The Boy Who The Set Fire and Other Stories (9 page)

Qaqo began to laugh. Mother, he said. There are no affarits anymore. The old woman is probably hiding there from the government, and she’s got friends with her, smugglers perhaps. I’d like to see her myself. I’m going up and look for her.

No! Don’t go there, please! I’ll go crazy waiting for you to come back. They could kill you. And if anything happens to you I’ll die.

Don’t you think about it, Mother, he said. It’s seven o’clock. I’ve got to go to work now and get rid of these pastries. There aren’t many left.

Qaqo went out with only about twenty pastries on his tray. He sold them quickly to the men having their breakfast at the café. Then he bought enough kif to fill his mottoui, went to the market for food, and carried it home.

You can make lunch for yourself, he told his mother. Because I won’t be here. I’ll be back for dinner.

She knew where he was going. Be very careful, son. If they ever catch you they’ll kill you.

Don’t worry, said Qaqo.

He walked to Dradeb and then up the Monte Viejo. He cut through to the highway by the Palace of Moulay Abd el Aziz, and then followed along to Sidi Amar. He climbed up to the top of the great rock of Sidi Amar. The sun was warm. He sat down, looked at the mountains, and smoked many pipes of kif. Then he lay on his back and looked at the trees and the sky.

After a while he put away his pipe, climbed down the rock, and started walking again, straight to Bouiba del Hallouf. He stood on top of the cliff and looked at the big forest all around below him. The sight of it chilled him at first. But then he started down through the forest, taking the path his mother had described to him. It was not long before he came to the large hole in the ground. He peered in and saw the white bones far below. Then he went on, made the turn to the left, and soon came to the place of the two boulders. He stood still and listened. Then between the trees he saw a clearing where thousands of butterflies were trembling in the sunlight. The ground was covered with them, and they moved in the air under the trees. He went on into the forest. Again he stopped to listen and to smoke some kif, and now it seemed as though he could hear a woman’s voice saying to him: Don’t go on. Something will happen.

He looked upward, into the branches of a tree above him, and thought he could make out the face of an old woman caught in the thick spiderwebs that hung between the boughs.

Qaqo continued to walk ahead. Suddenly a girl stepped out from behind a tree and walked toward him. When she came up to him she stopped and said: Ahilan! How are you?

And you, he said. How are you?

I’m wondering what you’re doing here, she told him.

Just looking at the forest. There’s not another like it. I’ve been to many places, and we have the best one here at Bouiba del Hallouf.

Yes, you’re right, she said. Come with me if you want to see more.

They started to walk together. Soon they came to the entrance to a large cave. Qaqo followed the girl inside, and they descended a flight of stairs into a lower cave. There were trickles of water running down the walls of rock. The water ran into a trough that led to a pool below. When they got to the bottom of the steps, Qaqo saw that the pool was full of fish. There were many torches burning in this part of the cave.

Wait for me here. I’m going to change my clothes, the girl told him. I’ll be right back.

Qaqo stood smoking kif by the edge of the pool while he waited. He was not certain whether what he was seeing was real or not because he had already smoked so much kif on the rock at Sidi Amar. Soon the girl arrived looking even more beautiful in a blue and gold kaftan.

What would you like to see? she asked him as they went back up the stairs.

You have butterflies, said Qaqo. I’d like to see them.

Don’t you want to see what I have here in the cave? she said.

I want to see the butterflies first, he told her.

They walked out of the cave and through the forest to the clearing. As they stood there looking at the butterflies, again it seemed to Qaqo that he could hear a woman’s voice. But this time it was laughing. He glanced up. There was something that looked like the face of a very old woman wrapped in the spiderwebs between the branches. Her mouth seemed to be saying: Look out! Be careful!

The girl was shivering as she looked at the butterflies lighting and fluttering their wings. I hate those things! she cried.

Then Qaqo gave her a powerful push, so that she fell onto the earth among the butterflies. He could scarcely see her, there were so many of them around her. She began to scream, and as she screamed she started to look like the thing he had just seen in the tree, muffled in spiderwebs. He was terrified, and he seized her by the neck and pushed. Her nails ripped the skin from his arms. He pushed harder, and blood began to spill from her mouth. Then suddenly he realized that he was choking a frog. The frog was dead. He stood up. The blood was still oozing from its mouth.

Qaqo began to run through the forest. He ran all the way up the trail, and did not stop until he reached the highway. It was getting dark and all his kif was gone. He hurried on to Tchar ej Jdid. His mother was waiting for him.

Did you see the affrita? she asked him.

There was no affrita, said Qaqo. There was nothing at all.

A
YOUTH NAMED
M
EHDI
who came from the place of a hundred and one saints married a girl from Temsaman as beautiful as he was handsome. They lived on a farm where nothing grew but almond trees and kif. Their first child was a girl whom they named Zohra. She stayed with them for a little more than a year, and then she fell ill with a sickness in her throat. There were no doctors in that part of the country, so they did not know what was the matter with her. They gave her many sorts of herbs that grow in the mountains, but it did not help her. A terrible odor began to come out of her mouth, and she died.

Not much later a son was born to them, and they named him Mohammed. Mehdi said to his wife: I’m eighteen now, and you’re seventeen. I think we should move to the city.

They went to Tangier, where Mehdi had relatives. They told him: There’s a new hotel here that’s taking on help. Why don’t you try? He went to the Hotel Minzah and they gave him work in the kitchen as an assistant. He had brought a good sum of money with him from the sale of the farm, and he earned high wages at the hotel.

After a few months an older woman named Aicha Riffiya began to follow him around in the street, and to wait for him outside the hotel. She lived in a brothel in Bnider, but she was in love with Mehdi. And so she captured him, a young man with a son. She even showed him how to drink wine.

One night Mehdi and his friends gave a party at a mahal in Bnider. They had several women there with them. For the first time Mehdi did not sit beside Aicha Riffiya. He was paying attention to a girl named Haddouj Djibliya. He smoked kif and drank with his friends, and Aicha Riffiya sat and watched him. As she watched, hatred for Mehdi filled her heart. If she had been able to kill him then and there, she would not have waited. However, there was nothing she could do at that moment but watch.

Mehdi spent the night with Haddouj Djibliya. In the morning he went to work, and at the end of the day he went home. His wife greeted him by saying: Where were you all night? I was waiting for you. It didn’t come into your head that perhaps your son was sick or that I might need you, or that maybe something had happened here in the house. You’ve begun to go with whores, and they’ve taught you to drink wine. I can smell it.

Shut up! he shouted, and he jumped up and slapped her twice, very hard. I know, she said. I have no right to speak. I’m only your wife. But I love you, and you love me, and you hit me because I tell you the truth. You hit me because you like wine and whores. You’re married, Mehdi! Why do you want whores and wine? If I’d known you were like this I’d never have married you! Now I understand why you wanted to come to Tangier. Because in the Rif there are no whores. You’re disgusting!

Do you want me to bash your head in?

She stopped talking and merely sobbed. Mehdi threw some money on the table and went out. He walked straight down to Bnider. Aicha Riffiya was waiting for him in the street.

Labess.

Labess. Come on in.

Mehdi went in, and they sat on piles of cushions in an inner room. Aicha Riffiya was very lively. Let’s have a celebration tonight. she said.

They ordered wine and cognac, and started to drink. What with the kif and the cognac, Mehdi began to feel happy. Aicha Riffiya was waiting for this time, so that she could bring out what she wanted to give him and slip it into his glass.

When she had emptied the powder into the glass, she filled it with cognac and gave it back to him. Mehdi spent the night with Aicha Riffiya and went to work in the morning. The kitchen seemed hotter than usual. He felt a great weight inside him, and his head was swimming. Then he fell to the floor in the middle of the kitchen.

They took him to the British Hospital and the doctor gave him medicine through needles. I can’t see anything the matter with this young man, said the doctor. His body is in perfect condition.

At the hospital there was a Moslem who had worked there for many years, ever since his childhood. When the old man looked at Mehdi, he shook his head and said: That boy has eaten tsoukil. He should be given very old oil.

The man himself went and got the oil, and took it to Mehdi in the hospital. When Mehdi was taken home the next day in an ambulance, he went along, carrying the oil.

After a week or so Mehdi was well. The day he got up, his wife said to him: What did you find when you opened your eyes? Who was sitting beside your bed? The whores you spend your nights with, or your wife?

It’s the last time, said Mehdi. I’m never going to do it again.

When Mehdi’s son was fifteen, he too began to go to Bnider, and he got to know all of his father’s friends there. By then he had heard the story of what Aicha Riffiya had done to his father. One day he invited some friends to his mahal on the Hafa. They brought along some whores with them. The oldest whore was Aicha Riffiya. After everyone was drunk, the boy stood up and said: My father was handsome and he owned a diamond. That was my mother. And you, Aicha Riffiya, wanted to kill him because one night he went off with another whore like you. But he didn’t die.

And the boy rushed at her, and pulled off her pants, and wrenched open her legs, and burned her with the Lucky Strike he was smoking. They all laughed while she screamed. Then two of his friends got up and stopped him. That’s enough, they told him. The cigarette is broken, anyway.

Aicha Riffiya was not able to walk for two weeks. When Mehdi heard of it, he said: I never paid her back, but my son did. He’s a good boy.

T
HERE WAS A YOUNG MAN
they called Bahloul, who lived alone with his mother. His father had left home when he was four years old. Since then his mother had cared for him, working in the house of some Nazarenes. When he was ten, she had bought a small house with a patch of land around it. Now, she said, at last I can relax. I’ve got my own house, and if I should die, you’d have a place to live, aoulidi.

I wish I knew where my father was, said Bahloul.

If he’s still alive, he’ll come back to find you, she told him. Or if he’s dead, we’ll see him when we all go before Allah.

When Bahloul was fifteen, his mother fell ill and took to her bed. He was overcome by anxiety. There was no one else in the house, and he stayed home from school to take care of her.

Then the Nazarenes she worked for came to see her, and they called an ambulance and had her taken to the hospital. For three months she stayed there, while Bahloul lived at home by himself. He did not go back to school, but instead sat with his friends in a café. And when he went home at night he would take another boy along with him to sleep there, so that he would not be so afraid. Then he grew used to smoking kif, which he enjoyed every time.

One morning an ambulance drew up in front of the house. Two internes jumped down and took out a stretcher from the back. They asked Bahloul if this was the house where the sick woman lived.