‘You’re always thinking in the past,’ Abd al-Rahman replied, out of patience. ‘You say “didn’t I tell you?” and “I told you so”. Well, here we are now in the centre of the storm. So, what are your expectations for the future?’
‘They said they were going to feed us chaff and make us sweep our doorsteps. Now they’ve carried out their threat.’
‘Dear friend, throw off the curse of the past. For example, tell me instead: what are we going to make them eat and drink?’
‘Our bodies, blood, and spirits; that’s all we have. So, let’s offer those as food and drink for the tree of freedom.’
Tears welled in Abd al-Rahman’s eyes, blurring the image of Abd al-Aziz as he stared at him long and hard. His friend seemed to represent the conscience of past, present, and future, of the generations that had inherited the nation. Now he was standing tall, speaking with total clarity, the only mode of expression he knew.
Abd al-Rahman was aware he was appearing weak. He shook his head and used a handkerchief to wipe away the warm tears. He did his best to shake his thinking out of its lethargy, so he could listen to what Abd al-Aziz was saying. He tilted his head to one side, as though preparing to receive wisdom from a philosopher, and looked down the narrow alley they were walking along. Suddenly, as they turned a corner, there was Hajj Muhammad wearing his jallaba and wrapped up in his burnous, walking slowly as though afraid the surface beneath his feet might crack. The wan sunlight in the alley shone on his wrinkled face, which appeared pale but eloquent in its silence, as though narrating recent history.
Abd al-Rahman left Abd al-Aziz and went over to his father. He grasped his hand and kissed it gently without saying a word.
Hajj Muhammad’s expression opened up, but there was no smile. ‘Where are you going?’ he asked his son.
‘I’m walking around for a bit with my friend,’ Abd al-Rahman replied, pointing out Abd al-Aziz. ‘I’ll be back.’
‘Fine, but don’t be late.’ Hajj Muhammad continued walking at his slow pace, while Abd al-Rahman and Abd al-Aziz went on their way, each thinking, without telling the other, ‘There goes Hajj Muhammad, content and untroubled.’
‘At the moment the fight’s happening in Casablanca,’ said Abd al-Rahman, resuming their conversation. ‘But it’s going to spread.’
Abd al-Aziz thought for a while before commenting, ‘I’m not as happy about the fighting as I am about something else.’
Abd al-Rahman’s expression became a question mark, but he remained silent, thinking and questioning himself.
Abd al-Aziz looked up, hoping to see in Abd al-Rahman’s eyes what he was not hearing with his ears. ‘I’m happy that the fire has now spread to the straw. Casablanca’s seized the ball in order to score the goal.’
Abd al-Rahman seemed to be thinking again, his gaze wandering. But his expression soon returned to normal. ‘Casablanca’s the right place to take the first positive steps. Fez is a cage with limited horizons. For our determined foe, Casablanca is the most sensitive spot.’
‘Yes,’ Abd al-Aziz replied with a gleam in his eye. ‘Their money, companies, and personnel are all there. It will be the gateway to the defeat they’ve brought on themselves.’
‘Do you believe the volcano they’ve allowed to erupt will eventually sweep them all away?’
‘It’s more than just a belief. In a highly organised life that depends on hard work and suffering just to get our daily bread, allowing the volcano to erupt is a guarantee of our success.’
Abd al-Rahman gave him an admiring look. ‘But is it right,’ he asked, smiling as though to provoke his friend, ‘for the enemy to give all the glory to a city other than Fez?’
Abd al-Aziz gave a start, gesturing with his hands as if to block Abd al-Rahman’s words from reaching his ears. ‘Fez will never play the same role as Casablanca,’ he said. He paused for a moment, apparently feeling a need to explain himself. ‘We’re a group of actors,’ he went on, ‘putting on a play called “freedom” for the world. Every one of us has a role he’s good at—’
‘The role that will make the play a success,’ Abd al-Rahman interrupted.
‘What’s important is to know how to distribute those roles and arrange them properly.’
‘That’s the party’s function.’ Abd al-Rahman seemed to have forgotten what he had just heard on the news bulletin, and Abd al-Aziz cut him short. ‘Party?’ he objected. ‘Didn’t you just hear the news? All the party leaders and organisers have been put in prison. Now they’re busy rounding up the second tier.’
Abd al-Rahman let out a deep sigh, as though a cloud of despair had settled on his heart. He said nothing for a while, quickening his pace and chewing his nails mercilessly.
Abd al-Aziz found the silence unbearable. ‘Common sense,’ he continued, ‘haven’t we learned that yet?’
Abd al-Rahman returned from his mental excursion, apparently not understanding what Abd al-Aziz meant. Once again, he had a quizzical look on his face.
‘What I mean,’ Abd al-Aziz added, ‘is that we’re the ones the party has charged with offering guidance and instruction. Aren’t we ready yet to assume that responsibility?’
‘For sure we are! Our generation is now at the forefront of nationalist aspirations.’
‘Then we both need to be figuring out what to do.’
‘So, General Guillaume has announced the dissolution of the party!’ Abd al-Rahman commented with a laugh, as though emerging from his own crisis.
‘No,’ Abd al-Aziz replied, retaining his serious tone. ‘He’s solved the party problem for us. We party members are now absolved from the obligation to observe any law imposed on an officially recognised party.’
‘So, you’re still dreaming of freedom,’ Abd al-Rahman laughed joyfully, ‘even if it involves throwing off chains to get there.’
‘Freedom’s not given,’ Abd al-Aziz went on. ‘It’s taken. If you can’t grab it while you’re still in chains, then it’s not freedom.’
‘And when did you learn philosophy?’ Abd al-Rahman asked with delight.
‘When I started thinking,’ Abd al-Aziz stated firmly with a smile.
‘And when did you start thinking?’
‘When I realised my country couldn’t think for itself.’
This made Abd al-Rahman laugh again, the realistic logic in Abd al-Aziz’s ideas helping him forget how bad things actually were. But it did not stop him looking anxiously at people’s faces. He continued to listen to his friend, but at the same time he was reading the chronic suffering, suppressed anger, and spirit of violent revolt in the expressions of passers-by, who communicated more through their faces than with their tongues. A number of people they knew walked past them, but everyone was using their eyes as if to signal a secret rendezvous. They both took in the message, yet neither of them said anything or made any sign.
The whole city of Fez was afflicted with a profound sense of grief; it was as if its ancient walls, its limited area, and its pure sky had all been cloaked in black garb. The streets no longer pulsed with activity; markets and shops lost their prosperous smiles, and the buzz of citizens in their various activities no longer reverberated like a beehive. Instead, everything was as quiet as during a festival day, with all the sorrow of a funeral and the misery of a catastrophe.
Abd al-Rahman could sense the scale of the tragedy, but could not convey his feelings to Abd al-Aziz, worried they might have a negative effect on someone like his friend, who had never known any sense of defeat. But as it turned out, Abd al-Aziz had also detected the new garb Fez had acquired for itself.
‘The news has shaken the city up,’ he said, making an effort to show how happy he was. ‘Everyone looks as though they’ve just lost their most beloved son.’
‘I feel like I’m in a Fez as it was before the events of 1944.’
‘With the basic difference that it was too happy then and it’s too distressed now.’
‘How can you be so upset that it’s distressed, whe
n our intellectual elite is in prison?’
‘You seem to be reverting to the past…’ As Abd al-Aziz said this, he looked straight at Abd al-Rahman to see what impact it had. He saw a happy smile, as though Abd al-Rahman approved of his logic.
‘What’s the past got to do with it?’ Abd al-Rahman asked.
‘It imposed its authority, but that was yesterday. Now it’s over. The city should not be grieving about the past, but rather finding ways of preparing for the future.’
‘What about the recent past?’
‘What about the present?!’
Abd al-Rahman laughed, as though to say, ‘I like your radical stance’, but he cut short his laughter when they unexpectedly ran into Mahmud as they walked towards Qattanin Street. Mahmud came over and greeted them.
‘Have you heard the news?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Abd al-Rahman replied dryly, ‘we’ve heard it. But you’d better hurry,’ he went on, as though he did not want to give Mahmud a chance to engage in conversation. ‘Father and Abd al-Ghani are looking for you.’
Mahmud was well aware that Abd al-Rahman did not want to give him an opportunity to gloat. He shook Abd al-Aziz’s hand. ‘The radio said that all your leaders have been arrested,’ he said pointedly, deliberately avoiding Abd al-Rahman.
Abd al-Rahman grabbed Abd al-Aziz’s hand to pull him away. ‘I told you to hurry,’ he chided Mahmud. ‘They’re waiting for you.’
‘Goodbye, au revoir!’ was Mahmud’s retort as he went on his way.
Abd al-Aziz looked at Abd al-Rahman to gauge what impact Mahmud’s words had had on his brother. But Abd al-Rahman anticipated any comment he might make. ‘It seems to me,’ Abd al-Rahman said, ‘that the city’s current distress is merely a cloud before a violent storm.’
‘But when’s that going to happen? When? It’s been a long wait.’
‘There’s no hurry. As the saying goes, for every time there’s an appropriate text.’
‘The text we’re going to write with our own right hand,’ replied Abd al-Aziz, out of patience. ‘I’ve decided—’
‘What have you decided?’
‘That I’m going to write it.’
40
Once again Abd al-Rahman passed through the prison gateway. By now it had become difficult for any programme to be implemented, given that all the people who were thinking about their country or working with its populace were either buried or locked up in prisons and internment camps. Abd al-Rahman’s mental preparedness for going to prison was now stronger than it had ever been in the past. He felt that a heavy atmosphere was weighing down the city and its inhabitants so oppressively that they could hardly breathe. He sensed that the pressure had now become a genuine nightmare that had transformed people’s lives into a living hell. Only those who were in their graves or the cells could escape.
He therefore found a kind of peace and psychological calm inside prison. He now felt he could no longer stand the nightmare that had been imposed on Morocco, nor tolerate the life that Moroccans were living now that all nationalist plans to overcome the imperialist forces had been exhausted. Prison was a refuge from the kind of pressure that had become so severe that it had begun to make his life hell.
This time, his incarceration was not a trial or hardship. It was in an internment camp which seemed to be reserved exclusively for nationalists from every part of the region; by now the actual prisons were too small to accommodate all the prisoners. He did not feel he had lost his freedom here or that he was a prisoner, but felt instead that he had been given an opportunity he had only occasionally encountered outside of prison, to mix closely with the freedom fighters he had previously known only from a distance. Any contact between them before would have led to a detailed police investigation, but this time the French authorities had gathered them all together in a single cage, and they all felt they were enjoying a kind of freedom they had never savoured before: the freedom to think together, exchange views, and plan for the future.
Abd al-Rahman was the leader of this group. He organised their life in prison and set up the discussion sessions. They all consulted him when arguments became fierce or an issue was so complex that they could not decide which point of view should prevail. Supervising a group of nationalists from various regions and different social and intellectual levels made him especially happy.
But he found himself missing one particular person. He had expected that at some point the gates would open to admit Abd al-Aziz, as they had already done for many of his colleagues and friends. Like every prisoner who feels the boon of freedom while still shut in prison’s dark shadow, he wished his friend were with him; he could then enjoy conversations, discussions, and arguments based on his friend’s realism and courage. But Abd al-Aziz did not arrive, and his name kept coming to Abd al-Rahman’s mind for a long time, though he could not say why.
He thought about the factors that made him feel so relaxed here, and his colleagues so free.
‘This feeling we all have,’ he asked himself, ‘is it freedom from chains, or freedom in the shadow of chains?’ In his mind the question was shrouded in cloud; he could not see how to make it clearer for himself. But he went on posing it every time he searched for signs of sadness or pain in the prisoners’ expressions and failed to find any.
He then pursued the line of thought further. ‘What we’ve done is to compensate for the miserable situation outside by keeping ourselves happy inside.’
But his conscience protested. ‘The reason,’ it clamoured, ‘is that we couldn’t bear the responsibility to its conclusion.’
‘That’s not true!’ he responded vigorously. ‘We did bear the responsibility, and that forced the colonial authorities to put us all in prison.’
‘No,’ his conscience said. ‘We gave up. We didn’t have to let the authorities grab us like one grabs a chicken.’
‘But we did take the initiative,’ he replied, warming to his defence. ‘We enlisted all our fellow countrymen against government violence and abuse of authority.’
‘And now we’re happy,’ his conscience insisted loudly, ‘because we’re rid of all responsibility.’
‘But we’ve landed up in prison!’
‘No, we’ve landed up in that banal state of happiness people reach when they have no responsibilities.’
‘But we did our duty.’
‘And now we can relax, like all failures.’
Abd al-Rahman did his best to object. ‘But what about all those people,’ he asked himself, ‘who sacrificed everything – family, children, wealth, and honour, only to find themselves locked up behind seven hellish gates and immured behind high walls, guarded by brutal men who deprive them of freedom, rights, and choice? Are they really failures?’
‘They all deserved something better,’ his conscience retorted, ‘after sacrificing freedom, family, children, and wealth.’
‘It was a noble sacrifice on their part.’
‘No, simply hubris.’
Abd al-Rahman continued at odds with his own conscience, until the national sense of tragedy finally culminated in the forced exile of the Moroccan king, which for Abd al-Rahman was the clearest possible manifestation of the enemy’s real intentions.
His conscience was now harsher than ever. ‘Do you see what’s happening beyond these prison walls? So, what use are you to your country, luxuriating in freedom inside these walls? People who know how to stay out of the way of the authorities now realise they must do their duty at a time when the country really needs people to do that.’
This thought made Abd al-Rahman more miserable than ever. He surrendered to profound grief, and despaired completely. Then he heard the news.
‘There’s a puppet on the throne… Hordes of prominent figures, religious scholars, local notables, and members of the cultural elite are flocking to pledge their fealty… France is now opening up a whole new page of absolute dependency.’
Abd al-Rahman surrendered to his misery. He avoided the crowds of prison
ers, and his nerves went to pieces; he was in shock. His fellow prisoners were sad to see how miserable he was. All signs of the sense of freedom they had been enjoying inside the prison now vanished, and they felt as if the responsibility they had disposed of had now been placed on their shoulders again – responsibility in its fiercest form. Now the crisis of conscience hit them, as though they were all Abd al-Rahman.
Abd al-Rahman was sitting on his own in the prison store. ‘Everything we’ve built has been destroyed,’ he told himself. ‘The current was simply too strong for our bridges made of sand. Even though we broadened our group, we didn’t include the populace in it. And they needed to be motivated again.’
‘The perfidy of the elite,’ a voice within him pointed out, ‘is what neutralised the impact of the people. The so-called government, the jurists, the lawyers, they’ve all lowered their heads and kissed the hands…’
‘But the elite has never been the gauge of the public conscience,’ Abd al-Rahman thought in response.
‘We’ve regressed by dozens of years,’ the same voice said. ‘Now the foreign occupation is complete.’
‘Don’t we bear some responsibility for that?’ Abd al-Rahman asked himself. ‘Weren’t we moving too fast?’ Now he rounded on the voice of his own conscience as though he had been stung. ‘The snake of betrayal is raising its nasty head,’ he thought. ‘It’s hissing and exuding poisons that are fouling your very soul.’
He now started pacing around the store as though trying to rid himself of these disturbing thoughts. But instead they became yet more insistent: ‘How can we take all those years that have thrown us backwards and use them to move ahead?’
The question kept coming back, but there was no glimmer of light to illuminate the darkness in front of his eyes. The questions went on. ‘Generations have been lost, and life’s gone back to the way it was. Is it even possible for us to begin afresh yet again…? The entire cognisant class in Morocco is either in prisons and internment camps or in exile. Now the foreigners will be able to demolish all the essential elements of our country.’
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