The Delicate Prey: And Other Stories

Mokhtar felt the blood leap upward in him like a fire. “I paid you for that the following month.”

“Abaden! Never!” cried Bouchta excitedly. “I have eyes and a head too! I remember what happens! You can’t take advantage of me the way you did of poor old Tahiri. I’m not that old yet!” And he began to call out unpleasant epithets, brandishing his cleaver.

People had stopped in their tracks and were following the conversation with interest. As Mokhtar’s anger mounted, he suddenly heard, among the names that Bouchta was calling him, one which offended him more than the rest. He reached across the counter and seized Bouchta’s djellaba in his two hands, pulling on the heavy woolen fabric until it seemed that it would surely be ripped off the old man’s back.

“Let go of me!” shouted Bouchta. The people were crowding in to see whatever violence might result. “Let go of me!” he kept screaming, his face growing steadily redder.

At this point the scene was so much like his dream that Mokhtar, even while he was enjoying his own anger and the sight of Bouchta as he became the victim of such a senseless rage, was suddenly very much frightened. He let go of the djellaba with one hand, and turning to the onlookers said loudly : “Last night I dreamed that I came here and killed this man, who is my friend. I do not want to kill him. I am not going to kill him. Look carefully. I am not hurting him.”

Bouchta’s fury was reaching grotesque proportions. With one hand he was trying to pry Mokhtar’s fingers from his garment, and with the other, which held the cleaver, he was making crazy gyrations in the air. All the while he jumped quickly up and down, crying: “Let go! Let go! Khlass!”

“At any moment he is going to hit me with the cleaver,” thought Mokhtar, and so he seized the wrist that held it, pulling Bouchta against the counter. For a moment they struggled and panted, while the slabs of meat slid about under their arms and fell heavily onto the wet floor. Bouchta was strong, but he was old. Suddenly he relaxed his grasp on the cleaver and Mokhtar felt his muscles cease to push. The crowd murmured. Mokhtar let go of both the wrist and the djellaba, and looked up. Bouchta’s face was an impossible color, like the sides of meat that hung behind him. His mouth opened and his head slowly tilted upward as if he were looking at the ceiling of the market. Then, as if someone had pushed him from behind, he fell forward onto the marble counter and lay still, his nose in a shallow puddle of pinkish water. Mokhtar knew he was dead, and he was a little triumphant as he shouted to everyone: “I dreamed it! I dreamed it! I told you! Did I kill him? Did I touch him? You saw!” The crowd agreed, nodding.

“Get the police!” cried Mokhtar. “I want everyone to be my witness.” A few people moved away quietly, not wishing to be involved. But most of them stayed, quite ready to give the authorities their version of the strange phenomenon.

In court the Cadi proved to be unsympathetic. Mokhtar was bewildered by his lack of friendliness. The witnesses had told the story exactly as it had happened; obviously they all were convinced of Mokhtar’s innocence.

“I have heard from the witnesses what happened in the market,” said the Qadi impatiently, “and from those same witnesses I know you are an evil man. It is impossible for the mind of an upright man to bring forth an evil dream. Bouchta died as a result of your dream.” And as Mokhtar attempted to interrupt: “I know what you are going to say, but you are a fool, Mokhtar. You blame the wind, the night, your long solitude. Good. For a thousand days in our prison here you will not hear the wind, you will not know whether it is night or day, and you will never lack the companionship of your fellow-prisoners.”

The Qadi’s sentence shocked the inhabitants of the town, who found it of an unprecedented severity. But Mokhtar, once he had been locked up, was persuaded of its wisdom. For one thing, he was not unhappy to be in prison, where each night, when he had begun to dream that he was back in his lonely room, he could awaken to hear on all sides of him the comforting snores of the other prisoners. His mind no longer dwelled upon the earlier happy hours of his life, because the present hours were happy ones as well. And then, the very first day there, he had suddenly remembered with perfect clarity that, although he had intended to do so, he never had paid Bouchta the twenty-two douro for the lamb’s head, after all.

Tea on the Mountain

The mail that morning had brought her a large advance from her publishers. At least, it looked large to her there in the International Zone where life was cheap. She had opened the letter at a table of the sidewalk cafe opposite the Spanish post office. The emotion she felt at seeing the figures on the check had made her unexpectedly generous to the beggars that constantly filed past. Then the excitement had worn off, and she felt momentarily depressed. The streets and the sky seemed brighter and stronger than she. She had of necessity made very few friends in the town, and although she worked steadily every day at her novel, she had to admit that sometimes she was lonely. Driss came by, wearing a spotless mauve djellaba over his shoulders and a new fez on his head.

“Bon jour, mademoiselle,” he said, making an exaggerated bow. He had been paying her assiduous attention for several months, but so far she had been successful in putting him off without losing his friendship; he made a good escort in the evenings. This morning she greeted him warmly, let him pay her check, and moved off up the street with him, conscious of the comment her action had caused among the other Arabs sitting in the cafe.

They turned into the me du Telegraphe Anglais, and walked slowly down the hill. She decided she was trying to work up an appetite for lunch; in the noonday heat it was often difficult to be hungry. Driss had been Europeanized to the point of insisting on aperitifs before his meals; however, instead of having two Dubonnets, for instance, he would take a Gentiane, a Byrrh, a Pernod and an Amer Picon. Then he usually went to sleep and put off eating until later. They stopped at the cafe facing the Marshan Road, and sat down next to a table occupied by several students from the Lycee Francais, who were drinking limonades and glancing over their notebooks. Driss wheeled around suddenly and began a casual conversation. Soon they both moved over to the students’ table.

She was presented to each student in turn; they solemnly acknowledged her “Enchantee,” but remained seated while doing so. Only one, named Mjid, rose from his chair and quickly sat down again, looking worried. He was the one she immediately wanted to get to know, perhaps because he was more serious and soft-eyed, yet at the same time seemed more eager and violent than any of the others. He spoke his stilted theatre-French swiftly, with less accent than his schoolmates, and he punctuated his sentences with precise, tender smiles instead of the correct or expected inflections. Beside him sat Ghazi, plump and Negroid.

She saw right away that Mjid and Ghazi were close friends. They replied to her questions and flattery as one man, Ghazi preferring, however, to leave the important phrases to Mjid. He had an impediment in his speech, and he appeared to think more slowly. Within a few minutes she had learned that they had been going to school together for twelve years, and had always been in the same form. This seemed strange to her, in as much as Ghazi’s lack of precocity became more and more noticeable as she watched him. Mjid noticed the surprise in her face, and he added:

“Ghazi is very intelligent, you know. His father is the high judge of the native court of the International Zone. You will go to his home one day and see for yourself.”

“Oh, but of course I believe you,” she cried, understanding now why Ghazi had experienced no difficulty in life so far, in spite of his obvious slow-wittedness.

“I have a very beautiful house indeed,” added Ghazi. “Would you like to come and live in it? You are always welcome. That’s the way we Tanjaoui are.”

“Thank you. Perhaps some day I shall. At any rate, I thank you a thousand times. You are too kind.”

“And my father,” interposed Mjid suavely but firmly, “the poor man, he is dead. Now it’s my brother who commands.”

“But, alas, Mjid, your brother is tubercular,” sighed Ghazi.

Mjid was scandalized. He began a vehement conversation with Ghazi in Arabic, in the course of which he upset his empty limonade bottle. It rolled onto the sidewalk and into the gutter, where an urchin tried to make off with it, but was stopped by the waiter. He brought the bottle to the table, carefully wiped it