A Riffians Tune (30 page)

Unhappy, he breathed in, filled his lungs with air, and breathed out a worrying sadness. ‘I thought you would take me seriously,' he said, ‘or at least listen to me.' I was preoccupied with how to map out my summer to find work to survive the following year.

It was late June. The days for us to hear our fate had arrived. The deputy rector came, files in hand, opened the classroom door, exchanged nods with the professor, and bellowed one of two words for each student from the depths of his lungs: ‘pass' or ‘fail'.

I couldn't believe my ears when I heard the magic word for me – ‘pass'! My boarding scholarship would be renewed. The deputy rector had stunned the class with joy and sorrow and went to the next class to do the same.

In the days that followed, Abdu begged me to embark on a strange behaviour that deeply disturbed me – ‘the
Sufi
life'. He destroyed his shoes, walked barefoot, and asked me to do the same. He bought a heavy, black second-hand coat, which was meant to cover him entirely. The excessive heat in Fez didn't bother him. His hair and beard were left to grow as long as they could and go wherever they fell. Tall and thin, he was getting thinner every day. He ate less and less.

His madness evoked fear, and I felt sometimes like running away from him, yet his tongue always indicated an intelligent brain at work. He puzzled me and reminded me of my cousin, Ahmed; Abdu was intelligent and Ahmed was stupid, yet they shared something.

Abdu did succeed in getting his baccalaureate and a place to study Sharia Law was waiting for him, but he didn't want to be a lawyer, judge, professor, farmer, landlord or businessman. He felt trapped in his own flesh, ‘an incoherent mosaic of colour', he told me.

‘Your flesh that you hate is the same flesh that allows you to fly!' I told him. ‘For the sake of a simple life, you have entered into a far more complex one!'

Abdu had hoped to see me become a
Sufi
like him so he would have a companion with whom to disappear either into the desert or the mountain, but I disappointed him. Before leaving, looking completely bizarre, he came to tell me goodbye. ‘What are you going to do for your holiday?' he asked me.

‘My mother is old, hard of hearing, her sight is failing, and arthritis is crippling her. She needs me, and so does my unmarried sister, Amina. I shall look for a husband for her before she's raped and becomes damaged goods forever.'

H
eading north, I took the night coach to Nador and left the dirty city of Fez behind. The coach was big, long, solid and equipped with a diesel engine, giving the travellers a lot of noise to put up with and fumes to breathe in.

The night was long and tiring. I peered continuously through the window during the night and through the dawn. Carcasses here and there made me dread to think of what I might find at home. Nearing Nador, the welcoming sun rose bit by bit, and bored passengers watched it turn the sky orange and pink, but soon it rose higher and became a bother. Everybody dodged to seek a refuge from it, as the windows had no shades.

Dropped in the middle of Nador on a street with deafening noise and crushing crowds, I rushed to the taxi station. Travellers wishing to reach remote villages and countryside had assembled here and there to fill a taxi and share travelling costs. It was a lottery; a group might be already formed, just waiting for the last lucky rider, or one might be the first to arrive, hope and wait, but all in vain. At the taxi station, I found myself alone. I stood waiting and watching the taxi drivers playing cards.

Hours passed, and with nostrils full of dust, I was grilled under the sun. No one showed up to share a taxi with me, and the city fired its familiar gun: one o'clock. Desperate, I went to the coach station.
I will take the coach to the village, Arkmane, and from there to my sister Farhana's, five miles away, to spend the night
. I rerouted myself. There was a snag in my mind, however.
It won't be a sweet night in my sister's house. Her husband, though a
hafiz
, is a despicable man. He's full of sarcasm and nasty comments. I could match him, but for the sake of my sister, I will play the oaf. If I spend the night at my sister's, I must get up and leave before he starts barking.

The coach connecting Nador and Arkmane left at four in the afternoon, and it would have been easier to buy a ticket to hell than one for this coach. Tickets were sold, resold and sold again, yet to buy a ticket, there were some bonuses to be paid first: bow, be polite and discreet. A station cleaner, a hard-talking, embittered old man, playing with a broomstick rather than cleaning with it, sold me a second-hand ticket. The coach was full, seat boundaries counted for nothing, and the roof was packed with bags, bottles of olive oil and animals of all sorts: chickens, rams and goats. They were all cuffed, subdued, and subject to the sun, wind, and whirlwinds filled with dust.

The aged coach was overloaded, crowded, and the animals were tortured, but everybody was happy, cracking jokes and passing sweets. The coach was wracked with chaotic movement and shouting. Unexpected stops were requested. ‘Stop! Stop! You have gone too far!' a passenger shouted. ‘You stopped too soon! Go a bit farther!' shouted another.

Whenever there was a stop, I wondered where the people were going, as there was no road or visible path. From time to time, a honking Volvo or Mercedes with people leaning out the windows and waving, would overtake the coach. For them, the coach was just a small dot full of troglodytes, but for me inside, the little dot was like a space shuttle in the sky.

Those for whom the village Arkmane was the final stop were never happy. The coach was too slow. ‘I wish I had my donkey!' someone shouted loudly, all the way from the back, to insult the driver.

The coach arrived in the village as the sun was setting, leaving behind broad streaks of pink and red in the sky. Nothing was obvious to the eye in the village except the prison. Looking at it, I remembered what my father had said years ago, ‘Those in power stripped us of our wealth and built us a prison. Yes. A prison.'

Before the engine was switched off, travellers were elbowing each other, some already on the roof identifying their goods, others grabbing their luggage. They all headed to the mountain with their backs to the sea, as though a terrible tide were chasing them. I saw a man put his goat around his neck and walk as fast, straight, and comfortably as the rest. As the sun hid, darkness crept in. I dared to wonder,
What if my sister is not at home? It's been over nine months since I've seen or heard of her. Where would I spend the night?

I found myself alone on a dusty path and the beating of my heart got heavier, but I still kept walking until I reached a main intersection with many paths, each leading to different family ghettos.

Trying to figure out where my sister Farhana's house was, I got lost in the darkness. Each house was walled with stacked stones, prickly pear trees and aloe vera; in my mind, her house was the last, but which one? Packs of fierce dogs, growling and barking, came from every side. I stopped, and they encircled me. Any move made them fiercely aggressive. The abundance of stones allowed me to pick some and, in the dark, throw them in every direction. One dog managed to grab my trousers and tear off a piece. I picked up some more stones, hit the dog on the head; he yelped and abandoned the fight. The pack followed him.
I wish I hadn't come here
, I mused. Farhana's house had a huge tree at the front and though I remembered the tree, I couldn't see it.

I skirted a second pack of dogs and walked on rough soil and stone until the massive tree emerged from the darkness, only a few metres away from Farhana's
main door.

Farhana herself had never had a dog. She always complained, ‘Dogs wake me up! I could never get a full night's sleep! Dogs invite each other to bark! They create an unnerving symphony!'

Farhana looked shocked when she opened the door and came face-to-face with me. She feared I had come to tell her bad news, that our mother had died. ‘This is an unusual visit,' she said. ‘I was on my last leg, about to jump into bed. I'm just waiting for my husband to come home from a wedding. He's late as usual.'

Waiting up for her husband and her son to come home, she dug deeply and probably unconsciously into her youth and marriage, but I knew nothing of that. She had married between the ages of eleven and twelve, before I was born, and her husband had been four times her age.

‘I am thin,' she complained. ‘My husband wants me to be fat, with big breasts and a huge bum! Can you buy a tablet to inflate my buttocks?'

‘Your buttocks are already big,' I told her, hoping to dissuade her. I wondered how large she wanted them to be.

‘Not big enough, compared to many,' she answered.

I felt sorry for her, but,
she's being selfish
,
I thought to myself.
Where would I find a drug to enlarge buttocks?

Dawn couldn't come too soon.

* * *

AT HOME, IT WAS
Amina who answered the door. The two dogs didn't bark, and the donkey near the front door was tied by the leg to an iron tether. Amina came in a rush, but didn't open the door immediately.

‘Who is there?' she asked.

‘It's me,' I replied.

‘Who is there?' she asked again.

Her voice is funny, isn't it?
I
thought to myself.

When her doubts were dispelled and her hesitation overcome, she opened the door; an exchange of hugs opened the gate to tears.

‘Let's go and see Mother,' I said, hoping to distract her.

‘Mother is dead,' she wailed, her face behind her hands. Amina couldn't bring herself to explain anything. Her mouth was flooded with murmured words. She tried to talk, to explain, but everything came at once, her throat choked with sobs.

I ran to my mother's room, where she had often sat and prayed, saying her rosary over and over. There was no sign of her except what she had worn, the small precious rug she had loved and used for praying, and the rosary beads hanging on the wall. The room was not large, but it felt like an immense space with no boundary.

Amina went to the big room and stood right in the middle of the door, like a statue.

‘Can we go to the cemetery?' I asked.

‘Yes,' she replied.

The small but fast-growing local cemetery would have been a beautiful spot if only it were not a cemetery. The soil was red, the space open, with scattered trees here and there, but it inspired fear and horror even to drivers passing by. No names were written, or markers to distinguish who was buried there; everyone had to remember the spot where his own lay under the ground. Within a short time, they were all mixed up and confused. My mother had been laid beside my father. ‘This is where she wanted to be, as though they were still alive, side by side,' I said.

After I got used to the new reality and conditions, with just Amina and me living in the house, I went to see Uncle Mimoun. ‘You have really grown up since I saw you last!' Mimount exclaimed, pulling back and glancing up and down at me. ‘What a pity your mother isn't here!' Her words fell on me like a hammer.

‘A pot of tea?' asked Uncle Mimoun, trying to zip her lips.

Arriving with tea and her daughter, Kadija, trailing behind her, Mimount sat down to finish making the tea, adding mint and sugar. Extremely nervous, not knowing what Uncle Mimoun's reaction would be, I shot him a question, ‘Would you lend me some money?'

Shocked, Uncle Mimoun turned to look at his wife, who was equally mesmerised. ‘What do you want to do with it?'

‘Trade currency,' I replied.

‘What is that?' Mimount asked. She had no clue.

‘A dangerous trade!' said Uncle Mimoun.

‘Don't worry,' I replied.

‘Trading in black market currency can be lucrative, but lethal. Some traders are well-organised and in the midst of criminals, well-armed and ruthless. You want to work among them, to compete with them and the banks? Don't forget the Spanish police are badly paid and expect to be bribed. Once you have competed with banks(only God knows who owns them), and with the traders, from the big sharks to the small piranha, very little will be left,' Uncle Mimoun warned me.

‘That's why I want to start with a good deposit,' I said.

‘You are naïve,' said Uncle Mimoun. I went home empty-handed, just as I had come. Amina and I cooked potatoes and chatted the whole night.

I noticed what my mother's absence had done to Amina. Being alone and isolated had made her jump at the faintest sound of a bird or rustle of the trees. The only guardian angels were the two dogs, Dargan and Dina. The poor dogs, fed only a few spoons of husks and prickly pears, left droppings everywhere. I thought Rabbia and her husband would have offered Amina love and support, but they hadn't.

‘Despicable!' said Amina, when I mentioned Rabbia's husband. ‘He came to see me just one week after Mother died. He said he wanted to know how I was doing and give me a hand. Rabbia had asked him to do so, he said, because she was worried about me. What a kindness, I thought. That made me happy and cheerful. There was quite a big pile of rubbish just behind the main door. He removed it, and the place looked cleaner and tidier. After that, there wasn't really very much to do, but he was hanging around and constantly behind me. I felt suspicious, but thought it was just my imagination. I was inside the small room, and he came in and got so close to me that I was sandwiched between him and the wall. He suddenly kissed me on my lips and began fondling my breasts with both hands. I pushed him with all my strength and yelled, “Rabbia! Rabbia!” He backed off like a beaten dog.'

Listening to Amina, anger and deep sorrow gripped me; two sisters humiliated at once. ‘Have you ever spoken to Rabbia about it?' I asked.

‘That would destroy her marriage,' she said.