Open Writing

‘You know, these Arabs really know how to spend money,’ said Klaus. They were sitting, steins of beer in front of them, admiring the glittering waters of the hotel pool. ‘Can you believe that when they held the Formula One in Bahrain last year the pit mechanics claimed there was too much dust blowing off the desert, so they tarred an area of about a mile in diameter around the entire racing complex for this year's race.'

‘Himmel! That’s really spending!’ agreed Jurgen, blowing the froth off, ‘And did it?’

‘Ja, this year they had perfect race conditions. Mind you, they’d had a hellava blow and a sandstorm a couple of days before the race started. They’d have been shovelling it out of the pits with those conditions, if it hadn’t been asphalted as they requested, so it’s lucky the Arabs could afford to be generous.’

And with that the conversation drifted to other things. Then, warming up, both men dived into the deliciously cool water and swam a couple of lengths to cool off.
. . .

This morning the air was cold, and looking out from the tent flap, Abu bin Salem could see frost curdled in the ridges. The night had been freezing, a rarity for these parts where the temperature seldom went below freezing, and the small family had huddled together like a litter of puppies, pulling the coarse multicoloured camel and goat hair carpets over their shoulders for warmth.

‘A quick walk to work today’ he thought, ‘I’ll take the shortcut across the shaking field, and I won’t let it worry me when I feel my legs turning to jelly.'

Ever since the foreigners had come with their strange machinery, raising tall derricks, building pumping stations and later, erecting shiny silver storage tanks and then the long pipeline to the port at Akaba where, he was told, the oil was pumped into great ships, things had changed. The family’s peaceful nomadic existence has been destroyed, and now they lived by the side of this hill, miserably crouched in the shade of a few stunted bushes, their camels sold long ago, while their few scraggy goats scavenged for what they could find amongst the tents. His children grew thin and sickly and his teenage wife Merriam pleaded silently with gaunt and hollow eyes for him to do something to alleviate their plight.

But today, things were going to change. He finished his morning prayers, folded his mat, and turning to Merriam and the children declared, ‘Things will come right, I know it.' His eyes burned with the strength of his conviction that his luck would turn and he and his young family would experience better times with more food and good housing.

‘The new boss arrives next week,’ he continued, thinking aloud, ‘and when he comes, I know he’ll recognise the young men from this village as diligent and hard working and see that we are given promotion and better jobs.’

Away in the distance, the tall chimneys flared jets of methane gas, and on the horizon dust clouds gathered, obscuring the land.

But for weeks there was no change, and things went on as before, and slowly Abu bin Salem’s confident prediction that things would come right for him and his family began to fade. Every day, he walked to work and diligently put in many hours of manual labour, and then, in the brief desert twilight, he would return to his small family, but never with the good news he wanted so much for them and their future happiness.

Gradually the weather warmed, but still Abu stubbornly picked his way to work taking the shortest and quickest route, so he could be first at the site and catch the foreman’s eye. He wanted to become known as a man who could be relied on to do a good day’s work and always be there on time. Sometimes, crossing the shaking field he could feel it trembling under him, and he would lift the hem of his dish-dash and, running lightly on the tips of his toes, make his way to the end as quickly as he could. But he never missed a day’s work.

That morning, the air was clear and bright. Abu had said his prayers by the light of the morning star and as dawn’s first breath lightly touched his face he folded his prayer mat and woke his family.

‘Today I know the boss will speak to me,’ he solemnly told them, as he finished his meal, dipping a crust of dry bread into the dregs of his coffee. Then he wiped his beard, straightened his dish-dash, slipped his feet into his sandals and set off on his usual walk.

‘Inshn’t Allah it was hot, the scorching air was worse than it had been for many weeks; he could see the heat rising in undulating waves from the desert surface. Lingering too long on the way, he had watched fascinated as a hawk took a dove on the wing as it flew across his line of vision; now he would have to hurry if he wanted to be one of the first when they allocated the daily tasks. He must catch the eye of the new boss; so he lengthened his stride, and fairly soon came to the area he used as a shortcut.

Needing more space, the company were clearing neglected parts of the oil field for additional bulk-storage tanks. ‘Tell the night shift to pump the stuff into the old No 1 dam on the north-east corner,' the new boss instructed his foreman. ‘We’ll use the dam as a temporary holding area until the Arabs have signed the contract for asphalting the desert around the Formula One race track. Then they can have as much of the stuff as they can use – and at a very good price. They’ll feel I’ve done them a favour.’ He laughed as he lit another fragrant Habana Habana.

So overnight Abu’s shaking field turned from a quick shortcut into a lethal man trap, and although it was well-known that men used it during the winter when the surface was solid enough to walk on, nothing was done to warn them about these new developments.

Abu was nearly half-way across when he found he could not lift his feet. Within moments he was up to his ankles in hot sticky black stuff. With an effort, he pulled out one foot, leaving his sandal behind, gasping at the sudden burn of the molten asphalt. But, as quickly as he pulled one foot out of the clinging, sticky stuff, the other foot sank deeper, until, with his reserves of strength ebbing, he stood up to his knees in it, desperately weeping and begging for rescue. He was too far for them to reach him. Even a ladder would not have extended across the shaking surface.

As the long day passed and Abu sank deeper into the molten asphalt he thought of happier times. He thought of the hours he spent as a boy following his father’s goats, of milking a she-camel and drinking the warm sweet milk straight from the gourd, and then his heart bursting with love, he thought of his wife Merriam and his young children. But gradually these dreams deserted him as he saw a golden bridge lengthening and stretching from the steely blue above.

“It won’t be long before I can touch it,” he whispered to himself, stretching his arms as he tried to bring it closer. “When I climb up the bridge I’ll reach the sky and meet the seventy virgins and nothing will matter any more.”

Through the hours the men stood around the dam, munching their sandwiches and unconcernedly passing around cigarettes, but when they saw him lift his arms up to embrace his destiny, one by one they drifted away.