# Oriental Stories/Volume 1/Issue 1/The Desert Woman

The Desert Woman
By Richard Kent
A modern Thais came out of the Great Desert and attempted to lure a priest, with strange consequences
This is the story of a woman, a very beautiful woman; a woman as perfect as an orchid, as seductive as hashish. She was as tall and slender as the most graceful of the houris in The Thousand and One Nights. Her eyes were as black as jet in shadow; her hair was of the same intense blackness, which only served to bring out into more startling prominence the prime-ivory whiteness of her colorless cheeks.
At the tiny oasis city of Wadi-el-Gibli, far back from the coast of Tripoli, many strange, weird stories were told of the desert woman, Mes'oodeh. Some will tell of how Kasseeb, one of the richest Tuaregs of Ghadames, disappeared from the haunts of men. Then came a day, two years later, when a caravan from the far Soudan, laden with ivory, ostrich-feathers, and gold dust, brought back the broken body of the once famous Kasseeb. Mes'oodeh, on the back of a groaning camel, rode into the village, softly weeping by his side. What became of his great wealth, nobody ever knew, but many condemned Mes'oodeh.
"The woman was a friend to Kasseeb," said one, "and 'if friendship is without money, it is not equivalent to the weight of a grain.' And Mes'oodeh was a very good friend to Kasseeb."
"She has no soul," declared another. "Allah had no power over her birthplace. If her face matched her heart, it would make one shudder just to gaze upon its horror. And yet she is more beautiful than the rarest flower, a flower whose touch is poison. But the law of unity is weirdly odd; a viper's fangs may be contained in a cloth of gold."
Such were the stories which were circulated throughout Wadi-el-Gibli about Mes'oodeh, the woman of the desert, and yet nobody knew from whence she had come. She spoke French fluently, and ​English with a slightly foreign accent, but when the people asked her nationality, she smiled wistfully and replied, evasively, that it was good to be born in the desert. "The desert," she would continue, "is symbolic of the world. It contains nothing but what we bring into it ourselves. It is not a power of good, nor is it the abode of evil. It is not the garden of God, as the Arabs imagine, nor is it the possession of Satan. When it brings peace into a man's soul, it does it primarily because its marvelous silence, mystery, and unity draw his mind from other subjects. It is the condition of a person's mind that helps to create the impression. Ofttimes small things are magnified; the great ones overlooked. Some of us have eyes that see; others have but the limited vision of a sand-blind man."
Thus spoke Mes'oodeh, the desert woman of Wadi-el-Gibli; Mes'oodeh whose beauty was famed from the Soudan to Ghadames; Mes'oodeh, the gorgeous flower with the artificial perfume; Mes'oodeh who boasted of her far-seeing vision, and yet who was in reality stone-blind, as blind as Ali, the Berber, who begged for alms in the Arbar-Asat at Tripoli, or Khanoff, the marabout who preached with fanatic vehemence at the Wells of Wadi-el-Gibli.
2
Monsignor Andrea Giovanni, the Genoese priest of the Christian Mission, dwelt all alone, save for one Arab servant, in a tiny adobe house in the southern part of Wadi-el-Gibli. The window of his study faced the Great Desert, and sometimes when he had grown brain-tired from his endless toil in the sun, he would stand by the window gazing out over the reposeless billows of sand which glistened in the dazzling glare like chips of glowing bronze. And as he gazed out into the far silence, he would dream, dream of the days which were to come when the desert had been reclaimed, when the mantle of sadness would be lifted from the Sahara, and the great ocean of sand would come into its own.
Andrea Giovanni was about thirty-five, though his thin, colorless face, sorrowful, idealist's eyes, and simple black robes seemed to betoken a greater age. To him only the finest things in life appealed. He had never met Mes'oodeh. The two lived lives as completely apart as though they dwelt on different planets. But Mes'oodeh, the desert woman, had heard of the esthetic priest and it suddenly dawned upon her that here was a field for conquest. If she could get Andrea Giovanni to fall violently in love with her, it would be a distinct novelty. For a priest who had consecrated his life to God to fall in love with a woman who did not acknowledge that God, seemed to Mes'oodeh the very acme of humor. So she went to the simple house of Andrea Giovanni.
"Father," she murmured wearily, "my soul is a chaos of discordant emotions. I am soul-tired. Can you tell me how I can find peace?"
As Mes'oodeh spoke, she turned her great black eyes full upon Andrea's face. But he did not seem to appreciate her beauty. Softly he took her hand, as though she were a child, and led her to the window. He pointed out over the restless, whirling sand, the burning heat waves which seemed to merge the earth and sky into one great mass of molten metal, as he said, "Yonder is the desert. Go out into the Sahara and pray, for in prayer alone can you find peace."
And Mes'oodeh went out into the desert and knelt in prayer in a spot where Andrea Giovanni could gaze upon her from the window.
​"By prayer alone can she find peace," he repeated wistfully.
Out in the desert Mes'oodeh, kneeling in apparent prayer, smiled cynically, as she whispered tensely, "In time, I know that he will come to me."
3
A week later as Andrea Giovanni walked through the mellah of Wadi-el-Gibli, he overheard two old Jewish merchants speaking of the desert woman, Mes'oodeh.
"She has disappeared," said one, "and the city is well rid of her. She had no soul; her only God was Self. Now she has vanished and I am as glad at her going as I would be at the passing of a plague. But where she has gone is a mystery."
"She was last seen riding out alone into the desert," declared the other. "Her disappearance is but another mystery added to the multitudes which have shrouded the desert for ages. She has probably lost her way out there among those rolling sand dunes, and perished as she deserves. Truly it seems that God has purposely caused her to go away in order to purge our city."
"And yet," hazarded the first speaker, "it is a terrible death for a woman. Imagine how she must be suffering, plunging blindly, desperately about among those sand dunes; her lips cracked and broken, her tongue scorched and blackened, her eyes dried into glistening balls of heat, all sense of direction dead within her. Even a rabid dog of the streets deserves a better death than that."
"The people of Wadi-el-Gibli think differently. They say that by arriving at such an end, she does but get what she deserves. It is not their intention to go in search of her. Not a single person will enter the desert on such a quest. They say, 'It is the Will of Allah!'"
That evening Andrea Giovanni rode off alone into the desert. The night was exquisitely silent, not a breath of sound shattered the wondrous web of solitude. The moon glowed down upon the desert, creating a glorious brilliance almost as light as day. Not till it had set did he dismount from his camel, utterly worn out, and throw himself at full length upon the burning sand-mat-tress of desolation. Sleep came almost instantly; a dreamless, profound sleep which comes only to a man who is utterly exhausted.
Dawn had painted the eastern skies with silver before he again opened his eyes, and probably he would not have awakened even then if it had not been for a dull, ominous, moaning sound which seemed to roll to his ears from far off over the desert. Curiously, he rose to his feet and surveyed the far horizon, and there, away off to the south, a great grim wall of dense smoke seemed to be rushing toward him over the desert. In less than fifteen minutes he was engulfed in a raging yellow sandstorm. He threw himself face downward upon the sand, drawing his baracan about his face. The desert seemed to have become alive. Waves of sand surged and roared about him, while the air became so crowded with fine particles of molten dust that the sky disappeared utterly, swallowed up in the dense pall of gloom. As the storm increased in violence, the sand grew as hot as a lava stream. Particles of burning dust even penetrated through the thick folds of his baracan, blinding his eyes, parching his throat and even seeming to burn deep into the flesh of his face. The heat intensified so frightfully that it seemed as though he were being scalded ​in a cauldron of glowing metal, as though his body were being gradually, torturously burned alive. And yet in spite of everything, he did not sweat; every drop of moisture had evaporated from his body, until only a parched shell of fire remained. Ever and anon he was forced to burrow his way out of a mound of sand which had grown up above his head as though the grim Spirit of the Desert were bent on burying him alive. For hours the storm continued, raging as terrific as a tornado in the China Seas.
But bad as was the storm, its immediate effects were even worse, for when the horizon had cleared again, Andrea found his camel dead, and every drop of water evaporated in the water-bag. To describe the events that followed, one would have to be endowed with the genius of a Hugo. He was almost parched to ashes as a result of the storm, and yet he was a score of miles from Wadi-el-Gibli, with no promise of help in sight. The thought came to him that his position was as precarious as that of Mes'oodeh, of whom he was in search.
He laughed deliriously as he plunged indefinitely deeper into the desert. The sun grew hotter and hotter. It poured down upon his head, a torrent of liquid heat, until his very brain seemed bursting into fire. And then to add to his misfortunes, his helmet suddenly blew off, and as he pursued it drunkenly over the surging sand dunes, he lost all track of time. Sometimes it seemed almost within his grasp, but as he put out his hand to seize it, it would whirl beyond his reach. Insanely he plunged forward; reason had left him, only a dull determination to reach the hat remained in his mind. To his smarting, inflamed, sun-scorched eyes, the desert presented naught but a seething, blinding maze of light.
Eventually the end came. One lone man can not fight against the remorselessness of the desert. Suddenly everything went black before his eyes, the desert seemed to whirl dizzily about him. With a moan he crumpled up into a limp heap upon the sand, mercilessly trodden down by the sun which gives vent to its wildest passions in the intense solitude of the desert.
4
Three hours later, a woman, journeying over the desert alone, came upon him. Dismounting from her camel, she bathed his poor blistered face with a soothing balm, brushed the sand from his hair and tried to force a few drops of deliciously cool water through his cracked, blackened lips. Then abruptly she stooped and crushed her red, burning lips to his brow.
"I knew that he would come to me," she whispered, smiling cruelly. "Priest or no priest, I knew that he would come."
But what Mes'oodeh did not know was that Andrea Giovanni would have entered the desert to save her from death if she had been as black as ebony or as horrible to gaze upon as Ali, the blind Berber who begged for alms in the Arbar-Asat at Tripoli.
For three days Andrea Giovanni lay semi-conscious and Mes'oodeh remained with him. By the hour she crooned love-songs which blended well with the strange stillness of the desert. Sometimes she twined her arms passionately around his neck and held her lovely face dose to his.
"Kiss me!" she murmured tensely. "Kiss me!"
And Andrea would kiss her as a child might kiss a parent. His brain seemed numbed by fever; he could not remember what had happened. He lay in a sort of semi-stupor.
​A great joy flooded the heart of Mes'oodeh, for she thought she had not failed in the task which she had set herself to do. But as suddenly as happiness was born to her, it was crushed back into death, for one morning Andrea awakened to full consciousness. The past blazed out before him in as startling detail as though cast upon a screen.
Mes'oodeh bent over him, and lowered her lovely face to his.
"Kiss me," she breathed with half-closed lips.
A look of intense surprize came into the eyes of Andrea Giovanni. "You know not what you speak!" he cried.
"Kiss me," repeated Mes'oodeh languorously.
Andrea closed his eyes. "I can not," he said wistfully. "My life is consecrated to God and the Church."
At his words a terrible fury convulsed the face of Mes'oodeh as she realized that he was slipping from her. For one brief moment her expression was a mirror reflecting her true character. She threw back her head and laughed in a jarring, mirthless manner that seemed to strike a discordant note in the wondrous peace anthem of the desert.
"God?" she sneered. "God? Of what use is this God of whom you speak? It was I who saved your life when you were lost in the desert, not God. It is the material which sets the balance of life. The spiritual has no weight."
Abruptly she arose and walked with heavy step out into the desert. She felt as though her brain were bursting with hatred, hatred of the religion which held Andrea away from her, and as she walked slowly among the sand dunes she realized that she had lost, that for the first time she had failed utterly.
It was evening before she returned, and now all trace of anger seemed to have left her, leaving a soul saddened by the weight of her sorrow.
She poured a cup of water from the goatskin bag.
"Poor Andrea," she murmured as she held it toward him. "For the first time since we have been together I have neglected you."
With trembling hand he took the cup to his burning lips and drained it to the last drop. A few moments later he fell into a fitful sleep from which he did not awaken until far into the night. The moon had risen when he again opened his eyes and the whole desert seemed splashed with silver. By his side sat Mes'oodeh, crooning a desert love-song which floated weirdly upon the intense solitude.
Andrea lifted himself upon his elbow. "Water," he gasped. "Water. My body seems as dry as though I had been eating sun-scorched sand."
Mes'oodeh held up her lips.
"Kiss me," she whispered.
"Water," he gasped. "Water."
The desert woman laughed harshly. "Let your God bring you water," she jeered. "Truly he would not turn a deaf ear to the prayer of his humblest servant."
She placed her full-red lips to his ear.
"Do you know that you are dying?" she said. "Can your God save you now that I have poisoned you? I emptied three drops of a certain Eastern drug into the water I gave you to drink, from which no power in heaven or earth can save you. The Berbers call the liquid soul-poison because, although it kills, no trace of it can ever be found in the body of the dead."
As Mes'oodeh spoke Andrea closed his eyes and his head slipped back to the sand. So still he lay, for the moment she thought he was dead. But finally he opened his dreamer's eyes and gazed into her face. In his expression there was no ​trace of anger, only a great pity for the poor soul-blind woman of the desert who laughed in the face of God.
"Mes'oodeh," he said, and his voice was so faint, it sounded like the echo of a dream, "the Arabs say that the desert is the Garden of God, that in the desert is heard the Voice of God—Silence. . . I am dying, my fingers are growing cold. . . You often declared that the desert was empty, that it was filled only by our own creations, the things which we bring into it ourselves. . . But you were blind; you could not see, you could not understand."
A great Light came into his eyes as he spoke, and—it is hard to explain—somehow the light seemed to reflect into the eyes of Mes'oodeh, bringing her Vision at last. Slowly her head slipped down to the sand. "Mercy! O God!" she cried. "Mercy!"
But even as she prayed and moaned and pleaded, the soul of Andrea Giovanni slipped from his body, away off there in the Garden of God. And Mes'oodeh, the desert woman, prayed, prayed as she had never prayed before in her life. Softly the shadows of evening slipped down over the desert. A cool breeze rose sadly from the south and brushed against her cheek like the softest caress. And Mes'oodeh knelt there alone in the desert by the body of the young priest. All about her on every side stretched a limitless plain of utter desolation. Nothing but a glorious faith in God remained to her, a faith made doubly beautiful by the fact that it had grown up in a soul that had once been a region of doubt. The miracle of love had been performed anew. It left Mes'oodeh a broken woman; but it left her a good woman. Thus did love come to Mes'oodeh, the soulless woman of the desert, crushing her beneath the terrible weight of its sadness, for love and sorrow are closely akin. Slowly she raised her eyes, dim with tears, toward the heavens, and a look of exquisite peace stole over her face as she beheld the glorious light of the Southern Cross lifting slantwise into the sky.
At Bad-el-Lani, a little desert-town far to the south of Wadi-el-Gibli, near the Soudan, they tell of a strange veiled woman who goes about among the sick and the dying, shrouded in white. No one knows the name of this woman of mystery. The crippled beggars of Bab-el-Lani call her the White Mother of the Desert. And every night she creeps to the heights of the city and looks wistfully out over the desert toward Tripoli. Sometimes it seems as though she whispers a single name, "Andrea, Andrea, Andrea."
Back at Wadi-el-Gibli, the people wonder what has become of Mes'oodeh, the soulless woman of the desert. Some say that perhaps she has gone to some other town more abundant in riches than Wadi-el-Gibli. But always, Doctor Ripley, the American missionary, shakes his head.
"Perhaps," he says, "she has heard the Voice of God out in the desert and has been born anew."
"Such women," declared Lacroix, the French importer, "can never reform."
"You forget the Magdalene" replied Doctor Ripley softly, and he gazed thoughtfully out over the desert.
Now the New Year reviving old Desires, The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires, Where the White Hand of Moses on the Bough Puts out, and Jesus from the ground suspires.
—Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam.