The Boy Who The Set Fire and Other Stories (13 page)

A
MAN WHO LIVED
in Beni Makada used to go every day with his son to fish. All day they would stand on the rocks holding their poles, and when they were finished, the man would send the boy Mimoun home with the fishing gear, while he himself carried the fish to the market. One stormy day he slipped on a rock and fell into the sea. The waves were crashing against the cliffs, and the man could not climb out. Each time he tried, a big wave would hurl him against the rocks, and soon, while Mimoun watched, he was dead.

Another fisherman who lived nearby hired the boy to work for him on his boat. He paid him well, so that he had no reason to look for other work. After two years, however, he decided to leave. Then he began to fish from the rocks as his father had done. He would carry the pole and everything else with him, and fish all day by himself. Sometimes he brought back two baskets full of fish. He made enough by selling these to keep him and his mother and sister alive.

Early one cold morning when the east wind was roaring Mimoun stood beside the ocean casting his line. He wore his bathing-suit, and the waves broke around his chest. The fish were coming in, one after the other, and all of them big. Then he heard an automobile going along the road above. He looked up. It was a large black Mercedes, and it came to a stop. He went on fishing, the basket hanging on his arm, and he kept landing the fish. The people in the car were watching. Soon the basket was filled, and Mimoun came out of the water, wet and shivering. He set the basket of fish onto the sand, pulled out a towel and dried himself. Then he dressed, but his teeth were still chattering. He sat down, sighed, and lit a pipe of kif, As he was finishing it, he heard a man’s voice calling to him.

Mimoun called back. What is it?

Have you got any fish to sell?

Yes!

Bring them up!

Why don’t you come down? said Mimoun.

The man came down to the beach and began to look at the fish.

He picked out the five biggest and said to Mimoun: How much are these?

Five hundred pesetas.

A hundred each?

Is that too much for you?

Yes, it is.

All right. Give me four hundred and fifty.

You’re a thief! the man cried.

I’m selling to you, and you’re buying, said Mimoun. He filled his sebsi and lighted it. I’m not stealing. You’ve got no reason to tell me I’m a thief.

When you ask such a price for fish you’re stealing, the man said.

If I were going to steal, I wouldn’t steal four hundred and fifty pesatas. I’d make it worthwhile. You wouldn’t find me here at this time of the morning on a day like this in the water up to my neck. It’s cold, and the wind is blowing, and the waves keep hitting me.

Mimoun held up his feet so the other could see the soles. Look at the cuts everywhere. They don’t mean anything to you? And my clothes? I quit the work I had so that nobody would be able to tell me what to do. If I had some other work, even stealing, do you think I’d be here every day?

I’m not interested in what you do, said the man.

Oh, I know that. I was just talking. If you want to pay four hundred and fifty pesetas take the fish. If you don’t, good-bye.

You’d better watch your tongue, boy. I don’t think you know who I am.

Why don’t you just go? said Mimoun. I haven’t any fish to sell.

A second man got out of the Mercedes and came down to the beach. What’s going on?

He’s a robber. And he’s full of bright ideas.

Mimoun said: I’m not going to sell you any fish. You’ve got five million francs parked up there on the road. And you don’t want to pay the same as anybody else for fish.

The second man said: Of course we have a good car. Why shouldn’t we?

Yes, why shouldn’t you? Use it in good health, said Mimoun. He filled his pipe with kif and smoked it. You don’t mind spending a fortune in a bar drinking whiskey, but you don’t want to see any of your money go to a poor fisherman.

The two men turned and went away. Mimoun stayed where he was, sitting on the beach. He was alone, so he pulled out his thermos bottle and drank a cup of tea. Then he smoked some more kif, and ran up and down the beach for a while.

When he was warm enough, he undressed and went into the water again. He had been fishing for an hour or so when he heard the sound of the Mercedes coming back. It stopped, and he knew they were watching him as he fished.

After a few minutes the car started up and continued on its way. When his second basket was full, Mimoun came out of the water. He gathered up everything and climbed over the rocks to the road. There he sat down on a stone to put on his shoes.

Suddenly the Mercedes came back from the way it had gone, and stopped not far from where Mimoun sat. A woman got out of it and walked down the road toward him.

Brother, she said. I’d like to have some of that fish.

Sister, he said, your husband or your boy-friend wanted some too, but he couldn’t afford to buy any.

Don’t pay any attention to him, she told Mimoun, and she laughed.

Well, pick the fish you want.

She chose six big ones and held them up. How much?

Five hundred pesetas, said Mimoun.

She took out the money and gave it to him. At that moment the second man came up. He pointed to the car. Don’t you know who that man is? he said.

No. Who is he?

That’s the Khalifa of Khattiya. A very important and powerful man, and you were making fun of him.

He can be whoever he is, and I’m who I am, said Mimoun. I have a right to sell my fish at any price I can get for it. Is that true or not?

That’s all right, the man told him. They got into the Mercedes with their fish. As they drove past him he thought: He couldn’t face me again. He had to get a woman to buy his fish for him.

R
AMADAN’S SHACK WAS IN THE MIDDLE
of a canebrake. He lived there alone, with seven sheepskins on the floor, and on the walls he had hung things that no one else would hang, like a guerba of goatskin for water and a broken jug. He had a jacket and two djellabas made completely out of patches. He said that each garment had a hundred and one patches, and that each patch was of a different color. This may have been true.

Ramadan had a narghile made of a bottle, a stick of wood and a rubber tube. He smoked only kif in it, and he smoked all day instead of working. In order to eat he had to go to a café and try to borrow money from his friends. Give me a hundred pesetas, he would say, and I’ll have them back to you tomorrow. If he got the money he would spend most of it on kif, which he smoked whole, without cleaning it or removing the seeds. Only after he had bought his kif would he get himself a little tea, a little sugar, and some bread.

One afternoon he made a small tajine. Then he went down to the Zoco Chico and walked around. Presently he met a young man whom he knew, and he invited him to go home with him. The young man agreed, and they went together to the shack in the canebrake.

What do you do all day, Ramadan? the young man asked him.

Nothing. I smoke my narghile and I sleep. And in the morning I find some money.

But who gives you the money?

I can’t tell you that. If I did, I wouldn’t find it anymore. No, no. I can’t tell you.

Ramadan made a pot of tea, lit his narghile, and they began to smoke while they sipped.

You make good tea, said the young man.

Not many people have the chance of drinking it, said Ramadan. I don’t let most people into my house.

Then he brought out the tajine. All it had in it was potatoes and tomatoes. But he had a loaf of bread, and they both enjoyed the meal, because they had smoked raw kif without tobacco and they were hungry. If the meal had consisted of a boiled donkey’s head, they would still have found it tasty.

When they had eaten everything, they sat back and began to smoke again. Finally they went to bed on the sheepskins. But the young man could not sleep, and he kept shifting his position. Finally Ramadan cried: What’s the matter with you?

You’ve got something here that bites, the young man told him. Ramadan turned on the light, and they found a nest of bedbugs in the blanket.

I think I’ll go, the young man said.

Have you got any money? asked Ramadan.

No.

Here’s twenty-five pesetas.

The young man took the money and left, and Ramadan shut the door and went to sleep. In the morning when he got up he went to the house of a friend.

Can you lend me fifty pesetas?

The friend gave him the money. Then Ramadan went to see another man who had given him fifty pesetas another day.

Here’s twenty-five pesetas, said Ramadan. Tomorrow I’ll bring you the other twenty-five.

In the afternoon he went to a café. He walked to the musicians’ platform and sat down. And he pulled out his narghile, set it on the floor and filled it with kif, and began to smoke it. He puffed on it once and exhaled the smoke. Ahahah! he cried. By my mother-in-law! The narghile just said to me: Take me and fill me, for the love of Sidi Hiddi!

Everyone in the café laughed, but he went on smoking. He was wearing patchwork trousers and one of his djellabas of a hundred and one colors and his cap of fifty colors. And he had with him a pouch made of seven kinds of leather. Around his neck he wore a chain with a little brass bell at the end of it. When he had kif in him he would weave his head around and make the bell ring.

A man arrived.
Salaamou aleikoum
, ya Ramadan!

At this time of day there’s neither salaam nor any need for words, Ramadan told the man.

Why, Ramadan?

The kif does it.

Does what, Ramadan?

It goes into my head and comes out my ears. And my eyes turn red. I’m not inside myself. I’m outside looking in, and my heart has been scraped. No, no, no, no, no, no, no! Leave me my own dreams and my own luck.

The friend went out again, and Ramadan stayed where he was on the platform, smoking his narghile and talking to himself. At times foam would bubble out of his mouth. Soon another man came into the café, greeted the men, and then climbed up onto the soudda where Ramadan sat. And he said to Ramadan:
Salaam aleikoum
.

Now it’s the time for salaaming and talking, said Ramadan.
Aleikoum salaam
. Sit down.

The man sat down. Then Ramadan lighted his narghile and handed it to his friend, saying: Smoke my pipe and call my loved one.

The man took a great puff. I’ve smoked your narghile and called your loved one, he told him.

Allah, Allah, Allah! cried Ramadan. No one can forget me! My name is Ramadan, and Ramadan is a long way off. But the one I love is very near.

As they went out, each one of his friends passed by him and gave him a few coins. And someone would always pay for the glasses of tea that he had drunk. He could drink as many as twenty glasses while he sat there.

When evening came he left the café and went home to his shack in the canebrake. There he spread a sheepskin on the ground and sat down in the moonlight. And he brought his teapot out and set it in front of him, and began to smoke. And he said: I’m all alone! I’m all alone! Who’ll go with me? I know who’ll go with me. My darling narghile, my love. But I’m afraid! I’m afraid!

He was looking up at the moon far above his head. My enemy is burned! he cried. I burned him.

And he went on lighting the narghile and smoking it, so that he spent the whole night out there among the canes, lying on the sheepskin.

In the morning he went into his shack, took out of his pouch all the money his friends had given him and tossed it onto the floor. He sat counting it for a long time. Then he washed his face, slung the strap of the pouch over his shoulder, and set out on foot for the city. There he went to an eating-stall owned by a man named El Berraq.

Give me a bowl of baisar with extra olive oil and red pepper and cumin, he told El Berraq. And a loaf of whole wheat bread to go with it.

And he ate all the bread and the baisar, and afterward he drank a liter of water. Then he took out his narghile and said to it: Good morning, darling! When evening comes, I’ll say good-night to you. He stuffed the kif in, and everyone in the eating-stall was watching him, and laughing. He sucked on the tube. Allah! Allah! You hurt me! he cried. Why did you do that?

He smoked some more. There! That puff was very sweet. Wait a minute. Let me take another puff.

He sucked on the tube, shut his eyes, and murmured: Allah! That time you didn’t hurt me, darling. I smoke, and you watch. I blow the smoke out, and you smell it.

Ramadan sat smoking while the others laughed. After a while he got up and tried to pay, but El Berraq told him: That’s all right. Everything’s taken care of.

Thank you. Allah be with you. And Ramadan went on his way down the street, until he came to Dar Debbagh. There he went into the café where the fishermen sit. At the sight of him they all began to call out: Ramadan!

Good morning to you and to me, too! he cried. And to my narghile, and to the heart of my loved one!

Yes, Ramadan. Sit down. Have a glass of tea with us.