Desert by J. M. G. Le Clézio Page B

insects. He also knows all the plants, the ones that smell good when you crinkle their leaves between your fingers, the ones with roots filled with water, the ones that taste like anise, like pepper, like mint, like honey. He knows which seeds are crunchy, the tiny berries that dye your fingers and lips blue. He even knows the hiding places where you can find small petrified snails, or tiny star-shaped grains of sand. He leads Lalla far away with him, beyond the drystone walls, along paths she doesn’t know, all the way out to the hills from where you can see the beginning of the desert. His eyes shine brightly; the skin on his face is dark and glistening with sweat when he gets to the top of the hills. Then he shows Lalla the way leading southward, toward the place of his birth.
    The Hartani isn’t like the other boys. No one really knows where he comes from. Only that one day, a long time ago, a man came riding in on a camel. He was dressed like the warriors of the desert, in a large sky-blue cloak with his face veiled in blue. He stopped at the well to water his camel, and he also took a long drink of the well water. It was Yasmina, the wife of the goat herder, who saw him when she was going to fetch water. She waited, to let the stranger quench his thirst, and when he left again on his camel, she saw that the man had left a very young infant wrapped in a piece of blue cloth at the edge of the well. Since no one wanted him, Yasmina kept the child. She brought him up, and he lived with her family as if he were her son. That child was the Hartani; he was given that nickname because he had black skin like the slaves from the south.
    The Hartani grew up in the very spot where the warrior of the desert had left him, near the hills and the fields of stone, right where the desert begins. He was the one who watched over Yasmina’s goats; he became like the other shepherd boys. He knows how to take care of animals; he knows how to lead them where he wants, without hitting them, just whistling between his fingers, for animals are not afraid of him. He also knows how to speak to swarms of bees, simply by whistling a little tune between his teeth, guiding them with his hands. People are a little frightened of the Hartani, they say he’s mejnoun, that he has special powers that come from demons. They say that he knows how to tame snakes and scorpions, that he can send them out to kill other shepherds’ livestock. But Lalla doesn’t believe that; she’s not afraid of him. Maybe she’s the only person who knows him well, because she speaks to him in a diVerent way than with words. She looks at him and reads the light in his black eyes, and he looks deep into her amber eyes; he doesn’t only look at her face, but really deep down into her eyes, and it’s as if he understands what she wants to say to him.
    Aamma doesn’t like Lalla going up into the hills and fields of stone to see the shepherd so often. She tells her he’s an abandoned child, a stranger, that he’s not a boy for her. But as soon as Lalla finishes her work at Aamma’s house she runs along the path leading to the hills, and she whistles between her fingers like the shepherds do and shouts,
    “Hey-o! Hartani!”
    Sometimes she stays up there with him until nightfall. Then the young boy herds his animals together to lead them to the corral lower down, near Yasmina’s house. Often, since they don’t speak to each other, they remain sitting still on the boulders facing the rocky hills. It’s difficult to understand what they’re doing just then. Maybe they’re looking out into the distance as if they could see across the hills, all the way out to the other side of the horizon. Lalla herself doesn’t really understand how that happens, for time doesn’t seem to exist anymore when she’s sitting next to the Hartani. Words flow freely, go out toward the Hartani and come back to her, full of new meaning, like in certain dreams when you’re two people at