Points in Time

by Paul Bowles

  As they passed between the walls of a winding gorge, a great voice suddenly sounded from somewhere among the rocks nearby.

  Ha huwa! El Aroussi!

  There was a second’s silence, and then the noise of thirty rifles firing into the procession from above.

  In the stampede over the bodies of horses and men that followed, only the bridegroom was aware of the horseman who appeared from behind a boulder and rode straight at the bridal couple, at the last instant lifting Rahmana from her mount, and disappearing with her at a gallop into the night.

  Cheikh Abdeljbar was unhurt. He and his son-in-law continued to Slâ and consulted with the pacha.

  A few days later the Sultan sent soldiers to help the wronged father and husband. Cheikh Abdeljbar and Sidi Ali had taken a solemn oath to search for Rahmana until they found her.

  On many occasions as they rode with the soldiers they had glimpses of the bandits just before they vanished into the depths of the forest. There were skirmishes in which both sides bore losses, but the leader was never seen among his henchmen.

  It took more than a year for the soldiers to encircle the densest region of the forest. Those of El Aroussi’s followers who were left had seen the danger in time and fled.

  The weeks went by, while the Sultan’s soldiers drew an always tightening ring around the part of the forest from which they were sure El Aroussi had not escaped.

  It was Sidi Ali’s dogs that finally led to his discovery. They found him in a cave by the edge of a stream, his body wasted, with hunger, his face haggard and scarred.

  They trussed him and took him to one of the tents at the campsite, where they dumped him onto the ground.

  Then Sidi Ali squatted down, drew his dagger, and slowly amputated all ten of the captive’s toes, tossing them one by one into El Aroussi’s face.

  When he had finished with this task, he withdrew to another tent to confer with Cheikh Abdeljbar on the form of death to provide for their prisoner the next morning.

  They sat up half the night diverting themselves and each other with suggestions which grew increasingly more grotesque.

  By the time the cheikh rose to retire to his own tent, he was in favor of cutting a horizontal line around El Aroussi’s waist and then flaying him, pulling the skin upwards over his head and eventually twisting it around his neck to strangle him.

  This did not seem sufficiently drastic to Sidi Ali, who thought it would be more fitting to cut off his ears and nose and force him to swallow them, then to slash open his stomach, pull them out and make him swallow them again, and so on, for as long as he remained alive.

  The older man reflected for a moment. Then, wishing his son-in-law a pleasant night, he said that with Allah’s consent they would continue their discussion in the morning.

  The dialog was never resumed. During the black hour before dawn, the cheikh awoke, frozen by the sound of a voice that cried: Ha huwa! El Aroussi!

  The cheikh sprang up and rushed out. The prisoner’s tent was empty. He ran to Sidi Ali’s tent. The young man lay dead. A spear was buried in his eye.

  As the cheikh stood staring down in disbelief, there was the sound of a horse’s hoofbeats outside. They grew fainter and were gone. El Aroussi had mounted the cheikh’s own steed and ridden off on it.

  The next morning, after washing and burying Sidi Ali (for they could not carry his body as far as Slâ), Cheikh Abdeljbar and the soldiers set out once more in pursuit.

  Before noon they met the horse walking slowly in their direction, its saddle and flanks smeared with blood. The cheikh dismounted and ran to get astride it, turning it and making it retrace its steps. The forest was dense and difficult to push through, but the animal seemed to know its way.

  They came soon to a small clearing where a rude hut had been built. The door was open.

  Cheikh Abdeljbar stood in the doorway, trying to see into the dark interior. El Aroussi lay supine on the floor. It was clear that he was dead.

  Then the cheikh saw the girl crouching by the body, while she kissed the stumps of El Aroussi’s toes, one by one. He called her name, already fearful that she would not respond.

  She did not seem to hear her father’s outcry. When he lifted her up to embrace her, she stared at him and drew away. The soldiers were obliged to bind her in order to get her out of the hut and onto the horse with her father.

  Cheikh Abdeljbar took Rahmana back to the Castle of Mamora. He hoped that with the passage of time she would cease her constant calling out of El Aroussi’s name.

  One day when she was in the garden, she found a gate unlocked, and quickly stepped outside. What happened to her after that is a mystery, for she was not seen again. The people of the countryside claimed that she had returned to the forest in search of El Aroussi. They sang a song about her:

  Days of less substance than the nights that slip between

  And Rahmana wanders in the forest, and the branches catch her hair.

  At night in the courtyards of the Rif, grandfathers fashion grenades. Each rock in the ravine shields a man. The Spaniard in the garrison starts from sleep, to find his throat already slashed.

  At night the Légionnaires in the oasis, drunk with hot beer and self-pity, howl songs of praise for a distant homeland. The sand is cold under the branches of the tamarisks where the camels lie, shaded from the moonlight.

  Ayayayay! Nothing good is going to come of this.

  The Americans were here.

  The people grew rich,

  Most of all the women.

  Even the hags tore off their veils

  And filled their mouths with chewing-gum.

  Men waited in vain for their wives.

  Handsome faces and green eyes

  Had spirited them away.

  And the girls parted their hair

  And wore French skirts.

  They wanted to be with the Americans.

  And you heard only Hokay, hokay.

  The soldiers gave us cigarettes,

  They gave us chocolates and dollars.

  And even the oldest crones wore silk kerchiefs

  When the Americans were here.

  And Hokay, hokay! Bye bye!

  They gave candy today and gum tomorrow.

  The girls covered their faces

  With powder made from chickpeas,

  And they ate bonbons.

  And even the hags sat drinking rum

  With the Americans.

  And you heard: Hokay, hokay! Come on! Bye bye!

  Money for everybody.

  It was the girls who brought it back.

  They carried handbags.

  They wanted to be with the Americans.

  And all you could hear was Hokay, hokay!

  Give me dollar. Come on! Bye bye!

  ✿

  At night the French police quietly block the entrances to the Mellah, claiming to fear friction between Moslems and Jews. And at night they quietly remove the protection, allowing the Moslems to enter the quarter and pillage it.

  A certain night the air was heavy with jasmine, and the bodies of Frenchmen and their families were left lying along the roads, under the cypresses in the public gardens, among the smoking ruins of the little villas. While it was still dark, a breeze sprang up.

  When Spain ruled the Chemel, her officers liked to hunt for deer. The animals were few, and smaller than the ones they were used to hunting in Spain. Deer from the Pyrenees were sent repeatedly across the Mediterranean to Melilla, and turned loose in the mountains, where they flourished, and, mixing with the native herds, quickly produced a larger and stronger breed.

  Under the Spanish the people of the Chemel could not own firearms. When the Spaniards went home and the Moroccans were left in charge, the law remained the same as before.

  A time of trouble then began for people who lived in distant wooded areas. Reports of fatal accidents circulated through the countryside. In earlier days the stags had fled from the presence of men; now they often sought them o
ut and attacked them, and the men had no means of defense.

  Si Abdelaziz, a prosperous farmer of Tchar Serdioua, had four sons whose ages ranged from sixteen to twenty. They were still unmarried because in recent years he had been busy and had not taken the time to go out and find brides for them.

  When he had a certain sum set by, he began to visit other villages in the region in order to pick out a girl for his eldest son.

  Eventually, in a tchar some two hours’ walk up the valley, he came to terms with the father of a girl. Si Abdelaziz was not able to see her himself, but he was assured by her family that she was in excellent health and in perfect condition for marriage.

  After settling the details in the bride-price agreement, he paid the man and returned to Tchar Serdioua satisfied with the transaction.

  To his first-born son Mohammed he said: You have a wife. The wedding feast will take place the seventh day after Mouloud.

  From among the young men of the tchar the son chose his wazzara, who would paint the designs on his hands with henna, build the wall of canes and bushes in front of his father’s house, and finally go to fetch the bride from her village.

  The day before the wedding feast was to be celebrated, Mohammed and his wazzara still had not completed the wall. They worked from dawn to evening, and got it all finished save for one small section, which Mohammed said he would build himself after the others had gone to get the girl.

  The procession set out up the valley a little after midnight, to the sound of rhaitas and drums. Si Abdelaziz, who accompanied it, said they would be back by daybreak.

  There was a stream a short distance below the house, bordered on both sides by dense vegetation. Mohammed made several trips there, bringing back armfuls of green bushes to weave into the still unfinished wall. It was late by the time he had it all done. He ran down to the river once more to bathe and pray before lying down to await the arrival of the bridal party.

  The women of the household were awakened by the furious bellowing of a stag, a sound that everyone in the tchar had learned to dread. They called to Mohammed, but he did not answer. The men from a nearby farm had heard the animal’s call, and they came running. As they approached Si Abdelaziz’s house, the stag bellowed again.

  First they saw Mohammed’s white garments moving on the ground as the stag stamped on them and gored them with his antlers. Then they saw Mohammed lying on his side, with his intestines coiling out of him into the dirt. The stag bellowed once more, turned, and disappeared into the darkness. They carried the body up to the house and covered it.

  It was growing light when the people of Tchar Serdioua first heard the sharp sounds of the wedding procession coming down the valley. A group of men ran up the road to meet it and give Si Abdelaziz the bad news. The procession arrived at the house in silence.

  After Mohammed’s burial the three younger sons conferred among themselves. They were of the opinion that the stag had come to kill Mohammed because it knew he was about to marry the girl. It followed that any man foolhardy enough to take her would very likely suffer the same fate.

  Si Abdelaziz, having paid for the bride, had no intention of sending her home again. He called in the oldest of the three remaining sons and told him she was for him. The youth steadfastly refused to have her.

  Si Abdelaziz tried the next son, and then the youngest, but neither would agree to accept her. The girl learned of this, and begged to be taken back to her village. In a fit of anger, the old man announced that he was marrying her himself.

  The three youths refused to speak to their new mother-in-law. They were waiting for the stag. Each time their father went into the woods they listened for the killer’s voice.

  The stag never came. Si Abdelaziz died in bed a year later, and the girl was free to return as a widow to her own tchar.

  The country of the Anjra is almost devoid of paved roads. It is a region of high jagged mountains and wooded valleys, and does not contain a town of any size. During the rainy season there are landslides. Then, until the government sends men to repair the damage, the roads cannot be used. All this is very much on the minds of the people who live in the Anjra, particularly when they are waiting for the highways to be rebuilt so that trucks can move again between the villages. Four or five soldiers had been sent several months earlier to repair the potholes along the road between Ksar es Seghir and Melloussa. Their tent was beside the road, near a curve in the river.

  A peasant named Hattash, whose village lay a few miles up the valley, constantly passed by the place on his way to and from Ksar es Seghir. Hattash had no fixed work of any sort, but he kept very busy looking for a chance to pick up a little money one way or another in the market and the cafés. He was the kind of man who prided himself on his cleverness in swindling foreigners, by which he meant men from outside the Anjra. Since his friends shared his dislike of outsiders, they found his exploits amusing, although they were careful to have no dealings with him.

  Over the months Hattash had become friendly with the soldiers living in the tent, often stopping to smoke a pipe of kif with them, perhaps squatting down to play a few games of ronda. Thus when one day the soldiers decided to give a party, it was natural that they should mention it to Hattash, who knew everyone for miles around, and therefore might be able to help them. The soldiers came from the south, and their isolation there by the river kept them from meeting anyone who did not regularly pass their tent.

  I can get you whatever you want, Hattash told them. The hens, the vegetables, oil, spices, salad, whatever.

  Fine. And we want some girls or boys, they added.

  Don’t worry about that. You’ll have plenty to choose from. What you don’t want you can send back.

  They discussed the cost of the party for an hour or so, after which the soldiers handed Hattash twenty-five thousand francs. He set off, ostensibly for the market.

  Instead of going there, he went to the house of a nearby farmer and bought five of his best hens, with the understanding that if the person for whom he was buying them should not want them, he could return the hens and get his money back.

  Soon Hattash was outside the soldiers’ tent with the hens. How are they? he said. The men squeezed them and examined them, and pronounced them excellent. Good, said Hattash. I’ll take them home now and cook them.

  He went back to the farmer with the hens and told him that the buyer had refused them. The farmer shrugged and gave Hattash his money.

  This seemed to be the moment to leave Ksar es Seghir, Hattash decided. He stopped at a café and invited everyone there to the soldiers’ tent that evening, telling them there would be food, wine and girls. Then he bought bread, cheese and fruit, and began to walk along the trails that would lead him over the mountains to Khemiss dl Anjra.

  With the twenty-five thousand francs he was able to live for several weeks there in Khemiss dl Anjra. When he had come to the end of them, he began to think of leaving.

  In the market one morning he met Hadj Abdallah, a rich farmer from Farsioua, which was a village only a few miles from his own. Hadj Abdallah, a burly, truculent man, always had eyed Hattash with distrust.

  Ah, Hattash! What are you doing up here? It’s a while since I’ve seen you.

  And you? said Hattash.

  Me? I’m on my way to Tetuán. I’m leaving my mule here and taking the bus.

  That’s where I’m going, said Hattash.

  Well, see you in Tetuán, said Hadj Abdallah, and he turned, unhitched his mule, and rode off.

  Khemiss dl Anjra is a very small town, so that it was not difficult for Hattash to follow along at some distance, and see the house where Hadj Abdallah tethered his mule and into which he then disappeared. He walked to the bus station and sat under a tree.

  An hour or so later, when the bus was filling up with people, Hadj Abdallah arrived and bought his ticket. Hattash approached him.

  Can you lend me a thousand francs? I haven’t got enough to buy the ticket.

  Hadj Abdall
ah looked at him. No, I can’t, he said. Why don’t you stay here? And he went and got into the bus.

  Hattash, his eyes very narrow, sat down again under the tree. When the bus had left, and the cloud of smoke and dust had drifted off over the meadows, he walked back to the house where the Hadj had left his mule. She still stood there, so he quietly unhitched her, got astride her, and rode her in the direction of Mgas Tleta. He was still smarting under Hadj Abdallah’s insult, and he vowed to give him as much trouble as he could.

  Mgas Tleta was a small tchar. He took the mule to the fondaq and left it in charge of the guardian. Being ravenously hungry, he searched in his clothing for a coin or two to buy a piece of bread, and found nothing.

  In the road outside the fondaq he caught sight of a peasant carrying a loaf in the hood of his djellaba. Unable to take his eyes from the bread, he walked towards the man and greeted him. Then he asked him if he had work, and was not surprised when the man answered no. He went on, still looking at the bread: If you want to earn a thousand francs, you can take my mule to Mdiq. My father’s waiting for her and he’ll pay you. Just ask for Si Mohammed Tsuli. Everybody in Mdiq knows him. He always has a lot of men working for him. He’ll give you work there too if you want it.

  The peasant’s eyes lit up. He agreed immediately.

  Hattash sighed. It’s a long time since I’ve seen good country bread like that, he said, pointing at the loaf that emerged from the hood of the djellaba. The man took it out and handed it to him. Here. Take it.

  In return Hattash presented him with the receipt for the mule. You’ll have to pay a hundred francs to get her out of the fondaq, he told him. My father will give it back to you.

  That’s all right. The man was eager to start out for Mdiq.

  Si Mohammed Tsuli. Don’t forget.

  No, no! Bslemah.

  Hattash, well satisfied, watched the man ride off. Then he sat down on a rock and ate the whole loaf of bread. He had no intention of returning home to risk meeting the soldiers or Hadj Abdallah, so he decided to hide himself for a while in Tetuán, where he had friends.