The Orange Grove. Larry Tremblay
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
© 2013, Text by Larry Tremblay
© 2015, English translation by Sheila Fischman
First published in French as L’orangeraie by Éditions Alto, Canada, 2013.
First published in English by Biblioasis, Canada, 2015.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher: Milkweed Editions, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Suite 300,
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55415.
(800) 520-6455
Published 2016 by Milkweed Editions
Cover design by Gretchen Achilles
Cover photo by Jose-Luis Saez Martinez / EyeEm / Getty Images
Author photo by Bernard Préfontaine
16 17 18 19 20 5 4 3 2 1
First US Edition
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tremblay, Larry, 1954- author. | Fischman, Sheila, translator.
The orange grove: a novel / Larry Tremblay; translated from the French by Sheila Fischman.
Other titles: Orangeraie. English
Description: First edition. | Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015050417 (print) | LCCN 2015050908 (ebook) | ISBN 9781571319340 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Twin brothers—Fiction. | War—Psychological aspects—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Literary. | FICTION / Political. | FICTION / Coming of Age. | FICTION / Family Life.
Classification: LCC PQ3919.2.T7187 O7313 2016 (print) | LCC PQ3919.2.T7187 (ebook) | DDC 843/.914--dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015050417
Milkweed Editions is committed to ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book production practices with this principle, and to reduce the impact of our operations in the environment. We are a member of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the world’s endangered forests and conserve natural resources. The Orange Grove was printed on acid-free 100% postconsumer-waste paper by Friesens Corporation.
For Joan
CONTENTS
AMED
AZIZ
SONY
If Amed cried, Aziz cried too. If Aziz laughed, Amed laughed too. People would make fun of them, saying: “Later on they’ll marry each other.”
Their grandmother’s name was Shahina. With her bad eyes she always confused them. She would call them her two drops of water in the desert. “Stop holding hands,” she would say, “I feel as if I’m seeing double.” Or, “Some day, there won’t be any more drops, there will be water, that’s all.” She could have said: “One day there will be blood. That’s all.”
Amed and Aziz found their grandparents in the ruins of their house. Their grandmother’s skull had been smashed in by a beam. Their grandfather was lying in his bedroom, his body shredded by the bomb that had come from the side of the mountain where every night the sun disappeared.
It had still been night when the bomb fell. But Shahina had already been up. Her body was found in the kitchen.
“What was she doing in the kitchen in the middle of the night?” asked Amed.
“We’ll never know. Maybe she was baking a cake in secret,” his mother replied.
“Why in secret?” asked Aziz.
“Maybe for a surprise,” Tamara suggested to her two sons, sweeping the air with her hand as if brushing away a fly.
Their grandmother used to talk to herself. In fact, she had liked to talk to everything around her. The boys had seen her ask questions of the flowers in the garden, argue with the stream that ran between their houses. She could spend hours bent over the water, whispering to it. Zahed had been ashamed to see his mother behave in this way. He had rebuked her for setting a bad example for her grandsons. “You act like a lunatic,” he’d yelled. Shahina had bowed her head and closed her eyes, in silence.
One day Amed had told his grandmother:
“There’s a voice in my head. It talks to itself. I can’t make it be quiet, it says strange things. As if someone else were hidden inside me, someone bigger than me.”
“Tell me, Amed, tell me the strange things it says to you.”
“I can’t tell you because I forget them right away.”
That had been a lie. He did not forget them.
Aziz had been to the big city once. His father, Zahed, rented a car. Hired a chauffeur. They left at dawn. Aziz watched the new landscape file past the car window. Thought the space the car sliced through was beautiful. Thought the trees disappearing from sight beautiful. Thought the cows, horns smeared with red, beautiful, calm as big stones on the burning ground. The road was shaken by joy and anger. Aziz was writhing in pain. And smiling. His gaze drowned the landscape with tears. And the landscape was like the image of a country.
Zahed had said to his wife:
“I’m taking him to the hospital in the big city.”
“I will pray, Amed will pray” was Tamara’s simple reply.
When the driver announced they were finally approaching the city, Aziz fainted and saw nothing of the splendors he’d heard about. He regained consciousness lying in a bed. In the room were other beds, with other children in them. He thought he was lying in all those beds. He thought the excessive pain had multiplied his body. He thought he was twisting in pain in all those beds with all those bodies. A doctor was leaning over him. Aziz smelled his spicy perfume. The doctor was smiling at Aziz. Even so, Aziz was afraid of the man.
“Did you sleep well?”
Aziz said nothing. The doctor straightened up, his smile faded. He talked to Aziz’s father. Father and doctor exited the big room. Zahed’s fists were clenched. He was breathing heavily.
A few days later, Aziz was feeling better. They gave him a thick liquid to drink. He took it morning and night. It was pink. He didn’t like the taste, but it relieved his pain. His father came to see him every day. Said