Horses of God

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YOU MIGHT WALK right past our part of town without ever suspecting it was there. A high, crenellated adobe wall separates it from the boulevard, where an uninterrupted stream of cars makes an unholy din. In this wall we’d hollowed clefts like arrow slits so we could freely contemplate the other world. When I was a kid our favorite game was to pour bowls of piss on to rich passersby, biting our lips as they cursed, yelled insults, and looked up at the sky. My brother Hamid was our leader; he rarely missed his target. We’d watch him do his stuff, stifling our laughter, which, seconds after the golden shower, would burst out uncontrollably. We’d be jubilant, rolling around in the dust like puppies. Ever since the day a stone thrown by a furious victim hit my head, I was never quite the same. At least that’s what everyone around me thought; that’s what had been drummed into me nonstop since I was little. I ended up accepting it and, eventually, quite liking it. All my escapades were half forgiven on account of that handicap. But I was no stupider than anyone else. In soccer, everyone will tell you, I was the slum’s best goalie. My idol’s name was Yachine. The legendary Yachine. I never saw him in action but there were so many stories. . Some claimed he could stop a ball fired from a Krupp cannon, others that his body defied the laws of gravity. People even said that his premature death had been plotted by international strikers, put to shame by his talent. Whatever the truth, I wanted to be Yachine or nothing. So I changed my name to his. Yemma didn’t like it, but since I refused to answer to the name for which a lamb had been sacrificed in front of our shack, she’d had to get used to it.

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