In the Woods

We discovered that this time the gypsies had camped in the woods. They come once or twice a year, stay for a week or two, then leave for somewhere else. They have no specific place to go back to, the way birds often do. Some of them put up tents; others don’t, preferring to sleep in their big old American cars. They hang their clothes in the windows and put their bedspreads on top. Sometimes they tie a line from one car to another or to a tree.

This time they camped in the woods.

“There are a lot of them this time,” said Hamu. “But they are not as dirty as the ones we’ve seen before.”

“Are there any pretty girls?” asked ‘Adi.

“They’re very beautiful, gorgeous,” I said. “But how can we get hold of one of them?”

“It’s easy,” replied Hamu. “A bunch of kif will do it. They love it.”

“They don’t smoke weed. They drink wine.”

“No, some of them like hashish. Even though they’re dirty, they’re still beautiful. You’ll see.”

“They’re not as dirty as that ugly, barefoot sister of yours.”

“Don’t insult my sister.”

“Oh yeah, your sister’s as beautiful as the moon.”

“At least she’s not a gypsy.”

“Gypsies smell foul,” ‘Adi said. “Even from a distance. It must be because they eat a lot of pork. People say pork makes you stink.”

“Lots of people stink without eating pork. Walad Sharqawiya smells like a skunk, but he’s never eaten pork in his life.”

“Why should we care?” I asked. “We want to get one of their girls, and that’s it. They’re dusky and beautiful, with black, shiny hair. Ah, how I love those gypsy girls. How I wish I were a gypsy!”

“They’re like Jews. They don’t accept other people.”

“People say they were once Arab Muslims like us. But God disowned them, so they don’t believe in Him.”

Al-Mukhtar’s mother came over and hit him between his shoulders with a stick.

“You still don’t want to give up these loser friends of yours, do you?” she said. “This time they’ll take you back to those filthy unbelievers whom God has deprived of His mercy. Heaven knows where they come from.”

He took the blow without flinching but cursed his mother under his breath. As he walked away from her and us, he was making a furrow in the ground like an excited animal. His mother picked up the stick that had fallen from her hand.

“You son of a bitch,” she went on. “Last summer, they were about to cut your prick off. You got the clap from mucking around with their women.”

We started laughing.

“See, they’re all laughing at you. They push you into the abyss, but then they pull back.”

She walked back slowly toward her house. She too was filthy and barefoot. No one really knew if God was in His heaven and had refused her His mercy too, the way she had spoken about gypsies. Was it true that every dirty person with bare feet has indeed been refused God’s mercy? We were all barefoot as well. One of us was wearing a pair of women’s shoes that he’d found in a trashcan. They were bright red, the kind that women who have not been refused God’s mercy wear when they’re getting ready to go out to a party.

She stopped alongside a dilapidated wall consisting of thin wood poles, nails, and shingles made out of tin cans. The wall made a cracking sound. She almost fell down along with it, but managed to pull herself together. She put her hands on her hips. Her dress rode up to reveal a skinny leg covered with bruises and scratches. The stick was between her legs, almost stuck in the ground with its upper end tilted toward her stomach. She started cursing and swearing, calling us children of sissies and describing our fathers in very offensive terms. If our fathers had actually heard her, they would probably have killed her; either that or started a fight. After all, using such words to describe Arab and Muslim men is considered a blot on family honor. Unlike French, Germans, Americans, and Jews, Arab and Muslim men are very sensitive about particular things in life. The others are all impure, God save us! God gave them this world in order to provide us with the afterlife. In them He killed those very sensitivities that make us fight and kill.

That explains why ‘Adi now stood up shaking all over. He said he was going to rape her right in front of her own son. We told him that that would be completely inappropriate for both us and him. It would be better for her son to do it, provided, of course, that he was a real man and not the kind of person his mother had been invoking to insult our fathers.

After mouthing something inaudible, she disappeared. Her son joined us.

“Don’t pay attention to her,” he said, pointing to his aching shoulders. “She’s nuts.”

“If she were my mother, I’d know how to keep her in line. But she was right; she gave you away. Last summer, you did spend time with the gypsies behind our backs.”

“She was talking nonsense. That happened somewhere else.”

“That’s not important. We need to find some kif and head for the woods where the gypsies are camped.”

“They say gypsies speak Spanish.”

“Maybe they are Spanish. During the famine, Spaniards survived on goat’s milk; if they had flour they sold choro. They’re also poor, like Arabs and Muslims, because we all have close blood ties. Maybe they’ll go to Heaven with us.”

When children younger than us found out about the gypsy camp, they tried to stick close to us like an evil curse. But we knew how to get rid of them. For sure, that Lalla Nsa’s boy would already be there in the woods ahead of us. He was way ahead of his age in doing certain things and always gave us a run for our money, whatever we decided to try.

We made our way through dirt alleys that were full of foul-smelling puddles; there was no sewage system. After a half-hour walk we reached the edge of the woods. Once across the paved road reserved for buses, we saw silhouettes of cars, men, cows, and goats. Actually, when we came closer, there were no cows or goats.

“They aren’t as many as we thought,” said Hamu.

“Maybe there are more of them in the woods.”

“No, they never separate. They only travel and camp together.”

“Maybe they’re inside the tents.”

He pointed to some tents tethered to tree trunks that were scattered here and there in the woods.

“We should make a point of being polite,” said Al-Mukhtar. “We don’t want them to be on their guard.”

“Look,” said ‘Adi. “There’s that f—— Lalla Nsa’s boy, with two other kids.”

The boy stopped at a distance and stared at us. He looked scared. He was bare-chested and only wearing a pair of pants with the legs cut short. I yelled a curse at him and threw a stone, but he managed to avoid it. It only just missed hitting one of the two other kids on the head.

“Let me go and rape him,” Hamu suggested. “It’s what the dirty son of a bitch deserves.”

“Leave him alone,” I said. “He won’t come any closer.”

“We have to separate,” said Al-Mukhtar. “We don’t want to arouse the gypsies’ suspicions.”

“True enough. They suspect everyone. They refuse to buy or sell things involving anyone else.”

“That’s not true. They sell people odd things. Sometimes they’ll even buy food if their own supplies run out.”

“We’ve got to separate,” I said.

So we did. I flopped down near a tent in the shade of a verdant tree. The others all chose their own way to get closer to the gypsies. I pretended to be asleep and felt one of their dogs licking my bare feet. I was scared, but did not pull my leg away immediately. I did not want the dog to get excited and bite me on the leg or somewhere else. Close by, a frog leapt over the grass that was growing in profusion near the tree trunk. When the dog spotted that, it left me alone and started chasing the frog. When it caught the frog, it started ripping it apart with its paws, growling all the while. Eventually the frog’s intestines spilled out, all coated in dirt. With that, the dog settled down and squatted next to what was left of the frog; it was staring at the legs and intestines, things that it couldn’t rip up any more, however sharp the nails on its claws. An acorn from the tree landed on the dog’s head, and it growled, then barked and finally withdrew to another spot behind the car.

Once in awhile, gypsies could be heard yelling, almost as though they were having an argument. I saw Lalla Nsa’s son approaching again, but without the other two kids.

“You son of a bitch!” I said. “If you don’t go home right now, I’m not even going to tell you what I’ll do to you till I’ve actually done it.”

He cringed. “But just take a look,” he said. “Some gypsy girls have come outside. They’re cooking something.”

“Where?”

“Over there. Behind that tent.”

Abdi joined me. “I’ve looked around,” he said, “There are more of them than we thought. I found some of them playing cards. They smiled as I came up to them and talked to me, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. . . . I watched a gypsy, completely naked, pouring a bucket of cold water over himself. No one was paying any attention.”

“They’re not shy about doing that. To them it’s perfectly normal. Are you sure it wasn’t a naked woman?”

“Are you kidding? His body’s as huge as a mule, and his moustache is as thick as a donkey’s tail.”

“Where have Al-Mukhtar and Hamu disappeared to?” I asked.

“I don’t know. They’ve probably found something, or else they’re relaxing under the trees, watching the gypsies like two dogs staring at food they can’t have.”

“Let’s go and look for them. Al-Mukhtar has a rare knack for getting gypsy girls, the same way he used to catch flies at the mosque.”

As we made our way through various groups of gypsies spread out over quite a large area, ‘Adi walked in front of me. Pots and pans simmered on fires. By now, Lalla Nsa’s son and the two other kids had all disappeared somewhere close by the tents and the old American cars. Some of the gypsies were staring at us and smiling, while others were totally unconcerned. A little gypsy boy came up and gave me half an orange, which had a very special taste, unbelievably sweet. I gave ‘Adi a piece, and he downed it quickly. The little gypsy boy ran back to the tent, and his mother emerged. She was wearing multicolored clothes open at the chest, so you could easily see her breasts. Her jet-black hair covered nearly all of her face. Even so, her sparkling eyes and wonderful smile were easy to see. But she quickly slipped back into the tent.

“Oh, my God!” said ‘Adi. “How can we get hold of a beautiful woman like that?!”

“Believe me: you’d never be able to get one, even if you cut off your fingers for her sake.”

“She’s really beautiful.”

“Yes indeed, she’s prettier than an angel. Come on, let’s keep looking for Al-Mukhtar and Hamu.”

We kept stepping over tent-ropes tied all over the place. I was asking myself: How I can attract a gypsy girl if I don’t speak her language? What language can I use to talk to her? Al-Mukhtar knows how to speak with his hands, head, and eyes. He’s as good at that as he is at hunting flies. But we could not find them anywhere. Lalla Nsa’s son was probably looking for them, as well. Everything we had in mind, Lalla Nsa’s son did too—strange, yet true. It’s happened so many times: he manages to read our minds just by looking at us while we’re talking about things. His eyes sparkle under his thick eyebrows, and he has a magician face.

“Lalla Nsa’s son will be back soon,” ‘Adi said. “He’ll be able to tell us where Al-Mukhtar and Hamu are hiding.”

“He can certainly do that. I know him all too well. But assuming he’s come here on his own, why did he take the other two kids with him? He’s going to corrupt them. He’s good, as good as a saluki hound.”

The voices grew louder; so did the laughter. In the distance you could hear a gypsy baby crying. Strange! Even their babies cry like ours; the screams sound just like my little brother when my mother refused to give him some money to buy a balloon. He used to burst so many of them, it seemed deliberate. My mother would rush over to him. “You brat,” she would say. “Did I wean you on balloons? Here!” Then she’d hit him with whatever came to hand; it might be a shoe (although there weren’t many shoes at home), a comb, or a pair of bellows. He used to scream, whether or not he was hit. The noise he made was just like this little gypsy boy crying somewhere in the distance. But then, I’ve no idea how gypsies discipline their kids. Do they use bellows, combs, tongs, and shoes to beat them?

Suddenly ‘Adi stopped, and started listening to a noise inside one of the tents. He looked at me as though he was about to tell me something important. But what could he say? He did not know their language. As he was listening, his gestures gave me the impression that he could interpret what was being said inside that tent. A gypsy head peered outside, and we got scared. The man’s broad shoulders suggested that he could take on three people our size.

“Hurry up,” a scared ‘Adi said, as he walked on in front of me, “or that rogue’s going to catch us.”

“Listen, ‘Adi,” I said, “I’ve an idea. Al-Mukhtar and Hamu must have gone to the spring.”

“Why would they do that?”

“The place has lots of hiding-spots, so you can’t see them. They must have flirted with one or two gypsy girls and taken them off to smoke kif.”

“You’re right, that’s a good idea. It’s what Al-Mukhtar always does. He much prefers vacant, isolated places.”

We left the tents and cars behind us and walked along a dirt path with trees, plants, and weeds on either side. Over the ages it had been leveled by human feet and animal hoofs. It led to the spring. We used to burn pieces of rubber there, coat plant stalks with the melted goo, then bury them in the soil close to the spring. That way we managed to catch tiny birds that would shiver fearfully in our hands. The area all around the spring was thick with trees, but they were different from oaks and not fruit-bearing.

“Look!” said ‘Adi, “There’s Lalla Nsa’s son again.”

He was standing behind a tree trunk. It looked as though he had left the other two kids somewhere else. He was watching us the way a rabbit does a hunter before running away, scared, yet defiant.

“No big deal!” I told ‘Adi, “He may have found out where Al-Mukhtar and Hamu are.”

I yelled to him, and he walked edgily toward us. Stopping a few feet away, he scratched his snot-encrusted nose. His eyes were gleaming under his thick eyebrows.

“They are over there,” he said, pointing toward the spring.

“Who?”

“Al-Mukhtar, Hamu, and some gypsies.”

“It’s creepy how this damned boy manages to do these things!” I told ‘Adi. “Didn’t I tell you? Whatever we think about doing, he manages to do it first.”

“Are there any girls with them?” I asked him.

“Yes. And I saw some gypsy men as well hanging around the spring.”

We left him frozen in place. No doubt we would find he had gotten to the spring ahead of us, taking a shortcut we didn’t know. He could do anything because he is Lalla Nsa’s son; things occur to him that no one else, male or female, even contemplates.

We drew close to the spring where the trees were thick, short, and intertwined. We did not see any gypsies or anybody else, either.

“Maybe they’ve drugged the gypsy girls,” I said to ‘Adi.

“They must have had their way with them by now.”

“We shouldn’t surprise them. Let’s spy on them.”

I could picture the water rippling and the birds finding it hard to flap their wings amid the rubber-covered stems we had buried. We used to grab them, and their tiny bodies would pulse and quiver in our hands. The little birds would look right and left, perhaps emitting a squeak like a cry for help.

“Let’s approach from the other side,” ‘Adi suggested. “It’ll be better, and we won’t be surprising them.”

“It’d be better if we separated,” I said.

He disappeared for a moment. I walked to the other side and saw the spring. There was no one there. The water was glinting in the sunshine that was poking its way through the boughs and branches. There was no sign of anyone. All I could see was an empty, rusty jam can and an old torn shoe, but no trace of any human beings. They had to be somewhere in the trees. In situations like this, Al-Mukhtar was always cautious. I heard the sound of small branches cracking, and walked in that direction. I spotted ‘Adi walking stealthily through the trees and pushing the branches aside with his hand. I called his name, and he looked in my direction.

“You?”

“Yes, me! I didn’t find anybody.”

“Nor did I.”

“We’ve got to keep looking for them. The earth can’t have swallowed them up.”

“Everything’s possible. The area by the spring is haunted.”

“Oh, shut up! May you be possessed by a jinni!”

We started walking all around the area by the spring, not really believing that they were there. Could our intuition be wrong? But then Lalla Nsa’s son doesn’t tell lies!

“We have to find them,” ‘Adi said.

We changed direction. Now the weeds were tall enough to cover half of a man, weeds and plants with saw-like leaves. Just then ‘Adi stopped and starting listening.

“They’re there, for sure. Can you hear them?”

I couldn’t hear anything.

“Be careful. I heard something like laughter.”

We moved a bit closer. Now my ears did pick up the sound of human voices. Then I spotted a young gypsy girl standing in the middle of the fern field, pushing her black hair back. She did not see us. She disappeared again.

“I wonder what they’re doing there now,” I said.

“Smoking weed.”

“Shall we join them?”

“No. Not now.”

“But I want to get high with them.”

“Don’t do that. Al-Mukhtar and Hamu know that we’re here. When the moment’s right, they’ll call us.”

I watched a small chameleon as it crawled slowly over my foot. I was scared because it stopped and began looking around vacantly. Picking up a stick, I prodded its back, but it still refused to budge.

“Ugh. Tfoo,” said ‘Adi, spitting. “Leave that filth alone.”

“Look,” he said craning his neck, “there’s a gypsy.”

I looked where he’d been pointing. The man was very tall with a handsome tanned face. He looked sullen, as he stood there listening.

“Was he smoking with them too?” ‘Adi asked.

“Be careful not to let him see us.”

We saw him take out a huge knife from his belt and walk cautiously toward them. He must have got so high that he was about to commit a crime.

“Hamu!” ‘Adi yelled, terrified.

Heads rose from the fern field. The gypsy went berserk, pointing his knife firstly at us, then at them. He could not make up his mind which way to throw it. He started running, tripping over plants, falling many times, and grabbing whatever he could find around him or in front of him. We saw Al-Mukhtar and Hamu run away, while the three girls stayed riveted to the spot. We ran and ran through the woods.

At a certain point we stopped to catch our breath.

“If only he hadn’t had a knife,” Hamu said.

“What would you have done, you chicken?!” ‘Adi asked. “Let’s get out of here before he calls the other gypsies.”

“That short girl was really gorgeous,” said Al-Mukhtar.

“We’ll be watching,” I said, “when you catch you-know-what.”