The Boy Who The Set Fire and Other Stories by Paul Bowles and Mohammed Mrabet Read Free Book Online

put on the brakes. We kept going, so that he hit another car. I began to laugh, because he had found it out himself. When we got to the agency he went in and scolded the girl. Why do you go on giving cars to people without checking on the brakes? They might have had an accident.
    It was lucky the car had a good driver, I told him.
    He gave me the change and apologized. I went back to the doctor’s office. They were talking with him. When they finished we all got into the elevator, and a nurse came along with us. We managed to get a taxi at the door, and drove to the hospital. It was outside the city in an orchard. Some nuns led Mrs. James away, and Mr. James stood talking to the Mother.
    When Mr. James and I got to the port in Tangier, the sun was very hot and there was a strong wind blowing. He said he was glad to be on the other side of the water from the women in Granada. We passed through the customs and I drove him home.

T HE W ITCH OF B OUIBA D EL H ALLOUF

    T HERE WAS A YOUNG MAN named Qaqo who lived in Tchar ej Jdid with his mother. The woman spent her days gathering wood in the forest. She would load it on her back and take it to the town, where she sold it to the bakers for their ovens. While his mother was in the forest looking for wood, Qaqo stood near a café selling pastries for a peseta apiece. If there were any left over at night, he would get up at six o’clock the next morning and sit in the doorway of the café, and the men who were having breakfast there would buy them all. Then he would go home and make fresh pastries. He took them to the oven to have them baked, and when they were done he would pile them on a tray and go to stand outside the café. By the time he got home his mother would have sold her wood and be in the house cooking dinner.
    One evening when Qaqo got home she was not there. He waited a long time for her, and when she did not come, he started out to look for her. He climbed up the mountain to Sidi Amar, then by Rmilats and Donabo, and from there to Ain del Ouis and the entrance to Mediouna, and up to Bouiba del Hallouf, at the highest part of the mountain.
    In the moonlight there on the trail he saw something dark. Then he heard a voice crying: Ay yimma! Ay yimma! and he knew it was his mother lying on the ground.
    What’s the matter?
    I’m sick! she said. And nobody came by to help me.
    He unstrapped her from the pile of wood, lifted her up, and carried her on his back until he got to the highway. There some strangers passing by in a car helped him get her back to Tchar ej Jdid.
    Qaqo put his mother to bed and made her a little harira. After she had drunk it, she fell asleep. And he spent the whole night sitting beside her and wondering.
    In the morning she awoke, and saw Qaqo sitting there.
    How do you feel? he asked her.
    A little better, son.
    Shall we eat? I’ve got everything ready. He brought her a bowl of harira, and mint tea with bread and honey. He watched her happily while she ate and drank. Then he said to her: Tell me all about it. What happened yesterday?
    Yes, son, I’ll tell you. Yesterday I didn’t go where I usually go to look for the wood. I climbed down by the ocean and found a new place where there was wood everywhere. But there was a big hole in the ground near it, and when I looked down in I saw piles of bones. I went on as fast as I could and turned to the left, and I came to two big boulders, and the top of the mountain was above my head, very high, and the rocks went straight down to the sea on the other side. I went nearer, and between the two boulders there was an old woman with long white hair. She called to me, so I stopped. Then she came out, and I ran back. And she came running after me. I got out of the forest and ran toward the little farm up the road. There were two dogs, and they came out and began to bark. I turned around, and I saw her going back into the woods. Then I felt very sick, and walked around, and fell down. And it wasn’t a woman