The Orange Grove Read Online Free PDF Page B

me?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWhat did I do when you left with the belt?”
    â€œYou played with the yellow truck.”
    â€œThat’s a stupid dream, Amed.”
    â€œYou’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.
    â€œAziz, do you sometimes hear voices?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œVoices in your head.”
    â€œNo, Amed.”
    â€œNever?”
    â€œNever.”
    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 absorbedknowledge 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?
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    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 bereftof 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.
    â€œI 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 . . .”
    â€œBut Aziz will . . .” Tamara couldn’t finish her sentence.
    â€œYes, 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’tbe Aziz. You don’t send a sick child to war. You don’t sacrifice what has already been sacrificed. Try