...of disease

Saadi went into the house and I strained to listen to listen to the silence, as I had in the streets of the camp. He came back out, he took a few steps, and he sat down near the door, broken with fatigue. The dead birds and the dates scattered in the dust. I went into the house. Aamma Houriya was sitting in the same place, the wet cloth still in her hand. In the shadows I saw Roumiya’s body, her face cocked backward, her eyes closed, her blond hair wet around her shoulders. She looked as if she were asleep. I thought about when she arrived at the camp, so long ago it seemed, so very long ago. There was the silence of death and I felt not a single tear in my eyes. But this was a death like in wartime, it froze everything around Roumiya. Her face wasn’t marked by the disease. It was very white, with two dark circles around the eyes. I’ll never be able to forget that face. As I was just standing, very still, next to the door, Aamma Houriya looked at me. Her eyes were hard. In a voice I’d never heard before, almost hateful, she said, “Go away, get out of here. Take the child and go. We’re all going to die.” She lay down on the floor next to Roumiya. She too, closed her eyes, as if she were going to go to sleep. So I dropped my head and I left.

[Wandering Star, Le Clézio, J. M. G.]