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"He's looking at me again. What's he thinking about? He keeps looking at me with those black, beady little eyes, then glancing away when I look at him, as if he was never looking at me at all. Looking out over the village and then when he thinks I'm not looking, looking back at me. More than looking, staring. And more than staring, staring and thinking. Plotting."
This is what's going through Ali's mind. He and Abdul are sitting on the hill above Sidi Bouhlel, with their backs to the old marabout's tomb. A light breeze moves the scrub grass and, in the valley below, the branches of the tallest palms. Ali and Abdul have been coming to this spot for years to eat their respective lunches and gaze out across the shimmering valley, across the white and blue-painted town, and into the sandy vastness beyond the palms, the great salt lake.
They have known each other for years. Abdul came to Sidi Bouhlel when he was very young but Ali was born here - indeed, he has never left the valley. He sees no need to. What little education he has he received at the medressa beside the white and blue-painted mosque, and his occupation holds him here. He has never married. Abdul has not settled down either, despite numerous assignations in his younger days, in the sand dunes and tall grass on the leeward side of the town, where the young people still go to court.
They have been coming here every day, to the ridge above the town and the tomb of the old marabout, for years, but lately Ali has noticed a change come over his companion, a melancholy slowness punctuated by a sudden impetuosity, which Ali cannot help but interpret as threatening. There is a new but unmistakable slyness to his companion's actions that makes Ali uneasy.
This morning, for instance, when they set off from the town, Ali carrying his midday meal of rough bread, dates and honey in a cotton pouch, Abdul hung back, skulking among the ranks of olive trees which border the road that leads around the base of the hill. Whenever Ali chanced to look back, Abdul would start and dart forward guiltily, or so it appeared to Ali's eyes, and it was obvious that he had been stopped, absorbed in thought. On the stony path that wound up the side of the hill, where they were forced to walk in single file, Ali could feel Abdul's eyes boring into his back.
This change in Abdul's countenace disturbs Ali. For years he has relied on their daily ascent and descent, their paired orbit of the valley floor, to reassure himself of his continued role in the little community of the town. Without Abdul, there is little hope of Ali retaining his occupation or the respected place it grants him in the eyes of his neighbours. Certainly, he will continue to live in the town, to talk with the other men in the café and take coffee with them, but he will be an old man, and younger men will take his place, power, and prestige as he advances into his dotage. Ultimately, his words, opinions and pronouncements will be less respected.
Still, he cannot entirely blame Abdul. Their's is a position ordained by history, part of a cycle going back for generation upon generation in this valley and mirrored in a thousand others. He has known this day would come and if Adbul chooses to force his hand with his perverse behaviour, then so be it. Ali knows what he must do.
Ali will kill and butcher Adbul. He will cut his throat and bleed him out in the approved fashion before jointing him on the marble slab in the corner of the market square. Abdul will be cooked and eaten, and shared amongst the townspeople. Once the ceremonies have been observed, this old goatherd will retire.
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