The Orange Grove (8 page)

“Aziz didn't leave with the belt to blow himself up in the enemy's warehouses. No, I imagined the whole story, maybe even dreamed it,” Amed repeated like a prayer as he fell sleep.

He hugged the pillow so tightly that in his sleep he thought blood was coming out of it. Disgusted, he woke with a start, throwing the pillow to the ground. Sitting up in his bed, he saw a dark form crouching at his window.

“Who's there?”

Amed heard someone breathing.

“You don't recognize me?”

“Grandfather!”

“Don't come near me. I don't want you to see me.”

“Why?”

“I'm not a nice sight. Stay in your bed.”

“Was that you I saw the other day in the shed?”

“That was my shadow.”

“Aren't you in Paradise?”

“Not yet. I'm looking for your grandmother.”

“She's not with you?”

“No, Amed. When the bomb fell, she wasn't in our bed. Our bodies were blasted in opposite directions.”

“They found her in the kitchen,” Amed said timidly. “She was making a cake.”

“A cake?”

“Yes, that's what Mama said.”

“The dogs, Amed.”

“The dogs?”

“The dogs. The dogs! She must have woken in the night because she was afraid of the dogs. Our enemies, you know, just on the other side of the mountain. She always felt safe in the kitchen.”

“You may be right.”

“Listen to me, Amed. You had no right to take your brother's place.”

“I didn't want to. My mother made me do it.”

“You disobeyed your father. You committed a grave sin.”

“But Grandfather, Aziz was sick, and . . .”

“I know, I know all that! But you defied God.”

“No!”

“You defied him, Amed! That's why your grandmother and I have been separated. It's your fault that I'm living a thousand deaths. It's your fault that your grandmother hasn't found the way to Paradise.”

“No!”

“We are wandering in endless darkness. I won't find your grandmother again until you avenge our deaths with your own blood. You, too, must avenge us. Your brother's blood is not enough.”

“No!”

“Avenge us, or your grandmother and I will wander the world of the dead until the end of time.”

“No, I don't want to! Leave me alone, Grandfather!”

“I didn't want to subject you to this, but now I have no choice. I'm leaving the shadows so you can see me. Look, Amed, see what the dogs did to me, see what is left of my body, my face. I don't even have eyes. Look at the mouth that's
speaking to you, it's now just a bleeding wound. Look!”

Then Amed saw a huge mouth well up with blood and move toward him.

“Thief! Thief!

“I'm going to denounce you!

“You've stolen your brother's life!

“You've chopped his body into pieces!

“You've hidden it inside your pillow!”

That night, Amed's horrified cries woke Zahed and Tamara. When they came into his room, the child was standing on his bed, screaming with fear, and pointing his finger at the window. He'd bitten his wounded hand, and had smeared blood on his face. He kept saying that Dôdi's big mouth had wanted to eat him.

At dawn, Zahed borrowed his neighbor's truck. Something had to be done. Amed was delirious and burning with fever. Since his brother's death, he'd not stopped losing weight, and was becoming skeletal. Tamara wrapped him in a blanket and climbed with him into the truck. She herself seemed feverish and couldn't hold back her tears. A few months earlier, Zahed
had rented a car to take Aziz to the hospital. Driving to the big city again this morning, he thought he was transporting the same son. He didn't suspect that this time it was, in fact, Amed that his wife was holding in her arms. They passed through several villages disfigured by recent bombings. Suddenly, Zahed stopped the truck.

“The doctor warned us. This is the end, Tamara.”

“No, it's not possible!”

“We have to let him die in peace. There's no point in taking him there. It will be worse for him. And for us. Listen, we should go back home.”

“I beg you, Zahed, we must take him to the hospital.”

“The roads aren't safe anymore. You know that. It's become more dangerous of late. And what will that change, in any case? For me, Aziz is already . . .”

“You have no heart!”

Tamara was on the verge of revealing to her husband that the two brothers had traded places. But Zahed continued toward the big city.

At the hospital, when he saw his father's face bent over his own, Amed realized that something strange had happened. He'd never seen his father smiling so gently. Zahed was not the same man.

His mother explained to Amed what had occurred during the days he was delirious. The doctor had done tests, thinking Amed was Aziz. As he and his mother would have expected, there was no more sign of cancer. For the doctor who had treated his brother, it was a true miracle. He saw no other explanation for this surprising cure. It was a miracle that filled Zahed with joy, and his wife with anguish.

Back at home, Zahed told everyone he saw that his prayers had been answered: God had cured his sick child. He went to the child,
touched Amed as though to reassure himself that the boy was truly alive, held him in his arms, said over and over again that his son's sacrifice was not in vain, God had rewarded him by healing his brother.

Amed was ashamed, terrified even.

A short time later, there was a period of calm in the region. The bombings almost stopped. Harvest time drew near and Zahed hired a dozen employees to help in the orange grove. The baskets of oranges piled up in the little warehouse, and Zahed decided to organize a great celebration in honor of Amed, his dead son and martyr, and Aziz, his other son, saved by God. And so it came to pass that people were invited to mark the end of the harvest that year.

Many people came. All the employees, members of their families, neighbors. Zahed also invited Kamal, Halim's father, and, of course, Soulayed. Tamara decorated the house and women from nearby came to help her prepare many dishes. Amed got new clothes. In the central room, the large photo of the martyred son was weighted with garlands. Lanterns were lit before it. Amed couldn't look. He lowered
his head every time he passed before it. That photo was a lie. There had never been so many people in the house. People talked as if they were happy. This noisy happiness was also a lie. Before Tamara served the meal, Zahed insisted on leading everyone to the site of his parents' ruined house. With an energy intensified by all his listeners, he spoke of that fateful night. He described the deafening noise of the bomb, the horrible odor that followed, the debris, the mangled bodies of his poor parents. People cursed the enemies, turning toward the mountain. Just then two hands pressed down on Amed's shoulders. When he turned, Soulayed's beaming smile filled him with fear.

“How are you?”

Amed couldn't answer.

“Have you lost your tongue?”

Words stuck in Amed's throat.

“Are you Amed or Aziz? It's strange. I can never remember. The one who came with me, which one was he?”

Amed knew he was lying, or playing at not being able to remember. Everyone now knew the name of the dead martyr. Everyone had
pronounced it dozens of times since the start of the celebration. It was his own name.

Amed went back to the house without saying a word to Soulayed. After the meal, Zahed rose, told everyone to be silent, and asked Kamal to address the guests. He stood in his turn, and spoke of the sacrifice of his only son, Halim. In just a few months, Kamal had aged greatly. His voice trembled, his words dropped from his mouth like tired fruit. He claimed to be the happiest of fathers. His son was in Paradise. Then Zahed gave the floor to Soulayed. His noble stature imposed a respectful silence.

“The harvest gladdens hope, and hope relies on a gaze that has no fear of seeing the truth, said our great poet, Nahal.”

It was with this sentence that Soulayed addressed the people. Amed would never forget it, and afterward he repeated it often to himself. It seemed to him at once luminous and blinding, like an obsessive mystery. He was certain that Soulayed had spoken it just for him. That was an illusion. Soulayed's truth had nothing to do with his own, but he was too young to understand that clearly.

“The gaze is like a bird, it needs wings to stay aloft. Otherwise it falls to the ground,” Soulayed went on. “We must never lower our eyes before the enemy. Never. Our hatred and our courage are wings that bear our gaze beyond the mountain, beyond the lie on which the dogs feed. Kamal and Zahed have understood. And their sons as well.”

Soulayed then positioned himself in front of the photo of the martyr of the house, this photo that threw back to Amed his own image, and spoke of his brother's courage, of the beauty of his sacrifice. He spoke for a long time. His sentences bent around, returned to their starting place, launched themselves again with even greater force. Soulayed seemed unstoppable. All the guests drank in his words without daring to make the slightest movement. After a while, Amed realized that he was no longer listening. He stared at Soulayed's lips. They had detached themselves from his bearded face, and were projecting into the large room words that in the end had no meaning. They had become noise. Soulayed's words exploded in the air like fragile little bombs that left behind them trails of silence.

Amed went near. He moved so close that Soulayed stopped talking. He leaned over and lifted Amed into his arms. He looked at him with surprise. Amed suddenly felt very sick. As if an animal were trying to make its way out of his belly. And then he saw something in Soulayed's mouth. In his large open mouth, right in front of his eyes. Something he saw without seeing it.

“What, Aziz, what did you see in Soulayed's mouth?”

Aziz looked into Mikaël's eyes for the first time since they'd met that day.

“I don't know how to explain it to you, sir, I just can't.”

“A vision? You had a vision?”

“Maybe. Yes, like a vision. But not with pictures. It was more like an odor . . .”

“An odor that you saw?”

“I don't know, sir. But it was something upsetting that had just entered my heart . . . like a premonition . . .”

“That came from his mouth?”

“Yes. That's it.”

“A premonition of what?”

“Something terrible had happened, and it
had to do with my brother. And that, that thing, was there in Soulayed's mouth. It lurked there like a memory or a sensation. . . . I . . . I realize, talking to you, that this doesn't really make any sense.”

“No, on the contrary, Aziz. Go on. Please. What happened next?”

“I started to shake. My body rocked with spasms. Soulayed held me against him and enclosed me in his arms. The pain in my stomach had changed. I mean, it was no longer pain, but a force that had to come out of me. I freed myself from Soulayed's grip, and ran to the photo. I smashed the glass with my fist and I tore the photo into two pieces. Then I started to shout in front of all my father's guests: ‘That's me in the photo, me, Amed! There was never any miracle, the one who left was Aziz!' My father grabbed me by the neck with one hand, lifted me up and threw me against the wall. I lost consciousness. When I came to, I was lying in my bed. My mother was bent over, her face propped against the window of the room. I called to her. She turned toward me. I almost didn't recognize her. Her face was swollen. There were big black
rings around her eyes. Dried blood on her nose. She told me, speaking with great difficulty, that I could no longer live in that house. I had become the son of no one.”

“You had to leave your family?”

“Yes. I went to live with my father's cousin in the big city. I stayed there for several months. I was badly treated. I had dishonored my family. I did not deserve the food I was given. I was barely tolerated. I wanted to see my mother. I had no news from her. My father had forbidden her from seeing me. Then, one day, my father's cousin told me I was going to leave for America. I didn't believe him. But it was the truth. I learned that my mother, with the help of her sister, had arranged everything so that I would leave the country. I arrived on a boat with dozens of other refugees. I went to live with my aunt Dalimah. She'd lost the child she was carrying. I cried when I saw her. She looked like my mother. I couldn't stop crying.”

Aziz went quiet, his eyes on his cup of coffee. Mikaël didn't dare break the silence. He raised his head to look out the wide window of the restaurant where they had taken refuge after
their long walk. Night was falling fast. Mikaël could see the river far off, slipping into a bluish light. It was now snowing softly, a few lost flakes sparkling under the streetlights.

“Would you rather I called you Aziz or Amed?”

“You can keep calling me Aziz.”

“Are you still cold?”

“No.”

Mikaël asked for the bill, and after he had paid they left the restaurant. The sidewalks, the streets, the passersby, the roofs of parked cars, all were white, covered in spotless snow. Before leaving him in front of a subway station, Mikaël asked Aziz if he would be returning to class.

“And the child in the play?” replied Aziz.

“Don't be afraid. Sony isn't going to die.”

Aziz went back to acting class. Mikaël was relieved, and at the same time perceived Aziz's return as an added responsibility. He had promised Aziz that Sony wouldn't die. For that, he had to rewrite the scene where the mercenary asked the child to give him a valid reason for letting him live. How to change that ending? Where to find the words that would touch this soldier's heart, debased by war, despairing and dehumanized? After hesitating for a while, Mikaël found the courage to ask Aziz to relate the story of his childhood, the story he'd told Mikaël as they walked. He didn't see what else he could do. Aziz's words, even improvised, would sound more authentic, truer than anything he could write for this scene. He was sure of it. He told himself that if the soldier heard
the story of the explosives belt worn by a small sick child—the story of the twin brothers who traded places, which was not theater because it had really happened—and thought about his own son while listening to this story, about his son who looked so much like the little boy recounting this searing story as if it were a memory, there would then be a chance he wouldn't shoot Sony down like a dog.