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Authors: George Alec Effinger
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clean sand. We had plenty of that. He removed his shoes and I took off my sandals, and we prepared ourselves for seeking the near-ness of God as prescribed by the noble Qur'an.
He took his direction from the rising sun and turned to face Mecca. I stood beside him, and we repeated the familiar poetry of prayer. When we finished, Papa recited an additional portion of the Qur'an, a verse from the sec-ond surah that includes the line "And one who attacketh you, attack him in like manner as he attacked you."
"Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds," I murmured.
"God is Most Great," said Papa.
And then it was time to see if we could save our lives. "I suppose we should reason this out," I said.
"Reason does not apply in the wilderness," said Papa. "We cannot reason ourselves food or water or protection."
"We have water," I said. I handed him one of the canteens.
He opened it and swallowed a mouthful, then closed the canteen and slung it across his shoulder. "We have some water. It remains to be seen if we have enough wa-ter."
"I've heard there's water underground in even the dri-est deserts." I think I was just talking to keep his spirits up —or my own.
Papa laughed. "You remember your mother's fairy tales about the brave prince lost among the dunes, and the spring of sweet water that gushed forth from the base of the mountain of sand. It doesn't happen that way in life, my darling, and your innocent faith will not lead us from this place."
I knew he was right. I wondered if he'd had any expe-rience in desert survival as a younger man. There were entire decades of his early life that he never discussed. I decided it would be best to defer to his wisdom, in any case. I figured that if I shut up for a while, I might not die. I also might learn something. That was okay, too.
"What must we do, then, O Shaykh?" I asked.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and looked around himself. "We're lost in the very southeastern portion of the Arabian Desert," he said. "The Rub al-Khali."
The Empty Quarter. That didn't sound promising at all.
"What is the nearest town?" I asked.
Papa gave me a brief smile. "There are no towns in the Rub al-Khali, not in a quarter million square miles of sand and waste. There are certainly small groups of no-mads crossing the dunes, but they travel only from well to well, searching for grazing for their camels and goats. If we hope to find a well, our luck must lead us to one of these Bedu clans."
"And if we don't?"
Papa sloshed his canteen. "There's a gallon of water for each of us. If we do no walking at all in the daylight hours, manage our drinking carefully, and cover the great-est possible distance in the cool of the night, we may live four days."
That was worse than even my most pessimistic esti-mate. I sat down heavily on the sand. I'd read about this place years ago, when I was a boy in Algiers. I thought the description must have been pure exaggeration. For one thing, it made the Rub al-Khali sound harsher than the Sahara, which was our local desert, and I couldn't believe that anyplace on Earth could be more desolate than the Sahara. Apparently, I was wrong. I also remembered what a Western traveler had once called the Rub al-Khali in his memoirs:
The Great Wrong Place.
4
According to some geographers, the Arabian Desert is an extension of the Sahara. Most of the Arabian peninsula is uninhabited waste, with the popu-lated areas situated near the Mediterranean, Red, and Arabian seas, beside the Arabian Gulf—which is our name for what others call the Persian Gulf—and in the fertile crescent of old Mesopotamia.
The Sahara is greater in area, but there is more sand in the Arabian Desert. As a boy, I carried in my mind the image of the Sahara as a burning, endless, empty sand-scape; but that is not very accurate. Most of the Sahara is made up of rocky plateaus, dry gravel plains, and ranges of windswept mountains. Expanses of sand account for only 10 percent of the desert's area. The
He took his direction from the rising sun and turned to face Mecca. I stood beside him, and we repeated the familiar poetry of prayer. When we finished, Papa recited an additional portion of the Qur'an, a verse from the sec-ond surah that includes the line "And one who attacketh you, attack him in like manner as he attacked you."
"Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds," I murmured.
"God is Most Great," said Papa.
And then it was time to see if we could save our lives. "I suppose we should reason this out," I said.
"Reason does not apply in the wilderness," said Papa. "We cannot reason ourselves food or water or protection."
"We have water," I said. I handed him one of the canteens.
He opened it and swallowed a mouthful, then closed the canteen and slung it across his shoulder. "We have some water. It remains to be seen if we have enough wa-ter."
"I've heard there's water underground in even the dri-est deserts." I think I was just talking to keep his spirits up —or my own.
Papa laughed. "You remember your mother's fairy tales about the brave prince lost among the dunes, and the spring of sweet water that gushed forth from the base of the mountain of sand. It doesn't happen that way in life, my darling, and your innocent faith will not lead us from this place."
I knew he was right. I wondered if he'd had any expe-rience in desert survival as a younger man. There were entire decades of his early life that he never discussed. I decided it would be best to defer to his wisdom, in any case. I figured that if I shut up for a while, I might not die. I also might learn something. That was okay, too.
"What must we do, then, O Shaykh?" I asked.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and looked around himself. "We're lost in the very southeastern portion of the Arabian Desert," he said. "The Rub al-Khali."
The Empty Quarter. That didn't sound promising at all.
"What is the nearest town?" I asked.
Papa gave me a brief smile. "There are no towns in the Rub al-Khali, not in a quarter million square miles of sand and waste. There are certainly small groups of no-mads crossing the dunes, but they travel only from well to well, searching for grazing for their camels and goats. If we hope to find a well, our luck must lead us to one of these Bedu clans."
"And if we don't?"
Papa sloshed his canteen. "There's a gallon of water for each of us. If we do no walking at all in the daylight hours, manage our drinking carefully, and cover the great-est possible distance in the cool of the night, we may live four days."
That was worse than even my most pessimistic esti-mate. I sat down heavily on the sand. I'd read about this place years ago, when I was a boy in Algiers. I thought the description must have been pure exaggeration. For one thing, it made the Rub al-Khali sound harsher than the Sahara, which was our local desert, and I couldn't believe that anyplace on Earth could be more desolate than the Sahara. Apparently, I was wrong. I also remembered what a Western traveler had once called the Rub al-Khali in his memoirs:
The Great Wrong Place.
4
According to some geographers, the Arabian Desert is an extension of the Sahara. Most of the Arabian peninsula is uninhabited waste, with the popu-lated areas situated near the Mediterranean, Red, and Arabian seas, beside the Arabian Gulf—which is our name for what others call the Persian Gulf—and in the fertile crescent of old Mesopotamia.
The Sahara is greater in area, but there is more sand in the Arabian Desert. As a boy, I carried in my mind the image of the Sahara as a burning, endless, empty sand-scape; but that is not very accurate. Most of the Sahara is made up of rocky plateaus, dry gravel plains, and ranges of windswept mountains. Expanses of sand account for only 10 percent of the desert's area. The
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