Horses of God by Mahi Binebine Read Free Book Online Page B

completely lifeless. No one was sifting through the rubbish the trucks went on tipping. There was not a single kid’s shout. Only the astonished birds and cats, left in peace, scavenged to their hearts’ content. A morose mood hung over Sidi Moumen, like the one that now pervaded the desolate cemetery where we’d played so often as kids. We’d come to torment the drunks who sought sanctuary there. We’d throw stones at them and run off, squealing. They were in such a bad way they could never catch us. As they tried to give chase, my brother Hamid would double back and nick their bundles. We’d be helpless with laughter, especially when he set fire to them and danced round the blaze . . .
    The gravediggers carried on with their work in an atmosphere that was almost normal. They placed flat stones over my remains, as if to stop me from escapingthe realm of shadows, and covered me with earth, which they packed down, pouring liters of orange blossom water on top. So it was that this slip of a woman, whom some thought mad, managed to impose on the men a burial that was worthy of her sons.
    â€œWhere’s Hamid?” Yemma demanded, addressing my father. He glanced toward a nearby grave that had been freshly filled in. She went over and crouched down beside it. Hamid was the rebel of the family, but, between you and me, he was her favorite. Even though she shouted at him all day long for his never-ending mischief, and whipped him whenever he went too far, the fact remained that she loved him more than the rest of us, because she and he were alike. They were cut from the same cloth, businesslike in everything they undertook. If she wanted something done right, Yemma entrusted it to Hamid and to Hamid alone. He’d always make good, he never came back empty-handed. His entrepreneurial spirit filled her with pride. And though she disapproved of the way he made his money, she was always pleased to see him dressed like the rich kids, in blue jeans and the latest trainers, with his slicked-back hair—which she thought looked greasy and sticky, even though she accepted that it was the fashion. She’d also turn a blind eye when he took me to the tailor’s to get me fitted for a waistcoat or saroual, or brought hazelnut chocolates for Father. Sometimes he’d give her perfume, which sheaccepted, protesting. She’d immediately put it away in her wardrobe, which she’d double-lock, and take it out again on feast days. Yemma loved the sweet fragrances in those pretty bottles the smugglers brought from Ceuta. If I surprised her putting some on, she’d dab a drop behind my ears and give me a kiss. Now, though, she was in no mood for celebration and didn’t smell of Hamid’s musky perfume. Squatting in front of this heap of damp earth, her hands covered her lined face, where wrinkles, feeding on grief, had spun their webs in no time at all. Yemma’s eyes had almost disappeared, as if they’d been swallowed by her eyelids. They’d lost their sparkle; they were just two insignificant little holes. In the old days, those eyes could make us tremble. Yemma had only to look at one of us to hypnotize us. Now her eyes were dead, just like Hamid and me, like Khalil, Nabil, Ali: dead because of the people we’d met at the garage, “the emir and his companions,” as Abu Zoubeir called them. Well, I’ll tell you more about those guys later. There were four of them, come from the neighboring slums to guide us back to the straight and narrow. They knew the Koran by heart, as well as the sayings of the Prophet, as if they’d formed part of his entourage. That made us feel inferior. Abu Zoubeir said we could learn them too if we just put our minds to it. Anyone could learn.
    The crowd moved from my grave to my brother’s. People formed a circle round my mother, her deadchild at her feet. The grave was already filled in, but Yemma moved her hands over the damp