The Boy Who The Set Fire and Other Stories (4 page)

The orchard had all the hundreds of pear trees that his father had planted during his long lifetime in Boubana, and there were six deep wells on the land. In the garden Si Mokhtar grew the vegetables he needed for himself and many more. What he did not need he sold. Behind the house there was a clearing that always had been there, because nothing would grow there, and beyond that he had built a fence out of high canes and covered it with vines. The fence hid a patch of kif and a patch of tobacco. Between the two he had left a small place where he could sit.

Si Mokhtar had two big dogs. The white one was chained at one end to guard the kif, and the black one at the other to guard the tobacco. A farmer who lived nearby came every day to help him with his work. During the season when the pears ripened, the man would come with his donkeys each morning before daybreak, and he would find the crates of pears that Si Mokhtar had piled the day before, ready to take away. He would put them on the donkeys and ride off to the city. When he had sold them all, he would buy Si Mokhtar’s food and two kilos of horse meat for the dogs, and set off for Boubana. He would get back to the house as Si Mokhtar was waking up.

Each day it was the same. Si Mokhtar would open the door and step outside. The farmer would go past him into the kitchen with the food, and Si Mokhtar would walk to the well, fill a pail with pure cold water, and begin to wash. When he had finished and dried himself he would lift his face to the trees and say good morning to them. I’m still alive for you, he would tell them. And
hamdullah
, you’re still alive for me. Then he would go inside and light the fire and put on the water for tea. For his breakfast he always ate a loaf of fresh brown bread spread with sheep’s butter and wild honey. Si Mokhtar was no longer a young man, but he was still healthy. The teakettle stayed on the fire and the farmer sat and ate with him. But he would eat only a small piece of bread and take only a sip or two of tea, and it was difficult for him to swallow even that much. Si Mokhtar would say to him: You get up earlier and work harder than I do. I’m much older than you are, and yet I eat twice as much as you. The farmer would look at him, shake his head and say: Your body’s not like mine. It’s strong. Mine isn’t.

Si Mokhtar would ask him if he had sold everything and if everyone had paid cash, and the farmer would tell him what he had sold and bought, and how much money he had got and what he had paid out. They would go over each thing as they ate, and count the money that was left. After he had smoked three or four pipes of kif, Si Mokhtar would get up and go outside to pick pears. He put each pear carefully into a crate as he picked. When he grew tired of picking he would water the flowers and weed the vegetables for a while. After that he would wash his hands and feet, and go behind the fence to sit in his own spot between the kif patch and the tobacco patch. There he would smoke a few pipes and lie back and look up at the sky for a while, before he got up to go in and prepare his midday meal.

One day he went behind the fence to his spot. He sat down and began to smoke and drink tea, thinking about the world, and he looked at the kif growing beside him. It was a fine, light, silvery green. He looked at the tobacco and saw that it was very dark. Soon he leaned over and sniffed of the kif. It smelled sweet and fresh and spicy. And when he sniffed of the tobacco it had a rank odor. He turned to the kif: Yes, you’re poison, he told it. If you catch a man you take a little of his blood right away. Then he looked at the tobacco and said to it: But you, your poison is really poison. When you catch a man you may not take his blood then, but a day can come when you’ll take it all. He thought a while, and began to laugh. His laughter grew louder, and he looked up at the sky. But he was not crazy. He was thinking of the time that had not yet arrived in the world. The kif he was smoking made his thoughts shoot ahead, and he was able to see what was going to happen. Finally he spoke again. In the time that’s coming, there’s going to be fighting among men over both of you, he said to the kif and the tobacco. And he got up still laughing, and went out into the orchard to pull dead leaves off the plants. Soon he came to the clearing where nothing grew. He stood for a moment looking down at the ground, and he told it: I’m sorry. I can’t give you water and I can’t give you food. If I do, I’ll lose the thing I love, the thing that makes me happy. I can’t give you anything, because I want to stay this way always, with the same life I have now. When the good hour comes each evening I’m happy, and I live with my thoughts. He walked on slowly and watered his trees, and afterward he went to wash. He ate his supper, made a pot of tea, and went to sit in the clearing. It was the good hour. He spread out his small sheepskin on the ground, set his pipe and his glass of tea on it, and one by one lighted all the carbide lamps that he had put around the clearing.

He sat down and waited. After a while the small slugs began to come out and move around. This was what Si Mokhtar loved more than everything else. The slugs were of many different colors, and they crawled this way and that, and touched each other, and went on. For Si Mokhtar they were always something very beautiful and very rare. Not many people can watch a thing like this every evening, the way I can, he thought. And he stayed very still, looking at them, for many hours, until he grew sleepy. Then he blew out all the lamps and went into his room and slept.

Not far away, above the valley where he lived, a French army officer had bought a piece of land and built a house on it. For a year or more Si Mokhtar saw the workmen come each day, and he was sad when the house was all finished and the Nazarenes came to live in it. Whenever the Frenchman and his wife had guests, they sat on the terrace in front of their house and looked down across Si Mokhtar’s land. They could see the word allah written out in Arabic letters by the plants in his garden, and the five-pointed star made by the flowerbeds. They would look at the shady orchard and the gardens down below, and then out at their own empty land where there were only cactuses and rock. They thought it was wrong that a Moslem should have all those trees and flowers when they had none. And at night, when Si Mokhtar lighted all the lamps around his clearing, the officer would look down from his window and see the lights flickering among the trees, and he would curse in anger. Sometimes he would see a man in a djellaba stand up and walk around for a moment, and then he would see him disappear as he sat down again. What’s he doing down there? the Frenchman kept saying to himself.

One day at noon, when the sun was hot, Si Mokhtar stepped out into the clearing and saw one of the slugs lying alone on the bare ground. This had never happened before, and it astonished him. He bent down and whispered to it. Poor thing, what are you doing here? You’ll die if you stay here in the sun, and you mustn’t do that. You’ve got to go on living with your brothers. He shed a tear or two, took a leaf from a tree, and put the slug on the leaf. With the leaf in his hand he walked over to where there was some wet grass beside the well, and set the leaf down in the grass. All afternoon long he kept going to look at it, but it was still on the leaf. At twilight, when the slugs came out and began to move around, he picked up the leaf with the slug on it and carried it over to put it with the others. Then he went to prepare his evening tea. But that night as he sat watching the slugs he began to worry, and soon he bent over and said to them: Something’s wrong. It’s not the way it was. If I’d only known the Nazarene was going to buy that land, I’d have bought it myself, and he’d never have come to live so near us. It’s too bad he got it before I found out. He was quiet for a while, and then he told them: That Nazarene is going to spoil the life we have together. He put his head to the ground and looked closely at his slugs for such a long time that he fell into a trance.

The officer was standing by his bedroom window in the dark, looking down at the lights that burned around Si Mokhtar’s clearing. Each minute he felt more angry and nervous. Soon he told his wife that he was not coming to bed. He dressed and went out to the stables. There he got onto his horse and rode into the city to the barracks. He woke up four soldiers and told them they were going to ride with him to Boubana. When they got there he said: You go down there and see what that savage is doing, and come back here and tell me.

The four soldiers went down to Si Mokhtar’s land and began to pound on the gate and call out. The dogs made a great noise with their barking. This brought Si Mokhtar out of his trance, and he was very angry. He jumped up and ran to unchain the dogs. Then he opened the gate. The two dogs rushed out like two bullets and attacked the soldiers. Two of the men fell, and the other two ran. When the two on the ground had been badly bitten, they scrambled to their feet and ran after the others towards the highway, firing four shots back at the dogs as they ran. The dogs stopped barking and went back to the orchard. Si Mokhtar chained them up again. He was still very angry.

He went into the house and came out with an axe. Then he ran out into the dark after the soldiers, and went on running until he got to the highway. When he saw them standing in front of the officer’s house he shouted: What do you want of me? Where did you ever meet me? Why do you come in the middle of the night and disturb me? I don’t want to know you or see you. This is my land, and I live here with my trees and my slugs.

The soldiers kept asking him what he was doing with all those lights burning, but they did not try to go near him. When he heard their questions, he began to swing the axe in the air. You want to know what’s in there with the lights? he cried. What difference does it make to you what’s there? Everything I have is there! My life is there! But you’ll never get to see it!

He ran back to his house and put the axe away. In his bedroom he sat down trembling, smoked four pipes of kif, and fell asleep. When he awoke in the morning he was still trembling. He thought a moment. Then he went out to the clearing and began to spread dirt over the bare patch of ground, and on top of the dirt he poured water. He looked sadly at the clearing, and said to it: I’ve given you food and I’ve given you water.

When evening came he went to the place and looked. There was nothing moving. No slugs came out. He waited for a long time, but nothing happened. Then he knew everything was finished, and he began to sob. He blew out the lamps and went to bed.

In the morning he got up very early before the farmer had come, and walked all the way to the city. It was many years since he had been there, and the noise and confusion made him feel that he was about to explode. He rushed this way and that through the streets, sometimes running like a crazy man, until finally he found his way back to the road that led out to Boubana. When he got to his orchard he went in and walked behind the fence to the place between the kif and the tobacco. He let the two dogs loose so they could run around, and sat down to smoke. But his heart was beating very hard and his head was hot.

After his second pipe he began to feel very ill. I’m going to die, he thought. He could feel the dark growing inside his head, but in spite of that he sat up and began to write with his forefinger in the dirt beside him.
This is our land. If you are my brothers and you love me you will never sell it
.

And Si Mokhtar died then, just as he had expected. And the two dogs put their noses together and began to speak with each other. The black dog lay down beside Si Mokhtar, and the white one went running out of the orchard. He crossed the river and climbed up the side hill to the cemetery, and from there he ran on to Mstakhoche until he got to the house where Si Mokhtar’s brother lived. There he barked and scratched at the door. When the man opened the door and saw the dog’s eyes, he said to his wife: Mokhtar is dead. And he leapt onto his horse, and with the dog running behind, galloped down to Boubana. Si Mokhtar lay there, with the black dog lying beside him. He read the message written in the dirt, and he bent down and said to Si Mokhtar: I swear to you,
khai
. We’ll never sell it.

S
INCE
B
ARAKA’S FATHER
had two houses, he let Baraka live by himself in the empty one. It consisted of two ground-floor rooms and a kitchen and bathroom. The large room was fully furnished. Baraka preferred the small room, which had a mat, a taifor, a mattress and a wardrobe. On the taifor he kept a large bowl filled with a mixture of almonds, walnuts, honey and black
jduq jmel
seeds.

Afternoons Baraka would sit and brew a pot of tea. He would eat two spoonfuls of the mixture and drink two glasses of very hot tea. A little later he would smoke a kif cigarette.

This story is not one that can be proven, but it is certain that he would shut his eyes and lie back on the cushions with his head against the wall, and begin to dream. He always dreamed that he was wandering in an orchard. It was a strange place, like nowhere he had ever been before. Wherever he walked there were roses under the trees. Roses in all directions; he could walk a kilometer and never cease to see them.