The Unfortunate Son (12 page)

“Ah, ladies, I wish you had been there,” said Pons.

Beatrice reached out and clasped hands with Pons and Mattie.

“I love both of you,” she said.

“I don’t care how rich he is, Oubert’s not good enough for you,” said Pons, patting her hand again.

“Surely not, but I worry about Beatrice,” said Mattie. “What’s her future? Here with us, two old people? There is no one good enough for her here in this village.”

“I’m nobody special, Mattie,” Beatrice said, standing. She stacked the dirty bowls.

“You’re a lady,” said Mattie. “Never forget that.”

Beatrice shook her head. “No, I’m no such thing, Mattie. But don’t worry about me. Worry about Luc. There must be something we can do.”

“Pray?” said Pons. “Hope?”

Cadeau barked, and then they heard three knocks.

Beatrice closed her eyes, and Mattie crossed herself.

Pons opened the door and found Hervé. Cadeau charged out, barking at the boy.

“I’m Luc’s brother. Father sent me for the dog,” he said.

Pons scowled at him. He was a thick, strong boy with wild brown hair and dark eyes.

“Cadeau is Luc’s dog. And this is Luc’s home,” said Pons.

“Father says Luc is dead,” insisted Hervé.

“I hope not. And until I know Luc isn’t coming back, his dog stays here.”

“Father said not to return without the dog.”

“Let your father come see me.”

Mattie came to the door and looked at Hervé.

“And never knock three times on a door. It means there’s been a death. You gave us a fright,” said Mattie. “Come, Cadeau.”

Cadeau lumbered into the cottage, and Pons shut the door.

IN SALAH’S HOUSE Luc slept on a woven palm mat near the kitchen hearth until sunrise, when Bes kicked him awake. Salah’s kitchen was a bright room with a garden doorway and east-facing windows that filled the room with morning light. The floor was made of stone, not dirt as it had been in the simple fishing cottage, and the walls were whitewashed stucco. Luc missed the sharp smell of Cadeau’s fur when he woke, and he missed Mattie’s laughter as he ate his morning bread. Ever since that terrible afternoon of his capture, Luc had worried whether Pons had made it back to the village alive. And each day, as he scrubbed Salah’s floors and tended the gardens, as he weeded the roses and swept the courtyard tiles, Luc would daydream of Beatrice.

“Is that the fastest you can sweep?” Bes would ask, pantomiming a faster broom because, at first, the boy understood no words. Bes pointed to the birdcages; Luc cleaned them. Bes dragged him to the souks and markets. He tied bundles onto Luc’s back as if the boy were a beast of burden. Whenever they went out together, Bes insisted that Luc wear a slouchy gray cap pulled down so that neither his hair nor his missing ear drew attention away from Bes as he jabbered and joked.

One afternoon, toward the end of Luc’s first month in Bizerte, Bes beckoned to the boy to follow him. As they left Salah’s house, the little man called, “Here, Cat,” because Bes never went anywhere without the white-and-ginger cat. When they reached the market, Bes bought a stick of grilled meat and three honey cakes. He tossed scraps to Cat, but he shared nothing with Luc. At an alleyway, a gap-toothed man with a curly black beard whispered to Bes and flashed a handful of dice. Bes left Luc leaning against a wall just inside the entrance of the alley while he squatted to try his luck, but he never stopped watching the boy. Luc closed his eyes and waited. He imagined he was on the boat, fishing with Pons. He pictured three dolphins finning along until one suddenly arced and broke free of the water, flying for a moment before diving. Then Luc felt the tickle of Cat rubbing against his leg and the pinch of the little man waiting to hand him another bundle. When Luc opened his eyes, Bizerte replaced the fishing boat. Luc looked about at this strange city of bustling
alleys and turbaned citizens. He heard the singsong calls of its merchants, the clop of the donkeys, and the whine of cart wheels. He smelled frying dough and spiced roasting meats. This was a foreign world, and as Luc shifted the bundles on his back, he leaned down and touched his ankle band. He was angry, and he was sad, but he was resigned. Escape was futile. He couldn’t run across the sea.

At least Luc’s work as Salah’s slave, though tedious, was easy, and the kitchen was stocked with bread and fresh cheese, fruits, and vegetables, and there was often meat or fish. All were available to Luc whenever he was hungry. As the months passed, Luc regained more than the weight he’d lost during his captivity; his appetite returned, and he began to grow taller and broader.

Salah’s family was originally from Arabia, but they had lived in Bizerte, the northernmost port in Africa, for almost eight hundred years; they had grown very rich as merchants and landowners. As a boy and as a young man, Salah had studied in Baghdad, in Córdoba, in Bologna, and even in Marseille. Salah was a scholar, a master of many fields: a physician, an astronomer, and a mathematician. Everywhere, he was revered for his remarkable intelligence and his matchless knowledge. Teachers, students, and patients seeking the old man’s advice or opinion visited Luc’s new home almost every day.

Salah was a kind but exacting master. When Luc cleaned his tools, the old man watched, and then he examined the
boy’s work. He’d make Luc clean every tool again if he found one fingerprint or a speck of dirt. He spoke slowly and patiently to Luc, rarely raising his deep voice in anger. Occasionally, he shifted to Luc’s native language, but he never permitted Luc to speak anything but Arabic. If the boy uttered a word in his own tongue, Salah held a finger to his lips and shook his head. Once when Salah was showing Luc how to braid a leather thong, Luc struggled to tell him how Mattie had taught him. Though Salah was impressed with Luc’s progress in Arabic, he cut the boy off with a wave of his hand.

“Never talk of your past, boy. I am pleased that you are speaking my language; you are not slow. But do not waste my time with talk of your infidel life.”

Luc was glad that he recognized enough of Salah’s words to understand their meaning, but that understanding was bittersweet because Salah’s criticism was no longer just babble. Still, Luc listened carefully to everyone he heard. Luc asked Salah for the names of each object he saw. Salah was never too busy to supply the Arabic words. Bes would bark orders, and Luc would watch as the little man pointed and gestured; each day, he knew more, understood more.

The summer months passed slowly. Luc constantly yearned for his old life. When he left his father’s house to fish, he had missed his mother and his brothers, but it had not been painful. The winter and spring he had lived in the fishing village of Mouette had been filled with more happiness and affection than he had ever known, and Luc had felt that
he belonged on the sea, fishing in the early mornings with Pons. He knew he was good at it—good at spotting the signs of fish, and good with the little boat. He missed helping Mattie in the garden. And Beatrice; Luc would close his eyes and recall her face. He tried to hear her voice as he replayed snippets of their conversations. He remembered how she smiled when he gave her the lilies of the valley. His loneliness was physical, an ache and a heaviness that spread from his chest across his shoulders and sapped his energy. At times Luc was so sad, so desperately sad, that he did not want to continue, but as the days and weeks passed, he began to accept that this was now his life, and all it might ever be.

If Bes caught Luc daydreaming, he kicked the boy. He hissed insults that Luc was beginning to understand.

“Where there is too much sun, the people are overcooked, and their skin is black,” said Bes one morning as he cooked. Luc was peeling onions and his eyes watered so that he had to stop to wipe his tears. Bes continued, “Where the land is cold, the people are undercooked. Here the land is perfect. The master and I,” he said, pinching his own tan forearm, “we are toasted, just right. But you? You are an unbaked lump of dough. You cost next to nothing, but still the master overpaid. Worthless as a deaf-mute. With one ear and no talent,” he said, wiggling his ears.

Bes stuck out his tongue and pulled Luc’s hair, which now hung almost to his shoulders.

“I have talked to a wig man in the souk. I will sell him
your hair one day soon. Then I shall persuade the master to sell you. That won’t be hard. The master always tires of his slaves, especially the stupid ones.”

Luc said nothing, but later that day, when Bes was with Salah elsewhere, Luc sharpened a kitchen knife. He wanted to go home, but he knew that was impossible. Besides, Bes had told him of a slave who escaped the day before. Slave catchers sliced off his nose before returning him to his master.

Bes had said, “How would you look? Two eyes, one ear, and no nose?”

Tired of such taunts and tired of being powerless, Luc nicked his thumbnail with the blade to test the knife’s edge. The knife was sharp. He grabbed a handful of hair and began to hack. When Bes returned to the kitchen and saw Luc with his cropped head and the pile of golden hair on the floor, he laughed so hard he had to sit down. When he stopped laughing, he stuffed the cuttings into a bag.

“Might be worth more than a slave with one ear,” said Bes.

Luc tried to ignore Bes as he had his drunken father, and he never complained to Salah. Although Salah’s eyesight was failing, he was wise and mindful; he waited for the boy to tattle. Luc’s silence pleased him, as did the boy’s diligence. Salah knew that Bes was often mean and rascally, but there was great affection between the wise man and the little man. Twenty years before, when Salah was consulting at the Mansuri Hospital, a renowned center of medicine in Cairo, Egypt, he encountered a tiny homeless orphan who had been beaten
and robbed. Salah set the half-dead boy’s broken bones and sewed up his wounds. The boy was Bes, and he was surviving by his wits: begging for bread, entertaining people with his banter and acrobatics. Salah was amused by the street boy’s cleverness and stirred by his resilience. When the old man returned home to Bizerte, he invited the child. The little boy had never before known any kindness, and to Salah, Bes would always be faithful.

Salah was sitting at his desk. Moistening a finger, he turned the page of a heavy book and looked up to watch Luc dust the shelves with a damp rag. He said nothing about the boy’s haircut.

“Your first summer is ending, Luc. You have grown taller. Do you get enough to eat?”

“Yes, master.”

“Bes is treating you well?”

Luc nodded.

Salah stroked his beard and leaned back, studying the slave. “Bes can be difficult, but he has many talents. He has always insisted that I need no servants other than him. I have always disagreed, but every boy I buy is quickly sold. Except for you, Luc. You have been here for how long now?”

“Almost two seasons, master.”

“Yes. Half a spring and now the summer.”

“Yes, master,” said Luc, wiping his damp brow on his sleeve.

Salah fanned himself with a woven disk. “I am quite pleased with you, Luc.”

“Thank you, master.”

Salah looked down at his book for a moment, but the boy stood in front of his desk looking at him. “Something else, Luc?”

Luc nodded. “May I ask a question, master?”

“Yes, Luc,” said the old man, shutting his book.

“Why does Bes sleep on the roof?” asked Luc in stumbling but improving Arabic.

Salah smiled. “When Bes was a little boy, someone told him that if he slept inside, the sun would not rise in the morning.”

“He believes that?”

“Bes is hardly a fool,” said Salah. “But he cannot sleep inside. So every evening he takes a ladder and climbs to the roof. He goes to sleep under the stars with his cats.”

“Cats?”

“There are seven or eight strays who sleep on the roof with Bes. Only Cat comes inside, and Cat is supposed to stay in the kitchen. I detest cats. Now, go help Bes. I expect a guest this evening, a physician from Fez,” he said, dismissing Luc with a wave.

In the kitchen, Luc found Bes preparing lamb; he sent Luc to find spices from the pantry and herbs from the garden. Luc collected mustard greens and garlic, mint and cardamom, black cumin seeds and turmeric, marjoram and myrtle. Each
time Bes asked, Luc produced the correct ingredient. Bes sent him to the souk for almonds and quince jam. Luc returned with both and with more than the expected change, for the boy had been observant, and he bargained well.

“Speechless dog,” said Bes. “How did you bargain?”

Luc pinched his earlobe with thumb and forefinger. Bes scowled at him.

“Fetch seven carrots from the garden. Clean them. Slice them into coins.”

Bes handed Luc a knife.

Luc pretended to test the blade, and he half grinned at Bes.

“I’d have your hand cut off before you came within a blade length,” said Bes, flicking his front teeth with a thumbnail.

Luc threw the knife upward, turning his hand so the knife spun once in the air before he caught it by the handle. Bes reached for another knife, pitched it into the air, and caught it on the tip of his finger, where he balanced it on its point for several seconds. Then he tossed it up again and caught it behind his back. Luc shrugged and went to the garden. He pulled and scrubbed seven large carrots. He sliced the carrots into uniform circles and cut notches at even intervals around the edges of each slice. When he presented them to Bes, the little man chuckled. He motioned with his blade to the string of fish he had just brought from the fish market.

“Clean and fillet those. Leave a single bone, and I’ll etch my name in your back with it.”

Luc began to skin the fish. Bes was patting spices into the slab of lamb, but he stopped to watch the boy.

“So, you can wield a knife. You are a bit more skilled than a trained monkey. But only a bit. And twice as ugly.” Then Bes began to hum. “Can you sing, baboon face?”

Luc said nothing.

“Can you play a lute or a flute?” he asked, pitching a scrap of lamb to Cat.

Luc said nothing.

Bes pretended to blow an imaginary pipe.