Domini Enfilden, a seeker of the exotic in the North African desert, played by Marlene Dietrich- Perhaps the sun has something to do with it. Batouch, her dragoman- Oh, this sun is nothing. Wait until you get beyond these mountains to the gates of the Sahara. There the sun blazes. Domini- Let it blaze….
-The Garden of Allah (1936)
She wanted freedom, a wide horizon, the great winds, the great sun, the terrible spaces, the glowing, shimmering radiance, the hot, entrancing moons and bloomy, purple nights of Africa. She wanted the nomads’ fires and acid voices…She wanted- more than she could express, more than she knew.
-The Garden of Allah, Robert Hichens, 1904, describing Domini
I have a word of advice for Domini…Be careful of what you want in the desert. And whatever you want, whatever you come for, be certain of one thing, that you know the Arabic word for water. After three years sitting in a classroom and another year wandering the streets of Cairo, I still didn’t get the Sudanese pronunciation right. It’s Muyya, not Mayya, and not Mā’. I might have died of thirst out there if it had not been for KhairAllah and his goatskin.
