The Bleeding of the Stone. Ibrahim al-Koni

so he asked his father, who laughed outright.

      “Perhaps they were from the jinn,” he said. “But from the good jinn. The jinn are like people. They're divided into two tribes: the tribe of good and the tribe of evil. We belong to the first tribe—to the jinn who chose good.”

      “Is that why we don't have any close neighbors?”

      “Yes, that's why. If you live near bad people, their evil will strike you. Anyone choosing the good has to flee from people, to make sure no evil comes to him. That's what this group of jinn did. They lived in caves, from time immemorial, away from evil. Can't you hear them talking together, on moonlit nights?”

      His mother broke in.

      “Why are you frightening him,” she said, “with all this stuff about the jinn talking at night? Why don't you go and milk the camel instead, so I can have some milk before supper?”

      Laughing again, his father went off. Asouf turned to his mother.

      “I hear the jinn in the caves every day,” he said. “Talking to one another. They say the strangest things, and they even start singing sometimes. I'm not afraid of the jinn.”

      She laughed and threw some pieces of wood on the fire.

      Asouf still took pleasure in the jinn faces in the mountain caves. Fleeing the scorching heat, he'd take refuge, panting, among the hollows of the rocks. There he'd lie for a time, then crawl to the rocky wall and start taking off the layers of dust, until the lines painted in the rocks would begin to appear. Still he'd go on, wiping away at the mighty walls, until at last the faces would appear, masked or long, or else animals fleeing from the arrows of the masked hunters: waddan, gazelles, oxen and many others, huge in size, with long legs he never saw in the desert today.

      In time he began calling the wadis and chasms and mountains by the names of the figures painted on their rocks. This was the Wadi of Gazelles, that the Path of the Hunters, that the Waddan Mountain, that, again, the Herdsmen's Plain; until, finally, he'd discovered the great jinni, the masked giant rising alongside his dignified waddan, his face turned toward the qibla,ⁱⁱⁱ awaiting sunrise and praising Almighty God in everlasting prayer.

      He was chasing the most unruly goats in the herd, who'd strayed from the rest, down the desolate Wadi Matkhandoush. He caught up with them, finally, at the place where the wadi merged with the nearby Aynesis, to form one deep, stately river valley, winding its difficult way across the barren desert, veering toward the Abrahoh plain. There a cluster of caves stood, crowned by mighty rocks; and these were flanked by that one towering rock that stood like a building soaring toward the sky, like a pagan statue fashioned by the gods. The masked jinni, with his sacred waddan, covered the colossal stone face from top to bottom. He stood long gazing at the tableau, then tried, vainly, to climb the rocks to touch the great jinni's mask.

      There were boulders strewn around the rock face. He tried to gain a hold on the smooth rocks, but some stones gave way under his feet, and he fell on his back into the wadi.

      He struggled on for a while, writhing with pain, then crawled on all fours to try and find some shade beneath a tall, green palm tree standing in the middle of the wadi. His heart was beating violently, the sweat trickling from his body. When he reached the tree, the shade had vanished. This surprised him. But he stretched out under the tree even so, waiting for the cruelly beating sun to set.

      Next day, he found that the unruly goat, who had wandered from the herd and led him to the cave of the master jinni, had been snatched by a wolf that same night; and he remembered how the palm tree had abandoned him, stealing its shade away, when he'd taken refuge there after falling from the rock.

      2. PRAYING BEFORE THE GUARDIAN IDOL

      He finished his prayer and leaned back his head, still gazing at the vast wall soaring above him. The master jinni was blessing him. From behind the veil that strange look expressed contentment and calm. The majestic waddan, crowned with its two curved horns, was in harmony with its god; the prayer had, it appeared, been accepted, and the waddan had found favor with the deity of the shrine.

      All unwittingly, Asouf had failed to direct his prayer toward the Ka'aba. Instead, while prostrating himself, he'd been facing the stone figure towering above his head from the depths of the wadi.

      The roaring of the truck was coming closer. He rose to gather his scattered goats before the tourists arrived, and before evening fell. The animals were dispersed, some in the nearby wadi, while others had climbed the mountain slopes, looking for grass among the rocks, the males pursuing the skittish females with tireless energy.

      He could, he reckoned, fetch back the stray goats and gather the herd before the guests arrived, for the sound of the engine didn't mean the truck was actually that close. Sounds in the desert could deceive and delude. In early morning, and in the evening, the calm magnified the remotest noise and brought it nearer, turning it to clamorous din.

      He recalled the time, a few years before, when the men from the Archeological Department had come with a whole caravan of trucks. They'd spent the night in Matkhandoush, and with them was an old Italian said to be a great expert; he was tall and slim with white hair, and he'd protected his eyes from the sun with big black glasses, all the while jotting things down in a notebook that never left his hands. All day long he leaped among the rocks, just like the unruly young goats. He was agile and quick-footed, able to climb mountains with an ease and grace you wouldn't have expected in a man of his age.

      They'd dined on a young gazelle they'd brought from Massak Mallat. Then, next morning, they'd presented him with some cans of sardine and tuna fish, along with canned milk and a loaf of white bread.

      “From now on,” the department official told him, “you're the guardian of the Wadi Matkhandoush. You'll be our eyes here. A lot of people will come, from all races and religions, to look at these ancient things. You must watch them. Don't let them steal the stones. See they don't spoil the rocks. These rocks are a great treasure, and these paintings are our country's pride. Keep your eyes open. People are greedy, ready to grab anything. If they can, they'll steal our rocks to sell them in their own country, for thousands, or millions even. Keep your eyes peeled! You're the guardian.”

      Then, with a weary gesture, he produced ten pounds from his pocket and stuck them in the pocket of Asouf's spreading robe.

      “This is just an advance,” he went on. “We'll pay you every month. The Archeological Department will give you a regular monthly sum. Do you know what it means, to get a salary from the government?” He waved his hand once more, and the despair in his eyes became something close to wretchedness.

      Asouf gave him the ten pounds back. He wouldn't know, he said, what to do with the money. “I'll guard the wadi,” he went on. “I'll guard all the wadis of Massak Satfat. I don't want money. What would I do with it here in Massak?”

      The man tried to persuade him.

      “But that's all wrong,” he said, laughing nervously. “If you're an employee, you have to take money. It's your right. It comes from the government, a salary. You're a guard. How can I make it clear to you?”

      He gave him some more cans of food, then left the wadi with his group. Asouf didn't see them again. The employee's expression, though, stuck in his mind. Was it pity? Or misery? Or helplessness? Or was it pity and misery together, because he hadn't managed to persuade him he should take a salary?

      The man had been tired and clumsy. Perhaps it was his first trip over the desert and the desert had exhausted him. The Italian had had far more energy. He'd been more alert, taken a greater interest in the stones.

      From that day on visitors began arriving, in the wadi forgotten for thousands of years. They came in groups, a visit every two weeks or sometimes once a month. Rarely did more than a month go by with no sign of them.

      They were all foreigners, men and women, old and young, from every Christian race. They'd fall on