without color. The world has sloughed off proportion and dimension.
The smell of frankincense on the back streets, the Indian shopkeepers outside their little stalls as if they were still in Cochin—“Foodstuff and Luxuries,” “Watch Repair,” “Coconut Sale,” “Auto Cushion”—suggest somewhere entirely forgotten by the world. Everything shuts down in the middle of the day, though not for prayer; the sovereign spirits here are trade and sleep. Once the richest area in the world, Dhofar now nestles behind the mountains, unvisited, much like the last sultan, who took to his palace here for twelve years, and banned bicycles, radios, even sunglasses for locals.
I sat in my room in the deserted hotel sometimes, and watched a few American soldiers, on their Friday off, wrestle on the lawn below. The sound of Arabic curses came from the next terrace; in the lobby there were always barrel-chested Englishmen, here to train the local army, with tattoos across their forearms, pounding one fist into another, again and again and again.
The Indians sat at their desks looking wistful, sometimes wry. What had brought them here, I asked. Not adventure or dreams or anything; a shrug, an uncle now gone. They’d come to Muscat, the fairy-tale sand-city in the north, and somehow ended up here. What was there to do? A defeated smile.
In the bar, a tiny Filipina served drinks to tired blond Germans with leathery tans, who shook their bangles and tossed their heads impatiently, as they waited for the grand tours they’d been promised, and groups of men from Atlanta in shorts—who knew on what mission?—cracked jokes as they sat in the thick armchairs huddled together in clusters in the lobby. “The plural of ‘fish’ is ‘fishes’?” “A dollar for anyone in the room who can tell us what the plural of ‘fish’ is.”
The Omanis in their long white robes sat in the vast space talking softly, their women dressed in black, so intense that they seemed apparitions of suggestiveness. A curling hand, decorated with some kind of design; a kohl-lined eye. So little could be seen of them, walking straight and regal in their black, handbags swinging from their shoulders, white clogs emerging occasionally under their robes, that their eyes carried everything. A spark, a light of mischief.
Outside my window there was dust and fog; out on the road, spotless tarmac stretching in every direction without cease. Camels by the sand, and in the distance the new port, to receive container ships. The mountains were close, but nothing but clouds now; figures appeared around curves like creatures from myth, and then disappeared again into the mist.
I arrived here after a thirty-three-hour flight from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles to London, then Abu Dhabi, to Muscat, and then Salalah; I got out at the long dusty road and walked into a room with a terrace, a view of the sea without color. In the morning, when I went out, there was rain all over the chairs; a lone figure was somewhere behind the palm trees, walking towards the lights.
One day I hired a car and driver—a homesick man from Kerala, on his way to marry a woman he’d never met (he kept up with home at night through his FM radio)—and we drove into the hills. As we went up the mountains from the plain, the mist, already thick, began to envelop us, so we were part of it, and it of us, and the rain began to fall. Cars inched their way around turns, and at the tomb of Job, at the top, I stepped out into the lightly falling rain and followed a group of shadows, all in black, disappearing between the trees.
We drove down again, and south, and found ourselves in a paradise of sorts, a clear river running along the base of the hills, where happy shirtless boys were splashing and jumping around as if they’d found their way back to the beginning of the world. Families were gathered on carpets under the trees, one man serenading his party—a wedding party—with a set of
The smell of frankincense on the back streets, the Indian shopkeepers outside their little stalls as if they were still in Cochin—“Foodstuff and Luxuries,” “Watch Repair,” “Coconut Sale,” “Auto Cushion”—suggest somewhere entirely forgotten by the world. Everything shuts down in the middle of the day, though not for prayer; the sovereign spirits here are trade and sleep. Once the richest area in the world, Dhofar now nestles behind the mountains, unvisited, much like the last sultan, who took to his palace here for twelve years, and banned bicycles, radios, even sunglasses for locals.
I sat in my room in the deserted hotel sometimes, and watched a few American soldiers, on their Friday off, wrestle on the lawn below. The sound of Arabic curses came from the next terrace; in the lobby there were always barrel-chested Englishmen, here to train the local army, with tattoos across their forearms, pounding one fist into another, again and again and again.
The Indians sat at their desks looking wistful, sometimes wry. What had brought them here, I asked. Not adventure or dreams or anything; a shrug, an uncle now gone. They’d come to Muscat, the fairy-tale sand-city in the north, and somehow ended up here. What was there to do? A defeated smile.
In the bar, a tiny Filipina served drinks to tired blond Germans with leathery tans, who shook their bangles and tossed their heads impatiently, as they waited for the grand tours they’d been promised, and groups of men from Atlanta in shorts—who knew on what mission?—cracked jokes as they sat in the thick armchairs huddled together in clusters in the lobby. “The plural of ‘fish’ is ‘fishes’?” “A dollar for anyone in the room who can tell us what the plural of ‘fish’ is.”
The Omanis in their long white robes sat in the vast space talking softly, their women dressed in black, so intense that they seemed apparitions of suggestiveness. A curling hand, decorated with some kind of design; a kohl-lined eye. So little could be seen of them, walking straight and regal in their black, handbags swinging from their shoulders, white clogs emerging occasionally under their robes, that their eyes carried everything. A spark, a light of mischief.
Outside my window there was dust and fog; out on the road, spotless tarmac stretching in every direction without cease. Camels by the sand, and in the distance the new port, to receive container ships. The mountains were close, but nothing but clouds now; figures appeared around curves like creatures from myth, and then disappeared again into the mist.
I arrived here after a thirty-three-hour flight from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles to London, then Abu Dhabi, to Muscat, and then Salalah; I got out at the long dusty road and walked into a room with a terrace, a view of the sea without color. In the morning, when I went out, there was rain all over the chairs; a lone figure was somewhere behind the palm trees, walking towards the lights.
One day I hired a car and driver—a homesick man from Kerala, on his way to marry a woman he’d never met (he kept up with home at night through his FM radio)—and we drove into the hills. As we went up the mountains from the plain, the mist, already thick, began to envelop us, so we were part of it, and it of us, and the rain began to fall. Cars inched their way around turns, and at the tomb of Job, at the top, I stepped out into the lightly falling rain and followed a group of shadows, all in black, disappearing between the trees.
We drove down again, and south, and found ourselves in a paradise of sorts, a clear river running along the base of the hills, where happy shirtless boys were splashing and jumping around as if they’d found their way back to the beginning of the world. Families were gathered on carpets under the trees, one man serenading his party—a wedding party—with a set of
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