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slap me and shout at me that he’d lost a cheese! The cow’s tits were very big, very hard because they were swollen with milk, and my hands were small. My arms would hurt since I’d spent a lot of time pulling and I was exhausted. Once, when there were six cows in the stable, I fell asleep hanging on the bucket, the cow’s hoof between my legs. As luck had it my father arrived and shouted, “ Charmuta! Whore!” He dragged me on the ground in the stable by the hair and I caught a whipping with a belt. I cursed this wide leather belt that he always wore around his waist with another smaller one. The small one jangled loudly. He would swing it around with force, holding it by one end like a rope. When he used the big one, he had to fold it in two, it was too heavy. I begged him and I cried in pain, but the more I said it hurt the more he struck me and called me a whore.
    I would still be crying in the evening, when it was time for the meal. My mother could see that he had given me a bad beating that evening but if she tried to question me, he started to hit her, too, telling her it wasn’t any of her business, that she didn’t need to know why I’d been beaten because I knew the reason.
    On an ordinary day in the house, there would be a slap or a kick on the pretext that I wasn’t working fast enough or that the water for the tea had taken too long to heat. Sometimes I succeeded in dodging the bang on the head but not often. I don’t remember if my sister Kainat was beaten as much as I was but I think so because she was every bit as afraid. I’ve kept this reflex of working very fast and walking fast, as if a belt were permanently waiting for me. A donkey is moved along the road by being rapped with a stick. It was the same for us, except that my father would strike us much harder than he would have struck a donkey. I have also been struck the next day, just on principle, so I shouldn’t forget the licking of the previous day. All that so I would continue to move along without falling asleep, like the donkey on the road.
    Mention of a donkey makes me think of another memory concerning my mother. I can see myself taking the flock to graze as usual, and coming very quickly back to the house to clean the stable. My mother is with me and she hurries me because we have to go and pick figs. The crates had to be loaded onto the donkey’s back and we had to walk a long way beyond the village. I’m not able to place this story in time, except that this morning seems to me very close to the incident of the green tomato. It is the end of the season, because the fig tree we’re standing in front of is bare. I tie the donkey to the trunk of this fig tree to keep him from eating the fruit and the leaves that are scattered on the ground.
    I begin to pick and my mother says to me: “Pay attention Souad, you stay here with the donkey, you pick up all the figs on the side of the road but you don’t go farther than this tree. You don’t move from here. If you see your father arrive with the white horse or your brother, or somebody else, you whistle and I’ll come quick.” She moves off a little on the road to join a man on a horse who is waiting for her. I know him by sight, his name is Fadel. He has a round head, and he’s small and strong. His horse is well cared for, very white with a black spot, the tail braided to the end. I don’t know if he’s married or not.
    My mother is cheating on my father with him. I knew it as soon as she said to me: If somebody else comes, you whistle. The man on the horse disappears from my view, and my mother, too. I conscientiously pick the figs on the edge of the road. There aren’t too many in this spot but I’m not allowed to go looking any farther because if I did I wouldn’t be able to see my father or anyone else who might come along.
    For some strange reason this story doesn’t surprise me. I don’t remember feeling afraid of anything. Perhaps because my mother had organized