Laziness in the Fertile Valley

by Albert Cossery

  A fine rain began to fall, making the country still more melancholy. Serag was aroused from his torpor by the drops of rain striking his face. He sat up, shook himself, and remained sitting on the grass, his arms clasped around his knees. After a minute the rain stopped and a vague light shone down. The sun emerged from the clouds, then again was caught by the heavy mass of phantom ships.

  The child still spun around; he was panting — at the height of ecstasy. Serag noticed that the leg he held in the air was wrapped in an old piece of cloth, just above the heel.

  “Did you hurt your foot?”

  “I was run over by a streetcar,” replied the child, and he stopped turning.

  “It’s better now?”

  “Yes, it’s better. But it’s not important. Tell me: haven’t you any more bread?”

  “No,” said Serag, “I only had the piece we ate. I’m very sorry. Are you still hungry?”

  “I’m always hungry,” said the child. “And you, what are you going to do afterwards?”

  “After what? What do you mean?”

  “I mean when you’re hungry again,” explained the child.

  “Why I’ll go back to the house for lunch,” said Serag.

  “Ah! you’re one of the ones who have houses!”

  “Yes,” said Serag innocently. “I have a house not far from here, near the highway.”

  But at once he was ashamed and saw that the child was judging him with deep suspicion.

  “You see,” he continued, “it’s not really my house, it’s my father’s. I only live there. And you, haven’t you a house?”

  “I had one,” said the child. “But someone stole it.”

  “Someone stole it? How? Who stole it from you?”

  “A boy I rented half of it to. We shared it together. But one night when I came back to sleep, I couldn’t find the boy or the box.”

  “The box?” said Serag, astonished. “What box?”

  “The house — it was a wooden box,” said the child. “You didn’t think I owned a real house did you?”

  “I just didn’t understand,” Serag apologized.

  “Anyhow, it was a beautiful box,” said the child regretfully. “I found it near a junkyard. It kept out the cold very well, especially where I set it up. It was better than an apartment, believe me. We had some good times, that boy and me. It was warm there and we smoked butts. Sometimes some of our friends would come by and keep us company.”

  “You all lived inside? It must have been a big box.”

  “No, the others stayed outside. Only the boy and me lived in the box. It was ours.”

  “And you never invited them to stay with you?”

  “Sometimes one of them would take my place for a minute. But he wouldn’t stay long. We threw him out if he didn’t want to go.”

  “Then this boy stole it from you?”

  “Yes, he was a thief and a son of a bitch. I spend my time looking for him. Have you seen him around here?”

  “No, I haven’t seen him. Besides, how would I recognize him?”

  “Oh! he’s easy to recognize,” said the child. “His mother’s the biggest whore in the world.”

  This story left Serag dreaming for a moment. He imagined the child’s adventurous existence with secret joy. To be like him! It wasn’t only the adventure that seduced him, but the vague conviction that beyond this unfettered and nomadic existence was a living and tangible reality he wanted to share. For a long time he had fought to free himself from the apathy that was like an open wound, draining the very blood of his youth. He would have liked to feel overwhelming emotions, to face horrible dangers, to fight with the endurance of a living being. But at the same time he was vaguely frightened by this unknown universe, cursed and suffering. Dark forebodings warned him not to attempt such a trying ordeal. The feeling of his impotence crushed him, always threw him back toward the world of idleness where he vegetated in his family’s house, surrounded by a security more annihilating than death. Never had he dreamed of this liberty of action, this pitiless intensity for life which the child exuded. He had the impression that between himself and the world of this child there was an infinite desert of black slumber.

  The birds had come back to the branches of the sycamore. They seemed happy with their lot and filled the air with sharp calls. From time to time the child glared toward them; he didn’t forgive them for their deception and thought of soon resuming his interrupted work. It was a ruined day for him — again one of those endless days when he searched in vain for his subsistence. But he seemed not to worry, shivering under his rags with a sort of naive aliveness, as if all his woes had no effect on his hardened nature. He crossed his arms on his chest and began to jump joyously.

  Serag stretched weakly, tried to get up, and fell back at once on the grass. He made a second effort and succeeded this time in standing up. He blinked his eyes and spoke to the child:

  “Let’s walk a bit, little one! I ought to go as far as the factory. Would you like to come with me?”

  “Is there a factory near here?”

  “Yes, it’s still under construction. I don’t know what’s wrong, but for months they’ve stopped work there.”

  “Maybe the owner is dead,” said the child.

  “I don’t think so,” said Serag. Then he added in a lugubrious tone: “That would be a great tragedy!”

  “Why, is he a relative of yours?”

  “No, it’s not that. But I’m interested in the factory. If you’ll go with me I’ll explain it to you.”

  He felt painfully the need of company. At bottom, he knew he’d never get as far as the factory alone — that he’d surely fall asleep on the way. This had already happened to him several times.

  “I can’t come with you,” said the child. “I have to go on hunting.” He hesitated a moment. “But if you’ll give me a half piastre, I’ll come. I haven’t a house to eat in. You understand!”

  Serag fumbled in his pockets, drew out a collection of junk, among which was a two milliemes piece. It was a souvenir he had kept for a long time. Suddenly he had remembered it.

  “I haven’t much money with me right now,” he said to the child, holding the coin out to him, “but here are two milliemes. Will that do?”

  “We won’t haggle,’ said the child. “It’s all right, let’s go!”

  II

  The path they followed was hidden by the corn field. The child walked ahead — limping, either because of his injured foot, or only to give himself the air of an heroic martyr. Ever since he had touched his two coins he had abandoned himself, overflowing with unbelievable energy. He had torn off an ear of corn, crunched the hard kernels, then spat them on the ground with disgust. Serag paid no attention to him. He felt only his presence, and his gesticulating walk kept him from sleep. He moved forward like a sleepwalker, his brain invaded by thick clouds.

  For a moment the cold became very sharp. Serag shivered at each blast of wind. His red woollen sweater, with its rolled up collar, scarcely protected him. But this seemed only a minor evil. He was really oppressed by his shoes. As always, when he went out to look at the factory, he wore his old football shoes, a survival from his years at school, and they weighted down his steps and bruised his feet. No mere whim governed his choice of this strange gear; it had a profound meaning for him. Serag wished to prove to himself, in venturing on this pilgrimage, that he was making a dangerous expedition. The idea of performing some daring feat filled him with a certain fervor. Without this fervor he wouldn’t have had the courage to try anything. Therefore, he suffered the football shoes, as a torment necessary to his liberation.

  Suddenly the path grew wider, and they found themselves in the middle of a field planted in clover. A peasant’s hut of dried mud, partly in ruins, stood on the edge of an ancient trench filled with weeds. Nearby, a dismantled sakieh lay in the dust. Serag stopped; he could go no farther. He stumbled down the side of a furrow and dissolved in tears.

  The child continued on
alone for several steps, then turned and came back toward Serag.

  “You paid me to come with you. Let’s keep going.”

  “I’m tired,” implored Serag. “Have pity on me.”

  “You’re crying,” the child observed, puzzled. “Why? Are you sick?”

  “It’s nothing. I’m not sick. I’m just tired. Give me one more minute.”

  “I can’t wait,” said the child. “Stop crying. What a day this is! There probably isn’t any factory at all.”

  “There is a factory,” said Serag. “On my honor, you’ll see it soon. We aren’t very far now.”

  “Why do you want to go there?”

  “I’ll explain in a little while. You’ll see. It’s very interesting.”

  The child pondered a long time. What drew this sleepy young man to see a factory? After puzzling awhile he seemed to have found out.

  “Tell me: you’re not looking for treasure by any chance?”

  “No, it isn’t treasure,” said Serag. “It’s only a factory under construction. Believe me, there isn’t any treasure.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said the child. “Maybe we can find some treasure anyway. Now get up! I’ve waited long enough. This day’s wasted for me.”

  Serag got up painfully, ran his fingers through his hair, then searched the horizon as if trying to orient himself. A pile of twigs burned somewhere behind the high stalks of corn. In the distance, some crows fled under the low clouds. Serag recognized the place, put his hand on the child’s shoulder and prepared to take up his march again.

  They didn’t walk long. Coming to the end of the field, they turned left, crossed a dry pond, then climbed a little hillock.

  “Here’s the factory,” said Serag.

  In a large stretch of land, lying fallow like wild country, the unfinished factory lay in the middle of a mass of rubbish and crumbling scaffolds. It was a strange and awful place, uneven with quagmires, forbidding. It seemed more like a wrecking yard. There were only the fronts of walls, half constructed — a whole derelict architecture partially completed, abandoned to the briars. All around fragments of old iron and rough stone were lying in the dirt. In a corner at the far end of the field were piles of corrugated iron, covered with a heavy layer of rust. Work seemed to have been stopped a long time; it was already more than six months since Serag had seen anyone there. He couldn’t understand the reason for this. Two or three times a week he came here to take a look, in the hope of seeing the masons resume their work. But it was always the same deception. The factory remained as it was, giving the impression of a phantom or a stage set.

  The child had lost his mocking exuberance. He seemed dismayed, in the grip of some pitiful fear. It was apparent that he’d forgotten the treasure.

  “Is that the factory?” he asked.

  “Yes,” replied Serag. “I wonder why they don’t finish it. I’d like to work there.”

  “What kind of factory is it?”

  “I think it’s for textiles. I want to apply for a job.”

  “And if they don’t finish it?”

  “Then I’ll never be able to work,” said Serag wearily.

  “Why, are you out of work now?”

  “Well, you see, I’ve never worked yet. But I’m very anxious to begin.”

  “You’re crazy,” said the child. “You want to work in a factory! What a day for your mother!”

  “Listen, little one! I want to work; I think I’ll be able to do a lot of things.”

  “What can you do?”

  “I don’t know yet. But a man has to work, don’t you think?”

  “You’ve got a house where you can eat and you want to work! What a joke.”

  They stood for a few minutes without speaking.

  “Why don’t you look for a job in the city if you want to work so much?” the child began. “Because if you ask me, this factory would make a good latrine.”

  “I can’t go to the city,” said Serag. “It’s too far. The good thing about this factory, you see, is that it’s so close to our house. I won’t get too tired coming here.”

  “You get tired very fast. Are you sick?”

  Serag didn’t answer. The nearness of the factory was an excuse he clung to in despair. In his heart, he knew the factory would never be finished and, because of this, he would never run any risk of working there. When he faced this deceit, Serag despised himself. He was unhappy and made endless reproaches to himself. Then, to justify himself, he would say it was only a beginning but that what he had already done was a satisfactory start. The courage it had taken to make this pilgrimage, to look at the place where he ought to have worked, was already enough to merit esteem and confidence. He gave a last look at the unfinished factory, fortified himself with the idea that he was already on the road of social progress, and congratulated himself inwardly.

  The sky continued to drift its malevolent clouds into remnants. A heartbreaking and secret melancholy crept into the folds of the landscape, invading the country like the approach of evening. Near the unfinished factory, a starving dog wandered among the rubbish. It sniffed everywhere, without insistence, as if it had already lost all hope, then vanished behind a wall. Serag waited to see it reappear, then turned towards the child. He was behaving wildly again, shooting in the air with his slingshot, without concern for a target, simply for the pleasure of moving. He seemed no longer interested in Serag; and he had returned to his vagabonding life. Suddenly he stopped and asked, as if disturbed:

  “What time is it?”

  Serag started, looking at him without understanding.

  ‘The time?” he said. “I don’t know. I haven’t a watch. Are you in a hurry?”

  “All rich people have watches,” said the child sententiously. “There are lots of rich people in the city. They even have gold watches; I’ve seen them.”

  “Some day, I hope, you’ll have a gold watch too,” said Serag.

  “Me!” cried the child. “It’s impossible. Unless I steal it.”

  “Ah well! you’ll steal it.”

  On the road back, the child closed himself in morose silence. He no longer limped, having assumed an air of abused dignity. Decidedly, he understood there was no more to be gained from his chance companion. He was ready to leave him at once. Other adventures called him.

  Coming to the highway, they stopped. Serag drew his hands from his pockets, stood a moment, his arms swinging, not knowing how to separate from the child. He remembered he hadn’t yet learned his name.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Antar,” the child replied.

  He had flung his name like a defiance.

  Serag was disappointed; the name Antar seemed wrong, too pretentious for the memory he wished to keep of the child. He asked again:

  ‘Tell me, haven’t you another name?”

  “Another name!” the child was astonished. “Why? Don’t you like this one?”

  Serag was embarrassed and couldn’t explain himself.

  “I’d like to know if you haven’t another name; that is, a nicer one — a nickname. For instance, the name your mother calls you when she plays with you.”

  “By Allah! You’re a fool!” cried the child. “Do I look like a drooling baby to be played with?”

  “Don’t be angry. I didn’t mean to insinuate anything. If you ever come back this way, don’t forget to come see me. My name is Serag,” he shouted after the retreating child.

  The child left, and suddenly Serag found himself terribly alone. He stayed by the side of the road a few minutes, undecided, then started to walk towards the house.

  It was a large asphalt road, bordered by old trees. Serag walked in the middle of it, his back stooped and his eyes fixed on the ground, sifting the disturbing details of his meeting with the child. He was gone now, with his strange ardor and his passion for life. Since he had left, Serag felt an emptiness he had never experienced before. A car raced by a few inches from him, its muffler open. An odor of exhaust f
umes spread in the air, stung his nostrils and almost suffocated him. He coughed; his eyes brimmed with tears. He went over to the side of the road, waited a moment until the cough stopped, then tranquilly began to walk on. Again the memory of the child came to him, and he thought of abandoning everything to rejoin him. He stopped, looked behind in hopes that perhaps he’d see him again, but the highway was empty as far as the horizon.

  From time to time he would pass a villa, surrounded by an iron grill and with its shutters closed. A whole world at its ease lived there in permanence, sickly and proud in its retirement. Serag wondered what they could be plotting behind those walls — those people buried in their miserable lives like rats at the bottom of their holes. What absurd degradation! And all around him the same thing. Wouldn’t he ever get out of this enormous farce, this stagnation? Surely there must be some part of the world where there were living beings and not these pitiful corpses. But where?

  On his right there was now a large block of houses, a few of three and four stories, unpretentious and some very old, with falling plaster. Here lived the petty bourgeois — retired civil servants — who had fled the uproar of the city to come and grow mouldy on the hideous outskirts of this street. Farther along, the houses had invaded the fields on both sides of the road and spread like a city across the tillage. Narrow alleys were formed between them; alleys of packed earth on the uneven, rubbish covered ground. Linen of all colors was drying in the windows, the only bright spots that cheered the desolate, grey agglomeration, a little. A few people made fugitive appearances, as if to give death one rude contradiction.

  Serag turned toward the right side of the road. For a distance of ten yards some low one-story constructions stood in a line. They were a group of shops devoted to small trade. Serag stopped in front of the first shop.

  “Greetings, Abou Zeid.”

  The man squatting on the steps of his shop raised his head, became somehow animated without stirring, and replied to the young man with a resigned carelessness. He was singularly filthy, with bloodshot eyes and a toothless, slobbering mouth. A shaggy beard, badly dyed, ravaged this face of a somnolent prophet. He wore a skullcap of braided linen, and a long brown shawl covered most of his body. Peacefully leaning against a wall of the shop, he warmed himself in the scant rays of a hesitant and colorless sun. Some baskets filled with peanuts, a few withered peas, and some watermelon seeds were near him on a low shelf. Inside, the shop was empty.