looking for death, problems, or danger, and will, therefore, not worry. However, if they come, only then will she allow worry in her heart. “You cannot spend your life full of this, because then you are only half alive. The future is never promised, you know.” She reclines into laughter as the fish tire of her feet and scale her well-traveled legs.
We finish up, redress, and head back to camp. Ruth packs up the van with Sidi, her guide, and they go off together in a cloud of dust. Before their departure, Sidi advises me to not take the train or, at least, to be very careful and ride with others. I am very strict in my desire and I quote to him a second-hand philosophy, courtesy of Ruth. I am not welcoming danger. I will not worry about it, either. I thank him as I see him off. If it comes, it is written, just as the ride is written. Ruth and I embrace as if we are old friends and maybe we are. When she leaves, I take rest beneath the tree for tea.