squatting on the sand, knotting fine threads, and the third was standing, looking down at their work. All three offered the intruder no more than an indifferent glance before they resumed their conversation, trading hushed sounds with an intensity suggesting that whatever rug they intended to weave would be the product of reluctant compromise.
He stood for a long while observing them, envying even more than their concentrated absorption in the work of weaving their facility with a language he did not yet understand. He wished he were a man who spoke the language of these weavers. He could be that man if he set his mind to it. He must have been drawn to this place for a reason.
He was jealous of the Arabsâ secrets and yet oddly comfortable with his exclusion, for now he knew where he was. He was in a place where time couldnât penetrate and nothing would ever change, in the presence of men who had been singled out and blessed with immortality. But it wasnât God they had to thank. It was the ingenious machine mounted on a tripod in the corner of the workroom: a Phoebus mahogany box camera, its lens like a pigâs snout inhaling the light.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
When he was nineteen, Armand spent five months in Algiers as a sublieutenant for the French army, under the leadership of Crémieux, a government minister appointed to assimilate Algeria into France. Armandâs duties at the time involved supervising the transportation and settlement of Alsatian refugees fleeing the Franco-Prussian War. He took one long expedition with his regiment, traveling by train to Biskra, then on horseback across the Algerian desert from Biskra to Constantine. From Constantine they traveled by diligence to the outpost of El Kef in Tunisia. A week later they returned to Algiers.
Constantine was in the midst of a devastating drought, and with French speculators buying up all the grain and emptying the silos, famine was spreading. By 1871, 20 percent of the regionâs Muslim population had died of starvation. As a nineteen-year-old sublieutenant surrounded by fellow soldiers, Armand did not witness the full scope of the suffering, and he heard only faint rumors of the simmering unrest among the local tribes. Then, on the road between Constantine and El Kef, the regiment passed the desiccated corpse of what Armand thought was a dog but turned out to be a childâa boy of about six or seven. The officer in command ordered his regiment to dig a grave, and Armand was one of the men who helped bury the child.
After that, he wanted to leave the desert and never return. Not until he moved to America were his memories stirred in a different way. It was as if heâd carried sand in his pocket, and he found the sand again, took out a handful, and felt it sift through his fingers. He thought about the corpse of a child, left out for the vultures. He thought about the sleepless night he spent with his regiment on the edge of a bedouin camp, when heâd stayed up listening to the bedouins make a strange music by rubbing stones together. He thought about the way the brilliant constellations seemed to flash and spin.
Six months before he married Amy Beckwith, he used a portion of the money heâd saved to sail back across the Atlantic. He went first to visit his brother in Belgium, though he spent only a day with him before leaving for North Africa. He was longing to hear the music of the bedouins and see the stars dancing in the sky again. He couldnât shake the feeling that heâd missed something on his last visit.
On the outskirts of El Kef, he met a young photographer named Alexandre Bougault. He learned that Bougault had come from Algeria, where heâd been serving in the French military, and had recently bought himself the Phoebus box camera with the rack-and-pinion focuser. Bougault had the notion that he could have a profitable career selling albumen prints of desert scenes to tourists. So far in
He stood for a long while observing them, envying even more than their concentrated absorption in the work of weaving their facility with a language he did not yet understand. He wished he were a man who spoke the language of these weavers. He could be that man if he set his mind to it. He must have been drawn to this place for a reason.
He was jealous of the Arabsâ secrets and yet oddly comfortable with his exclusion, for now he knew where he was. He was in a place where time couldnât penetrate and nothing would ever change, in the presence of men who had been singled out and blessed with immortality. But it wasnât God they had to thank. It was the ingenious machine mounted on a tripod in the corner of the workroom: a Phoebus mahogany box camera, its lens like a pigâs snout inhaling the light.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
When he was nineteen, Armand spent five months in Algiers as a sublieutenant for the French army, under the leadership of Crémieux, a government minister appointed to assimilate Algeria into France. Armandâs duties at the time involved supervising the transportation and settlement of Alsatian refugees fleeing the Franco-Prussian War. He took one long expedition with his regiment, traveling by train to Biskra, then on horseback across the Algerian desert from Biskra to Constantine. From Constantine they traveled by diligence to the outpost of El Kef in Tunisia. A week later they returned to Algiers.
Constantine was in the midst of a devastating drought, and with French speculators buying up all the grain and emptying the silos, famine was spreading. By 1871, 20 percent of the regionâs Muslim population had died of starvation. As a nineteen-year-old sublieutenant surrounded by fellow soldiers, Armand did not witness the full scope of the suffering, and he heard only faint rumors of the simmering unrest among the local tribes. Then, on the road between Constantine and El Kef, the regiment passed the desiccated corpse of what Armand thought was a dog but turned out to be a childâa boy of about six or seven. The officer in command ordered his regiment to dig a grave, and Armand was one of the men who helped bury the child.
After that, he wanted to leave the desert and never return. Not until he moved to America were his memories stirred in a different way. It was as if heâd carried sand in his pocket, and he found the sand again, took out a handful, and felt it sift through his fingers. He thought about the corpse of a child, left out for the vultures. He thought about the sleepless night he spent with his regiment on the edge of a bedouin camp, when heâd stayed up listening to the bedouins make a strange music by rubbing stones together. He thought about the way the brilliant constellations seemed to flash and spin.
Six months before he married Amy Beckwith, he used a portion of the money heâd saved to sail back across the Atlantic. He went first to visit his brother in Belgium, though he spent only a day with him before leaving for North Africa. He was longing to hear the music of the bedouins and see the stars dancing in the sky again. He couldnât shake the feeling that heâd missed something on his last visit.
On the outskirts of El Kef, he met a young photographer named Alexandre Bougault. He learned that Bougault had come from Algeria, where heâd been serving in the French military, and had recently bought himself the Phoebus box camera with the rack-and-pinion focuser. Bougault had the notion that he could have a profitable career selling albumen prints of desert scenes to tourists. So far in
Similar Books
