WHERE TWO SEAS MEET

WHERE TWO SEAS MEET  

The tent flap clapped and slapped in the howling wind. Sand bit into her face and skin. They had decided to sleep under canvas that night while the desert storm picked up, rather than wrapping themselves in sleeping bags under the shelter of the stars.

The Bedouin, tasked to watch over the group, had built the large white marquee during the day but already the wind had whipped up, pulling at guys and pegs as they hefted it down into the moving sand.

Part of her felt sad to be spending the night inside with the rest of the twelve group members. She had enjoyed the strange experience of putting on more clothes than she wore during the heat of the day, ready to bed down outside during the freezing nights in some secluded, sandy alcove of the Sinai wadi where they were camped. 

She had already developed a little ritual of getting the sand just right under her head as a pillow and pulling on her thick woollen hat so only her nose poked out of the sleeping-bag mummy-shell to breath. A protective sarcophagus left out in some Egyptian sandy crypt.

Previous windy nights she had wrapped a thin navy scarf round her face like a mesh so she could breathe and sleep but not inhale sand. As a white woman this felt like a safe copy of the Bedouin’s own dramatic headgear, the Shesh, skeins of fabric wrapped round their face and head which could repel all weathers. Even so her own scarf felt daring, bohemian, native. She fancied herself as a Victorian pioneering explorer, like Gertrude Bell, or one of the early desert Christian fathers who had once holed up in the Sinai.

The retreat was said to reclaim this past. They too would have their own spiritual experience, she was told. She felt a fraud. She was unsure why she had come. She didn’t do religious stuff but life at home as she had known it was done. Divorce, end of a career, loss of a home. A strange tsunami of terminations had washed everything away. She was left with nothing as she watched homes, cars, a life carried away by a force outside of her control. When she saw the ad online for the retreat the emptiness of a desert had seemed appropriate.

As she climbed endless dunes to find a shrub refuge each day for private meditation in some shade, she felt closer to the desert’s enormity and power - and something else. Call it God if you like.

The Bedouin men probably laughed at their pathetic western ways as the group tried to adapt to the constant changing nature of sand and lack of toilets, showers and other domesticities. Male group members were shown how to wear the shesh, wrapping round their heads the rolls of material they’d bought in souks before heading out into the desert in Jeeps. She preferred to cover her head with the loose blue cotton scarf like the local village women they’d seen scuttling away from prying eyes during the trek out to the wadi.

After a few days she recognised most of the Bedouin men, those who cooked, those who tended the camels, those who stood guard. They slid around the camp in silence, the odd nod or smile. Most kept their eyes down, as she was a woman, middle-aged at that. They were mainly young and couldn’t speak English except for Hamid in his 30’s who was their smiling, efficient leader.

The one who was different wore more tattered abaya robes and faded shawls than the others. He felt older and had clearly spent most of his life in the desert. He seemed to merge in and out of the scrub. Sometimes she would see him wandering far out in the dunes, a true nomad, and then often he would be there at the dining tent, sitting by the water stand as people came to wash their hands under the cracked ewer.

He and her would both nod. In respect. In acknowledgement of something she couldn’t quite pinpoint but she found she welcomed his presence when he was around.  His black grape, watchful eyes were kind and wrinkly, and minute grains of sand sat in facial cracks and crevices, a desert skin impervious to all.

They were all there in silence. Only the retreat guide, a British man who had led many such spiritual expeditions, was allowed to speak to give them their daily meditation practices and lead them in song or thought. He was slight and wiry and would have made a good TE Lawrence, she whimsied, as he moved effortlessly around the camp in soft conversation with Hamid. 

Each night, after long days of silence, it was pleasant to sing round the campfire, notes drifting up in the air with the fire sparks.  She noted that the old Bedouin man would often sit behind the retreat guide or at the back observing them, unlike the younger Arab men who understood that they weren’t really meant to participate.  The older man clearly didn’t care about such protocols and enjoyed the bonhomie while keeping his distance, apart from an occasional nod in greeting to her. She would simply smile back.

The sandstorm came the day the retreat silence was broken. Speaking still seemed irrelevant and impossible as the wind whisked words out of their mouths and off into the ether. They all felt mute and found they didn’t have much to say. Most words, she now appreciated, were superfluous and simple motions of connection while in polite society. How are you? Very well and you? This soup is nice. What a lovely tree? Isn’t it hot today? I don’t like the wind. Doesn’t sand get everywhere?  

True moments of connection were made by simple facial or hand gestures like a palm on a heart to express thanks or gratitude. Words were only used to endorse need. Can I have some hot water? Do you have a plaster for my cut? What are we meant to be doing today?

That evening their guide explained that because of the storm the Bedouin felt safer if we all camped inside. There was the odd murmur among the retreatants which sounded like approval, and everyone split off to various private encampments which had been colonised within the wadi to bring back rucksacks and rolled sleeping bags into the tent.

At the flapping door the old man sat as though on guard, his hand firmly on a gnarled wooden staff she’d seen him use on his wanderings out of the camp. 

“Evening,” he said as she approached with her bag.

“Evening,” she replied automatically before realising she was shocked that he spoke English.

“Sandstorm blowing up.”

“Er…Yes, They say we’re safer in here. I suppose you’re used to this.”

He nodded. He was like an ancient desert god. She expected to blink and find he’d faded into the gritty night. She had a sudden realisation that he was there to protect them and recalled that at moments of uncertainty he had often been seen nearby. 

“Thank you,” she said, “For being here and looking after me.”

“You’re welcome. I’m not here for you but I’m pleased that you see me. I’m really here for your guide.” 

She felt foolish and wondered if she had said something that had gotten lost in translation. Perhaps she had been rude to smile and greet him, a transgression of local women’s behaviour. 

However, he continued, “When you talk to your guide just let him know that I’ve been here.” 

Puzzled, she politely assented, embarrassed that some cultural line had been crossed, and entered the tent.

She joined the section reserved for the five women and rolled out her sleeping bag. There was laughter as people broke out into chat. One young woman brushed her hair while a man on the other side pulled out a mirror to inspect his now lengthy beard. Their guide clapped for attention and asked them to join him in the front.

By now everyone was inside and the tent flap had been closed. The Bedouin were sheltering in the dining tent further down the wadi that night but she imagined as the wind howled that the old man wouldn’t be joining his compatriots.  He would be out in the storm, impassive, greeting the wind like an impervious sphinx.

The group sat cross legged on the floor and had to take turns to declare what they had learned during the retreat and what they were grateful for. She felt confused. She hated these so-called spiritual sharing exercises. She was grateful for so much. The desert had offered the greatest of rewards. She wished for a return to silence so she didn’t have to share publicly her jumbled emotions. Many were moved and cried as they offered up their reflections. When it came to her turn she sensed the wisdom of the old man and his abiding presence.

“I want to thank the old Bedouin nomad who sat with us all this week. I felt like he was protecting us.”

The guide studied her briefly. A few looked quizzical but the gratitude exercise danced on round the rest of the circle and her sharing merged with the rest. The group felt happy to have expressed something important and at the end people stood and hugged each other, bathed in communal love. She didn’t really feel she belonged.

At the end the wiry guide came over to her.

“I’m sorry I didn’t quite understand what you said about the nomad,” he said.

“You know,” she replied, ‘The one who sat by the door or near you when we did our practices. He told me he was here for you, I thought you knew him. He wanted you to know that he was here.”

The guide, in his 60’s, had similar eyes to the nomad. They were sharp and piercing like a desert hawk’s, missing nothing. 

“What did he look like?” the guide continued. 

She didn’t understand why he wanted to know that and if he was doubting her. She felt confused. She told him about the old nomad’s tatty clothes and the staff and was shocked when the guide started to cry. Large tears now mingled with the dirty sand on his face which he rubbed into a smear. 

He held her hands and said “Bless you. And us. We have been truly blessed when Khidr is here. What a gift to see him. Only a few ever do. Thank you.”

She was confused. She thought he was just a regular old man, a local.

“Where two seas meet,” said the guide, “at that point he will be there, where that was meets that which is about to be. Between the old and the new, life and death. There he will be found.”

She scrutinised the guide’s teary eyes. Lost and further confused by the riddle he presented.

He explained, “You have seen the Green Man, the Arabs call him Khidr. He lives on the green island of immortality.”

“You mean he isn’t real?”

The guide smiled. “Not for everyone. But oh yes he does exist , as you now know.”

The wind picked up and roared. The tent rattled. The guide looked stunned. Others were shocked to see him cry but no-one dared conjure up words to ask what was going on. She returned dazed to her sleeping bag and felt foolish.

The next day they woke to rain tapping on the canvas. Rain. Here in the desert. As they all drifted out into the cloudy morning, and a strange new damp chill in the air, the young Bedouin were clapping, dancing and laughing, mouths open, tongues lolling to catch the drops. 

“Hope you’ve brought your brollies Engleesh,” their leader, Hamid, joked. 

The group walked down to the dining tent for breakfast in the rain with the now wet sand sticking to their sandals and their tired, dusty clothes clinging to their skin. It was a weird sensation. Several retreatants caught the jovial mood of their carers. People laughed and joked. Some copied the young Bedouin men and danced with them, opening mouths to suck up these precious jewelled drops.

Everyone wanted to celebrate. The retreat had ended and next on the agenda their little caravan was to journey on through the desert on the Bedouin’s tended camels.

As they reached the dining tent a nearby scrubby bush had burst into tiny white flower. Hamid threw his hands into the air in joy. Al hamdulillah he cried. “You are truly blessed,” he pronounced.

“Only the holy bring flowers to the desert.”

The retreatants grinned at the accolade. The English guide bowed sightly to her. In the distance she could see the disappearing flapping wet robes of the nomad. Yes, she realised she was grateful that the green man had made his mark on this desert...and in her life.

She raised her arms to the rain and celebrated all that was now greening.