by Paul Bowles
We’ll put her in jail, the police said.
They locked her into a cell. When they came to bring her food they found her lying on the floor. They tried to wake her up, but she did not move. Then they called in her husband. You had better take your wife out of here, they said. It looks as though she would be dying soon.
They carried her to an ambulance, drove her back to the country, and left her at home. For about two months she stayed in bed. Her arm had grown twisted and stiff, and one leg was shriveled. When she got up, she walked in all directions, and she did not know what she was doing.
Each year her husband went on calling in the Gnaoua, and then they would give her the raw meat wet with blood. Whenever she could catch a cat in the orchard, she would eat it, all of it. Or a small dog. If she had been able to she would have eaten people.
Her husband decided to take her again to see the doctor. They kept her in the hospital for about two weeks. It did no good. When she came out, she was always falling down, and then she would lie kicking and screaming.
The woman is not crazy, the doctor would say. She’s not crazy.
Then her husband set out on the pilgrimage to Mecca. That year he did not call the Gnaoua in to dance.
There was a shed in the orchard, behind the house. One morning not long after her husband had gone away, she went inside the shed and shut the door. She had a candle with her. She lighted it and stuck it on top of a trunk that was there. Then she lay down on an old mattress in the corner and fell asleep.
The shed was full of straw for the goats and cows to eat in the winter. When the candle burned down, the wick fell onto the straw and caught fire to it.
The woman went on sleeping until the whole shed was burning around her. She tried to get up from the mattress, but with her stiff arm and her crooked leg, she could not move fast enough.
The neighbors saw the smoke and came running down the road. They broke the door of the shed and found her with her face and body burned black, and they dragged her outside. The police came and said she was dead.
Her family arrived, washed her and wrapped her in a winding-sheet. They carried her on a litter to the cemetery and put her into the earth.
When her husband returned from Mecca, the people of the village told him: Your wife is dead. And they told him how she died.
Yes, he said. No one can live in that house, or in that orchard. The place is dangerous. It’s part of the dark world.
THE BOY WHO SET THE FIRE
IN AL HOCEIMA LIVED TWO MEN who were both kif-smokers. Because of this they were very good friends, and shared a house. One of them was single and the other was married and had a small son. Ali, the married man, went to work in the morning, while Ouallou the bachelor worked at night. Ali went out each morning leaving Ouallou asleep. When Ouallou woke up he would find himself alone in the house with Ali’s wife, and they would sit and talk together. They did this for many months before anything happened between them. Then Ouallou suggested to the woman that she divorce her husband and marry him.
For a long time I’ve been thinking the same thing, she said. I didn’t dare say anything for fear you might tell Ali, and he’d kill me.
How do you think we should manage the divorce? he asked her.
We won’t bother with that, she told him. We’ll give him something in his food. It’s easier. And then there’ll be just the two of us.
Ouallou went out and searched until he found the right plants, and then he took them back to the woman. That night she prepared the herbs and put them in Ali’s coffee.
As soon as he drank it, he began to have pains. They grew worse. Soon he was rolling on the floor and screaming. The woman stood and watched him die. In the morning she wailed with her family while they carried him away to the cemetery.
Forty days later she and Ouallou were married. They continued to live in the house, and the boy grew up with them. He was already seventeen when one of the neighbors remarked in front of him that the man who lived with his mother was not his father.
What do you mean, he’s not my father?
But your father died when you were a baby, they told him. You didn’t know that, Mouh? Your mother married this man later.
She did? Mouh could not believe it.
Of course, they said.
Mouh went home to see his mother.
Mother, where’s my father?
Your father is dead, aoulidi. But Ouallou is your father now.
I want to see his grave, said Mouh.
The next day they went together to the cemetery, and she led him to his father’s grave. Then she went home, leaving Mouh standing by the tombstone. He sprinkled water over the grave and laid some sprigs of myrtle there.
When Mouh returned to the house, his mother was waiting for him. Now that you know about your father, you should have his things, she told him. She gave him the mottoui and the kif pipe that had belonged to his father, and Mouh went to his room and began to smoke, one pipe after another. It was not long before he was sobbing. I’ve got to find out how he died, he thought. Did he die in his sleep, or was he sick? Or was it something else?
After a few days of thinking about it, he decided to visit a fqih and ask him some questions. There was only one fqih he trusted, and he lived in Temsaman.
One morning he got onto his horse and started out for Temsaman. In the afternoon he arrived and sought out the fqih.
What do you want, my son?
I’ve come to you, sidi, to find out how my father died.
Ouakha, my son. Sit down.
Mouh talked with the man for a few minutes. Then the fqih put bakhour into a lighted brazier. He took out a book and read aloud from it. After a while he turned to Mouh and said: My son, your father’s death was not natural. His hour had not come. He was poisoned.
Mouh got up and said: Many thanks, sidi. How much do I owe you?
The fqih said: You may give me whatever you want.
Mouh took a hundred pesetas out of his pocket and handed them to him.
Don’t go and do anything you shouldn’t do, the fqih told him. If someone has sinned, Allah will punish him. Allah is the one who decides.
I’m not crazy. I’m not going to do anything. And Mouh said goodbye to the fqih. He mounted his horse and started out for Al Hoceima. It was night by the time he got home. He put his horse in the stable and went into the house.
His mother was waiting for him. Where have you been, aoulidi? she cried. I’ve been so worried about you!
I took a ride to Temsaman.
Come and have some dinner.
No, no. I’m tired. I want to sleep.
His mother returned to bed, and Mouh went into his room and began to go carefully through his possessions. He picked out all the things he wanted. Then he went to sleep.
In the morning he was busy carrying his things to the house of a friend. He had to make several trips during the day, taking care that his parents did not see him. That night when they were asleep, he and his friend carried out the heavy chest that had been his father’s, but where Ouallou now kept his money. They hid the chest in the friend’s house along with Mouh’s other possessions. Then Mouh went and opened the stables. He led out several cows and horses and put them in a pasture not far away.
In the stables there were piles of straw. Mouh spread the straw through the house, and piled it outside along the walls. Then he soaked the straw with kerosene and set it afire. Since the house was built of wood, it was soon ablaze. When Ouallou and his wife awoke, there was no way of getting out, and they were burned.
The neighbors came running and shouting, but it was only a short time before the house and everything in it lay in ashes. Mouh stood there with the neighbors watching. How did it happen? they asked.
I was coming up from down below, and I saw the smoke, and I came running. All I was able to save was some of the animals.
Then he added to himself: But I didn’t save them. They got what they deserved. They’re burned.
/> Now that Mouh had some money, his friend let him live on at his house. He stayed there for two years while he waited for the right moment to sell his horses and cows. When he had sold them, he took the money to Tangier and bought a small house. There he filled a front room with charcoal, onions, garlic and mint, and spent his time sitting in the middle of the shop, black with charcoal dust, smoking his father’s kif pipe and filling it from his father’s mottoui.
MIMOUN THE FISHERMAN
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.
RAMADAN
RAMADAN’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.
