Next morning a number of them were punished, including Josef and Suleiman. Farid escaped because of his drawing, and he thought gratefully of Claire. For the first time he understood what mother-love really means.
“How did you manage to get your drawing done?” asked Josef curiously at break, not without envy.
“The nights are long in my father’s prison,” he replied, aiming for a tone of histrionic pathos.
82. The Short Memory of Chickens
Aunt Salime wasn’t really any relation; Claire and Elias just bought their eggs and chickens from her when they were in Mala, and called her Aunt out of civility and respect.
She had been a brave woman all her life. Wonderful tales were told of incidents in which she had played a prominent part, usually showing more courage than all the men in the village put together. Perhaps that was why she had never married.
If anyone asked why men avoided her, she said, “It’s because they eat too much meat steeped in fear. Meat is digested in the body and everything that was in it goes its own way, the nutrients into the blood, the waste matter out again, and the fear into the heart.”
She herself knew no fear and ate no meat, whether beef, mutton, or goat, because in her view not all the seasonings in the world could do away with the fear felt in its last moments by an animal going to slaughter.
Aunt Salime raised chickens and lived from selling their eggs, which were in great demand, because she fed them only the best grain. And when she had nothing else to do she sat with them and sang them nursery rhymes in a quiet voice. The chickens seemed to like her singing. They clucked quietly and melodiously, as if echoing Aunt Salime’s voice.
She told her fowls tales of love, loyalty, and treachery. Claire was amused by them, and said Aunt Salime had a brain no bigger than her chickens did, that was why she understood them so well. But Farid thought her stories were exciting.
One day she told him about a hen who put up with all kinds of dangers and humiliations for love. She refused the advances of the magnificent rooster who ruled Aunt Salime’s poultry yard, and instead went through a hole in the fence to the yard next door, where a gaunt white rooster lived. She made love with him until he fell over, exhausted, and only then did the hen go home. Aunt Salime’s jealous rooster pecked her and flapped his wings, but the hen took her punishment, and went back day after day on her amorous outings. When Farid saw Aunt Salime’s magnificent rooster, he doubted her story. The bird was a fine specimen, with all the colours of the rainbow in his tail.
“There, look at that! What did I tell you?” she suddenly said. The hen was on her way through the fence. Farid stood up and saw the two lovers dancing around each other. Then the white rooster mounted Aunt Salime’s hen, who willingly squatted down and raised her rear end for him. Meanwhile Aunt Salime’s rooster was throwing a fit of rage and jealousy, crowing himself hoarse. But the lovers took no notice. He couldn’t get through the small hole in the fence; Aunt Salime had made sure of that. Whenever the white rooster finished the hen wooed him again with her dance, until he mounted her once more. And just as Aunt Salime had said, she didn’t come home until the white rooster was lying in the sun half dead, and didn’t even have the strength to keep his eyes open.
Farid shooed the jealous rooster away, and wouldn’t let him get near the love-sick hen.
When a chicken was too old to lay, Aunt Salime killed it and sold it to one of her family or the neighbours. The way she killed the chickens so as to keep their meat free of fear was an impressive sight. When she had chosen an old hen, she took a long, very sharp knife and went out. She fed the chickens. She lured the bird whose life was about to end to a wooden platform set up in the middle of her meadow, drove all the others away from this raised dais, and finally made a great fuss of the hen, feeding her a few nuts and grains. The hen pecked, felt happy, and suspected nothing. Aunt Salime sang songs to her.
Then, quick as lightning, she drew the knife from its sheath, which she wore on her back, and stabbed, but not like a butcher, more like a dancer. Seconds later the knife had disappeared again. Her hand, now free, moved gracefully back to the bowl of corn. The other chickens were alarmed for a split second or so, but next moment they were greedily pecking at the grain that Aunt Salime scattered around the platform, while the star of the day performed a headless flight. It looked as if she were going to loop the loop in the air by way of farewell, but before she had finished she fell to the ground a few metres away, and Aunt Salime quickly vanished into the kitchen with the dead fowl.
“Okay, so that one left this life without fear, but what about the others?” asked Farid. “They’ve seen their companion die. How will they ever get up on that platform without feeling afraid?”
“Yes, the chickens do see it,” replied Aunt Salime, “but they have very short memories — if they didn’t, they’d have stopped laying eggs long ago.”
83. The Devil’s Daughters
His family’s summer residence was not in a pleasant location. In the hot season, when Damascus was unbearable, his parents fled to Mala in the mountains, and Farid was woken every morning by a terrible sound: the bleating of sheep on their last journey through the village.
Nothing ever changed in Mala. Grapes, figs, sweet corn and tomatoes certainly tasted better there than anywhere else, but the butchers still slaughtered animals right outside their doors. There were three butchers in all, and one of them had his shop opposite Farid’s house. The butcher was one-eyed but witty, and his fine voice was popular with the women.
Every morning he led one of the sheep from his distant sheds to his butcher’s shop. He did it with the composure of a conqueror. He walked patiently behind the sheep, and kept stopping when it stopped and bleated pitifully, obviously with some presentiment of misfortune ahead. It was a short-winded, bloodcurdling bleat. The sheep looked around with its eyes wide. The butcher sang soft folk songs about longing and loneliness, and pushed the animal almost considerately forward. The sheep seemed to rouse itself from its sense of loss. It walked on as if automatically for a while, only to stop again. Interestingly, it was more hesitant and bleated louder the closer it came to the shop. It wouldn’t walk the last few metres at all. All its legs seemed to go rigid, but with the ease of long practice the butcher pushed the poor animal to the door, tied it up to a metal ring there and opened the shop. At this time of morning Farid was already sitting out on the balcony.
The butcher soon came back from the shop with a knife and a tin bowl to catch the blood. He skilfully caught the sheep by both front and back hooves, threw it over like a judo fighter, and pressed his knee against the animal’s head. It was taken by surprise and made no more noise. The knife flashed quickly and the sheep began bleeding to death. Its last twitchings pursued Farid into his dreams.
Once a week there was goat meat at the butcher’s. Usually it came from young animals, but now and then an old billygoat had his throat cut. On goat days Claire stayed well away from the shop. She was fond of the little kids, and didn’t want to see them slaughtered. The elderly billygoats smelled too strong for her, even if they had been washed before slaughter and the flavour of their meat was disguised by large quantities of choice spices.
The goats never took a step towards the shop of their own accord. The butcher hauled them there on a rope, and they resisted with all their might, bleating not pathetically but indignantly. In the end he had to carry them. He never sang to the goats at all.
“It’s worth resisting even in the slaughterhouse,” said Claire, who sometimes consoled Farid in this early and sorrowful hour on the balcony by bringing him a coffee.