The Arch and the Butterfly (18 page)

At that moment the scent reached me. I thought I was only remembering it, but it lingered in a distant and hidden way, before advancing as if someone were bearing it towards me. I felt something disperse before my whole being, and my pores opened to absorb the fragrance emanating from everything known or unknown to my life. As the scent invaded my body, it acquired an identity that I remembered and knew: it brought Yacine to his feet and pushed him towards me, as it had whenever he came through the door or walked down the hallway or jumped down the stairs. Here was the scent of his comings and goings, his presence and his absence, rising suddenly from everything that surrounded me.

I opened my desk drawer and pulled out the package Bahia had given me several months earlier. Trembling, I opened it, and the scent of his lost body reached me. I had found him or finished mourning him. I had mysteriously recovered my sense of smell. I placed his clothes over my face, inhaled deeply and wept.

We're Pieces of an Eternal Mosaic

1

‘I’m Mohammed al-Firsiwi, your guide for this visit to the greatest Roman city of the Mediterranean basin. I speak German because I spent twenty years in Germany. I worked there and attended night school at its universities for more than ten years. I built there and destroyed, the way it befits a man who loves Germany. I earned a great deal of money there and lost it in this land where nothing flourishes except olives, carob and riddles.

‘Like most of you, I too would like to see Germany remain forever a glorious country, facing everything with unmatched power, succeeding at everything it does and maintaining, despite its apparent toughness, a tenderness known only to poets and philosophers. If you have noticed an accent in my speech, this is not due to the countryside, because, whether you know it or not, the rural language is a branch of Germanic. Yes sir, yes, you are right. It is a local Amazight dialect, but believe me, it has a direct connection to the language of Goethe.

‘Like most of you, I married a German woman who was most devoted to her conjugal duties. Perhaps she believed that taking this attachment to its extreme required that she commit suicide in this happy land. That is why she did it gladly, not far from this site, on the hill located behind you, immediately after the asphalt road. You will discover later that the place was very suitable. Of course, all places are suitable for suicide! What am I saying? I mean that this land is, in a certain way, the land of her ancestors. It was only fitting for her to relay her message to them near the ground they had trampled with their feet.

‘Some of you may wonder how a blind guide can lead you through the tortuous alleys of this great city! I must remind you that it is a city from the past; the ruins of a city from time immemorial. In other words, it is nothing but darkness and only the blind know how to walk through it well. By the way, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the period from 285 AD until the coming of Idriss I was known as the Dark Ages because we know nothing about it. But now that we know, I am happy to inaugurate another Dark Age that extends between Idriss I and me.

‘We will be going down the incline that stretches before us. Please take your hats and all the water you can carry. There is no shade on the site and not a single cloud at this time of year, and I have no desire to bury another German in this land. Before we walk down, look around the small square where we’re standing. Do you see the stone plinth to your right that still retains part of a small black foot? There stood Bacchus carrying on his shoulders bunches of grapes from my country, from the vineyards of Bab al-Rumailah, before the statue was stolen in mysterious circumstances. Some believe that an important government official took it to please his Italian mistress, and there are those who believe that the antiques mafia smuggled it abroad. Some even think that I personally stole it and sent it to a German antiquarian. Evil tongues say that Bacchus got drunk in Al-Firsiwi’s bar and lost his way back to his plinth, or fled in boredom from this tedious land. Personally, I will admit to you, and I hope you won’t report me to the police, that I stole it and buried it in the courtyard of a village mosque located on the foothills of the mountain behind you, as my contribution to bewildering archaeologists in the middle of the third millennium when they find him drunk in the ruins of an old Islamic building.

‘We will proceed very carefully down this slope, from where we will cross the River Fertassa, whose springs are located in Ain Fertassa. I fought a legal battle worthy of the war of Basus for that place. Nowadays it’s merely a tragic sliver of water, whereas in the past, the Romans used to catch fish there as big as the donkeys of this good earth!

‘Now that we have crossed the bridge, I want you to catch your breath, and then move to your right and proceed on the path parallel to the river. Don’t forget to drink even if you don’t feel thirsty. There is nothing more dangerous for the human body than dehydration. And I am talking from experience, as I forgot to drink for many years and my existence dried up completely.

‘Look towards the mountain from the path. There is a series of beautiful plateaus abutting the mountain that overlooks the city. At a certain time of the year, the sun rises through a gap between the blue plateaus and the white mountain, providing an extraordinary display of nature’s wonder. In any case, as these uplands greet the rising sun every day, they always have a light that cannot be extinguished. See how the forests at the top have shrunk like thick hair that has not been combed for centuries? Next, look at the gardens that stretch down all the way to the valley. The city eats its most delicious fruits from there, but I don’t know whether the Romans ate them before us. You can see that even if they did, this did not prevent their civilisation from vanishing.

‘Everything is fleeting. At this time of day, shortly before noon, the colour of the hills changes to navy blue. You will notice upon our return that it has changed to light green. The hills tend to adopt the colours of the time, and when night surrounds them, they stand out no matter the weather. Even in the darkest of nights, their soil glows.

‘No soil glows? No sir, indeed some does, and there are glowing trees and glowing forests! Please don’t argue! If you have not noticed that the Black Forest at Baden-Baden glows, it means you are blind like me!

‘We will begin our actual visit with the cemetery, as everything begins and ends with cemeteries. One can only properly understand a city through its graves. From there you can clearly make out the scheme of excavations. The war – your war, as you well know – was the key to this historical discovery. War is the other key to understanding cities and geography. For this city we are indebted to World War I, which razed many of your cities. Consider the creative fertilisation between intersecting ruins.

‘German prisoners of war, among them Hans Roeder, my wife Diotima’s grandfather, excavated Walili from the bowels of the earth with the help of the local inhabitants of this mountain, descendants, most certainly, of extinct Roman lines. All that matters is genealogy. All the destruction and the extinction that befall civilisations do not matter, as long as there are descendants to one day remove the stones and soil from whatever is left. Every being God has created on the face of this earth is searching ruins for something that has been or will be lost. It was Lyautey who brought the German prisoners here for this mission.

‘He was a sly fox and a clever manipulator of memory. But believe me, it was the children, especially Fertassa’s children, who dug up the first features of this city while at play. One of them might have even pulled out a stone with inscriptions on it or a piece of mosaic while looking for something to burn. Who knows!

‘One day in the 1920s, Zarhoun opened its eyes and saw General Lyautey observing the whiteness of the city from the Cave of the Pigeons high up there, while down below on the plain that stretched to the banks of Wadi Khaman, his military regiment, his scholars and the broken-down prisoners were busy opening up this space before you. It is primarily important for the north-eastern region and the areas surrounding the Triumphal Arch and the Forum. From there the famous bronze and white marble statues and dozens of artefacts were dug up, some of which were destroyed while others are still there. When you go to the capital, ask about a forsaken museum located in Barihi Alley. There you will be able to see the collection of bronzes which includes Juba II, Cato, the handsome youth, the old fisherman and the horseman, Bacchus and the horse, the attacking dog, the bull, the head of Eros sleeping, and many others which escaped with their skins from this land. You will also see a marble statue of King Ptolemy that was not found here, but you will understand from his white gaze that he would not have survived long. All those works were taken to the cap­­ital to be close to Lyautey’s residence. Had they remained here, they would, today, be no more than detailed descriptions in a police report, as happened with Brother Bacchus.

‘Will the excavations continue? Of course they will, especially at the hands of the Dumyati scholars, those experts in magic, in order to extract the forgotten treasures with the help of the blood of the rosy hand – the hand of luck – and the magic word. Let’s forget about it. You’ll never understand it, so concentrate with me on the site!

‘I’m saying confusing and mysterious things? Yes, madam, when I open the tap, I can’t control the gush. The waters of the sea would not suffice to tell you all that this head has been through.

‘Over there are the recently discovered Idrissi baths. You can have a look inside. It is all that archaeology has found to date from the Islamic period. Idriss I was more interested in building a bath to perform the major ablutions than in establishing a dynasty. This is a state that has been performing its ablutions since the dawn of creation without ever achieving the purity it aspired to.

‘Three centuries before Christ, Walili appeared in its Punic guise, and in 25 BC the Emperor Augustus appointed my dear brother Juba II head of this kingdom. He was an Amazight freeman who had been brought up in Rome and married Cleopatra’s daughter, according to the norms of that time, before ascending the throne. That is exactly what I did, being raised in Germany and marrying the daughter of a German Kaiser before ending up in this hole!

‘Here the Amazight dynasty might have flourished and filled the world, and we wouldn’t have had an Idriss I and an Idriss II, but the Amazigh have no luck. As soon as Ptolemy ascended the throne following the death of his father, Juba II, the Romans fomented strife in Walili, and Caligula ordered Ptolemy’s assassination. He then put an end to Aedemon’s rebellion with the help of the Roman army, backed by local alliances and betrayals. The only thing that has destroyed us Amazigh has been betrayal, from Ptolemy to Abd al-Karim al-Khattabi.

‘Now look towards the ruins of the eternal triangle: the governor’s residence, the Tribunal and the Triumphal Arch. Consider this severe grandeur, which witnessed a succession of kings, governors, merchants and wise men. There is nothing left of this teeming life, yet this magnificence still shines through the cracks in the ruins, a testimony to the everlasting, a reflection of that dormant force that life leaves behind even after it ends.

‘Here you will meet a certain piercing look that has been directed at us since time immemorial, and directed at this moment as we proceed along the trace, or the trace of a trace. We come after archaeologists, prisoners of war and anonymous workers who all raised fresh soil for this day, to provide us with an eternal moment on the soil of yesteryear. We follow them as they raise the columns of the palace or the curvature of the arch, as if they were pulling them from the belly of the war they left behind. Among them was my wife’s grandfather, who, according to what Diotima read in his little notebook, buried in an accessible location his hat and a book of poetry he had written during the war and during the excavations of Juba II’s realm. That place was supposedly a low-ceilinged room not too distant from the arch, where there is the wonderfully carved statue of a supine male with an eternal, stony erection.

‘You will soon realise that the penis as a fertility symbol is carved in many places, which means finding the notebook would require the mobilisation of other prisoners of war, all for a work of dubious value.

‘Forgive me, but I nevertheless advise the women, in case they find a carving of this kind, to place their hands on it and wish for something related to the subject. My wife used to do so, and she attributed many of our delicious adventures to that practice. I personally cannot believe that I made love in this low-ceilinged room, given that I am not such a bohemian. It was most probably because Diotima made such a wish while holding the carving. How else could we find her grandfather’s book other than looking for it in places that turned us upside down? Who knows? Her grandfather might not have buried anything in these spots. He might have made such a declaration only to add a mysterious touch to his ordeal and minimise the humiliation of imprisonment.

‘Diotima learned this path by heart, its names, its role, its doves, its olive presses and its mosaics, before she even stepped on this land, using Roeder’s notebook that the family had kept after his death. The first time we met I talked to her about Walili. As soon as I spoke that name, she took it as a blinding sign from fate that made her agree to marry me without hesitation. She thus fell into the snares of the house of Firsiwi. Only that decisive shot set her free.

‘We are now in the north-eastern quarter where the nobles’ homes are found. We will head eastwards, close to the home of the procession of Venus. Let’s go in, if you don’t mind, and consider this wonderful mosaic. One section shows Hylas, Hercules’s companion, by a spring where he has come to drink. But he is being abducted by two water nymphs who are overcome by his beauty. One of them grips his chin and the other his wrist. The artist added two scenes, one representing a hunter who has shot a bird with an arrow. This led to his arrest and his being tied down and flogged. The second scene shows the same person being tried and condemned to be thrown to wild beasts.