The Orange Grove

by Larry Tremblay

  Aziz wanted to touch the belt. His father pushed him away. He put it back in the bag and left the room. Amed and Aziz watched at the window as he disappeared in the fields of orange trees.

  Tamara rarely talked with her husband. She preferred their silences to their usual arguments. They loved one another as men and women should love one another in the eyes of God and men.

  Often, before joining her husband in bed, she would go into the garden. She would sit on the bench in front of the roses and inhale the rich scents that rose from the damp earth. Let herself be lulled by the music of insects, raise her head to seek the moon. Look at it as if it were an old friend she’d just run into. Some nights the moon made her think of a fingernail print in the flesh of the sky. She liked these moments when she was alone before infinity. Her children were sleeping. Her husband was waiting for her in their bedroom and she might have existed as a star that shone for worlds unknown. Gazing at the sky, Tamara wondered if the moon had known the desire for death, to disappear from the face of night and leave men orphans of the light. Its weak light borrowed from the sun’s.

  Beneath the starry sky, Tamara didn’t fear talking to God. She felt as if she knew Him better than did her husband. Her words were lost in the sound of water in the stream. Yet she still hoped that they rose up to Him.

  When the men who’d come in the jeep left their house, Zahed had insisted on giving them oranges and asked his wife to help him fill two big baskets. She’d refused. That night Tamara had spent longer than usual on the bench. She’d dared not utter the words that were burning her tongue. This time, too, her prayer remained silent:

  “Your name is great, my heart too small to contain it entirely. What would You do with the prayer of a woman like me? My lips scarcely touch the shadow of Your first syllable. But they say that Your heart is greater than Your name. Your heart, no matter its size, is great enough that a woman can hear it in her own. That’s what they say when talking about You and they speak only the truth. But why must one live in a country where time cannot do its work? The paint hasn’t had time to peel nor the curtains to turn yellow, the plates haven’t had time to chip. Things never serve their time, the living are always slower than the dead. Our men age faster than their wives. They dry like tobacco leaves. It’s hatred that keeps their bones in place. Without hatred they would collapse and never get up again. The wind would make them disappear. All that would remain is the moaning of their wives in the night. Listen to me, I have two sons. One is the hand, the other the fist. One takes, the other gives. One day it’s the one, another day the other. I beg you, don’t take them both from me.”

  That was Tamara’s prayer the night she refused to fill the two baskets with oranges.

  After the village school was destroyed by bombs, Tamara turned herself into a teacher. Every morning she sat the two boys down in the kitchen next to the fat pots with blackened necks, and took great pleasure in her new role. There was talk of relocating the school, but no one in the village could agree on where. For months, then, families carried on as best they could. Amed and Aziz didn’t complain. They liked being there in the fragrant kitchen, where bouquets of fresh mint hung from the ceiling along with strings of garlic. They even made progress. Amed’s writing improved, and Aziz, despite his hospitalization, took to his multiplication tables with greater confidence.

  As the boys were out of books, one morning Tamara thought to make notebooks out of leftover wrapping paper, and they, little kitchen scribblers, blackened the creased pages of these odd volumes with their stories. The boys took to the game right away. Amed even invented a character who embarked on impossible adventures. He explored distant planets, dug tunnels in the desert, struck down undersea creatures. Amed called him Dôdi, and endowed him with two mouths, one very little and one very big. Dôdi used his little mouth to communicate with insects and microbes. He used his big mouth to strike fear into the monsters he battled. But Dôdi sometimes spoke with his two mouths at the same time. Then the words he pronounced were comically deformed, creating new words and jumbled sentences that made the little apprentice writers laugh. Tamara took enormous pleasure in this. But after the night of the bombing and the death of their grandparents, those makeshift notebooks told only sad and cruel stories. And Dôdi went silent.

  A week after the visit of the men in the jeep, the distant voice of Zahed came to Amed and Aziz in the kitchen, where they were working, without much enthusiasm, at their notebooks. He was calling them from the orange grove, where he spent twelve hours a day pruning, watering, and checking every tree. But this wasn’t the hour when he stopped to rest. Amed and Aziz dropped their pencils and ran to join their father, anxious to know what he wanted. Tamara left the house. Zahed gestured for her to come as well. She shook her head and went back inside. Zahed insulted her in front of her sons, something he’d never done before. Amed and Aziz no longer recognized their father. And yet when he began to speak, his voice was calmer than usual.

  “Observe, my sons, the purity of the light,” said he. “Lift your heads. Look, a single cloud is drifting in the sky. It’s very high and is slowly thinning out. In a few moments, it will be a mere thread dissolved in the blue. Look. You see, it no longer exists. All is blue. It’s strange. There’s no breeze today. The far-off mountain seems to be dreaming. Even the flies have stopped buzzing. All about us the orange trees are breathing in and out in silence. Why such calm, why such beauty?”

  Amed and Aziz were silent.

  “Halim. You know him? You don’t want to answer? I know that you’re acquainted with Halim. The other night, when Soulayed went silent, Halim’s father, Kamal, spoke to me. His voice was not as strong as that of Soulayed. He said to me: ‘Zahed, you have before you a great sinner. I do not deserve to be in your company. As Soulayed said, you are the worthy son of your father, Mounir, whose renown for a long time reached beyond the walls of his house. One must be in harmony with God to achieve what your father did with his two hands. How sad to look on his ruined house. How shameful. With what pain. Accept the poor prayers of the sinner I am. I strike my breast. I pray for the souls of your parents.’”

  And Kamal, with his fist, had delivered three hard blows to his heart. Like this, Zahed asserted, reenacting in front of his sons Kamal’s gesture.

  “Kamal also said to me: ‘God has blessed you twice, Zahed. Rejoice, that he has placed in your wife’s womb two such sons. My wife died giving birth to our only son. Halim is what God has given me that is most precious. Yet I struck him. Look, you can still see the marks on his face. I struck him when he told me what he had decided. I closed my eyes and I struck him as I would strike a wall. I closed my eyes because I could not have struck my son in the light of day. When I opened my eyes, I saw blood. I closed my eyes and I struck harder. I opened my eyes. Halim had not moved. He stood tall before me and his eyes were filled with red tears. May God forgive me. I am only a miserable sinner. I did not understand. I did not want to understand his decision.’”

  “‘Now you understand your son’s decision,’ said Soulayed to Kamal before going to get the belt in his jeep.

  “During Soulayed’s absence, Halim leaned toward me and spoke as if he were revealing a secret.

  “‘Zahed, listen. Before my meeting with Soulayed, I cursed my mother. I cursed her because I did not die along with her. Why be born in a land that still seeks its name? I did not know my mother and I will never know my country. But Soulayed came to me. One day, he talked to me. He said: ‘I know your father, I go to his shop to have my boots resoled. Kamal is a good worker. He asks a fair price for his labor. But he’s an unhappy man. And you, his son, you are even more unhappy. Halim, to utter the word of God is not enough. I’ve watched you during prayers. Where is your strength? Why come to prostrate yourself among your brothers and beseech God’s name? Your mouth is as empty as your heart. Who wants your unhappiness, Halim? Who can profit from your lament? You’re already fifteen years old and you’ve done nothing with this life that Go
d has offered you. In my eyes, you are worth no more than our enemies. Your softness weakens us and brings us shame. Where is your anger? I do not hear it. Listen to me, Halim: our enemies are dogs. They are like us, you think, because their faces are faces of men. That’s an illusion. Look at them with the eyes of your ancestors, and you’ll see what these faces are really made of. They are made of our death. In a single enemy face, you can see our annihilation a thousand times. Never forget this: every drop of your blood is a thousand times more precious than a thousand of their faces.”

  “When Soulayed came back with the belt, silence had taken hold of the night,” said Zahed finally.

  His two sons sat listening to him in the diaphanous shadow of the orange trees. Impressed by their father’s story, Amed and Aziz understood that life in the orange grove would never be the same again. It was the second time in just a few short days that Zahed had spoken to them so seriously, he who was sparing with his words. He rose painfully and lit a cigarette. He smoked slowly, and with each puff seemed to be turning over in his head thoughts that were weighty, tormented.

  “Halim is going to die,” Zahed declared suddenly, butting out his cigarette. “At noon, when the sun is shining and at its zenith, Halim is going to die.”

  Zahed sat down near the boys, and all three waited in silence for the sun to locate itself right over their heads. At noon, Zahed asked his sons to look at the sun. They did so. First their eyes screwed up. Then they were able to keep them open. They filled with tears. Their father stared into the sun longer than they did.

  “Halim is near to the sun now.”

  “Why?” asked Aziz.

  “Dogs wearing clothes. Our enemies are dogs with clothes. They surround us. In the south, they have closed off our cities with walls of stone. That’s where Halim has gone. He crossed the frontier. Soulayed told him how. He passed through a secret tunnel. Then he climbed onto a crowded bus. At noon, he blew himself up.”

  “But how?”

  “With a belt of explosives, Aziz.”

  “Like the one we saw?”

  “Yes, Amed, like the one you saw in the bag. Listen to me carefully: Soulayed, before he left, came to me and whispered something in my ear. He said to me: ‘You have two sons. They were born at the foot of the mountain that closes off our land in the north. Few people know the secrets of this mountain as well as your two young sons. Have they not found a way to reach the other side? They’ve done it, no? You ask how I know that. Halim told me. And it’s your sons themselves who told Halim.’”

  Having said that, Zahed suddenly grabbed his sons by their necks. He held Amed with his right hand, and Aziz with his left. He lifted them from the ground. It was as if he’d gone mad. Amed and Aziz felt as if the earth had begun to shake, as if the oranges around them were going to fall by the thousands from their branches.

  “Is that the truth?” cried their father. “What did you tell Halim? What did you tell that boy who just blew himself up?”

  Unable to speak, Amed and Aziz began to cry.

  That night, Zahed came to their room. They were already in bed. He leaned over them. In the shadows, his body was a shapeless mass. He talked very softly. Asked if they were sleeping. They didn’t reply, but they weren’t sleeping. Zahed continued to whisper.

  “My little men,” he said, “God knows what is in my heart. And you know too. You’ve always done me honor. You are brave sons. When the bomb fell on your grandparents’ house, you showed great courage. Your mother is very proud of you. But she doesn’t want to understand what is happening in our land. She doesn’t want to see the danger facing us. She’s very unhappy. She did not speak to Soulayed when he left. He’s an important man. She insulted him. She shouldn’t have done that. Soulayed will come back, you understand, he’ll come back to talk to you. Now sleep.”

  He planted a kiss on Amed’s brow. Then on that of Aziz, as he had done at the hospital. When he left, the smell of him lingered in the room.

  Zahed was right. Soulayed came back very soon. Amed instantly recognized the sound of the jeep. He ran out of the house. Soulayed gestured for him to approach. This time Soulayed was alone. He asked Amed:

  “Are you Amed or Aziz?”

  “I’m Amed.”

  “Well, Amed, go and find your brother. I want to talk to both of you.” Amed went into the house. Aziz was not yet up. Because he’d been sick, his mother was letting him sleep. Amed shook him: “Hurry up, get dressed. Soulayed’s come. He wants to talk to us.”

  Aziz opened his eyes wide, raised his eyebrows in surprise. He looked like a little dog.

  “Did you hear what I said? Get going! I’ll wait for you downstairs.”

  “I’m coming,” his brother mumbled, still half-asleep. A few minutes later, Amed and Aziz approached the jeep, both excited and suspicious.

  “What are you waiting for, get in,” Soulayed said to them, a smile on his lips. “Don’t be afraid, I’m not going to eat you.”

  He shifted his machine gun into the backseat to make room for them beside him. When the jeep started up, Amed glimpsed his father in the orange grove. He moved toward the road and watched the jeep disappear into the distance.

  Soulayed drove fast. The boys liked that. Aziz sat between Soulayed and his brother. No one talked. They left the road to take the dirt track leading to the mountain. The wind whistled. Blowing dust made their eyes burn. The boys saw the dead body of an animal. Soulayed avoided it with a jerk of the steering wheel. Amed asked what it was. Soulayed shrugged. A few minutes later, the jeep braked to a brutal halt. They could go no farther. The mountain rose up before them, blocking the horizon with its bluish mass. Soulayed got out of the jeep. Took a few steps.

  “What’s he doing?” Amed asked his brother in a low voice.

  Suddenly they heard the sound of water. Stifling his laughter, Aziz said, “He’s emptying his bladder.”

  After what was to them a long wait, Soulayed came back and sat in the jeep. Lit a cigarette. Took a deep drag and pointed to the mountain, there in front of them.

  “A long time ago, I used to come here,” he told them. “I was your age. A few friends and I rode around on our bikes. I would leave them by the side of the road and venture out on foot among the rocks. At that time, there were still wolves. But the wolves have disappeared. Now there are only snakes. There were woods, too, with giant cedars. Magnificent trees. Today only a handful are left in these parts. Look down there, maybe you’ll see one. See it, where the land drops down? Well, this cedar, I know it like a brother. It’s at least two thousand years old, and my biggest thrill when I was a child was to grab onto its branches and climb to the highest one! I was the only one among my friends who could do this. I wasn’t afraid, even when I became dizzy. Once I had a good grip on the top branch, I spent hours just scanning the plain. Up there, I felt like another person. I saw the past and the future at the same time. I felt immortal . . . untouchable! I could look down on the two slopes of the mountain just by turning my head. On days when the sky was blue, my gaze soared like the outstretched wings of an eagle. Nothing could stand in its way. To the east, I saw the yellow earth of your grandfather. I thought he was mad. Planting trees on this side of the mountain! I shouted insults at him. I wasn’t afraid. I knew very well that he couldn’t hear me. No one could hear me when I was perched on top of this tree, no one!”

  Soulayed stopped talking and scanned the sky as if he’d just heard an airplane. There was nothing in the sky, not even a bird. Soulayed took one last drag of his cigarette. He flicked the butt into the air, then grabbed his machine gun. He stood in the jeep and discharged his weapon in the direction of the cedar. The noise of the machine gun’s burst took the boys’ breath away. They huddled on the floor of the jeep. Soulayed threw down his weapon and grabbed them by their necks as their father had done in the orange grove. Soulayed had muscular arms. His whole person radiated strength.

  “Guess,” he said in a voice brimming with pride, “what I could see with my
child’s eyes when I turned to the west? Not this strip of arid land where your grandfather broke his fingers, no! To the west there was a valley where our ancestors had planted magnificent gardens. It was paradise. A pure miracle, I tell you! You could see in the distance, behind a long row of eucalyptus, the outskirts of a village. Between the houses, people had planted date and palm trees. Our land spread out all the way to the foothills leading to the immense chain of mountains bordering the ocean. On my perch, I recited at the top of my lungs the words of our great poet, Nahal:

  Paradise is made of water, earth, sky, and a gaze that nothing can obstruct. The gaze is the secret element in space. Never let it die.

  “But if you were to climb to the top of this sick cedar today, what would you see?”

  Soulayed shook one of the boys by the shoulders.

  “Have you no answer? What would you see today?”

  He shook Amed until it hurt. Still, Amed said nothing.

  “Have you lost your tongue? Well?”

  Amed was terrified. Soulayed got out of the jeep. Took a few steps. Then came back toward the boys. Kicked hard at one of the jeep’s wheels. A bit of foam glistened at the edge of his lips.

  “Your grandfather was right in the end,” he cried bitterly. “He planted his oranges on the right side of the mountain! Go, get out of the jeep! Don’t look at me like that. You know perfectly well why I brought you here.”

  Soulayed pushed the boys out of the jeep. Amed took his brother’s hand. His own was shaking.

  “You know this place. Before the bombings, you used to come here. I even saw you one day on your bicycles. You were coming here, no? I’m sure of it. And I know why. You told Halim. And Halim told me.”