Couscous With The Devil

No one lit fires for strangers anymore. Yet Ilyan’s was already burning when he invited the old man in. When the grain ran out, after everything fell apart, people didn’t starve all at once. Most still bartered. Others stole, while some pleaded. And a small few learned a fourth verb no one dared say aloud.

He fed his small fire with the last splinters he’d pried from ruins far from his shelter. Dry as bone, the wood broke apart at the slightest pressure. A dented pot sat over the fire, its bottom punched full of crude holes. The couscous was swelling slowly in the steam. He checked it. But he was careful not to stir now. He knew couscous calls for patience. Had he stirred it too early the grains would’ve collapsed into paste. 

The road, cracked slabs half-swallowed by dust, brought the old man to his door. Just as the moonless night had reached its deepest hour. From a distance the firelight would've looked like a signal. The guest hesitated at the doorway before stepping inside. He took in the room the way people did these days: checking exits, shadows, blind spots, and anything that could serve as a weapon. Just in case. Beside the door leaned a length of iron pipe. He noted it and looked away. At a corner, a jumble of shoes lay against the wall. Lots of old shoes. A child's sneaker, laces still knotted. A woman's boot, worn at the heel. A man's leather shoe, too fine for these times. His hand went, briefly, to his hip. He then lowered himself on a crate, beside the fire, and fixed his eyes on the steam rising and thinning.

Ilyan noticed something shift at his hip as he sat. It was a leather pouch that swung and knocked the crate with a dry, crowded sound. Like seed in a pod. Beans maybe, he thought. He followed the stranger’s gaze which set his nerves on edge. The way he looked at the steamer and how he scanned the air. For all he knew, this could be a trap. He may have had a blade up his sleeve. Maybe others outside were waiting for a cue in the dark… Or maybe he was nothing more than another starving soul. Already, he regretted letting him in. 

He lifted the lid just enough to check that the grains were opening. Without stirring!

As the old man shifted slightly and yawned, Ilyan saw how little there was behind the lips. His mouth was almost empty. Gums, mostly. The cheeks had sunk inward the way they do when the teeth are gone. Age, he thought. It happens. The man was ancient. Teeth go before the rest. Though he had seen mouths, in the bad years, collapse faster than time alone could explain. He had learned that some diets took their price from the mouth first. As for him, his mouth, at least, was still full enough. It still held some teeth. Though darkened, worn down, the edges ground blunt from long use. The old man had noticed his host’s teeth too. He leaned closer, stretching his hands over the steamer to warm them. Every pause, every breath he took made Ilyan more uneasy. “I had a small market once,” the stranger guest murmured. “Shelves were stacked. This kept me alive longer than most. But also marked me. Made me an easy target. People came at night. Some for trade, some for… other reasons.”

Ilyan’s eyes narrowed. Other reasons? That’s what he feared. He watched the old man’s hands, poised near his knees. Steam curled around the pot. 

“I didn’t stay long after that,” the old man continued. “I learned to stay quiet, to watch, to disappear. Always moving. Sleeping in shadow. Never trusting a door that closes behind me.”

Ilyan’s stomach tightened. Careful ones always cost more. He said nothing. He got up and pulled the door, shutting out the night. He sat back down. 

The old man’s gaze drifted to the couscous grains. “If couscous had one virtue left in this world,” he spoke softly, almost to himself., “it’s that it asks little of a jaw. Hardly any chewing.” Ilyan did not reply. He nudged the pan, with the handle of a knife, steadying it over the flame. The mound of couscous in the steamer shifted as the water below it boiled harder. The lid rattled. A thin breath of steam slipped out and curled upward in the firelight between them. Through gaps in the shelter came the dry smell of dust and cold ash.

The old man worked his jaw slowly. He ran his tongue along the empty ridges of his gums. Then it stopped, resting on a single rough point. It brushed the broken shard still lodged in the back of his jaw. His last molar that had chipped last winter on a stubborn joint.

When the couscous was ready, Ilyan poured it into a shallow bowl and set it between them. No spoons, no salt. No dressing. Nothing to hide behind or disguise how little there was.

The old man reached out and, between his thumb and two fingers, cupped a small mound of couscous. He brought it to his mouth then licked the grains clung to his cracked fingers. He ate without waste. 

“The last couscous I had,” the old man said, “was probably forty years ago. Before… Before the world went hollow.” He studied Ilyan. “You… must have been born after. Middle thirties, maybe? You only know hunger and dust. Ain’t seen real abundance.”

“My mother…” He went on, lips twitching. “She used to make it on Fridays. With tender lamb falling off the bone. Soft and nutty chickpeas. And carrots cooked until they gave up. When it was done, she fluffed it and dressed it with butter; aged butter from her clay jar. Or sometimes drizzles of olive oil. Each grain shimmered…” He paused, recalling a meat like that, and a taste gone from his life for longer than he cared to count.

Ilyan watched the steam fade. The fire snapped. The old man’s relish unsettled him. The ease of it, the hunger in his voice. It felt deliberate. More like appetite returning. For a moment he wondered what else the old man might still hunger for. And still, the guest spoke on, as though this fire, this couscous, and this shack were all his.

“No,” the old man corrected himself. “I may have added too much. Even then, we didn’t always have meat. Sometimes it was just grain and water.”

“This,” he said, with a smirk. “This is closer.”

Gratitude as judgment. Ilyan did not expect that. And with every reverent bite his guest took, the more exposed he felt.

The old man took a last pinch. He rolled the scattered grains with almost ritual care. “ A starving boy once came to my door begging for a crust.” he said, eyes on the near-empty bowl. “I had plenty. But I sent him away. I didn’t spare him. I chose.” 

Ilyan realized. It was atonement, not hunger. His guest ate the bare couscous with such reverence because it is more than he had once been willing to give.

The old man stood. Before leaving, he praised the couscous. Steamed proper, not drowned. His mother would have considered boiling couscous nothing short of a sin. Then his hand moved beneath his thick coat, feeling for something tucked inside. Ilyan muscles stiffened. If he makes a move! The old guest drew out a folded cane, which opened in two clicks. He gave the handle, a flat iron crook with a notched tip, a small twist and it came off. He turned it over and slid it into his sleeve. Ilyan watched it go. A shopkeeper’s habit, he thought, for the high shelves. Nobody would kill with that! 

At the threshold, he saw again the small plot beside the door. Something grew; plants fed too well for this wasteland. Dark soil, rich and wrong. There was no doubt as to which verb his host lived by.

Ilyan saw how little of the old man there was; mostly bone and coat. Not enough flesh there to pay back the fire.

The old man had just pulled the door open and put one foot outside, when it came. A dull, heavy blow. A length of pipe swung from behind and struck the back of his skull. The world went black. He dropped. When he reopened them again he was back inside. The fire had burned lower. The couscous steamer had been taken off. His wrists were bound behind his back. His ankles too. Rope. He shifted against the rope, but it held. Tight and expertly knotted. His pouch was left by the fire, where they could both look at it. 

Across from him Ilyan crouched near the fire, cleaning a knife with a scrap of cloth. Slow and methodical. He laid the blade beside the fire. He ran his tongue slowly over his teeth. As if to check they were all still there. He glanced toward the door, toward the patch of dark soil outside. “Nothing goes to waste here,” he said as he stood and walked to the doorway. He returned and crouched again near the fire. “Some for the pot,” he continued. “Some for the earth.” It was the first time the old man had heard his voice since he had arrived.

The old man listened, unsurprised. If anything, there was a tired recognition in it. Then he said, almost conversationally:

“I’ve come across men like you. Men who had the same idea you do.” He waited a moment before adding. “Feed the earth. And the earth feeds you back.”

The old man had seen places like this before. Shelters along the roads. With a patch of green where nothing else grew. And, a hook cast into the dark, a fire kept burning longer than it needed to. Whoever came in expecting a hot meal by the fire ended up being the meal on the fire. Then, from the remains, earth took what it needed, and paid it back in leaves and roots. Flesh to soil, soil to plant, plant to mouth. 

While Ilyan bent over his knife, the old man turned his wrist and the crook slid down into his palm. He let the notched tip find the first knot and began to work it. Behind his back the rope gave one loop at a time. When the last turn came free, he let the rope lie as if it still held. He waited for the moment. 

Careless for one second, Ilyan barely had time to grab the iron pipe before the old man came at him. He lunged with the weight and timing of someone who had survived worse than hunger or cold. Ilyan’s pipe rang off the floor and rolled. The old man’s shoulder drove him back against the wall.

With a grunt and a stumble, Ilyan scrambled for the pipe. But the old man intercepted the strike, pivoted, and pressed him down. With one hand he pinned Ilyan’s shoulders, and with the other he twisted the pipe from his grasp. The struggle was brief. The old man did not hesitate. He forced Ilyan onto the floor and pressed his weight against him.

Ilyan’s disbelief was gone as the old man stood over him. Without a word. He did not need to.

Now, the fire had sunk to a low glow. Ilyan lay pinned on the floor, his hands bound with the same rope. 

The old man grabbed his leather pouch and sat beside him. He opened it without looking inside. Its contents shifted with the same dry clicking. He did not linger on it. His attention remained on his host. He steadied the man’s head with one hand. Then he took his tool, the iron hook of his cane. There was no sign of anger in his face, or any urgency in his movement. Just the same patience he had shown earlier, watching the couscous cook: waiting for things to give when they were ready.

The first tooth, an already loose incisor, came free with little resistance.

He set it aside.

The next tooth took a bit longer.

The old man adjusted his grip. Time did most of the work. When it loosened, he drew it out and placed it beside the first. He did not count them aloud, but the rhythm was there.

His hand paused briefly against Ilyan’s jaw. For the first time, something moved, under his otherwise still face. Something old. Badly buried. It broke through before he could stop it. “I lost my little daughter and my old mother,” he spat in Ilyan’s face.

His face closed again.

Losing a daughter and losing a mother. Two griefs, each whole alone. And he carried both. He had buried neither of them. They had been drawn to a place like this one. With a fire and similar arrangement of things that tried to pass for safety. A man there lived by the fourth verb, as this one had. The old man had arrived too late. The ground had already been turned. That was when he began tracking the predators by their fires. 

He resumed his work.

Another tooth removed and placed aside.

He gathered what he had removed and held them in his palm. Then he lowered them into the pouch to settle among the others. It had become a habit. His way of keeping something that would not disappear. Or rot into the soil with the rest of the body. He kept what the earth would not take. 

His hand returned to Ilyan’s mouth. There was less resistance now. The work moved faster. When it was done, he remained there a moment longer, his hand still resting against Ilyan’s head. He withdrew his hand and closed the pouch. He sat there, listening. Ilyan’s breath came through his mouth now. Shallow. 

The old man rose with some effort and took up the pouch. He slung it across, adjusting the strap until it rested where it always did against his side. He crossed to the doorway and looked out.

The plot was ready. It had been ready before he arrived. The soil was turned once, twice. He went back inside.

Ilyan watched him now without focus. The old man did not look at his face again. He bent, slipped his hands under one foot, and dragged. At the threshold, he paused only to shift his footing. Then he dragged Ilyan out.

Dry, constant wind kept up, drowning out the smaller sounds beyond the shack.  

He lowered the body into the shallow cut beside the plants. For a moment, Ilyan’s chest rose. Then the movement weakened. The old man did not watch for the end. He had learned not to. He took the spade leaning against the wall and began to cover the body. Soil fell in steady layers, breaking against the shape beneath, then settling. When the face was covered, he pressed the soil down once with the flat of the spade to set it.

The last of the ground went over in a thin layer. He spread it wider than the cut, blending the edges into the rest of the plot. He stepped back, and turned to the shelter. Inside, the fire had sunk to a low-glowing bed of coals. The bowl lay where they had left it, a few grains of couscous clinging to its rim. 

He looked at the pile of shoes in the corner. Leather and rubber. They would make for a slow burn. He set them on the coals and watched the flame take hold. Then, before leaving, he took a handful of seeds from a small sack hanging on the wall. He scattered them over the fresh soil outside with a loose motion.

Some would take. Some would not.

For a while, he stood there, listening again. Then he turned and took the road. After some distance, he reached into the pouch without looking and let his fingers move through its contents. They clicked softly against one another. He let them settle back into place and closed the flap. He walked away. The sky began to thin at its edge. By full daylight, the soil would have settled. In a few days, the first shoots might show.

When he looked back, the shelter was out of sight. But a thread of thick smoke stood up straight in the first gray of dawn. It would burn for most of the day. Someone would see it. Someone always did.

A fire for strangers.

-END-