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Concept
Allal
Summary
Allal is a short story by Paul Bowles written in Tangiers in 1976 and first published in the January 27, 1977, issue of Rolling Stone. It appeared in his short fiction collection Things Gone and Things Still Here (1977) published by Black Sparrow Press.
The story is among several that Bowles wrote concerning "transformation" or an exchange of physical or psychological characteristics between humans and animals.
Allal is born in a hotel to a fourteen-year-old servant girl. He is informally adopted by the childless cook and his wife when the owner fires the young mother. She returns to her family in Marrakech and is never seen again.
As the boy grows up, he discovers that he is the object of amusement and scorn among the townspeople, who regard him as "a child of sin" and "a meskhot (italics)- damned". Allal labors for room and board at the hotel, but is denied wages. He moves to town and becomes a brickmaker. He lives in a hut alone. Allal forges a deep and virulent hatred for the townspeople.
A dealer in venomous snakes arrives in town, and Allal volunteers to help the elderly man retrieve his snakes when his two serpents escape from a basket. The local residents, alarmed, drive Allal and the old man away as public nuisances. Allal invites the old man to his dwelling for the night.
The snake dealer assures the youth: "Snakes are like people. You have to get to know them. Then you can be their friend." Allal is intrigued by the snakes, and allows them to be released in the hut to feed them.
Allal discovers he has an overwhelming desire to possess one of the snakes, a red cobra. He devises a scheme to lure the snake from its basket when the old man is asleep. Allal captures the snake and conceals it in a nearby oasis. The next morning the snake dealer is distraught at the loss of his snake, but does not suspect Allal, and departs.
Allal trains the cobra to obey his commands with offerings of milk, eggs and kif paste. The youth also imbibes large servings of kif.
Official source
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