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

butterflies first, he told her.
    They walked out of the cave and through the forest to the clearing. As they stood there looking at the butterflies, again it seemed to Qaqo that he could hear a woman’s voice. But this time it was laughing. He glanced up. There was something that looked like the face of a very old woman wrapped in the spiderwebs between the branches. Her mouth seemed to be saying: Look out! Be careful!
    The girl was shivering as she looked at the butterflies lighting and fluttering their wings. I hate those things! she cried.
    Then Qaqo gave her a powerful push, so that she fell onto the earth among the butterflies. He could scarcely see her, there were so many of them around her. She began to scream, and as she screamed she started to look like the thing he had just seen in the tree, muffled in spiderwebs. He was terrified, and he seized her by the neck and pushed. Her nails ripped the skin from his arms. He pushed harder, and blood began to spill from her mouth. Then suddenly he realized that he was choking a frog. The frog was dead. He stood up. The blood was still oozing from its mouth.
    Qaqo began to run through the forest. He ran all the way up the trail, and did not stop until he reached the highway. It was getting dark and all his kif was gone. He hurried on to Tchar ej Jdid. His mother was waiting for him.
    Did you see the affrita? she asked him.
    There was no affrita, said Qaqo. There was nothing at all.

T HE D UTIFUL S ON

    A YOUTH NAMED M EHDI who came from the place of a hundred and one saints married a girl from Temsaman as beautiful as he was handsome. They lived on a farm where nothing grew but almond trees and kif. Their first child was a girl whom they named Zohra. She stayed with them for a little more than a year, and then she fell ill with a sickness in her throat. There were no doctors in that part of the country, so they did not know what was the matter with her. They gave her many sorts of herbs that grow in the mountains, but it did not help her. A terrible odor began to come out of her mouth, and she died.
    Not much later a son was born to them, and they named him Mohammed. Mehdi said to his wife: I’m eighteen now, and you’re seventeen. I think we should move to the city.
    They went to Tangier, where Mehdi had relatives. They told him: There’s a new hotel here that’s taking on help. Why don’t you try? He went to the Hotel Minzah and they gave him work in the kitchen as an assistant. He had brought a good sum of money with him from the sale of the farm, and he earned high wages at the hotel.
    After a few months an older woman named Aicha Riffiya began to follow him around in the street, and to wait for him outside the hotel. She lived in a brothel in Bnider, but she was in love with Mehdi. And so she captured him, a young man with a son. She even showed him how to drink wine.
    One night Mehdi and his friends gave a party at a mahal in Bnider. They had several women there with them. For the first time Mehdi did not sit beside Aicha Riffiya. He was paying attention to a girl named Haddouj Djibliya. He smoked kif and drank with his friends, and Aicha Riffiya sat and watched him. As she watched, hatred for Mehdi filled her heart. If she had been able to kill him then and there, she would not have waited. However, there was nothing she could do at that moment but watch.
    Mehdi spent the night with Haddouj Djibliya. In the morning he went to work, and at the end of the day he went home. His wife greeted him by saying: Where were you all night? I was waiting for you. It didn’t come into your head that perhaps your son was sick or that I might need you, or that maybe something had happened here in the house. You’ve begun to go with whores, and they’ve taught you to drink wine. I can smell it.
    Shut up! he shouted, and he jumped up and slapped her twice, very hard. I know, she said. I have no right to speak. I’m only your wife. But I love you, and you love me, and you hit me