Tinjdad

Written by Abdelkader Hamouchi

CHAPTER  I

It was autumn and the date harvest was closing in. Torrential rains were coming too, and things grew unpleasant for the peasants. Not only because of the coarseness of the weather but also for the crops that would wither and the misfortunes that would attend it. In the event of crop failure no peasant would fail to feel it. Nobody would be spared the spiteful pinch of a fruitless season. So, the villagers prayed and prayed, but beyond praying nothing could be done about it. Nothing was surprising about it either; for a scent of something indefinable, something undermining body and soul, had always filled the air.

Larbi, very much like several unfortunate villagers, eventually put up with pretty much deplorable conditions. Life was hard, but he endeavoured. He worked as hard as an ant. He made all the efforts that the morality of parenthood demanded, in the hope of meeting the pressing demands of life. This sometimes alarmed him but never deterred him. His chief occupation was to nurse his aged parents and children. Aicha, his wife, too.

When Aicha woke, it must be too early in the morning. In her sleep she jerked every now and then, she tossed her head so nervously that she sprang to her feet as if from a nightmare. Larbi took notice but at first he made light of it. Yet, after a moment or two, it occurred to him that something serious must be on her mind. Shortly afterwards she nudged him once or twice. He didn't move. She patted him gently on the shoulder and whispered his name." Larbi, get up -- get up, now, you're too late". He wouldn't, though. His eyes were closed, but he could sense that something was the matter with her. Intently he listened to his wife's incantations in the dark, then stretched up and after a while got to his feet and mumbled something which his wife couldn't make out, nor did she care to. She was too busy making fire. Larbi immediately slipped into his gown then shuffled his battered Balgha as he moved towards the window. He rested his elbow on the window sill, erected his forearm and absently cradled his encumbered head in the palm of his hand. Too many things on his mind distressed him. He thought. Although he utterly hated the world of thought, he mulled over the weather condition: he rolled his eyes and suddenly looked up examining the sky which was readily pregnant, threatening rain. "It doesn't bode well for the harvest," he muttered and drew a deep breath of grief as he shook his head. Visions of a broken sky and ruins set in and gloom was not late to descend upon him.

Depressed and sad, Larbi held out his hands, palms up, and implored God's mercy. Distractedly he fumbled in his pocket then produced rosary beads, and with the tip of his finger he idly felt the beads one by one, citing his prayer, as if he were counting. In another moment he bent his head wishing to look over a promising orchard, but it was still as dark as night. He was granted only some fresh air which he neither sensed nor contented himself with.

What stunned poor Larbi, however, was the sharp silence which suddenly filled the space between him and Aicha: from her everyday routine he knew that she was in the kitchen tending to the morning soup; yet the clanking of plates had swiftly faded away. "She must have moved elsewhere in the house," he thought. "Aicha," he shouted, looking back over his shoulder. The roar reached her but she was busy.  Anxious, as he was, he shouted again at the top of his voice. "Hold on," she yelled. "Hold on". Her voice was deep, so deep that she could hardly be heard. He realized that she was in what could pass for a toilet. Commodious, convenient. So, he let her finish up her business.

He had occasionally disconcerted her; he would demand that she have sexual intercourse with him when she had no desire to do so; but it seemingly didn't matter since she loved him. Knowing that he's not a man given to unnecessary talk, she went up to him, half afraid that something serious might have happened. On her way she gesticulated and shrieked "Come on, now, it's high time you performed your ablutions for the morning prayer!" There was a touch of tremor in her voice. "Hnn!" he sniffed; "Quick, now! Look!" he said as she approached the window. Then she looked up eagerly, hoping to know what was up. "Pray that the oncoming rain will let up before our bodies and souls part," he added, pointing to enormous dark clouds.

Heaven was about to shatter, or, so they imagined. "Oh, no, my dear! Nothing of the sort will happen," she said solemnly. "Two days ago I caught a glimpse of a shooting star," she continued: "a token that the angels are victorious over the devils."

They lapsed into silence for a while.

In the dim light of a smoking lantern, Larbi suddenly glanced at Aicha, but failed to make out any of her features; her face wore no expression. No matter how hard he tried to picture her countenance, the contours of her face completely blurred. Her glassy wet eyes sparkled, though. He turned away from her and walked to the rear of the room, wondering what to say next. "You seemed to have a disturbed sleep last night, didn't you?" he said, walking back from the wall; "You jerked now and again as though you lay on thorns!" She adjusted her clothes. "What do you mean?" she asked, pretending not to understand. He nervously reiterated his question, feeling that she would change the subject if she could. However, poor Aicha steeled herself and decidedly went into relating to him how uncle Brahim had assailed her "Well," she said, looking at him in the eyes; "I don't know exactly what you have in mind, but… you know… fancy how brutish he was when he slapped me in the face!" she said and noticeably sobbed.

"Who, he?" he demanded.

"Who do you think? Brahim… son of a B."

Very swiftly arrested tears in her eyes released themselves, rolled down her cheeks and raced to the edges of her contorted mouth. She could neither spit nor swallow; she couldn't speak either. Salty teardrops. Then Larbi hugged her; she rested her head on his chest and subsequently made their way to the sitting-room. They seated themselves heavily on the sofa and anger began to set in; it sprouted from the bottom of Larbi's heart, tripped through his lungs and in his throat it stuck; the incident choked him. It was too tough to digest. He murmured something but she didn't hear what he said. She assumed he was imploring God's help, seeking to control himself.

"It all started when I was busy doing my daily routine and suddenly heard someone trotting past our house. Directly on looking out the window I saw the silhouette of a man on a mule's back. In the feeble morning light, I made out his features, or so I imagined. I could tell it was him from his soldierly bearing. He was neatly dressed; he was fully clad in white. Unlike Monsieur- tout- le monde, he dexterously perched his turban on the top of his head. He was wearing a dagger across his trunk with no prospect of ever using it. "Oh, he doesn't have the guts to," Larbi said mockingly. "He had always given the impression that wearing a dagger is part of his character; and to divest himself of it is not only disconcerting but dishonourable as well." Just then my conscience nagged me and I hailed him, but not without hurtling downstairs. "Hey, uncle Brahim!" I shouted, gesticulating, with a tinge of fear in my voice. My shriek brought the mule to a halt. Brahim looked over his shoulder with a sense of self importance. His slit-like eyes fell on me but said nothing. Then I ran straight to him just like an arrow. I almost tripped when I bowed, held out my hand and swiftly pressed my lips against the back of his hand. My ingratiating kiss was not resisted.

I bade him to come in, but he wouldn't, knowing that I didn't really mean it. Then he surveyed me and acknowledged my hospitality. "You have come a long way, and you must be exhausted, come on," I said persisting. Eventually he relented as he was hungry. He got off the mule and looked around, seeking a cleat or something that could pass for it. He wanted to fasten the mule, and so he did. The fact occasioned me some embarrassment in the heat of which I blushed and abruptly said, "Oh, you know- Larbi's out, he is going to the fields as usual, and…" I didn't finish but my intention was rightly taken in by Brahim. Very quickly he removed the mule's saddle, tootled off and dropped it against a huge tree. There he seated himself, leaned back on the saddle, stretched his legs and contemplated his feet. Supported by clasped hands was his swinging head. In the meantime I hustled to fix him something to eat and drink. I hardly noticed the time when I laid a table with an improvised meal before him: a loaf of bread (Arakhsis), olives, homemade oil and butter, dates, light milk, tea…etc. Obviously it was concocted but it didn't matter as it was not a regular meal.

"In the name of God! Help yourself Uncle Brahim," I said encouragingly. "You're welcome! When you come over here, please call on us; this is your home; at least while we're alive". He nodded but said nothing. He immediately reached for food and began to convey it to his mouth while rolling up his sleeves. Yet, his face bore an expression of conceit; his countenance, I remember, was full of hatred. Presently I went upstairs leaving the door ajar. Burning with curiosity, I gazed at him intently from a window. I tried hard to picture the man he used to be, and what was becoming of him, I found it a very sad experience. For a good hour numerous things flashed in my mind: a man glowing with might; a man who would pride himself and speak coarsely when he spoke about his glorious days in the trenches of the French army; a man whose dignity and charisma were eventually robbed. There were, as yet, all tokens that a lot more was ahead of him. "It's a pity," Larbi blurted out sighing deeply with grief.

When the desire for food was left behind, Brahim dozed for a while. Several things must have crossed his busy head, I guessed. Of course, with an empty stomach, he couldn't sing or manifest the grudges he had always nursed against my family, but once satiated, he recovered his might and evil thoughts. A profound hatred surfaced again; and the fact culminated to an almost fatal blow dealt to me as soon as I showed up in the hope to collect the table and other things. I fainted away and he vanished.

Listening intently, Larbi contained himself as Aicha's story unfolded. Nothing seemed to worry him more than giving solace to his wife, at the moment. Not even his undermined reputation and dignity. In truth, he was much ruffled by his degenerating dignity, and so was Brahim. Shortly afterwards Larbi's eyes stared past her, out the window, at the tops of trees in an effort to hide his hurts, yet, he eventually gave in just like a wetted bottom of a cardboard when it gives in. In his lifetime it had never occurred to him that he would suffer such a humiliation. He thought, and his narrow thoughts festered so intensely that blood rushed to his head. "You look too vexed, my dear, your brow reads eleven and one hundred, don't take the affair too seriously," Aicha said looking him in the eyes. "It's beyond belief," he shouted at the top of his voice, simmering with rage. "It's beyond all reason to put up with indelible marks of disgrace in the village." She went into the kitchen and left the door half open; it suddenly creaked and she emerged with a tea set. She heaved a deep sigh as she reached out and grabbed her husband's arm, "sit down now and have a cup of tea, first," she said nervously. He wouldn't, though. He was busy examining his conscience, observing an owl flitting from one branch to another. Ominous. Then he stroked his beard, turned back and seated himself beside his wife. They sipped their tea when he gently seized her hand and got to his feet again. "Come on and look!" he said. Aicha resented like hell having to heave her arse or sway her hips, but she did. He hurried her to the window, and then she looked at what he was pointing at. "Look directly ahead of yourself, can you see the palm-tree over there?" "Yeah!" she nodded. "Ancestors, may they rest, had always said, a palm tree, like a Man, never succumbs or bends. It always dies while it is upstanding," Larbi added, but his words produced a dead silence. He implied a Man should die on a battlefield, take revenge and so he was construed

Long hours passed and his head whirled with nightmares of tribal aggressions coming back to him, of hungry men seeking power and resources; as tormenting as they were. 'Filthy still waters had better not be stirred,' he mumbled, having considered everything. His rage ebbed and Aicha countenanced his stand.
"It would be unwise of you to rake up the past and make too much fuss about it," she said in the mid of her goings and comings.

 "Oh, thanks God, reason frustrated the wicked idea of going for him and slit his throat," he replied in a tone of fury.

She stared at him as if pleading him to swear. The stare suppressed sentimentality in his chest and incited him to act again.

"A manful act would be to report everything to the chief of the village, kaid Ahmed," he gesticulated, swivelling towards the door when Aicha cried, "Oh! My dear, you are in no fit state to go anywhere now."  

A few moments elapsed before the dark softened, under the feeling of bitterness which had frequently visited him. Just then he fully clad in a typically Algerian outfit- white voluminous pants, shirt, cloak and turban that he had brought from Oran- and vehemently rushed across the fields to the chief for whom pleasure took the first place. The chief for whom girls with rising tangerines and tender legs count against his conscience and obligation. Nothing of the sort would deter Larbi or crush his hope to wipe out shame and disgrace which are deeply engraved on his forehead, though. So, he rushed, wiping out beads of sweat that constantly stood on his face, with his shirt sleeves. A weather-worn face with a tinge of varnish glowed, not only from his fatigue, but also from humiliation that threatened to live as long as him.

Directly on approaching the chief's dwelling, Larbi startled at the sight of a maze of alleys leading to a Moorish building which was factually more a fortress than anything else. Terrific images of smeared hands and past battles between villages flashed in his mind, yet he didn't brood much on them, or so it seemed. At the massive mahogany door he knocked with all his might, not out of rudeness, of course, but out of emergency. In his eyes blazed the Kasbah with lights and the warmth that the place could proffer. Having clutched a knob and put all his body weight against the door, a young porter hardly opened it when Larbi absently thrust forward. "Hey! Look….," howled the porter, unable to recall his name in his preoccupation with his manifold duties. "You have to await the kaid's consent before you can see him." Eventually he looked back and narrowed his eyes to a slit, but halted for a while; he excused himself, yet his countenance wore an expression of resentment for the servant's reproach. In another moment he looked up at the porter, contemplated his unfavourable skin colour and wished he could jump out of his own.

"Come on, come on," said the servant

"Ah! It's kind of you. Thank you, thank you…eh..But let me tell you something," said Larbi and started after him.

"Without fetters you look a bit curious," he added and giggled to assuage his derisive remark. The laugh definitely blurred the line between seriousness and joking; the laugh took effect while Larbi's senses and wits idled. The servant made light of the affair and cheerfully laughed back, as if he were at home, hoping to tease each other. However, the echo of the servant's roar petrified him so immensely that blood seemed to congeal in his nerves. The spacious corridors sounded like Ali Baba's barracks whereby villains grow into heroes. "It's finely built,' he mumbled. "It's ornamented with all that one might wish to see," he added, with a close and sweeping look at the richly decorated roofs, walls, doors and windows. "Oh! It's all the product of human labour - you know, local and national artisans," said the servant, flailing his arms. For a moment they enshrouded in an unnatural silence. Larbi got immersed in an argument he was having in his own mind with his assailant Brahim. Aloud he said, and reiterated like a prayer soon afterwards, in self pity, "People have always thought ill of me." Just then the servant walked him into Kaid Ahmed's lounge. Larbi wetted his lips and wiped fancied foam in the corners of his mouth with his thumb and forefinger- a reflex action of a nervous man who's composing himself in anticipation to greet Kaid Ahmed. On entering Kaid Ahmed shouted, "What is that, Larbi?"

"It's fine," he said, holding out his hand to shake the Kaid's with a touching air of conceit. "The fact is that I have something to tell you about uncle Brahim." This tickled Kaid Ahmed's curiosity pretty well.

"Go ahead," he said encouragingly, "what's up?"

Larbi squatted beside him and fervently started to relate Aicha's story with a slight dramatisation. Kaid Ahmed listened with strained nerves in an effort to make out the precise order of Uncle Brahim's hostile act. Now and then he fondled his smartly shaved head or stroked his grey beard: a gesticulation implying menace. Then he adjusted his posture, gravely looked up at Larbi and gave tokens of distress by frequent distortions of his face contours. Under the weight of bitterness he held his head between his hands and brooded so much on this matter that all sad things that had quietly sunk into the back of his mind surfaced again. He pictured him and clearly saw him moving about, doing wicked things he had always done in his life. He saw him revelling in people's discomfort, raping Zahra Garrab who chose not to make too much of it, considering what would follow if she did.

"Yes, he raped her!" he said, thinking aloud, and the fact effected Larbi's emergence from invisibility as he demanded, "what? I'd pluck out my eyes." 

"I remember quite accurately," continued Kaid Ahmed, "seeing him making sexual advances to my own daughter Sarah, looting notwithstanding his father's prosperity. Uncle Brahim and his six brothers were too proud of their father, as he was of them, although he had invariably been on condescending terms with the villagers. Conscious of an inherent social superiority, he resented being related to anybody, but equals. His acquaintance with his Jewish neighbour Mohan accounted for his prosperity, acuteness and celebrity as an artisan. He skilfully tanned sheepskins. He elated in an apron job and never gave the social order, if there was one, a thought. Not in a moment did he abide by divine or secular regulations, or show cordiality between him and particularly women. Of all his brothers, uncle Brahim is incontestably a duplicate of his father and never was more agreeable."

"At times, I tend to think it's unwise to tease a quiescent camel, as the saying goes, but…" Larbi said with a frown.

Kaid Ahmed grieved under the weight of duty and sense of responsibility. "Never before did my conscience nag me and incite me to act with pretty much audacity in an effort to protect my people from assailants of any kind as it presently does. Never before did I care to summon any disruptive villager and talk to him or her as I did when it came to uncle Brahim's case," muttered he.

On this occasion both Brahim and Larbi were summoned as a preliminary measure. When Brahim showed up, it was too late for the purpose, but he eventually excused himself and explained why he behaved as such: he made clear why he 'rightly' inflicted a blow on Aicha's face. "Your children have always been the instigators of all the offences against Mohan's family," said Brahim, looking up Larbi in the eyes to coerce him into admitting his children's misconduct; yet the look had the effect of bullying him to accept the charge more than anything else. "You must beware our customs and traditions, "said Kaid Ahmed averting his eyes. "Social order had it that every indigenous household must insulate a next door Jewish family."

"Fancy how aberrantly your son incited children to follow and tease Jewish funeral processions, chanting 'La ilaha illa llah," said Uncle Brahim, "Picture how often the procession had to drop the coffin, chase the children, blast a horn to 'outblare' the chant." "This is cruelty like no other," said Kaid Ahmed sighing in dismay.
With a battered mind, memories of glamorous past and glorious ancestors, poor Larbi hurried out of the Kasbah, feeling deeply that he disserved his kinship and local saint, My Abdelaziz. He wouldn't defer to anybody's humiliation, though. "You will be sorry for the ashes you've been raking and the embers you've always blown up with your filthy sigh," shouted he with a swift, vehement turn back.    

The next best idea that struck his busy mind was to divulge his affair among his kinsmen and villagers whom his hurts may concern; then, immediately take action, and so he did. The men contrived to defend themselves assuming that Uncle Brahim and his people had not only held grudges against them, but also entailed instability in villages.

On plotting to go for them, however, Mmi Khaduj, a woman whose character had been formed in the nervous years of Siba or anarchy, went on a visit to her grandchildren living in the vicinity of the village: in truth, it was a manufactured excuse to herald the oncoming attack on her villagers. "I had had a troubled sleep last night," said she, greeting Uncle Brahim, and squatted beside him. "What's up, mum?" he gravely asked. 

"I had had some premonitory dreams, visions of an attack being planned against our people," said she in an under breath tone. "Let me hear no more of the black sheep, Larbi," he retorted, narrowing his piercing eyes. He blathered something then a young lady with a fringe and in a greased apron-apparently a maid- showed up and immediately set out a dish of Lakhlia attended by various delicacies. They ate heartily when munching totally eclipsed the inclination to converse about the hovering attack and Larbi's contrivance. Yet, towards the end of the meal, and comprehensible as it was, Brahim was more ruffled by the potential assail than he showed. "Oh! This state of things is exceedingly sad," he blurted out as he got to his feet; "very sad to contemplate."
Mmi Kadouj left Uncle Brahim with a furnace in the heart and another in the head. Considering everything, currently his inadequate might, and not knowing what to do, he mechanically went about nooks he had frequented in his sober moments, but was so insensible that apparitions of an angelic face hailing him voiced, "when physical power fails you, a trick will always do". The voice irksomely lingered in the air.

On diffusing the ominous news of fighting off Larbi's attack, the talk of the whole village was revolving around the past occurrences, with casual dramatisation and special flavour they gained after every fresh account; there was much concern for what might become of Uncle Brahim's charisma in the event of defeat, too.
"It won't wane anywise," some people affirmed in the mist of serious preparations for the utterly despicable moment.

Uncle Brahim half fancied his enemy's disposition to face terror, but couldn't make out any precise course for actions. Heavily outnumbered as he was, he underestimated Larbi's force, though. Not to go out of his way he went to mosque for the Mughreb or sunset prayer with a vague idea that Kaid Ahmed might do something to release the current tension, should philanthropic motivation enshroud his personal interest in his defeat. At the end of the prayer, his people clustered around him in commotion; and soon it, somehow, came to his knowledge that Larbi and himself were to convene at Oghrur wadi. The prospect of peace-making from Kaid Ahmed occasioned much elation among the folks but not without special caution about events that may grow out of his intervention and the drastic turn they may take.

Brahim was not to repose those days nor doze those nights. "No, not for many days to come," said his wife Aicha with sadness in her heart, as she crossed Sala in her comings and goings. Family members as well as their acquaintances would not either. Aicha could accurately picture them all laying flat on the ground in an instant, crouching and resting their heads on their elbows in another, bellowing and reiterating "Astaghferu llah," now and again. A sort of lethargy came down just like a curse and crept into the family's spine. The air was filled with a tinge of depression in the heat of which everybody was thinking with wonder of unfortunate incidents that might attend Kaid Ahmed's enterprise of peace-making between Brahim and Larbi. From the grudges he had always nursed against the villagers, nobody would fail to figure out a cruel action he may take at any time; not even Aicha who had readily began to build a weak structure of hope that peace and some good sense may ever grow from Kaid Ahmed's initiative. "Conferring the issue is the wisest way to approach a conflict," said she in her right senses. Naïve? Maybe she was, though.

Pressed by a sense of duty to protect his people, Brahim found himself compelled to summon M'hand, one of his heralds who shared his sorrows as well as joys. As soon as the man showed up and squatted before him with an amazing agility, Brahim whispered in his ear, "ad ak inikh yan wawal ibriyin d qa kibri ig as tsfeld": literally "I'll tell you something as painful for me to tell as for you to hear."

"Lkhir!"  Said M'hand praying to hear a good news. "It's imperative that all our fellow men carry their daggers and bury them by way of precaution. Tell them with an utmost discretion to sit within an arm's length of their arms in case they may need it," said Brahim. "It's a bit strange," I guess, retorted M'hand, "but are we going to fight or make peace?"  "It's strange beyond strangeness, I see, but don't you know urdjine zozine w'askiwen azguer?" For a moment M'hand put his mind to the interpretation of Brahim's saying "A bull's horns are never a burden on him."