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Mbuna Dunes (continued from preceding page)
changed much—never enclosed me nearly so intense- ly after the sun was down. Surely all in my head, but my mood would always pick up.
We walked single file through narrow pathways to- ward the edge of the village. The chief’s sons, in the lead, stopped and clap-clapped at four doorways to greet the men whose voices and laughter emanated from the direction of glowing coals.
The transition between village and dunes, impercep- tible underfoot, was soft sand. But we left the walls of the village behind and walked into the night.
This was not a desert that sprouted wildflowers
in spring. It was pure dunes, the southern reach of Tuareg horsemen, warriors, still nomadic, compet- ing for meager resources, whose toughness had
to dominate Saharan biology: stinging scorpions, venomous snakes, poison-spitting beetles—or face extinction themselves.
I trudged behind Yaya, figuring any crawlies would have been dispersed by the pairs of feet in front of us. Yaya glanced back every few steps to make sure I’d not turned back.
The incline wasn’t steep, and we couldn’t have been— at the crest—more than thirty feet above the low- glowing courtyards of Mbuna. We spread out a bit and sat without mats in the sand.
Yaya and Moussa stripped off their shoes and shirts, leaving on the long pants. The brothers said some- thing to Yaya and he something to them, and the three of them chuckled.
Yaya crept over and crouched next to me, a little too close, and translated. There lives a creature in the dunes who stalks single women who venture out at night beyond the village walls to rendezvous with their boyfriends.
“Uh huh,” I said. “This creature, he resembles one of you?” I smiled at the men and used the occasion to scoot a few inches away from Yaya, who translated my words.
All of them, now, all of the men were laughing.
Every society has myths, and every set of myths has such a creature, generally created to maintain social order, often more specifically women’s chastity, and it always lives beyond the boundaries of the civilized known world, in forest, sea, or—in this case—sand.
“And I should be afraid? With all these big, strong men to protect me?”
Yaya leaned close again, eyes mocking and wide. He said, “This creature is crusty and smelly, it eats sand and has foul, foul breath.”
“Comme Rachelle,” said Moussa, like Rachel, “chaque matin,” every morning.
Chieck howled.
“The creature,” Yaya whispered, “has a meter-long penis,” trying not to laugh, “with sores and scabs and long thorns.”
“Hmmm.” I, too, tried not to laugh. “In my country,” I said, equally earnest, “we have a similar creature, but he’s not interested in women. He goes after men who cheat on their wives.”
Yaya gave me one of those incredulous, and this time horrified, “Eh!!!?” sounds, then he, Moussa, and Chieck laughed and couldn’t stop. Between breaths, Yaya translated my response for the brothers, and everyone fell over. This, it appeared, was exactly what a wife would say.
The night quieted and we all lay in the dark looking upward. Mbuna was a different world.
Maybe it was the silence, though as the wind rose and ebbed, the dunes whistled and sang. Strangely vocal sounds rolled up and over distant ridges, de- scended then died with a moan.
Maybe it was the sand, a veil of pale chiffon drawn and draped over a shoulder of dune, the finest top millimeter of crystals drifting one way then another with the low breeze only just perceptibly cooler than the still air above it.
Maybe it was the indigo sky and the million galaxies and the feeling of greatness and smallness crushing me all at once inside and outside. This world, in that instant of embrace, was gentle and intimate and I almost loved the desert.
“Mbuna Dunes” is excerpted from an unpublished memoir of three years in West Africa. Hoffman’s stories have appeared in Litro, 1966 Journal, NUNUM, *82 Review, bluntly, Raw Art, Hot Metal Bridge, and elsewhere. A 2017 Fulbright granted her a month's residency at the International Writers House in Ventspils, Latvia. Her debut novel, Packer and Jack, was published in 2014 by an indie press. Another indie will publish second novel, Saltine, in 2020. Hoffman holds a PhD (UCLA) in Art History.
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