By Ahmed Jalali
They call him Hamadi and he never knew exactly
why his father chose this name for him. They also nicknamed him "Hamadi Lagriss".
He did not what it means and why he had to bear that surname.
But Hamadi was well aware and proud of his
profession and his wish. As for your profession, he knew it: being a professional
shepherd.
He believed in his job and did not interfere in
the affairs of agriculture, his brother’s pure affaire. He never gave his opinion,
nor did he object to anything his father decided.
He spent his childhood, adolescence and half of
his twenties as a shepherd who daily looks after his animals. Sometimes he could
insult a lame but when relaxed he used to sit down and flute for himself and
his sheep.
One day he confided to himself that he had
passed the "dog's puberty" and that his turn in marriage after his
middle brother was getting closer. He knew nothing about marriage except that
it happens to men and women. He understood it as a duty to be fulfilled.
One day he asked himself: Who the girl will they
will make me marry? will she be from my village or from another one, or from my
relatives? He didn't care much about the answer and got up to watch his flock
on scattered in the valley.
For some reason, Hamadi went to the village,
less than a kilometer away from his parent’s house, and on his way back, he
stood in amazement in front of an angel looking face. She was a girl he had
never seen and did not know where she had come out of, in an extremely hot
summer midday.
She passed by and looked at him with a slight
smile then disappeared like a flash of lightning that loomed on a dark rainy
night.
Hamadi felt some dizziness that he attributed to the excessive hot
weather of August and then left. On his way back he smiled to himself for no
reason and whistled with a song, like he would always do whenever he felt some self-satisfaction.
He returned repeatedly to the nearby village to
see that beautiful ghost and was disappointed in all his attempts. But he could
see her on one Thursday, the weekly market time when the girls of the village
find some freedom to leave their houses, under flimsy pretexts that mothers
overlook in the absence of fathers.
Hamadi
was so lucky that he saw her twice, the first time remotely and the second time
when she passed by him deliberately as he could notice. She pretended that she
needed to fetch water from the well.
Hamadi returned to his parents' house and was
almost jumping from joy of unknown origin as he walked barefoot on a dusty road
that cuts the village in two sections.
He lived
a joy that had rarely overwhelmed him in that way. From head to feet an huge
energy flew into his body that he stalked his flock to graze two hours before
the daily appointment.
Indeed, he wanted to hide himself away from
people to speak to himself loudly. That was his habit whenever he got confused
about something.
As the weeks went on, Hamadi was addicted to the
well, and whenever he went there at about the same time every Thursday, that
"beautiful ghost" was there waiting.
They would speak without words and eyes were
enough to turn off the tongues. But on one of those delicious times he called,
he dared to bring her water from the well, and she smiled and did not object. He
tried to delay lifting the heavy bucket to extend the time he wished to stop
forever, by the well with her.
Weeks and months passed and the flame of love
ignited in the head, chest, soul and body of a young strong hard working countryside
man.
He said firmly to himself one day: Hakima shall
be my wife me, and may this whole world go to hell.
The villagers noticed Hamadi's Thursday trips to
the neighboring village and how he deliberately used to go there to water his
donkey, while there was another well close to his family house.
They also commented on how and why his donkey got
thirsty so quickly. Some maliciously people said that Hamadi used to mix fodder
with salt.
Before Hamadi could talk to his mother on the
subject of a Hqkima, he had to receive the thunderbolt bad news: Hajj Zaari
betrothed her to his son and her father officially agreed.
Hamadi gathered his wounds in silence and got
lost daily behind his flock, guiding with strange words, then sitting down and
playing melodious melodies for himself, then whistling to the sky, whistling
that split the horizon.
Heavy years passed and Hakima gave birth to a
child. Hamadi would follow anything new
about his beloved and the stories of her quarrels with her husband. After hakima
the only thing hamadi fell in love with was the word “divorce”, He convinced himself that on day
that it had to happen.
Hammadi was an introvert person but he found
comfort in talking to children, he loves their innocence but once they become
teenagers he forgot about them.
Aziz was one of the few schoolboys of the
village that Hamadi chose from among
everyone to sometimes take with him to herding and even to play him beautiful
but sad melodies.
Aziz was his friend to the extent that he told
him what had been going on in his heart for years. He breathed deeply and a
tear appeared on his cheek over a wheat face.
Aziz listened in reverence and did not comment.
A few minutes later he asked :him
-Uncle Hamadi, how did you feel on the day you
knew that hakima was going to marry another man?
?Do you
see that sky
Of
course uncle.
That day sky and stars have fallen down and
since then they have not returned to their attic.