The Orange Grove (4 page)

“In my dream I had one. I gave it to you. And I left with the belt.”

“And me?”

“What?”

“What did I do when you left with the belt?”

“You played with the yellow truck.”

“That's a stupid dream, Amed.”

“You're the one who's stupid!”

The two brothers looked at each other in silence for a long moment. Each tried to guess what the other was thinking. Aziz saw tears well up in his brother's gaze.

“Aziz, do you sometimes hear voices?”

“What do you mean?”

“Voices in your head.”

“No, Amed.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

Amed was disappointed by his brother's answer.

In the beginning, he'd thought everyone heard voices. “If that's how it is . . .” But in time, Amed had come to the conclusion that he might be the only person in the universe to have had such an experience. No one around him had mentioned any such thing. Only that once had he found the courage to talk about it to his grandmother, but it was impossible to describe the strange words that came without warning.

The voices reeled off incoherent sounds inside him, turned words inside out, endlessly repeated a sentence he'd just said or that his brother or his mother had spoken the day before. Amed felt as if he harbored within himself a tiny Amed, a kernel of himself made of material much harder than his own flesh, and that had several mouths, like his character Dôdi. Sometimes the voices spoke as if they knew more than Amed himself did. Perhaps they'd been born before him? Perhaps they'd lived elsewhere before settling inside him? Perhaps, when he slept, they traveled and absorbed
knowledge inaccessible to him? Perhaps they knew languages other than his own. Despite the times when they deformed words or babbled them senselessly, perhaps these voices had important things to tell him?

Zahed spent several days cleaning up the debris of his parents' house. He cleared the property around it as well. Salvaged photos, clothes, some dishes. But he didn't keep the few sticks of furniture that were still usable. Tamara helped him as much as she could. The boys offered to lend a hand, but their father chased them away. Husband and wife worked in silence. Silence that was heavy and painful. Several times, Tamara wanted to open her mouth and as many times she held back. It was the same for Zahed. A truck came to collect what was left of the house's walls. There was nothing now but the floor stained with blood. Zahed took his wife by the hand. She didn't understand what he wanted to do. Seeing her unease, he asked her to sit down. She obeyed. He sat near her on the floor bereft
of walls, mourning those who had lived there. Tamara wanted to laugh. She felt like her in-laws' house had been swept away by the wind, and that she and her husband were on the verge of uprooting themselves from the earth in turn, leaving it for good.

Zahed broke the silence: “It will be Amed. He's the one who will wear the belt.” Tamara's heart stopped.

“I know what you're thinking,” Zahed went on, painfully. “I know what you want to say. I've thought about this for a long time. It won't be Aziz. I'd be ashamed, Tamara. I couldn't go on living if I asked Aziz to wear the belt. I couldn't face God. Yes, Tamara, I've thought about it for a long time. I've turned the question over thousands of times in my heart, and . . .”

“But Aziz will . . .” Tamara couldn't finish her sentence.

“Yes, Aziz will die, I know it as well as you do. I told you what the doctor explained to me. It would not be a sacrifice if he wore the belt. It would be an offense. And it would be turned against us. Also, Aziz could not succeed in his present state. He's too weak. No, Tamara, it can't
be Aziz. You don't send a sick child to war. You don't sacrifice what has already been sacrificed. Try to think it through, Tamara, you'll come to the same conclusion. It's Amed who will go.”

Tamara wept and shook her head no, unable to speak.

“Why do you think Soulayed came to offer me his condolences and brought Kamal with him? Listen to me, this man lost his wife when his only son was born. And he agreed to sacrifice him.”

Zahed rose. Tamara watched him move off, his back bent, into the orange grove. She was not surprised. She had known Zahed would choose Amed. In her heart, she had always known. And it rendered her mute with pain.

That night, in the garden, she looked at the moon, bathed herself in its distant light. Suddenly she remembered a song. Her mother had murmured it into her ear to put her to sleep:

       
One day we will be light.

       
We will live with eyes always open.

       
But tonight, child, close your eyelids
.

A sensation of cold seized hold of her belly. She thought she was going to be sick. But the cold, which usually moved downwards, now climbed as high as her lips, her tongue. Icy words formed in her mouth. She realized it was too late. Nothing could melt those words and the thoughts they contained. She waited for night to envelop the house, then she went up, silently, to the boys' room. She heard the whistling of their breath. They were sleeping deeply. She approached Amed's bed, and placed her hand on his brow. She waited for him to wake. When his eyes were half-open, she tenderly took his hand.

“Don't say anything, don't wake your brother, follow me.”

They slipped out of the bedroom like thieves. With Amed, she went back into the garden. They sat down on the “moon bench,” as Tamara secretly liked to call it. Amed didn't seemed too surprised that she'd woken him in the middle of the night and led him out of the house. His eyelids were still heavy with sleep.

“Listen to me, Amed. Soon your father will go into your room without a sound, so as not to wake your brother, and will place his hand
on your head as I did myself just now. And you, you'll slowly emerge from your sleep and you'll understand, seeing his face bent over yours, that it's you he's chosen. Or he'll take you by the hand, lead you into the orange grove, and sit you down at the foot of a tree to talk to you. I don't know just how your father will reveal it to you, but you'll know before he's even opened his mouth. Do you realize what that means? You will not come back from the mountain. I don't know what all Soulayed has told you, you and your brother, but I can guess. Your father says he's a man who can see the future. An important man who is shielding us from our enemies. Everyone respects him, no one dares disobey him. Your father fears him. Me, as soon as I saw him, I found him arrogant. Your father should not have allowed him to cross the threshold of our house. Who has given him the right to go into people's houses and take away their children? I'm not stupid. I know that we're in a war and that we must make sacrifices. And I know that you and your brother are courageous. You've told your father that it would be an honor for you to fulfill your duty and wear
this belt. He told me what you said. You're ready to follow in the steps of Halim and all the others. Your father is overwhelmed. He's proud of your determination. God has given us the two best sons in the world, but Amed, I am not the best mother in the world. You remember my cousin Hajmi? You remember, don't you? She was sick. Aziz suffers from the same sickness. His bones are decaying, melting away inside his body. Your brother is going to die, Amed.”

“I don't believe it.”

“Don't tell your mother she's lying. The big-city doctor told your father. Aziz will not see the next harvest. Don't cry, my dear, it's too hard, I beg you, don't cry.”

“Mama.”

“Listen to me, Amed, listen to me. I don't want you to wear the belt.”

“What are you saying?”

“I don't want to lose both my sons. Talk to your brother, persuade him to take your place.”

“Never.”

“Tell him you don't want to wear the belt.”

“It's not true.”

“Tell him you're afraid.”

“No!”

“Oh, Amed, my child. Aziz will be happier if he dies over there! You know what's ahead of him otherwise? He'll die in his bed, suffering horribly. Don't deprive him of a glorious death for which God will welcome him with all the honors due a martyr. I beg you, ask Aziz to take your place. Don't tell anyone, above all not your father. It will be our secret unto death.”

Amed headed back to bed like a tottering little ghost. Tamara remained sitting on the moon bench. She struggled to calm her heart. After a long time, she held out her hand to the nearest rose. She stroked its petals with her fingertips. Tamara thought she could see the flower's heart breathing in and out. “The scent of flowers is their blood,” Shahina had said to her one day. “Flowers are generous and brave. They shed their blood without caring for their lives. That's why they fade so fast, worn out from offering their beauty to whoever wants to lay eyes on it.” Shahina had planted this rosebush when the twins were born. It was her way of celebrating the arrival of her grandsons. Tamara quickly got up from the bench and brusquely tore off the
roses. Her hands bled, scratched by the thorns. She felt horrible. That terrible thought, she'd given it voice: she'd sent her sick son to his death.

The next day, a voice woke Amed well before his brother. To his amazement, it possessed the accents and unique rhythms of Halim's voice. No mistake, it was really his. It spoke inside Amed without really speaking to him, as if it were a song sung by someone who didn't need to be listened to in order to exist.

“My string has broken . . . my string has broken . . .” repeated Halim's voice.

For a moment, Amed thought the young man with the belt was in his room, back from the land of the dead.

“My string broke . . . it's not the wind's fault . . . an awful noise has broken my string . . . my ears are bleeding . . . I can't hear anything any more . . .”

Amed sat up in bed and looked around. He saw no one in the half light of the room. There was no one but his brother sleeping beside him.

“I come close to the sun . . . I climb . . . I climb . . . it's not the wind's fault . . . it's because of the noise . . . I don't hear anything anymore
and I can't see the earth anymore . . . the white clouds swallow me up . . . no one can see me anymore . . .”

Amed held his hands over his ears, but the voice only got stronger.

“A cruel noise has broken my string . . . I'm burning . . . alone in this huge sky . . . I'll return no more . . . I'm burning . . . alone in the absence of the wind . . .”

Amed got up and went to his bedroom window. Dawn. The sun's first rays were touching the tops of the orange trees. For a long time he watched the sky turn blue. The voice calmed down bit by bit. When it had gone totally silent, he went back to bed. He heard his heart beating. He hugged Aziz tightly. He pressed his body against his brother's, as if to merge with him.

Had he dreamed it, or had his mother really said that his brother's bones were melting? Had he dreamed it, or had his mother really said that it would be better for his brother if his bones exploded on the other side of the mountain? The body he was embracing suddenly
seemed so brittle . . . no, he would not let Aziz wear the belt in his place.

Aziz woke and pushed him away abruptly.

“What are you doing, Amed?”

“Nothing. Get up, it's late.”

The cruel death of his parents had not changed Zahed's routine. On the contrary, he worked with even more determination. In his eyes, the orange grove had increased in value. It was now the sanctuary where the bodies of his parents lay. He went over every tree, removed rotten branches, irrigated the soil, all with the sense of performing sacred gestures. The perfume that rose from the earth comforted him, helped him believe that the future still had meaning. He felt safe among his trees, as if no bomb could breach the armor of their greenery. His heart knew it: these fields of oranges were his only friends.

Leaning back against a tree, Zahed had nevertheless let his tears flow that day. He thought of his father. What would he have done? Would he have chosen Amed or Aziz? Sitting beneath the
foliage of an orange tree he had just pruned, he waited for a sign from his dead father. All morning Zahed pondered what he would say to Amed.

“In any case,” he said to himself at last, “there's no point in sending one to his death, knowing death has already touched the other one with his invisible hand. But what else to do?”

He dried his tears and left the orange grove. Near the house, he saw his sons playing in the garden. They had just left their mother and her improvised class in the kitchen. Hesitant, he approached them. Amed and Aziz felt his presence and went to meet him, astonished that their father was not working at this hour. Zahed looked on his two sons in silence, as if he were seeing them for the first time, or the last. He didn't quite know what to call the emotions that were constricting his throat. He took Amed by the hand and led him away, leaving Aziz confused.

“Where are you taking me?”

But Amed knew what his father had in mind. Zahed maintained his silence, gripping his son's hand more tightly. They walked to the toolshed. His father gave him a key and asked him to open
the big iron padlock. Amed obeyed. Then Zahed pushed open the heavy wooden door. When they went into the shed, two birds escaped through an open skylight above their heads. For a moment Amed was afraid. The door closed behind them. A ray of sun shone down from the roof, millions of dust motes dancing in the long blade of light. It smelled of oil and wet earth. “This is where I've stored it,” murmured Zahed. He went into a corner and lifted up an old tarpaulin. He came back to his son with the canvas bag Soulayed had brought. He crouched down and had Amed sit near him.

“You have to shut the dead into the ground,” he said, as if every word he articulated was itself rising from the earth's depths. “Because that's how . . . that's how the dead enter heaven. By being shut into the ground. That's how I buried my parents. You saw me, I took my old shovel and I dug a hole. You saw the worms arriving to celebrate the burial. The hardest thing wasn't throwing earth into the hole to cover it up. You saw me, I covered the hole completely. The hardest part was searching through the debris. My mother, I saw her head cracked open. I could no
longer see the goodness of her face. Blood, there was blood on the broken walls, on the shattered plates. With my bare hands I scooped up what was left of my father. There was no end. I asked you, your brother and yourself, not to come near. I asked it also of your mother. No one ought to have to do that. No one, not even the guiltiest of men, ought to have to recover what's left of their parents in the ruins of their house. I dug the hole that splits the sky in two, as our ancestors said. And I heard the deadly boring buzz of flies, as our ancestors also said. My son, one must not fear death.”