My Torturess

by Bensalem Himmich

  I, the undersigned, currently under provisional incarceration in an unknown location, hereby testify that I am innocent of the array of charges laid against me. I deny them completely and in detail and without the slightest reserve or hesitation. Here is my account:

  I was born in the desert region outside the small city of Ouad-Zem, a few kilometers from Khouribga, center of the Moroccan phosphate region. The land around there is low level and open all the way round. But, however open and welcoming it may have seemed, I found it confining; to me it felt like a spacious prison with no bars, an endless marsh with stagnant pools.

  Even now, I can still see myself sitting in various parts of the plot of land (less than a hectare) where my father worked as a sharecropper. As I watched my father, whose wrinkled face reflected the hard work he had to do and the ongoing worries about seasons of drought, my facial expression became permanently depressed. When the sun went down each day, we used to sit around a table with some bread, lard, and tea prepared by my ever patient mother for us to eat. Once in a while we would look at a cow, the chickens, or the walls of our tiny house; at other times we would stare at the poor, dun-colored soil or the insouciant distant mountains. Many, many times I watched as my father would do his best to control his temper as he shuddered, removed his turban, and offered up a prayer to the ever observant heavens which were always cloudless and tediously blue. “I’m the one who’s worked it!” he used to yell over and over again. “I cleared it, ploughed it, and sowed it. For heaven’s sake, have pity on us, set us free!” He would finish by muttering angrily: “We’ve defied the heavens so much that now they’re treating us so cruelly. Hamuda, get up and fetch some water, and tell your mother to heat up yesterday’s harira.”

  In the area where we lived well water had dried up and seeped away. The only source for filling ewers carried on donkeys was a waterwheel some two kilometers away. When I had finished that particular chore, I used to poke at the dirt under my feet, kicking up stones and soil, as though somehow I could take on the overpowering drought, transform the straits our family was in, or question what fate had in store—and all in quest of an escape from my misery and frustration.

  Drought!

  Agricultural science and those in the know about such things tell us that farmland cracks up and languishes whenever water becomes scarce and vanishes. Anyone looking at Ouad-Zem and the region around it should never feel any satisfaction!

  In 1994 it was plowing and planting season, all in anticipation of rain. But weather bulletins and climate forecasts had other things to tell the farmers in their particular form of language: don’t expect your region or the country as a whole to see winter winds blowing or copious pouring rain accompanied by thunder and lightning, bringing with them the kind of downpours that people in the know refer to as “rains of charity and mercy”!

  Fat chance of that ever happening . . . unless, of course, the miracle of miracles were to happen, the Merciful God were to take pity on his human servants and animals and revive His moribund earth!

  So in anticipation of what might or might not happen, the observant eye can spend time measuring the sheer impotence of mankind through clouds of a different kind, the ones that sneak their way into your gut feelings.

  The same observant eye can also lean over an individual plot of land and observe the relentless march of drought, the way the dust begins to pile up and the color turns ashen because it is so parched. All kinds of opportunistic plants and nasty insects start to emerge through the cracks.

  That same eye can give the ear information about the cracks and crevices in the soil as it disintegrates and the cancer spreads. It can also let all the senses know how the soil’s creviced tongues dangle downwards, driven by thirst and heat in a desperate quest for water and moisture.

  That same eye can move toward the trees scattered across the landscape, they being of a particularly stolid and tolerant species. The leaden weight of the heat will show itself in the pale leaves and scanty fruit they produce. The only birds that will perch on them will be ones that can make do with a minimum of pecking and find it hard to hover and fly away.

  I used to take pity on that wretched species of bird and gaze at them with my own sad expression. My own stomach was often deprived of meat, and so I started targeting them with the catapult I’d been given as a child; by now I had become quite a good shot. However I had my own rule, indeed my special restriction: I had to be very sparing and stingy with myself. No putting sticky stuff on the branches, and no more hunting than was needed to keep hunger at bay. That kindly and environmentally friendly limit was to avoid giving the birds taking refuge in the trees any notion that they were being subjected to a kind of universal assault, expulsion or extermination. In fact I was so anxious—and God is my witness—to keep the situation the way it was and the possibility of their returning to their nests after flying away that I put some seeds and various kinds of food in cracks in the trees and even moistened them with some drinking water. So God Almighty can testify to the fact that my very parsimonious and stingy hunting escapades were conditional on the birds reproducing themselves in sufficient numbers. If that did not happen, you would see me amusing myself by aiming my catapult at stray rabbits. I could usually hit the young ones or others that were not fast or crafty enough.

  A persistent feeling of misery and impotence began to take hold of me about four years ago. It happened immediately after my father dropped dead over his plough in the field where he used to work, the place where he had struggled and sweated his life away. He was a simple, crude famer who had married twice before without having any children, so he had simply divorced the women. My feelings had only intensified when my mother remarried, that farmer who had housed her in his humble home with its cursed plot of land attached. It so happened that this new husband of hers brought an end to my studies when I was seventeen and made a habit of forcing me to undertake really hard tasks and insulting me in the process; it was just as if I were a pack-animal ready for work in field and house, all in return for a meager bite to eat and a bed of straw and alfalfa.

  I’m someone with big ideas but little power to implement them. I have to admit that words are incapable of describing the kind of oppression and misery I feel in a land where, every time the plowing and sowing season comes round, all we get is drought, occasional drizzle, but no real rain. Whenever that happened, my mother’s boor of a husband used to get even crazier than ever. He would yell in my face that I had to take care of myself and find something else to do far away. He explained the tensions caused by the drought as being God’s punishment on people like me who were recalcitrant and thus merited His anger.

  The entire scenario was one of oppression and misery: no sustenance from the land, and a mother’s husband who would never stop threatening and cursing me.

  My poor mother in her fifties!

  If it were not for her, at the very first sign of violence from her husband, I would have severed all bonds of obedience and sought my own path somewhere else. However, it was my mother who served as the invisible thread tying me to this wasteland, the shackling bond that, growing ever more feeble, could never envisage the possibility of leaving her desert landscape even in her own dreams. This then is a portion of my autobiography. Anything in it that may seem expansive or overblown represents the excess of a stupid mind . . .

  At this point I added a few paragraphs, exculpating myself with regard to the death of my mother’s husband and explaining my forced departure from Ouad-Zem for Oujda.

  The hall was abuzz with voices taking turns to recount the list of charges that had led to their imprisonment in some completely unknown location; all of them were challenging the legality of their arrest. It was difficult to hear, and there were constant interruptions, so I could not make out a lot of what they were saying. Not only that, but I was still distracted by the need to write everything down; I wanted to get the weight of the judge’s demand off my shoulders as soon as I could. All of a sudden, th
e prisoner closest to my cell asked me to recount my own charges and to raise my voice as much as possible. Thanking them for their concern, I made do with reciting the contents of what I had written as a response to their questions.

  “I’m accused,” I told them “of killing my mother’s husband with a deadly catapult shot, an accusation that I totally deny and reject. I am completely innocent. That said, however, I don’t deny that I occasionally dreamed of killing that oafish farmer, especially when he set about beating and cursing my mother. Whenever I took refuge in a cave, I used to have that very same dream. I used to read there and memorize passages till sleep overtook me; sometimes I would grill a bird or the occasional rabbit along with some bread, cumin seeds and salt. However, as everyone knows, there’s always a large gap between dreams and actual implementation. Then there’s the fact that a catapult shot may hit a bird or rabbit, but often won’t necessarily kill it. So how is someone firing a catapult from a distance supposed to be able to kill a human being who is larger in every dimension? The worse that a catapult can inflict is a bruise or a surface wound of some kind. How can that possibly compare with a shot from a silenced revolver or a Kalashnikov?

  “I came to call that cave ‘my cave’ because I claimed ownership to it; no vagrants or wayfarers ever came by. It was there, deep inside and in complete silence, that I was able to pose my frustrated, wounded soul the question of all questions, the answer to which potentially opened up all other answers: ‘Is this really a life I’m living, or simply a dreadful nightmare?’ After innumerable periods of contemplation, I came to the conclusion that my only solution and escape lay in leaving this miserable desert region and looking for a more hospitable environment in a city.

  “As night was falling, I got up and went to the house. I found my mother sitting in the dim light of a gas-burner; she had her head in her hands and looked sad and distracted. I sat down by her side to offer her some comfort and consolation. As usual, I listened as she said nice things about me, how she prayed that God would grant me success and that what would be would be. I did not interrupt this flow of prayers except to mutter an occasional ‘O Lord!’ or ‘From your lips to God’s ears, dear mother!’

  “I thought this was the appropriate moment, so I launched into a speech in which I tried to convince her that I was leaving but would still be in Morocco, not in some Christian country or some vacant region in the world. I wanted to make sure she realized that I would always be at her side in times of trouble and hardship or whenever her husband turned unruly and violent.

  “It was a dawn in fall when I left; it felt exactly like summer. Both my mother and myself were totally grief-stricken. She wept uncontrollably and kept praying that I would be successful and my path would remain free of evils and the temptations of prostitutes and other anathemas. Before leaving for the bus station with my only suitcase, I told her husband that, if he did not behave in a God-fearing manner towards my mother, I would cut off his nose and break his bones. ‘You can go to hell,’ I heard him brag. ‘The devil take you!’”

  At this point I sensed that my neighbors, even those right next door, were quiet; I could even hear some snoring. I waited for a while to see whether they wanted to hear any more, but everyone was tired, it seems, and there were no requests. With that in mind, I went on recording my report:

  My new residence was in Oujda, capital of Eastern Morocco, close to the border with Algeria. It is where mountains, plains, and river valleys come together. It was the entry point used by the French colonial forces to arrive in Morocco. In older times it was often known as “the city of bewilderment.” I did not head there because I had a particular preference for it or was trying to glean some good luck from the fact that my ancestors had lived there. All I wanted was somewhere safe where I could find a job.

  I was hoping that my only cousin on my mother’s side who lived there might offer me some help. Through his good offices, that is the way it turned out. He was an astute, proud, and generous man, mild-tempered, good company, and multi-talented. In his forties, he had already lost both his parents and was a self-made man. He may have been married before but had no children. He was forever concerned about the poor and indigent and offered them as much help as he could. He was always restless and traveled a lot.

  When I arrived in town empty-handed, doing my best to keep my anxieties and sense of loss to myself, he gave me the warmest of welcomes. He provided me with a sense of security by installing me in his bookstore, which he had been on the point of shutting because of the failing economy and the small number of readers. He put me in charge and gave me a regular monthly salary.

  I spent four years in Oujda, during which I enrolled at school and obtained my high school diploma; at university I obtained a BA in literature and another in Islamic studies. The reason for these successes of mine clearly goes back to my almost continuous obsession with reading and study, much aided by the amount of spare time I had in the bookstore with its supply of valuable sources and other texts I brought there either through purchase or exchange. Once my commerce in books began to be successful, I set up specific opening and closing times. That way I was able to devote my attention to serious customers, and then set about reading the books for myself. I often used to spend a good third of the night concentrating on my reading; the only thing to interrupt the process would be moments for reflection or the need to reset the traps for the rats, who chewed on the paper or were merely scavenging.

  Whenever possible, I used to visit my mother in the desert near Ouad-Zem and see how things were going for her. She would always reassure me and try to avoid mentioning her husband, whose health was rapidly declining. He used his illness as an excuse to lie on his side all the time and cling to her for all he was worth. At the end of every visit she used to load me down with food, accompanied by copious prayers and kisses. That’s the way things stayed until I recently received news of his death after the funeral and burial. When I visited her before I was arrested, I found her restored to her old self, as though she had at last managed to relieve herself of a painfully heavy burden. She was managing the plot of land that she had inherited, and had no need either to sell or abandon it. After that we lost contact with each other since, entirely against my will, I have found myself as a guest in your midst, a prisoner with no trial or fixed charge against me duly backed up by factual evidence and motive.

  This and only this is what comes to my mind. Anything else may belong to that region where the devil of human kind may wish to recall whatever it is. Farewell.

  Folding up the sheets of paper, I hid them where the anticipated shower from the water hose could not get them wet. All that was in the expectation that the investigating judge—may God not show his face again!—would be asking for them. That done, I lay down and surrendered to a restless sleep, one without color or taste, one for whose visions and flashes I had no explanation—apart, that is, for the last one of all, in which my mother appeared to scold me for staying away for so long and losing touch with her.

  “I haven’t had a single card from you,” was exactly what she said, “even though you may be in some remote corner of the globe. Just let me know for sure that the sea hasn’t swallowed you up, as it seems to be doing with lots of young men these days.”

  “Actually, Mother,” I responded sheepishly when I had woken up, “I have been swallowed up, but by a vast desert. I’m in a terrible, ghastly prison in some totally unknown location; the weather here is either hellish hot or freezing cold. No letters come in, and none go out. All you can do, Mother, is to abide in patience and pray for me—God alone has the power and might!”

  6

  In the Clutches of the Investigating Judge’s Secretary

  I was woken up at heaven knows what hour by a gruff voice proclaiming that exercise was better than sleep. Before that, I had been involved in a dream set somewhere between Ouad-Zem and Oujda. The hero was my cousin, who kept asking for me and seemed really sad and worried by my extended absence.
When I woke up, one of the guards was telling me to do some warm-up exercises in my cell—jumping jacks, hopping on one foot, push-ups, and shadow boxing. I was deeply involved in the last activity when the guard told me to stop, but I refused on the grounds that I had not yet administered the knock-out punch to my adversary; in my imagination that person was the investigating judge and no one else. The guard rushed over and frog-marched me to the prison courtyard, where group exercises were being conducted under the general slogan “mens sana in corpore sano.”

  Once in the prison courtyard, most of the inmates doing exercise were simply walking around the perimeter one behind the other. Each person had to be two or more meters apart from others; all talk was forbidden, even the vaguest whispers or gestures. It was only a very small minority who decided to run; they may have been either newcomers or else those who had yet to be subjected to torture.

  Just before the exercise period came to an end, I spotted my former cell mate, the one called Ilyas Bu Shama, in the distance. Quite spontaneously, I went over to ask him how he was and to check on his health. One of the guards stood in my way and threatened me with the dungeon if I did such a thing again. I went back to my place, hoping that there would be no repercussions.

  The milk that they brought for breakfast smelled like camel’s piss. I avoided it altogether and made do with a few pieces of bread that I moistened with water. I could recall some of the statements made by Sufi ascetics, which managed to provide me with the proverbial “milk and honey” that I needed. From a bodily point of view, it suggested avoiding the expenditure of too much energy during exercise time, both because it was easier and because the temperature was really cold early in the morning; from a more psychological point of view, the only path I discovered for reassuring myself and fending off depression was a thread that descended from on high, offering illumination and support, thus releasing me from the state of mind that I was in, even though it may have been pulling me toward some other level of spiritual existence. While I was indulging in conjecture and trying to work out how to fill my day with useful activities, the above-mentioned enormous black guard came in and gestured at me, the import of which was that the judge’s secretary was ordering me to appear before her with my report. As soon as I had retrieved the papers from their hiding place, he grabbed me by the wrist, and I left the cell alongside him. I either stared at the ground in silence or else sneaked glances at the passersby in civilian clothes, whose faces showed them to be foreigners. The black guard handed me over to another guard by the door of the judge’s office. The latter proceeded to search me, then tied my hands behind my back before informing the secretary that I had arrived, whereupon she instructed him to remove the bands from my wrists.