And the singing of the men
in the near oasis who fought the sand, the groaning of the well-cords
woven of palm fibre which raised the buckets of hollowed palm-trunks,
was as monotonous as the recitation of the Koran. The woman had heard it
so often that she had long ago ceased to hear it at all.
She looked westward, across the river to the ugly village with the dried
palm-leaves on its roofs, and far away to the white-domed city, the
dimpling oases and the mountainous dunes that towered against a flaming
sky; then eastward, towards the two vast desert lakes, or chotts, one of
blue water, the other of saltpetre, which looked bluer than water, and
had pale edges that met the sand like snow on gold. Above the lake of
water suddenly appeared a soaring line of white, spreading and mounting
higher, then turning from white to vivid rose. It was the flamingoes
rising and flying over the chott, the one daily phenomenon of the desert
which the woman on the roof still loved to watch. But her love for the
rosy line against the blue was not entirely because of its beauty,
though it was startlingly beautiful. It meant something for which she
waited each evening with a passionate beating of her heart under the
orange-coloured robe and the chain of amber beads. It meant sunset and
the coming of a message. But the doves on the green tiled minaret of the
Zaouia mosque had not begun yet to dip and wheel. They would not stir
from their repose until the muezzin climbed the steps to call the hour
of evening prayer, and until they flew against the sunset the message
could not come.
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