blond, chubby-cheeked children played on a seesaw. A plane, a train. An ocean liner cleaving the waves. Namouss had certainly overheard people talk about such wacky contraptions, but to actually see them, that was something else! Heâd never had the opportunity to leave the Medina, even if only to go to the new town, which he knew was populated by foreigners, who lived in houses that were five or six stories tall, drove through wide, paved boulevards, drank forbidden liqueurs in cafés where men and women mixed freely, without shame.
Namouss worked hard and applied himself, automatically raising his hand whenever the teacher asked a question, even if he didnât know the answer, thinking he might come up with one at the last possible second, especially since he was convinced that it all came down to divineintervention, or baraka, anyway. He was obsessed with acquiring ten gold stars because Mr. Benaïssa had promised that the first student to reach ten would be rewarded with . . . a book.
Ah, competition, that virus! Namouss got carried away to such an extent that the rest of the class faded into the background and his sole concern was his relationship with Mr. Benaïssa, who was God in the flesh, who gave and took, punished and rewarded, but who above all shepherded his flock into a new world teeming with life and perpetually in flux, a world where men were so accustomed to fables and legends that they became a part of everyday life.
A S THE YEAR progressed and Namouss settled into his new life, he began â for the first time in his life â to have the impression that he was different. This filled him with both joy and uneasiness. Starting from his first day in school, when Mr. Fournier had called his name out, right to that lucky day when Mr. Benaïssa had exchanged his ten gold stars for his very first book, one could say that the path heâd undertaken was that which separated being from nothingness. Namouss knew he was his own man. He began chafing under the stifling constraints that regulated life at home, in the streets, and even at school. The path heâd begun to walk was none other than the road to freedom, where his only true responsibility was to throw himself headfirst into adventures.
His first adventure wasnât a strictly glorious one. The school owned a kitchen garden surrounded by wire mesh, where aside from a handful of trees, there were also various types of vegetables, as well as, unusually, a couple of turkeys that had been left to roam freely, though under the nominal supervision of a watchman who was rarely around. Two rascals in Namoussâs class had spotted a flaw in the fence: a small opening located away from prying eyes, where a predator had obviously already made an incursion without an alarm being raised. Thislack of surveillance emboldened the two accomplices, who then offered Namouss the opportunity to join their wild caper. After much deliberating, Namouss accepted their offer, though he found the object of their desire a little laughable: the eggs laid by the turkey hen. How had his companions found out about the eggs? Probably because they were originally from the countryside, where children are able to read the movements and changes a bird makes when itâs brooding. So Namouss followed their lead, his heart racing wildly. The theft was carried out toward the end of the afternoon, just before the school gates were shut. A meager booty: there wasnât even enough to go around; only a couple of eggs for all their troubles. Once outside, there was the problem of what do with them. Eating them or taking them home was out of the question. The solution they came to was to sell them to the local grocer and split the proceeds between them. In order to better incriminate Namouss, whose success in class irritated them, the two accomplices made a democratic decision â they were, after all, in the majority â that he was the one who should sell the
Namouss worked hard and applied himself, automatically raising his hand whenever the teacher asked a question, even if he didnât know the answer, thinking he might come up with one at the last possible second, especially since he was convinced that it all came down to divineintervention, or baraka, anyway. He was obsessed with acquiring ten gold stars because Mr. Benaïssa had promised that the first student to reach ten would be rewarded with . . . a book.
Ah, competition, that virus! Namouss got carried away to such an extent that the rest of the class faded into the background and his sole concern was his relationship with Mr. Benaïssa, who was God in the flesh, who gave and took, punished and rewarded, but who above all shepherded his flock into a new world teeming with life and perpetually in flux, a world where men were so accustomed to fables and legends that they became a part of everyday life.
A S THE YEAR progressed and Namouss settled into his new life, he began â for the first time in his life â to have the impression that he was different. This filled him with both joy and uneasiness. Starting from his first day in school, when Mr. Fournier had called his name out, right to that lucky day when Mr. Benaïssa had exchanged his ten gold stars for his very first book, one could say that the path heâd undertaken was that which separated being from nothingness. Namouss knew he was his own man. He began chafing under the stifling constraints that regulated life at home, in the streets, and even at school. The path heâd begun to walk was none other than the road to freedom, where his only true responsibility was to throw himself headfirst into adventures.
His first adventure wasnât a strictly glorious one. The school owned a kitchen garden surrounded by wire mesh, where aside from a handful of trees, there were also various types of vegetables, as well as, unusually, a couple of turkeys that had been left to roam freely, though under the nominal supervision of a watchman who was rarely around. Two rascals in Namoussâs class had spotted a flaw in the fence: a small opening located away from prying eyes, where a predator had obviously already made an incursion without an alarm being raised. Thislack of surveillance emboldened the two accomplices, who then offered Namouss the opportunity to join their wild caper. After much deliberating, Namouss accepted their offer, though he found the object of their desire a little laughable: the eggs laid by the turkey hen. How had his companions found out about the eggs? Probably because they were originally from the countryside, where children are able to read the movements and changes a bird makes when itâs brooding. So Namouss followed their lead, his heart racing wildly. The theft was carried out toward the end of the afternoon, just before the school gates were shut. A meager booty: there wasnât even enough to go around; only a couple of eggs for all their troubles. Once outside, there was the problem of what do with them. Eating them or taking them home was out of the question. The solution they came to was to sell them to the local grocer and split the proceeds between them. In order to better incriminate Namouss, whose success in class irritated them, the two accomplices made a democratic decision â they were, after all, in the majority â that he was the one who should sell the
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