The Boy Who The Set Fire and Other Stories (17 page)

Yes. We can go, he said.

The next morning we got into a taxi and went, all four of us, the Djibli woman, my mother, my father and I, to the mountains. I was sitting on my father’s lap.

When we found the fqih’s house my father knocked on the door. The fqih came to answer. Sidi, said my father, I have a boy who has been struck by a djinn.

Ouakha, sidi, said the fqih. Let us deliver ourselves into the hands of Allah. With his help perhaps he can be cured.

The fqih took me inside, and my parents stayed outside. He led me into a dark room, and put me down so that I was sitting in front of a brazier with a fire burning in it. He had holy books, and the Koran, lying open on the floor. He threw some bakhour on the fire. It was benzoin of two colors—white and black. As it burned it made a sweet smell.

The fqih begins to read. He reads. He reads. He reads.

And I can’t understand anything he is saying, and I don’t know what he is doing. I am just there, sitting like a stick or a stone. Or like an animal.

When he has finished saying everything, he lifts me and wraps me up in a white cloth, and carries me out of the room. My father takes me in his arms and goes with me to the taxi.

In two or three days I shall come to Tangier, the fqih tells my father, and finish my work on this boy.

Three days later he comes down to Tangier, and he has with him two black cocks. He comes to our house and spends the night, and in the morning, before the sun is up, he and my father take me out. The fqih holds the first cock over the well, cuts its throat, and lets the blood drip into the water. Then my father picks me up and holds me by the feet, head down, over the edge of the well. The fqih cuts the second cock’s throat, and all the blood runs into my mouth, and then falls into the well. While my father is holding me there, the fqih begins to read. Then they take me and carry me inside the house. After my father eats breakfast with the fqih, he pays him.

Let us ask Allah to help us cure this boy, says the fqih.

To me he says: Allah y chafih.

If it is Allah’s wish, he will be cured, my father says.

You must not be afraid. He will be healthy again. But keep him away from the well.

The fqih goes away. After four days, my face is straight again. My mother and father are happy and the family stops worrying about me.

A month or so later I was playing with some boys who lived in the neighborhood. Suddenly I said: Let’s all go and fill up that well with the rocks.

We began to bring rocks from everywhere, and throw them into the well. Day after day, for a long time we worked filling it, until the rocks were in it up to the top.

On the day of the Aid el Kbir everyone was busy getting ready for the feast. My father brought out the sheep that was going to be sacrificed. I stood there watching while it had its throat cut. The sheep began to shake and the blood came out, and I fell over onto the ground.

They picked me up and carried me inside. They dropped bakhour onto the coals of the fire and sprinkled water over my face. And they put a key in my hand. When I woke up I began to tremble.

Tremble. Tremble. Tremble.

For three days I was sick. After that I stopped trembling.

The next year on the Aid el Kbir I did not want to be there when they killed the sheep. I went out, and I stayed out until I knew the sacrifice was finished. Then I went back home.

Five or six years later, when I was much bigger, a neighbor of ours had a son born to him. And he bought a sheep to sacrifice, so he could give his son a name. Every man has to do this, so that at the moment he cuts the sheep’s throat he can say: Bismillah Allah aqbar ala Mohammed, or Mustafa, or whatever he names his son. But this poor man had no one to help him do this. And he came to me and he said: Mohammed, the only one I can find today to help me is you.

I said: Ouakha, Si Mokhtar. I’ll help you.

The idea that anything could happen did not come into my head. I thought that the trouble I had had when I was young would be gone by now. I went with him and held the sheep by the legs, tight, and with the other hand I took its head. The man picked up the knife, put the point on the sheep’s throat, and then he said: Bismillah Allah aqbar ala Mustafa. And he cut the sheep’s throat. He pushed the knife in front of him hard, and drew it back once. The blood came out and hit my arm. It felt hot. And it kept coming out, coming out. I felt dizzy, and I had a fog in front of my eyes. I was holding on to the horns, and then my head moved down to one side and I fell on top of the sheep. It was lucky that the man was beside me. He lifted me up quickly and carried me inside his house.

When I sat up I felt ill, but I knew it was just nerves. The neighbor said: Forgive me, Mohammed. I didn’t realize that you had trouble with blood. It must be from a djinn. Only djenoun can do that to you.

It’s nothing, I said. I’m all right, hamdoul’lah.

Some time went by. One day I was with six men who had decided to buy a sheep together. Each one would pay for a part of it, and it would come out cheaper and better for all of them than buying meat in the market.

They were holding the sheep, ready to kill it, and I was just standing there watching. I did not want to go near. But as soon as they cut its throat, down I fell.

One of the men was older than the others, and he knew what to do. When I fell down, he ran and got a cup. Then he filled it with blood that was coming out of the sheep’s neck, and when I woke up he gave it to me to drink. And I drank it, and I felt warm and happy inside, as though nothing had happened. I was not trembling. I stood up, and I was feeling very well. I was not even weak.

Are you all right?

I said: Yes, thanks to Allah.

My son, he said. Something must have happened to you before this.

Yes, sidi, something very bad happened to me once.

I know. From now on, whenever you are going to be in a place where there is blood, all you have to do is drink a little of it, and the djenoun will not be able to take hold of you. Because if you let them do that some day they can kill you. Or they will shrivel one of your arms, or let one side of your face drop, or leave you only one eye to see through, or make you go crazy. But now you know what to do. If it makes you sick to look at blood, the only thing to do is to drink it.

I
N THE
B
ENI
O
URIAGHEL COUNTRY
lived a man who owned many cows and a vast tract of pasture land for them to graze on. His son Mohin took charge of the animals for him. The youth went out with the cattle in the morning and stayed with them until sunset. So that the hours he spent alone out on the hillside might pass more swiftly, he smoked kif throughout the day. His father would often say to him: The best thing for you is to go on living here at home. Take care of the cows for me, and I’ll give you something now and then.

To Mohin, watching cows was the worst sort of life any young man could have. He and his friends had built a shack outside the village where they all met each afternoon. When the day was finished, Mohin would drive all the cows back to their stalls, and hurry down to the cabin where the others were waiting for him.

The cabin was a place that only the boys knew about. There they could do whatever they pleased. There were mountains of kif lying on the floor, which they used both for smoking and for preparing hashish milk. This had a powerful effect for something so easy to make. They would heat the kif in an oven and then roll it into powder while it was still hot. Then they would mix milk with the powder and drink it. Once they had drunk hashish milk they were certain to laugh and sing for many hours. Here in the shack with his friends Mohin was able to forget that he spent his days sitting with the cows.

However, Mohin’s father had noticed the haste with which his son ran off down the hill each evening, and one day he determined to follow him and find out where he went. He kept a good distance behind the boy, and when he saw the cabin he stood still. He could hear the young men shouting and singing. Then he hurried back to the village to tell the other fathers.

You wanted to know where your sons go. I can tell you. They’ve built a shack down in the valley and they’re all there in it now.

Several of the men said they must go there right away. They went and got the moqaddem, and he said he would go with them. It was dark when they set out for the shack. Long before they got there they saw a huge fire burning. As they drew nearer they heard the drums. Then they saw that some of the young men were dancing around the fire. The others sat in a circle playing drums and flutes. There was a sheep roasting on the fire. The men kept walking, until they were very close.

Suddenly the boys became aware of the men standing in the shadows watching them. They stopped, jumped up, and began to whisper to one another. What are we going to do?

The moqaddem walked over to the boys. Go on playing, he told them. Why did you stop? And so they sat down and began to play again, wondering what was going to happen.

They’re going to burn down the shack, thought Mohin. I can save it. He seized a bowl and filled it with the hashish milk. He carried it across to the moqaddem, and because he had the best voice of all the young men, he sang as he walked, and the words were:
Who would make a slave of his son?
The moqaddem, thinking that Mohin was offering him milk, drank half of what was in the bowl. Then Mohin refilled it, and went to each of the men with it, and each one followed the moqaddem’s example. When he came to his own father and held out the bowl to him, the man was so confused that he drained it without even drawing breath. Then Mohin took the bowl and sang a song which went:
If only I’d known when I was still in my mother that you were the one I was going to call Father! From there I should have sent up a prayer to Allah: Let me die before I see the world!
When he heard these words the man was too shocked to say anything. The youths looked at one another and smiled.

Then Mohin and a few friends went in search of wood, and brought back the trunks of trees and threw them onto the fire. They cut up the sheep, and all the boys began to eat. The hashish milk was starting to have its effect on the men. They merely stood and watched their sons eating by the light of the fire.

After the youths had finished the sheep, they sat back and took up their drums and flutes again. The flames blazed higher. Soon Mohin jumped up and began to dance. When he was ready he stepped into the fire and pulled out a large glowing ember. He rubbed it over his face, ripped off his clothes and seared his body with it, and then he fell to the ground.

By now the men were full of hashish, and they began to walk away from the fire, leaving the boys to play their drums and flutes. They staggered back to the village without speaking. Mohin’s father, having drunk the entire bowl of hashish milk, felt extremely hot, and so he left the door of his bedroom open when he went to sleep. Early in the morning his dog awoke, came into the room, put his paws on the mattress, and began to lick the man’s face. He pushed the dog away, opened his eyes, and sat up. He stared at the animal, and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. Then before it could escape he seized it by the scruff of its neck and strangled it.

The man washed his hands, face and mouth, and went out into the courtyard. His brain was still boiling with hashish milk, and when he saw the axe that hung on the wall he took it and went outside to look for Mohin. As he ran through the street he met another man with a scythe in his hand. He called out to him, and the man stopped.

They put something in that milk they gave us last night, the man said. When I got home I went crazy and butchered five of my best cows. And now if I find my son Bouchta, I’m going to do the same thing to him.

Good, said Mohin’s father. We’ll find them and cut them both into pieces.

A boy who stood in a doorway nearby heard what they were saying. He went running to the shack and pounded on the door. Quick! he cried. You fathers are on their way here.

Mohin seized his sebsi and his naboula of kif, and rushed out of the shack. He saw the two men in the distance, coming over the hill, and called to Bouchta. Together they ran to the river, jumped into the water, and swam to the other bank.

Their fathers did not find them in the shack, and so they went back to the village, thinking that Mohin and Bouchta would return later, and that they would deal with them then. However, neither boy was ever seen again by the Beni Ouriaghel.