His love story

by Marie Van Vorst

Fatou Anni cherished him. He was a soldier who had fallen in the battle against her sons and grandsons. He was a man and a strong one, and she despised women. He was her prey and he was her reward and she cared for him; as she did so, she became maternal.

His eyes which, when he was conscious, thanked her; his thin hands that moved on the rough blue robe thrown over him, the devotion of the dog—found a responsive chord in the great-grandmother's heart. Once he smiled at one of the naked, big-bellied great-great-grandchildren. Beni Hassan, three years old, came up to Sabron with his finger in his mouth and chattered like a bird. This proved to Fatou Anni that Sabron had not the Evil Eye. No one but the children were admitted to the hut, but the sun and the flies and the cries of the village came in without permission, and now and then, when the winds arose, he could hear the stirring of the palm trees.

Sabron was reduced to skin and bone. His nourishment was insufficient, and the absence of all decent care was slowly taking him to death. It will never be known why he did not die.

Pitchouné took to making long excursions. He would be absent for days, and in his clouded mind Sabron thought the dog was reconnoitering for him over the vast pink sea without there—which, if one could sail across as in a ship, one would sail to France, through the walls of mellow old Tarascon, to the château of good King René; one would sail as the moon sails, and through an open window one might hear the sound of a woman's voice singing. The song, ever illusive and irritating in its persistency, tantalized his sick ears.

Sabron did not know that he would have found the château shut had he sailed there in the moon. It was as well that he did not know, for his wandering thought would not have known where to follow, and there was repose in thinking of the Château d'Esclignac.

It grew terribly hot. Fatou Anni, by his side, fanned him with a fan she had woven. The great-great-grandchildren on the floor in the mud fought together. They quarreled over bits of colored glass. Sabron's breath came panting. Without, he heard the cries of the warriors, the lance-bearers—he heard the cries of Fatou Anni's sons who were going out to battle. The French soldiers were in a distant part of the Sahara and Fatou Anni's grandchildren were going out to pillage and destroy. The old woman by his side cried out and beat her breast. Now and then she looked at him curiously, as if she saw death on his pale face. Now that all her sons and grandsons had gone, he was the only man left in the village, as even boys of sixteen had joined the raid. She wiped his forehead and gave him a potion that had healed her husband after his body had been pierced with arrows. It was all she could do for a captive.

Toward sundown, for the first time Sabron felt a little better, and after twenty-four hours' absence, Pitchouné whined at the hut door, but would not come in. Fatou Anni called on Allah, left her patient and went out to see what was the matter with the dog. At the door, in the shade of a palm, stood two Bedouins.

It was rare for the caravan to pass by Beni Medinet. The old woman's superstition foresaw danger in this visit. Her veil before her face, her gnarled old fingers held the fan with which she had been fanning Sabron. She went out to the strangers. Down by the well a group of girls in garments of blue and yellow, with earthen bottles on their heads, stood staring at Beni Medinet's unusual visitors.

"Peace be with you, Fatou Anni," said the older of the Bedouins.

"Are you a cousin or a brother that you know my name?" asked the ancient woman.