Bit by bit this man relearned the language of the village. Meanwhile, after his unfortunate marriage and before his military service, he had begun smuggling, a practice he resumed after his service. To add to his unhappiness, he was the object of mockery and ridicule on the part of the men in the village. He could barely open his mouth without being treated with derision. With my father, whom he greatly respected, and whom he called uncle, he could exchange views and manage a conversation on his own terms. And so he often came to our house, even if his family, who lived very close to ours – his mother was a distant cousin of my father, and a neighbour – resented us because of the story of my maternal uncle and the man’s wife. My mother was held responsible for what had happened, even though she had repeatedly warned the young woman against this relationship. But things had changed, and his wife and my mother were no more of this world. That may have created, between the two men, a kind of bond in unhappiness, in a felt absence. In addition to which, in the intervening time, the man had remarried, with my mother’s niece. It was during these conversations with my father that he was able to describe some of the nightmare that his military service had been, and his adventures as a smuggler.
Not understanding Turkish, and not being able to follow an order or carry out a task, he was constantly being punished, he remembered. The most unbearable were the times when they put him, head shaven, head bare, under a pail of water from which drops fell at regular intervals. He was held motionless under the pail so that he could move neither his body nor his head, and was kept there until the pail was empty. Most of the time he could not endure this torture, and by the time the pail was empty he had passed out. He was convinced that those water-dropping sessions had taken away his sense of language. He remembered that his head felt empty, brainwashed, after those sessions, and it took some time for him to regain his sense of things, to find a normal posture for his body in the barracks, where his comrades were by no means kind to him.
As for smuggling, what was most striking and most amusing was his adventure with the horseman who had suddenly appeared at his side when he was riding on the plain. Anyone else but him – because smugglers, but not just them, more often told stories of bravery, stories that allowed them to strut about in front of others: “He who respects himself never exposes his wet shirttail,” it was said in families, especially to little ones who had a habit of talking freely about private matters – anyone else, for fear of ridicule, would most likely have kept this story to himself or have altered it to his advantage. But he told it innocently and in all its truth.
It was on his way back from a smuggling trip, he began. A venture that he undertook alone, because the other smugglers didn’t care for him, or didn’t find his company useful. In this world, more than in any other, your first consideration was a companion’s usefulness on a ride that took place in darkness and fear. You were not there to take care of anyone, but to be accompanied by someone who would make things easier for you, either with his knowledge of the territory or his bravery. For the novice it was best to have a family connection with someone who was experienced. He would take you under his wing or entrust you to someone he had confidence in, until you learned the ropes. No one in his immediate family was a smuggler, and the others didn’t consider him experienced enough to have him along on a trip. And so he would ride off on his own, even though, once en route, he might meet up with others and go part of the way with them. But on this occasion he was alone, having successfully made his delivery and loaded his horse with merchandise for the return. A good smuggling trip had to pay both ways. He had accomplished that and was riding ahead on the plain under a starry sky, when suddenly he became aware of a presence by his side.
It should be said that a smuggler, however heroic he may appear, lives in fear. And it takes very little – only for the hero to be away from home on his horse – for the slightest tremor, the smallest noise, to have him fearing the unexpected, the worst, and for heroism to give way to fear. Fear of the police, in other words death or prison; fear of the bandit, in other words loss and shame; fear of other smugglers, fear of being seen during the day, fear of being lost at night, fear of the village to come, fear of the village he’d just left, fear of the plain, fear of the river. For the smuggler, everything is fear, from his departure to his return. And bravado is soon overcome by the desire to go to ground or take flight and escape smuggling’s bottomless pit.
And so fear followed the smuggler everywhere. An unknown presence was always to be avoided, especially if it came out of nowhere and began riding by your side. Which was the case for the unfortunate husband.
Panicked, he whipped his horse, and sent it off at full gallop in order to shake off his pursuer. His horse ran well, and once goaded on, did not stop so easily. He rode for some time without turning around. Sure of having put some lengths between himself and the presence he thought he had seen, he risked a glance. He was stunned to see the same figure riding by his side. He redoubled the pace of his horse, and when he dared to look around, the same rider was there. He couldn’t believe it: how could another horse keep up with his own for so long, when every time he had placed a bet on it, it had outrun its pursuers after just a few strides? His mount began to show signs of fatigue. Reducing his speed, he realized that the rider was doing the same. That was some comfort.
After all, this was perhaps not a dangerous stalker, a bandit who was going to strip him bare. He continued riding alongside the stranger, sensing no hostility in the glimpses he took. And so he looked about him, as if seeking help and advice, consolation or refuge. He heard the rustling of the wind in the dry grass. He looked at the moon, and saw it shining above him in the sky. He took the time to turn in the direction of the rider. And all of a sudden the realization hit him: the presence in question, this unknown rider whom he had taken for a bandit, and worse, for a mounted policeman on patrol disguised as a smuggler, was none other than his own shadow.
He cursed himself, called himself worthless, a good-for-nothing, a weakling, apologized to his horse for having made it pay for his spinelessness and his fear. Tears streamed down his face. But, reassured, he continued on his way. There was no nasty stratagem on his tail, no danger. It was only his shadow. He vacillated between shame and confusion, and at the same time he was proud to say that he had ridden alone in the night, even if he had been afraid.
This was a form of pride that would make it difficult to impress a woman, a beautiful woman. And the allure of this husband must have meant little for a wife like his own. But she was his cousin, and he had married her, against her wishes. In this part of the world, a man had a right to marry his paternal cousin. Without his prior renunciation, and above all without that of the father in the name of the son, either no one would have asked for the young woman’s hand, or blood would have flowed until everything was clear. And since the father absolutely wanted to marry his young son to his beautiful and desirable niece, that is how it came to pass, along with the risk that fires not doused might flare up at the first opportunity. Which is what happened. Because there had been fire before the blaze, they said, between the uncle and the beauty.
My uncle was handsome, intelligent, four or five years older than the husband. One was already a man, the other was still struggling with adolescence, even if it was of brief duration in these parts. There was a shortcut between childhood and adulthood that left little room for adolescent dallying. As soon as you could grip a handle, you worked. As soon as there was a hint of nature’s having its way with you, you were married and had paternity or maternity foisted on you without your having had time to scramble out of childhood. And you grew up along with your children. Which in no way prevented the grownups from being grownups. The passage was short, but there was a passage. And the youngest ones were soon aware of the cruelty of this passage, which was to their detriment.
My uncle was already a man, the husband still in the shortcut. One in the plenitude enhanced by his natural advantages, the other in the t
hankless passage made worse by the resentment of his own wife. It was not surprising that the husband provoked laughter and mockery, and that my uncle inspired fear and admiration. Whereas the husband went out of the village with a pick or a shovel on his shoulder, my uncle went off for the hunt sporting a gun. One was a humble labourer, bound to the earth and his fears, while the other seemed to exist only for a life of courage, beauty, and love. One was scorned, the other admired by the young women and the young girls of the village. One tried to hang onto the treasure he had in his hands, while the other, flamboyant, giddy with promises, always had his eye out for the conquest to come rather than the one he had already made. One was the eldest of his family, with all the responsibility that entailed in our part of the world even if one was not an adolescent, while the other was the youngest, pampered and carefree. One was a stay-at-home who, even when he went out, kept his eyes on the toes of his shoes, and tried to arrive as early as he could at work or at the house where his father was waiting to send him off on another job; the other was a hunter alert to his surroundings, always vigilant, on parade, a woman chaser even when sitting idle at home. And so how could the poor labourer keep his wife from this splendid predatory bird on the prowl, how could he defend her against him? How could he look the hunter straight in the eye, or exist in his wife’s eyes or in the eyes of anyone else? How could he raise his head and his gaze from his feet on the ground? Because shame does not leave you, it is always with you, they said; wash it seven times with blood and seven times with water, it will not disappear; it stays, indelible. Who would want to own the smallest parcel of shame, under the circumstances? Everyone tried to avoid what might look like shame.
The grownups said my uncle was a skirt chaser, not happy in his marriage. He found my aunt dull, not playful enough, not jolly enough, lacking sparkle, lacking colour. Beautiful but bland, with an icy beauty. Beautiful but discreet, one of those beauties afraid to disturb or to offend. Beautiful but modest, they said. One of those who set little store by their nature. Someone more vibrant, more exuberant, would have better suited the temperament of my uncle.
Being a hunter, he was out during the day among the rocks, in the shadows; he was out at night on the land, in the forests. He chased everything that moved. The village was small, and its two unhappy natures eventually found each other, with the complicity of the young woman’s family, which did not find her husband up to the mark. And they plotted to flee, to murder, to live their love to the end.
My aunt’s death in the rooms at the back would have figured in those plans; some said she had been hanged. According to others, she had received a mortal blow and been hanged afterward. Or, disappointed, she may have simply hanged herself. Had she entered the room at the back alive? She had been brought out dead, she had been buried, that much is certain. The rooms at the back kept their secrets. They kept them so well that, instead of broadcasting them in the light of day, thirty years after the first hanging, my real aunt went and hanged herself from a tree, in the forest, not far from the White Rock of my childhood. She had been one of those who had brought out the first dead body. Once again no one could explain this leave-taking, the leap into space, the suspension from a branch. Why did her old head on her old legs drape itself in a rope to go and hang itself in the forest? Would we ever know if it was to free her old head from its secrets? Years passed, occupants moved on to be replaced by other occupants, but the rooms at the back endured, true to themselves, keeping their secrets and the secrets of those who had passed through them.
From the two sides, east and west, the village and our house opened onto the unknown world of the trees and the earth. The world of the people and the village, the stream once crossed, was for the children. And then there was the obscure world of the hangings and their swaying one way, and then another.
I often crossed the stream and moved toward the west, if only with my eyes, to stroke the necks of the two snakes that rose up pressed against each other and intertwined like an emblem of passion and love.
It was a day at the end of spring or the beginning of summer. The sun was high in the sky, halfway to its zenith, and the neighbours were on their terraces. Perhaps we were waiting for the herds to return? Some were talking about the day’s events – the sun that was already beating down, the water to be gathered at the spring – while others listened, replied, or scanned the horizon in search of who knows what vision, because, we were told man, awake or asleep, alert or unconscious, was always waiting in fear or in hope; when suddenly two snakes loomed up like an enchantment into this late morning. Like the incarnation of fear and hope. Fear inspired by the sight of a snake gliding along like life itself, lashing out like envy and holding a mirror up to baseness, the lot of all of us; and hope aroused by an opening of the heart, an ingathering on the part of every human or beast, including the snake, who at such times brought up to the light the love that governed life, embracing even snakes, it was said. Silence fell, and all eyes turned in the direction everyone was pointing, some with an arm, some with a sign of the head, some with the end of a rolling pin. People and time froze at the sight of those two snakes that had chosen for their lovemaking the shade cast by two oaks next to the houses, the oaks that are always green.
It lasted a few instants, a few minutes. An eternity of happiness, moments suspended in time. I didn’t know what the world was, or what all the love in the world was, but in my child’s eyes, filled with wonder before this spectacle, celestial and animal, all the love in the world was in the yearning of those two serpents for each other.
Later, I knew other snakes. The enormous blind snake whose hissing was for a long time the very incarnation of fear for me, a sound that would unnerve even the bones we saw come out of the graves. The bones from which on the day decreed we would be awakened to another life, we were told. Because just like the fig tree whose countless branches were contained in a small seed, man must also harbour such a seed in those bones, out of which he would be returned to life. Even the bones would have feared this snake, and I thought of it later when we children, in swarms, were tormenting the village blind man, a great-great-uncle, and he in his confusion was trying to chase us off with his stick and his curses, his only weapons, like the snake with its hissing and its head that it swivelled around in every direction to scare us, to drive us away. It was on a flat stone, exposed to all the pebbles and blows we could rain down on it, but despite that it didn’t move, only turned and thrust its head at us to threaten us. Wanting to frighten us with its own fear. But fear did not stand in the way of death, giving it or receiving it, just as it didn’t stop us from tormenting the blind man. We killed the snake, with my brother’s help, hitting it with a stick and with stones, while we were guarding the baby goats.
And then there was the grey-black snake, its back gleaming in the sun, which wound itself around a tree, swallowed another snake, and stopped us from going near the vines hanging over the hedges around a vineyard. It deprived us of the grapes that were within arm’s reach, when we were counting on being able to steal them as we passed by. We were petrified by the scene before us, as was my brother. This living mouth swallowing another life that for a long time continued to struggle inside its stomach. Its belly was swollen with the half-swallowed snake that battled with all its remaining strength in hopes of freeing itself from this vise, this wide-open mouth that had swallowed it alive. It swallowed and fixed its gaze on us, motionless. A gaze that was defiant, as though it were ready to swallow both the tree and anything that came near it. We knew it could no longer budge, even if there was defiance and menace in it eyes, but we could not make a move and soon retreated, leading away our herd of baby goats, turning our backs on any hunger for the grapes on the hedges, as if afraid of a spell, afraid of being frozen forever in the eyes of that snake.
There were other snakes too. There was the snake that, no one knew how, entered the belly of a woman. She was on her way home from the village of her birth to her husband’s village. My moth
er said that the young woman had paused in the shade of a tree on a very warm day. Feeling hot and weary, she had fallen asleep under the tree. And while she slept, a black snake had slid from her mouth into her belly. After her nap, she felt a heaviness, but she continued on her way, paying it little attention, thinking it was a heaviness that had come in the wake of sleep. She was thirsty. A thirst such as she had never known. She was able to reach the spring and drink, drink as she never had, as if three oxen were drinking in her place. A few minutes later she was thirsty again, and she felt her flesh cracking everywhere, the way the earth cracked under the burning sun in July. She looked around desperately for drops of water she could gulp down so that those fissures would fill for a few moments. There was no other spring along the way, and she had to keep on until she got home. In her extreme thirst and fatigue, she could barely drag herself to the village. Once home, she suffered the same thirst. Every ten minutes she had to drink. She drank jugfuls and pailfuls but her thirst was not quenched. She didn’t know what to do with this thirst, a curse of the end of time, she had heard. No one understood what had happened to her, how she could drink so much and where she could put all that water. No one could solve the mystery. And they waited for the sky to fall to earth and for the earth to split, forming an abyss. Everyone began to watch for the first signs of this thirst in themselves and others. Was it the thirst spoken of by the ancients, which was going to shrink people and things and hurl them toward their end? But no one else showed any symptoms other than the young woman, who continued to gulp down any water she could get. Men and beasts experienced their usual thirst, which came and went with the succession of shade and heat. No one could comprehend, until the day when an old woman of the village, she who hid the secrets and distress of others under her thick and ample clothes, and who had let the requisite amount of time go by, had her recount in detail the story of her thirst.
To the Spring, by Night Page 12