Part 1

Chapter 14,289 wordsPublic domain

_The Youngest Camel_

THE YOUNGEST CAMEL

By Kay Boyle

With illustrations by FRITZ KREDEL

BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY 1939

FIRST EDITION

_Published August 1939_

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS BOOKS ARE PUBLISHED BY LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

_For Pegeen, Bobby, Apple-Joan, Kathe, and Clover Vail_

ILLUSTRATIONS

“_Now we have brought you to the pathway between the winds._” Frontispiece

_The little camel said nothing at all, but simply followed in her footsteps_ 22

_He lay there very meekly on one side_ 28

_And then they flew off, their legs floating on the air behind them_ 44

“_It’s much wiser to be polite to everyone I meet, because one never knows._” 54

_The little camel took another uncertain step towards the tent_ 68

_The Youngest Camel_

_I_

The beginning of the caravan’s trip was made through lovely country, through regions in which flowers such as tea roses and white and purple iris bloomed. When the caravan came through villages, boys ran out barefoot and half-naked to sell fruit to the travelers: baskets of peaches, pears, and melons. All the forty camels wore bells, each one several little silver-tongued bells attached to the harness he wore around his neck. The youngest camel was the only one who did not carry a bell, nor a load on his back. This was the first trip he had ever made across the desert and he followed close behind his mother. As long as she was there before him, he felt quite pleased with himself and not at all fearful of all the sights he saw.

After several days the caravan, like every other caravan that took this route, entered the badlands. Here the older camels fell into sudden rages and spat if anyone approached them. If the camel drivers jerked their nose cords, they flung their legs about and tottered as if they were about to faint. Now and then, towards sundown, when the hour to halt seemed near, they screamed aloud like humans. But the camels grew quieter as soon as the desert began and they felt their feet deep in the hot slipping sand.

The early mornings were now a clear icy blue, but as the day advanced the heat blazed up as if a fire were sweeping across the heavens towards them. The youngest camel didn’t mind how hot it was and he had such a good opinion of his own strength that he thought he could never possibly get tired. He came skipping and jumping along behind his mother, playing games with himself and laughing out loud when the dry sand ran swift as water between his toes. But when his mother complained of the terrible heat and the long way they had to go, he lifted his soft dark eyes and looked at her long legs before him, and her tail, and he thought: I love her. I love her elbows with the hair worn off them, like the old carpet the snake charmer sits on in the market place; I love the way her hump slumps when she has no more water in it, and I love the way her tail is eaten by the moths because she forgot to put it in camphor once about fifty years ago.

He was a very poetic young camel and rather musical besides. He had a beautiful singing voice, and in the evenings when they halted at an oasis he liked to play the harp and sing to her. Most of his songs were about himself and his own beauty and grace, but sometimes at night his songs were so tender in his love for her that she had to rise from her knees and break off great leaves from the banana trees and dry the tears from her aging face.

On the fifteenth night they halted at an oasis where the poplars and mimosas grew in great profusion, and where hares and antelope moved shyly in the cool green gorges. The stars were sprinkled out as fine as salt across the bluish night sky. The youngest camel lay close beside his mother in the moist grasses, and she said to him:--

“Flower of my heart, this trip you have followed close beside me, for you are my baby still, but soon you must prepare yourself for what will surely come. Perhaps when we reach the end of our journey you will be taken from me, and from then on you will travel with strange camels, carrying a load of your own.”

“A baby?” said the youngest camel in surprise, feeling a little annoyed. “Me, a baby?”

“Yes,” said his mother sadly, “and so, my earliest leaf, you will have to undergo the ordeal of loneliness.”

“What in the world is that?” asked the young camel, and he reached out for his harp and lightly touched its strings.

“The ordeal of loneliness is the thing we camels fear the most,” said his mother, and he sat listening to her rather impatiently, swinging his little golden chin back and forth as he chewed on a bit of grass. “Men have found out,” she went on, lowering her voice, “that what we fear above everything else is being left alone. So they take us one by one when we are very young like you, and they tie us fast and leave us in solitude three days and three nights in the desert. If we live through that and keep our reason, then we’re cured. After that we no longer fear the terrible sight of nothingness around us. But sometimes we do not live through it. You must be prepared for that.”

“What, me?” said the youngest camel with a laugh. “Do you think I’ll mind? Why, not at all. I’m a little bit afraid of fire, and I don’t quite like things that lie still and refuse to move any more. But generally I’m much more brave than other young camels, and I couldn’t possibly be afraid of being alone!”

He was so close to his mother’s side that this seemed like a fairy story she told him. And all around them the oasis was filled with sleeping life. Near the trees, the mules stood tethered, their tails swinging back and forth in the warm night air. Against the starry sky, the necks and heads of the forty kneeling camels stood out, peaceful as statues. Danger seemed a thing too far away to think of, even.

“Yes,” his mother went on as she smoothed his hair back from his brow. “At first you will be very much afraid, but you must try to remember there is nothing really to fear. Remember, it is only the beating of our own hearts that makes us tremble.”

The young camel laughed a little in contempt at the idea of being afraid of anything at all, and then he began to draw music from his harp. No one moved, nothing stirred except the mules’ tails slowly waving in the tall grass, but his mother began to cry silently while he sang.

_The Youngest Camel’s Song_

When I am fourteen I shall wear tassels on my cheeks, And I shall dance for the Shah and the Lamas and the Raj With a tambourine tied to my tail. When they sprinkle coins before me and wash my hoofs in milk, I shall return to you rich from their palaces, Running fast as a king deer to you with jewels in his antlers.

I shall know you at once, no matter how many years have passed over, Because you have no upper teeth any more And because you have sores on your shoulders. I shall bring you patches to wear on your old knees, Mother, And ivory and basalt stronger than teeth To fill up your naked mouth.

_II_

The next morning the youngest camel awoke in high spirits and ran quickly to brush his teeth in the oasis pool. He felt so reckless that he swallowed all his toothbrush water on purpose, a thing his mother had told him particularly he should never do. Then he gargled so loud that nobody could hear the waterfall any more; so loud, in fact, that the mules craned their heads around and looked critically over their shoulders at him. Next he caught sight of a group of melancholy waders, some of them looking in the water for frogs and some of them standing mournfully on one leg in the shallows. So he crept along behind the bushes and then jumped out at them with such a shout that he scared them into fits before they collected themselves enough to spread their wings and fly away.

His mother was not at all pleased at the way he was going on. The sun was rising beyond the tamarisk trees and a day’s travel lay before them, so naturally she was not feeling in quite such a sentimental mood as on the night before. She kept darting black looks at him all the time she was being saddled and packed, but she couldn’t get near enough to him to say a word. He was dancing foolishly around with his harp and making a spectacle of himself before the mules, who, although they did not usually see anything funny in anything, had begun to show their teeth in quick unhappy smiles.

And now the caravan started off again across the sand, accompanied by the music of the camels’ silver bells. The young camel ran lightly along beside his mother, humming under his breath something about “love” and “the afternoon I met you” and “a love nest for two,” which were words from a song everybody was singing that year.

“The trouble with you is that you just can’t see things as they really are,” his mother said severely to him.

She reached out and tried to nip his ear, but he skipped quickly behind her and there he began to play with her tail, leaping and skidding, the way a kitten will bound after his mother’s tail if he is feeling full of milk and bold as brass.

“Whoops!” he cried, making another flying leap after her tail as she tossed it in irritation into the air. “And, anyhow, how _are_ things _really_?”

“Don’t be absurd,” snapped his mother as she ambled along behind the next camel’s hind legs and tail. “Things _are_ exactly as they _are_.”

The sun was rising higher above them, and every instant it grew hotter until the heat seemed to have bleached all the color out of the sky.

“For instance, this sand is getting unbearably hot,” his mother went on, “and there is no stopping place until we reach the oasis, which will be about sundown. Also, there is a sore on my right hip which is being rubbed at every step by my haunch strap. And, last but not least, you are behaving like a perfect ninny. Such things _are_. Whether you like it or not, you have to admit they’re _there_.”

“Where is _there_?” asked the youngest camel smartly, and his mother answered:--

“_There_, of course, means _here_.”

“I don’t see how _there_ can be _here_ when _there_’s over there somewhere,” said her son, and she answered shortly:--

“Don’t waste your time talking so ridiculously. One of the things that doesn’t exist is the green vale I had always hoped to settle in. At my time of life I ought to have a place like that where I could stretch out and eat all the fresh vegetation I wanted and drink as much cool water as I wanted--” The camel driver gave her mouth such a jerk that she had to stop speaking for a moment, and then she added bitterly: “That’s just one of the things that can never possibly be.”

“Why can’t it?” asked the youngest camel.

“Because it can’t,” snapped his mother. “Because your father didn’t take out any life insurance. Because things _are_ or else they _are not_.”

“What about the caravan of white camels with solid gold hoofs that goes right around the earth like a belt?” asked the little camel, shifting his harp on his shoulder.

“Hooey,” said his mother. “A lot of hooey.”

“But a llama told me that back in Hindustan,” her son insisted. “They go right around the world through everything--cities, oceans, railway carriages, skyscrapers. They keep on going all the time and nothing can stop them and nobody except camels can see them. And whenever a camel is lost anywhere in the world he only has to join the caravan of white camels and in the end he’s bound to pass through his own country and find his family again--”

“Don’t be an ass,” said his mother. Her feet were beginning to hurt her very much. “You can be sure that’s one of the things that decidedly _is not_.”

“The llama said he knew a camel who--” he began, but his mother interrupted:--

“Llamas are notoriously untruthful.”

They went on in silence for a while, but presently the little camel began asking questions again.

“What about the two sides of the weather that Mohammed has for a fan?” he said to his mother. “The light blue side is turned towards him when he feels like dancing and singing, and then the dark side is turned out to us. And when he is in thought he fans himself with the dark side so the light won’t disturb him. That’s how we have good and bad weather.”

“Absurd!” snapped his mother. “Sometimes the sun shines and sometimes it doesn’t. That’s all there is to that story.”

“What about the sun being a pineapple with its skin taken off?” said the youngest camel rather sadly.

“Bunkum!” said his mother as she ambled along before him.

“The peacock I met in Kerbela said bad weather came when the wind blew hard and broke the pineapple off the branch and split it in five hundred pieces,” the little camel said.

“There’s not a word of truth in that story either,” his mother said. “You’re old enough now,” she added as the camel driver jerked up her nose, “to begin recognizing the truth when you see it--”

But before she could say any more, the little camel cried out:--

“Oh, I’ve found the most wonderful thing you’ve ever seen! Oh, it’s so marvelous! I found it--lying--right--here--in--the--sand--”

Because his voice grew fainter and fainter, she knew he must have stopped behind her to pick up whatever it was, but when she tried walking slower to give him time to catch up with her again, the camel driver pulled fiercely at her reins. She could not so much as turn her head to see what had become of the youngest camel, but she had to go loping on with that queer human-looking smile on her lips which camels usually wear.

But they had not gone very far before she heard her child panting behind her, and in another moment he called out:--

“This time I’ve found a fortune! We’re going to be rich and happy forever and you’ll never have to work again! It’s a string of wonderful beads,” he said, dropping into step behind her. “Some of them are carved and they’re all different colors, and they’re strung together on a solid-silver chain. It must have been a prince who lost them on his way to his wedding,” his excited voice went on. “I’m sure they must be very valuable indeed.”

The sun was growing hotter and hotter in the heavens, and now his mother, who was much older than anyone would have believed, was feeling more than a little impatient. She couldn’t crane her neck around and see what the youngest camel was up to, and her feet hurt her, and her hip was rubbed quite raw.

“In the first place, they don’t belong to you,” she said to him in annoyance. “You’ll have to turn them over to the police as soon as we reach civilization.”

“Oh, but look!” cried the little camel, just as if it were possible for her to turn her head and see. “There’s a bit of paper tied to them. It says--let me see a minute,” he said, as if trying hard to make the letters out--“it says, ‘Whoever finds these magic beads may keep them.’ So you see!” he cried out joyfully. “Now they belong to us and we can sell them in the next city and you can have everything you want to make you happy. You can have a parasol to keep the sun off you, and a litter with curtains at the sides to be carried in by slaves, and you can wear a solid gold ring in your nose every day, and I can have a big mirror to watch myself in while I’m dancing, and--”

“Tell me what they look like,” said his mother, beginning to be a little curious. “This brute is holding the cord so tight that I can’t look around, but describe them to me.”

“Well, one is bright red,” said her son, following quickly behind her. “The one next to it is green, and the next after that shines like a diamond.” He talked very slowly, as if he were examining the necklace closely as he came along. “And now I see something else!” he cried out in fresh excitement. “Each one has a sort of message written in it, carved right inside it in beautiful tiny lettering.”

“Ho, ho,” said his mother. “That’s probably why they’re called magic beads.”

“Oh, yes, that must be it. I hadn’t thought of that,” said the youngest camel in an innocent-sounding voice. “The jade one has written inside it,” he went on slowly, as if he were having difficulty in making out the words, “‘I am the green valley you long for. You may live in me forever.’ And the topaz bead says, ‘I am a silk tent to protect you from sandstorms and from winter and from the midday sun.’ And the ruby one says, ‘I am blood to flow in your veins and the veins of those you love. Thus you may live forever.’ And the--”

“Do any of them say anything about bones?” asked his mother, and the little camel looked up with surprise.

“Bones?” he repeated.

“Yes, bones,” said his mother. “Perhaps I haven’t told you about that yet, but if you don’t know it’s certainly high time you did. Although we camels dread the smell or sight of death, there’s really nothing nicer than being able to crunch the bones of a fallen relative later, say three or four months after his demise when the flesh has fallen quite off his bones. They taste very good,” she continued, almost smacking her lips. “Like pretzels or salted almonds. It’s a great comfort if you’ve lost someone dear to you to be able to munch him up like that, and very good for the teeth and hoofs.”

“Oh, yes,” said the youngest camel, as if he had been searching all this time for it and just found it in the string. “Here is a pure-white bead, like ivory, and all around it there is written something in gold. Yes--bones,” he murmured. “I do think it says something about bones.”

“Read it quickly!” said his mother, and after a moment of hesitation the little camel began reading aloud very slowly and uncertainly:--

“If it’s bones you want, No longer hunt. Just rub my--rub my cheek And bones will creak.”

“Well, that’s really wonderful,” said his mother, and now she had entirely forgotten about the heat and how sore her hip was and how long a way they had still to go. “I’m half tempted to have you try it here, only it might be a bit embarrassing--”

“Oh, I wouldn’t try it now, would you?” cried the little camel. “I think it would be much better if we waited until this evening, because if bones suddenly started creaking now the whole caravan would stop and then they’d all see the beads around my neck--”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” said his mother. “But I can scarcely wait to try. Now, tell me what’s written inside the diamond, darling.”

“Oh, the diamond,” said her son slowly and thoughtfully, exactly as if he were having a good look for it among the other beads. “Well, it’s rather difficult to make it out.”

“I should think it would be very easy,” said the mother camel. “It must be as clear as water, if it’s a real diamond, so that you can see what’s written in it without any trouble at all.”

“Well, you see, the diamond takes the rays of the sun on every one of its points,” said the little camel, “and so it practically blinds me, it dazzles so. But I think I can see something about ‘drink’ or ‘water’ written in it. Oh, yes,” he went on presently, during which time his mother concluded he had been studying the jewel. “Oh, yes. Now I can see. I’ve got in the shadow of your tail and I can make out the words quite well. It says--let me see--yes, it says:--

“When you would drink Just cease to think And bend your knee at my brink.”

“Wonderful!” exclaimed his mother, joyfully, and he could see by the way she ran youthfully over the sand that she had completely forgotten all her troubles and discomforts. So through the entire blazing hot day, as they crossed the desert, he told her one by one the endless colors and verses of the beads. His little throat grew hoarser and hoarser, and his tongue drier and drier from talking so much, but the excited jerk of her shabby tail before him was enough to urge him on and on. The amethyst was the jewel of memory, he told her, and you only had to hold it for a minute in your ear for all the nice things that had happened in the past to become the present. The moonstone was the bead of the future, and after you had rubbed it hard you could see reflected in it all that was going to happen, and so you could avoid any coming danger. The sapphire was the bead of purity, and when you were old you need only press it for an instant against your forehead to have all your years drop from you like the petals from a flower.

“And the opal,” he ended, as the blue light of evening began to fall. “It is the bead for those who have told a lie. All you have to do is to hold it under your tongue for half an hour and the lie you have told becomes the truth.”

“Ah, there’s the oasis at last!” his mother cried out. The youngest camel lowered his head and peered through her legs, and there on the horizon, which had not altered the entire day, he saw the distant dark points which must be the oasis trees growing. “The time passed very quickly, although I was so impatient to see the necklace every minute,” his mother said. “But now in no time at all we can settle down and undo our packs and then we can try the magic beads. The first one I’m going to try is the sapphire, so I need not be old any longer, and then the amethyst, so that all the nice things that happened to me before will come true again, and your father will be alive with us, and then--”

Strangely enough, the little camel said nothing at all, but simply followed in her footsteps, and once they had reached the green island in the vast white sea of sand, the mother camel turned eagerly to her son.

“Quickly now, darling, come with me behind the trees here and show me the necklace,” she whispered, and she hurried him off out of sight of the others. But now that they were quite alone, the youngest camel only hung his head. “Quickly, quickly, where is it? I’ve never been so anxious to see anything in my life--”

“Mother,” said her child miserably, “there is no necklace.”

“What?” she cried, tottering back under the tamarisk trees. “Do you mean to say--oh, can it be possible--oh, good heavens, it can’t be all a lie?”

“I don’t know if it’s a lie or not,” said the little camel, and he turned unhappily away from the sight of her grief and fingered the tall grasses absent-mindedly. “I made it up so you would forget about the heat, so perhaps that isn’t quite so bad as lying. I kept thinking perhaps the necklace was really there, although I couldn’t see it, like the caravan of white camels that girdles the earth, and like Mohammed--”

“Oh, this is too much!” moaned his mother, covering her face with her arms. “I never would have thought you could--I never dreamed--oh dear, oh dear--”

“But music’s invisible, isn’t it?” said the little camel in a gentle voice. “I kept on saying things like that to myself to make the necklace seem all right. I said, ‘Music’s invisible and history’s invisible and memory’s invisible and love’s invisible and still they’re all really there.’”

His mother had now sunk down on the ground in despair, and realizing she was on the verge of tears, her son took his harp off his shoulder and shyly touched the strings.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d feel like singing me to sleep tonight,” he said in a low voice. “After all that happened, I thought you might rather not. So I made up the words of a lullaby myself, and if you feel too badly I’ll sing them instead.”