But Aamma listens to what he says. It doesn’t matter to her that Naman was a cook over there, and a fisherman here. She asks him diVerent questions each time, in order to hear the story of the journey again, the border, and life in Marseille. Then Naman also talks about street battles in which men attack Arabs and Jews in the dark streets, and you have to defend yourself with a knife, or by throwing stones and running as fast as you can to get away from the police vans that pick people up and take them off to prison. He also talks about the people who cross the borders illegally, in the mountains, walking by night and hiding during the day in caves and in the bushes. But sometimes the police dogs follow their trail and attack them when they come down on the other side of the border.
Naman talks about all of that in a gloomy way, and Lalla can sense a cold shadow pass over the man’s eyes. It’s a strange feeling that she’s not very familiar with, but it’s frightening, threatening, like the passage of death, of malediction. Maybe that was something Old Naman had also brought back from over there, from those cities on the other side of the sea.
When he’s not talking about his travels, Old Naman tells stories he heard long ago. He tells them just for Lalla and for the very young children because they’re the only ones who listen without asking too many questions.
On certain days, he sits down facing the sea in the shade of his fig tree and repairs his nets. That’s when he tells the most beautiful stories, those that take place out on the ocean, on boats, in storms, those in which people are shipwrecked and end up on desert islands. Naman can tell a story about almost anything, that’s what’s so great. For example, Lalla is sitting next to him in the shade of the fig tree and she’s watching him repair his nets. His long brown hands with broken nails work swiftly, know how to tie knots nimbly. At one point there is a big tear in the mesh of the net, and Lalla of course asks, “Did a big fish do that?”
Instead of answering, Naman thinks for a while and says, “I didn’t tell you about the day we caught a shark, did I?”
Lalla shakes her head, and Naman starts a story. As in most of his stories, there is a storm, with lightning flashing from one end of the sky to the other, waves as high as mountains, torrential rain. The net is heavy, so heavy to pull up that the boat is leaning to one side and the men are afraid of capsizing. When the net comes up, they see that a gigantic blue shark is caught in it and is thrashing around and opening its jaws full of terrifying teeth. So the fishermen must fight against the shark that is trying to swim away with the net. They hack at it with gaffs, with hatchets. But the shark bites the edge of the boat and tears it apart as if it were just crate wood. Finally the captain manages to kill the shark with a club, and they hoist the beast onto the deck of the boat.
“Then we cut him open to see what was inside, and we found a golden ring set with a deep-red precious stone that was so beautiful no one could take his eyes from it. Naturally we each wanted the ring for ourselves, and soon everyone was ready to kill one another to possess that cursed ring. That was when I suggested we throw dice for it because the captain had a pair of bone dice. So we played dice on the deck in spite of the raging storm that threatened to turn the boat over at any minute. There were six of us, and we tossed the dice six times, the winner being the one who threw the highest number. After the first round, only the captain and I remained because we had both thrown eleven, six and five. Everyone was pushing close around us to see who would win. I threw, and I got a double six! So I was the one who won the ring, and for a few minutes I was happier than I’d ever been in my life. But I looked at the ring for a long time, and its red stone shone like the fires of hell, with a lurid glimmer, like blood. Then I saw that the eyes of my companions were glowing with that same evil light, and I realized the ring was cursed, as was the person who had worn it and had been eaten by the shark, and I knew that whoever kept the ring would be cursed in turn.
“After I had looked at it well, I took it off my finger and threw it into the sea. The captain and my companions were furious and wanted to throw me into the sea as well. So I asked them, ‘Why are you angry with me? That which came from the sea has returned to the sea, and now it’s as if nothing happened.’ At that same moment the storm suddenly subsided and the sun started shining on the sea. So then the sailors also calmed down, and the captain himself who had so coveted the ring forgot about it at once and told me I had done the right thing in throwing it back into the sea. We threw the body of the shark overboard as well and returned to port to repair the net.”
“Do you really think the ring was cursed?” asks Lalla.
“I don’t know if it was cursed,” answers Naman, “but what I do know is that if I hadn’t thrown it back into the sea, one of my shipmates would have killed me that very day in order to steal it, and we would have all died in the same way, right down to the very last.”
They’re stories that Lalla loves to hear, sitting next to the old fisherman like that, facing out to sea, in the shade of the fig tree, when the wind is blowing and making the leaves rustle. It’s sort of as if she could hear the voice of the sea, and Naman’s words weigh on her eyelids and cause drowsiness to well up in her body. So then she curls up in the sand, her head against the roots of the fig tree, while the fisherman continues repairing his red twine nets, and the wasps hum above drops of salt.
HEY-O HARTANI!”
Lalla shouts very loudly into the wind as she nears some rocky, briar-filled hills. Out here, there are always a fair number of lizards that go skittering off between the stones. Sometimes there are even snakes that dart away with a swish. There are tall grasses as sharp as knives and lots of those dwarf palms that are used for making baskets and mats. You can hear insects chirping everywhere because there are tiny waterholes between the rocks and great deep wells hidden in the sinkholes where cold water sits. In passing, Lalla throws stones into the crevices and listens to the sound echoing deeply into the darkness.
“Harta-a-ni!”
He often hides, to make fun of her, simply stretching himself out at the foot of a thorn bush. He’s always wearing his long homespun robe, frayed at the sleeves and at the hem, and the long white cloth that he wraps around his head and neck. He is long and thin like a vine, with lovely brown hands and ivory-colored fingernails, and feet made for running. But it’s his face that Lalla likes most of all because it doesn’t resemble any of the people who live here in the Project. It’s a very thin, smooth face, a rounded forehead and very straight eyebrows, and large dark eyes that are the color of metal. His hair is short, almost frizzy, and he doesn’t have a mustache or a beard. Yet he seems strong and sure of himself, with a very direct way of looking at you, fearlessly examining you, and he knows how to laugh when he wants to, with a laughter that rings out and makes you happy right away.
Today Lalla finds him easily because he isn’t hiding. He’s simply sitting on a large rock, staring straight ahead in the direction of the herd of goats. He’s not moving. The wind lightly flares his brown tunic away from his body, lifts the end of his white turban. Lalla walks over to him without calling out because she knows he heard her coming. The Hartani has a sharp ear, he can hear the leap of a hare on the far end of a hill and he will point out planes in the sky to Lalla long before she has detected the sound of their motors.
When she’s very near to him, the Hartani stands up and turns around. The sun shines on his black face. He smiles and his teeth also shine in the light. Even though he’s younger than Lalla, he’s just as tall as she is. He’s holding a small blade with no handle in his left hand.
“What are you doing with that knife?” Lalla asks.
Feeling tired from her long walk, she sits down on the rock. He remains standing in front of her, balancing on one leg. Then all of a sudden he leaps backward and starts running over the rocky hill. A few minutes later he brings back a handful of reeds that he cut in the swamps. Smiling, he shows them to Lalla. He’s panting a little, like a dog who has run too fast.
“They�
��re lovely,” says Lalla. “Are they for making music?”
She doesn’t really ask that. She murmurs the words, making gestures with her hands. Every time she speaks, the Hartani stands still and looks at her intently because he’s trying to understand.
Lalla might be the only person he understands and she the only one who understands him. When she says “music,” the Hartani jumps up and down, holding out his long arms as if he were going to dance. He whistles between his teeth so loudly that the goats and their buck startle on the slope of the hill.
Then he takes a few of the cut reeds and joins them between his hands. He blows into them, and it makes a strange, slightly husky music, like the call of nighthawks in the dark, a sad sort of music, like the chant of Chleuh shepherds.
The Hartani plays for a moment without catching his breath. Then he holds out the reeds to Lalla, and she plays in turn, while the young shepherd stands still, his dark eyes bright with pleasure. They continue playing like that, taking turns blowing into the reed tubes of diVerent lengths, and the sad music seems to be stemming from the land, drenched in white light, from the holes of the underground caves, from the sky itself in which the slow wind is stirring.
From time to time they stop, breathless, and the young boy bursts out with his ringing laughter, and Lalla starts laughing too, without knowing why.
Then they walk across the fields of rocks, and the Hartani takes Lalla’s hand, because there are so many sharp rocks that she doesn’t know about between the tufts of brush. They jump over the little drystone walls, zigzagging through the thorn bushes. The Hartani shows Lalla everything there is in the fields of stones and on the slopes of the hills. He knows all the hiding places better than anyone: those of the praying mantises and of leaf insects. He also knows all the plants, the ones that smell good when you crinkle their leaves between your fingers, the ones with roots filled with water, the ones that taste like anise, like pepper, like mint, like honey. He knows which seeds are crunchy, the tiny berries that dye your fingers and lips blue. He even knows the hiding places where you can find small petrified snails, or tiny star-shaped grains of sand. He leads Lalla far away with him, beyond the drystone walls, along paths she doesn’t know, all the way out to the hills from where you can see the beginning of the desert. His eyes shine brightly; the skin on his face is dark and glistening with sweat when he gets to the top of the hills. Then he shows Lalla the way leading southward, toward the place of his birth.
The Hartani isn’t like the other boys. No one really knows where he comes from. Only that one day, a long time ago, a man came riding in on a camel. He was dressed like the warriors of the desert, in a large sky-blue cloak with his face veiled in blue. He stopped at the well to water his camel, and he also took a long drink of the well water. It was Yasmina, the wife of the goat herder, who saw him when she was going to fetch water. She waited, to let the stranger quench his thirst, and when he left again on his camel, she saw that the man had left a very young infant wrapped in a piece of blue cloth at the edge of the well. Since no one wanted him, Yasmina kept the child. She brought him up, and he lived with her family as if he were her son. That child was the Hartani; he was given that nickname because he had black skin like the slaves from the south.
The Hartani grew up in the very spot where the warrior of the desert had left him, near the hills and the fields of stone, right where the desert begins. He was the one who watched over Yasmina’s goats; he became like the other shepherd boys. He knows how to take care of animals; he knows how to lead them where he wants, without hitting them, just whistling between his fingers, for animals are not afraid of him. He also knows how to speak to swarms of bees, simply by whistling a little tune between his teeth, guiding them with his hands. People are a little frightened of the Hartani, they say he’s mejnoun, that he has special powers that come from demons. They say that he knows how to tame snakes and scorpions, that he can send them out to kill other shepherds’ livestock. But Lalla doesn’t believe that; she’s not afraid of him. Maybe she’s the only person who knows him well, because she speaks to him in a diVerent way than with words. She looks at him and reads the light in his black eyes, and he looks deep into her amber eyes; he doesn’t only look at her face, but really deep down into her eyes, and it’s as if he understands what she wants to say to him.
Aamma doesn’t like Lalla going up into the hills and fields of stone to see the shepherd so often. She tells her he’s an abandoned child, a stranger, that he’s not a boy for her. But as soon as Lalla finishes her work at Aamma’s house she runs along the path leading to the hills, and she whistles between her fingers like the shepherds do and shouts,
“Hey-o! Hartani!”
Sometimes she stays up there with him until nightfall. Then the young boy herds his animals together to lead them to the corral lower down, near Yasmina’s house. Often, since they don’t speak to each other, they remain sitting still on the boulders facing the rocky hills. It’s difficult to understand what they’re doing just then. Maybe they’re looking out into the distance as if they could see across the hills, all the way out to the other side of the horizon. Lalla herself doesn’t really understand how that happens, for time doesn’t seem to exist anymore when she’s sitting next to the Hartani. Words flow freely, go out toward the Hartani and come back to her, full of new meaning, like in certain dreams when you’re two people at once.
The Hartani is the one who taught her how to sit still like that, just looking at the sky, the stones, the bushes, looking at the wasps and the flies flying, listening to the song of hidden insects, feeling the shadows of birds of prey and the trembling of hares in the scrub.
Like Lalla, the Hartani doesn’t really have a family, he doesn’t know how to read or write, he doesn’t even know the prayers, he doesn’t know how to speak, and yet he’s the one who knows all those things. Lalla loves his smooth face, his long hands, his dark metallic eyes, his smile, she loves the way he walks, quick and agile as a hare, and the way he leaps from rock to rock, and disappears in the wink of an eye into one of his hiding places.
He never comes into the city. Maybe he’s afraid of the other boys, because he’s not like them. When he goes away, he always heads southward, toward the desert, to the place where the nomads atop their camels have left their tracks. He goes away for several days like that, without anyone knowing where he is. Then one morning he returns and goes back to his post in the field of stones with the she-goats and their buck as if he’d only been gone a few minutes.
When she’s sitting there on a rock like that next to the Hartani, and they’re both looking out at the vast stretch of stones in the sunlight, with the wind blowing from time to time, with the wasps humming over the little gray plants, and the sound of the goats’ hooves slipping on loose stones, there’s really no need for anything else. Lalla can feel the heat deep down inside of her, as if all the light of the sky and the stones were going straight into the very quick of her body, expanding. The Hartani takes Lalla’s hand in his long, brown, slender fingers, he holds it so tight that it almost hurts. Lalla can feel the current of heat pass through the palm of her hand, like an odd, feeble vibration. She doesn’t want to talk or think. She feels so good sitting there that she could stay all day long, right up until night fills the ravines, without moving. She stares straight out ahead, she can see each detail of the stone landscape, each tuft of grass, can hear each snapping sound, each insect call. She can feel the slow movement of the shepherd’s breathing, she is so close to him that she is seeing through his eyes, feeling things with his skin. It lasts a brief instant, but it seems so long that, head spinning, she forgets everything else.
Then all at once, as if he were afraid of something, the young shepherd jumps to his feet, lets go of Lalla’s hand. Without even looking at her, he starts running fast, like a dog, jumping over the rocks and the dried ravines. He leaps over the drystone walls, and Lalla sees his pale silhouette disappearing between the thorn bushes.
“H
artani! Hartani! Come back!”
Lalla shouts, standing up on the boulder, and her voice cracks because she knows it won’t do any good. The Hartani disappears suddenly, swallowed up by one of those dark hollows in the limestone. He won’t show himself again today. Maybe tomorrow, or some other time? So then Lalla also goes down the hill, slowly, from one rock to another, clumsily, and she looks back from time to time to try to catch a glimpse of the shepherd. She leaves the fields of stone and the drystone walls, makes her way back down toward the valley bottom, not far from the sea, where people live in houses made of planks, sheet metal, and tarpaper.
DAYS ARE THE SAME every day, here in the Project, and sometimes you’re not really sure what day you happen to be living. It’s an already remote time, and it’s as if there were nothing written in the cards, nothing certain. As a matter of fact, no one really thinks about it here, no one really wonders who he is. Yet Lalla thinks about it often, when she goes up to the plateau of stones where the Blue Man dwells, the man she calls al-Ser.
It might be due to the wasps as well. There are so many wasps in the Project, many more than there are men and women. From dawn to dusk they go humming through the air searching for food, dancing in the sunlight.
Yet in one sense, the hours are never the same, like the things Aamma says, like the faces of the girls who gather around the fountain. There are torrid hours, when the sun burns your skin through the clothing, when the light sticks pins in your eyes and makes your lips bleed. That’s when Lalla wraps herself up in blue cloth, ties a large handkerchief behind her head that covers her face up to the eyes, and wraps another thin blue cloth around her head that hangs down to her chest. The burning wind comes in from the desert, blowing hard grains of dust. Outside, the streets of the Project are empty. Even the dogs are hiding in holes in the earth, at the foot of the houses, against empty oil drums.
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