The Arch and the Butterfly (34 page)

‘Like what?’ I asked.

‘Our relationship, for example. Many lives had to intersect before you could find the way that led you to me.’

I asked her angrily, ‘And you?’

‘I always knew what I wanted.’ This seemed to me the ideal expression of human happiness: to wake up or not wake up and be able to define exactly what you wanted without random additions and gaps, to say ‘I want to get up now and go to a park’ and to walk with a strong feeling that serenity would certainly be found where the row of eucalyptus trees ended.

For many years I had carried Yacine on my shoulders, and every time I laid my head on the pillow I would decide to bury him. In the dark I would rehearse the rituals of the delayed funeral: I would carry the bier by myself and proceed towards the hole, but when I looked at it, it appeared bottomless. As soon as I lowered the bier into it, I would see Yacine come out and run through a vast cemetery with headstones made of flesh and blood.

Ahmad Majd called me one day. He was in a pitiable condition, searching for words to resume our friendship as if nothing had happened. He said Bahia was very ill and he was taking her to Paris for treatment. His words did not sink in and I did not ask him for explanations. I was not worried about her. I felt as if something were happening to a distant person, and no matter what occurred I would be unable to help. I felt better about that and I realised that powerlessness was, after all, comforting, because it freed you of guilt and always made you the victim.

I called Fatima many times to tell her about Bahia’s illness, but she did not answer and did not contact me. I thought that she too might have disappeared, like Al-Firsiwi and Ibrahim al-Khayati and Essam. I was overcome with a deep fear and called Layla. I told her I wanted to see her immediately because I was afraid she would disappear. She was busy, so we agreed to meet in the evening, though this did not spare me from being troubled the whole day by black thoughts about her disappearance. When we met and I told her that, she caressed my face with her hand and said that I was merely upset because of what was happening around us. She also said that the quarrel with Ahmad Majd had opened a door to fear that we had to shut quickly. I was very happy that she said this, and said it for my sake, knowing full well that Ahmad Majd did not deserve this effort. I wanted to comment on the matter but she begged me not to. We ate quickly and went to a modern dance performance at the French Cultural Centre.

The show was fast and frenetic, the tempo high and athletic. It shifted all the burden on to us, as we shrank back into our seats under the pressure of that devotion of the body that toyed with violence and seduction. I told Layla when we left the show that words were the best means of expression for human beings. There was something too intimate about the body and movement, or a limitation, that prevented the act of expression from making unexpected stupid mistakes.

She said, ‘We are able to do that with violence or love.’

I agreed with little enthusiasm and continued walking, feeling something hot rise from my guts that absorbed me in a kind of material absence. I thought it was the sign of a new fit, but soon realised that part of the show’s choreography had seized my body, which felt possessed by a violent inner storm. We got into the car and Layla ignored me as she drove, and I heard Yacine confiding to me in a clearly stern tone, ‘Now. Now!’

‘Now what?’ I asked.

He repeated insistently, ‘Now!’

I shouted angrily, ‘What now?’

Layla said, scared, ‘What’s with now? What’s with you?’ She pulled the car over to the side of the road, confused.

‘Nothing, it’s nothing. I think I’m tired, that’s all,’ I said.

We continued on our way. Layla had regained her com­­posure and tried to justify the confusion that had taken hold of me. According to her I had internalised the scene of violence in the show, and the slow and clean movements depicting mutual seduction and pleasure had led to a sudden desire to kill.

I said, ‘Yes, it might have been that.’

As a special consolation, she suggested that we sleep in the same place, an idea I deemed a good ending to a trying day.

So here she was on the snow-white bedding, bathed by the glow of a distant lamp, her hand resting on my chest as she slept curled up in the foetal position. I asked myself what love was. For many years I had been unable to identify a feeling connected to this emotion. As I watched her face, radiant in peaceful sleep, I told myself that perhaps love was being with a woman at the right time.

As we were eating breakfast the next day Layla said, ‘You must visit Bahia as soon as possible. It isn’t Ahmad Majd who will make her feel at peace.’

‘No one can do anything for anyone else,’ I said.

‘I don’t like to begin the day in a bad mood,’ she said angrily.

Whenever I travelled from Rabat to Marrakech, I would look out the train window and see places I had known for years, barren fields, square patches of cacti and a scattering of withered eucalyptus trees. Nothing had changed in these poor landscapes, where every now and then I would spot somebody crossing these badlands with the assurance of someone living in paradise. One day the motorway would pass through that arid poetry, and we would have to draw another landscape to put in train windows. The motorway would extend all the way to Agadir, and the journey from there to Tangier would take only eight hours instead of the two days it did before. We would become a small country that could be crossed from north to south in less than a day.

Bahia quietly greeted me when I arrived. She did not look like she was suffering from a fatal illness or the devastating anxiety linked to it. We sat in the garden and she talked to me with amazement about the war waging between her husband and his rival. The latest chapter involved land that was open for development on the mountain road, land that was on the books as security at one of the banks before the ferocious rival got hold of it through scary pressure tactics, fraud and byzantine manoeuvres.

Bahia knew the tiniest details of what she called the new scandal. She was trying to deduce what should be deduced, in the form of a pessimistic analysis of our general condition, which did not seem about to be cured of rampant illnesses like those.

I said, joking, ‘But the wheels are turning, or so I believe. There are no breakdowns, and I only hear stories about the huge fortunes being made here and there. I have not heard so far about a bankruptcy declared or about to be declared.’

‘Bankruptcy is like a terrorist operation,’ Bahia said. ‘Nothing on the horizon predicts it, and then suddenly you hear about it on the news.’

She asked me if I knew about her illness. I nodded and said, ‘It’s an illness like any other illness.’

She was moved for the first time and talked about young Ghaliya. ‘I don’t worry about leaving her alone, but it hurts not to have spent more time with her.’ She said that she had not noticed any emotional attachment on my part towards the child, and added, ‘You don’t like her very much.’

I defended myself, saying that I considered her our baby, but Bahia was not convinced. But said she understood and did not blame me. Human nature was supremely complex, she said, and oddly enough she did not see any logic in all that was happening to her except her illness, because it was the only thing in total harmony with her human condition.

Bahia confessed, without overdone emotion, that she sat every day in the garden and cried. She did not cry for a specific reason, but out of abstract torment where nothing was obvious except her tears. Every time she asked herself why she cried, she would cry even more without finding an explanation. She added, ‘I did not get the life I dreamed of when I was young.’

‘No one gets the life they dreamed of,’ I said to her.

‘I did not imagine that. I was convinced I would get from life exactly what I dreamed.’

I tried to explain that life was better when it remained cap­­able of surprising us.

She laughed and said, ‘As far as surprises go, I got my share and more. Imagine, I marry someone who loves opera and sculpture, and one day I see him cover the walls of our house with photos of the housing compounds he has built, his inaug­uration ceremonies and meetings to sign financial agreements.’

3

Fatima called from Madrid that evening. All I could detect in her conversation were bits of self-pity for her life and convulsive crying that made her sound drunk. I found it in me to ignore her crisis and face it with some firmness.

‘Why this silly crying?’ I said to her. ‘You’re in good health and able to enjoy music, theatre and cinema. You have a job you love and you live in a European capital. You can sleep with any man you choose. What more do you want from life? Do you think that life is as generous with everyone as it is with you?’

My anger calmed her down a little, and I seized the opportunity to tell her about Bahia’s illness. But when I felt she was about to resume her crying fit, I said loudly, ‘I spent part of today with her and she seemed fine, maybe better than us.’

Fatima insisted that I visit her in Madrid. I told her I would because I too needed space to help me reorganise this mess. I had the impression that as we talked about our plan of action, she got completely over her crisis. When we ended our conversation I was still anxious, though, but then came a text message from her: ‘Thank you, I love you.’

I spent the evening in a small Italian restaurant not far from the tombs of the Saadis. The friends I met were very worked up about rumours concerning the arrest of a gang of drug dealers who controlled the city. One of them said that this would certainly lead to the formation of prostitution rings and sex tourism, and many guesthouses might be shut down as a result. Since we were close to the general elections, the only benefi­ciary from these security measures would be the religious movement. Marrakech, with all its magical treasures, would then fall victim to the pincers of the Taliban.

Another well-informed friend said, however, that big business would be the real beneficiary of the situation, big business organised as a political and social force. It would use the income it provided, the jobs it created, the publicity it produced and the foreigners it pleased as bargaining chips to obtain comfortable seats in the political arena. He said no one could counteract the religious movement except that group. There would be a new leader of this kind in every major city, and if there was not, one would be created, until this blessed commodity became available all over the country.

Someone else suggested handing the major cities to the Islamists as a solution, in order to make peace with the terrorists. I laughed at his suggestion and told him these two options had nothing to do with each other, because terrorism worked for its own account. If the cities were handed over, they would become psycho­­­logically devastated, with explosions as their only amusement.

We quickly abandoned this discussion that lowered our spirits and agreed that our country counted among its leaders geniuses who knew how to manage matters without help from our rotten moods. At midnight we timidly went to one of the city’s hotels to see a famous transvestite from Casablanca, who had come to Marrakech to belly dance.

I was awakened the next morning by the sound of Ahmad Majd’s insistent banging at my door. When I opened it I saw his worried expression, and he told me that Bahia’s condition had deteriorated suddenly. He was taking her to Paris.

We all met in the middle of the big house. Bahia was preparing to leave. She was smiling, playing with young Ghaliya and running her fingers through the girl’s hair. I assumed she was in pain, but I did not have the energy to say anything. I took a cup from the table and poured coffee, unaware in my distress that I was spilling it. I heard Ahmad Majd say, ‘We mustn’t be late for the flight.’

I walked them to the door, hoping they would ask me to stay there for a little while. Bahia did, saying as she hugged me that it might be better for young Ghaliya. I returned to the breakfast table and watched Ghaliya spreading butter on a piece of toast, acting like her mother with her hurried movements and small bites. She had Ahmad Majd’s eyes and Yacine’s round face. Her features revealed a certain joy hidden behind a ser­­ious expression. I wondered if this would be my last breakfast in the big house, and the thought upset me. I wondered if the feeling of devastation would be the same at the death of a person I had no relationship with any more. I was surprised by a fit of tears I felt rising from my guts. I withdrew to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face, while thinking about a way to breathe outside the big house.

On my way to the railway station, I called Layla. She was not at all nice to me.

‘This is a story you have to put behind you,’ she said, ‘and not immerse yourself in it again as if you had never left. Since you have changed your life, there is nothing more to go back to. Why do you insist on keeping everything in tow for ever?’

‘But I’m not keeping anything in tow. There is only a painful situation that I cannot face in an unemotional manner,’ I said calmly.

She replied angrily, telling me that I walked with my head turned backwards, like a person looking towards the past.

I tried to find a way out of this anger but failed. She then asked if I had spent the night in the big house. When I told her I had, she said, ‘I was sure you would do that. It’s disgusting and vulgar, but you cannot do otherwise!’