Then, one night, I see my parents dressed in white as though they were returning from Mecca. My mother is crying, my father is gesturing as if to calm me. They speak but I cannot hear their voices. The more I approach them, the farther away they are. White is an evil omen, it’s the color of mourning. Later I will learn that Nadia, my eighteen-year-old niece, died asphyxiated by gas fumes while taking her bath.
More than a year without music. Does anyone care? Around me, no one complains about it. I mention it but find no sympathetic and complicit ear. I call upon my memory and by concentrating can hear the first flights of some John Coltrane. Then I review the songs of Léo Ferré and Jean Ferrat. I make a huge effort to recover the rhythms, chords, rhymes, and words. I remember the poems of Aragon interpreted by my two favorite singers.1 I go astray; I am not concentrating enough; the songs withdraw into a complete silence: they are no longer anything but memories of memories. I try to conjure up movies again. I concentrate and I say “Lights, camera, action!” . . . It’s Marcel Carné’s Children of Paradise.2 The images stream by but not the sound. It’s strange. Suddenly I recognize the inimitable voice of the great Jean-Louis Barrault. Then nothing more. The film goes away. The screen is all white, and I fall asleep.
Rumors. Hamadi is leaving. Hamadi has been promoted; he will no longer oversee those punished by the king, a degrading task. Hamadi is ill; the king supposedly sent him on the pilgrimage to Mecca. Hamadi is getting married. Hamadi has been made a military advisor at the Moroccan embassy in Washington. Hamadi is in prison. In short, hearsay abounds and changes every day. What is certain is that Hamadi has left Ahermoumou. No one has seen him. There is no light in his office or residence. He has left. His absence is evident. The soldiers no longer move on the double. A sign of laxity. The terror is gone. Hamadi has been summoned by Oufkir: promotion or punishment?
His replacements arrived while we slept, in the middle of the night: Commandant Ababou and his assistant, Chief Warrant Officer Akka.
Assembly at seven. Ababou, followed by Akka, reviews the ranks. They are both in a bad mood. Not one smile, not one word. They’re tense. Promotion or punishment? Both, apparently. They’re moving from the camp at El Hajeb to the military training academy . . . but they’re in charge of those punished by the king. Not really an advancement. We’ll find out right away. Ababou addresses us:
“Here we all are again. This time the correction must be impeccable. No weakness, no sloppiness: I will be ruthless. Your training is not over. Commandant Hamadi—excuse me, Lieutenant Colonel Hamadi—has been appointed to other functions. I noticed that there has been some slackening off in the ranks. This is unacceptable. So everyone on the double, we’re going to run, you will run in place for an hour without stopping. I leave you with Chief Warrant Officer Akka. Attennnntion! At ease and one two, one two, faster, really step on it!”
Ababou disappears. Akka yells and strikes one or another of us with his baton now and then. A gratuitous blow just to remind us that he likes to lash out abusively.
“As my superior Commandant Ababou says,” he shouts, ‘No pity for weaklings!’ You’re all weaklings, wet rags!”
We begin to miss Hamadi. For Ababou seems possessed by rancor, resentment, and even hatred. He isn’t pleased to be here, and vents all his nervous tension on us. He’s compelled to do this. Strange: he didn’t invoke the name of the king. He must simply have forgotten. We run, we run, Akka behind us with a baton. Hearts pounding. This isn’t the moment to break down, to fall. We must hang on. The smokers are the ones who collapse first, which allows Akka to kick them. They get up and fall again. He insults them, calls them faggots, pathetic wimps . . .
Tough day. After the run, we go off for improvised maneuvers, which are really just to keep us busy and make us sweat. We’re back in the old camp routines. Akka is furious, and in front of everyone he humiliates a staff sergeant who has disrespectfully forgotten to salute him. Shortly thereafter, a lieutenant gathers us together and advises us to say nothing: “You haven’t seen a thing, you have nothing to report.”
After Ababou returned, reveille was moved forward an hour. At five we are on a war footing. A permanent tension maintained by Akka. “Just what will he be able to do with us?” wonders the unlucky sergeant. Well, here’s one idea: surprise one of our own sections outside our cohort and attack it.
“I’ve learned that Section D has gone off into the countryside for a picnic. Can you imagine? A picnic! So our commandant has decided that you will go flush them out while they’re enjoying themselves. That’ll teach them to let their guard down. Distribution of weapons, backpack, helmet, departure in fourteen minutes.”
We leave the school heading on the double for a plain on the other side of the mountain. It’s hot. No rest. We run, led by Akka. He is indomitable. As we advance, he gives a speech intended to energize us.
“The country is in danger, His Majesty is in danger, we have to intervene, to quickly defeat the plot. So while they’re having fun eating fancy dishes and enjoying nice drinks, we’ll surprise them: don’t hesitate, shoot them, we’re at war, we’ve no choice, come on, one two, one two . . .”
I ask myself, Is he crazy? I say nothing and I run. My rifle is heavy, my backpack is heavy, the heat adds weight to everything. How is it possible that a section of the school could dare to attack the king? It’s insane. Yes, Akka really is crazy and dangerous. I remain alert. When we reach the place of the supposed picnic, no one is there. It’s a joke. Akka is furious. He was misinformed. He tries to save face.
“It was simply a way of motivating you to reach a goal. I hope you will always be ready to save our country. Repeat after me,” he shouts: “Allah, Al Watan, Al Malik!” God, the Nation, the King.
We automatically repeat that motto written everywhere on the walls of the academy.
A quarter hour to rest; then back to the academy. Along the way I try to figure out where Akka gets his authority: although only a warrant officer, he has more power than a captain. Perhaps he owes his life or his career to Ababou, who controls him and at the same time trusts him completely. There must be a pact between them, something signed in blood.
The first days of October 1967. The mountain is beautiful, the trees stand fast, unshakable. The sky is pale blue. I hear the diesel engine of a country bus. I love this noise that reminds me of trips between Tangier and Casablanca, between Fez and Tangier. Once more I catch myself breathing in this smell of low-grade fuel that intoxicates me beyond all logic. I think of where I’ve been during the beginning of the university school year. I imagine our metaphysics professor, M. Chenu, explaining texts by Nietzsche; I remember his passion for Kant and his lyrical effusions when expounding on Heidegger. All that is far away. I remember things, but cannot even begin to formulate a philosophical argument. This environment distances us from the world, from intelligence, subtlety, it makes us strangers to the realm of spirituality, knowledge, and the exchange of ideas. Here, no thoughts, no ideas, only more and more stupid orders with an edge of cruelty along the way. Poets and philosophers here are undesirables: unthinkable, excluded. We are reduced to our basest instincts, our bestial, animal, unconscious elements. They’ve done everything to strip us of what engages us to think, to reflect. At night I struggle with myself, trying not to become like my three roommates, who resemble military robots. They accept everything without flinching, as if their brains had been left in the luggage locker of some derelict station. They are here, content with what they have become, passing the time joking around and preparing to be good little soldiers under the commandant’s orders.
There’s no chance of deceiving that man. I am quite alone. I have no one to confide in, to talk to, so I talk to myself, and I’m afraid I’ll go mad in the end. Rachid, a former mathematics teacher, has lost his mind. They shut him up in a room all alone and he beats his head against the walls. He’s a good man, quite thin, frail and discreet. I don’t know how things suddenly turned serious. One day he did not get out of bed, r
efused to eat. “He wants to quit work and go on hunger strike,” shouted Akka, “but here there’s no such thing. I’m going to put him through the wringer until he forgets even his name . . .” That’s exactly what happened: Rachid no longer knows his name or where he is. He’ll look at us haggardly, then lie down on the floor, curl up tightly, and lie silent and still.
I think about my ex-fiancée, who must be blissfully in love with a young man who’s free and well off. I’m not angry at her, but it hurts when her image invades my thoughts. Wait: yes, I am angry at her, I detest her, I hate her. A beautiful woman, rebellious, insolent, a free spirit, as my older brother says. Would I try to see her again if I’m set free one day? I don’t know. No one has ever seen a love affair rekindled thanks to explanations! It’s past history. Should be forgotten, completely.
I’m told that Rachid was sent home to his family. Will he regain his reason there? Probably. Some claim he faked madness to escape that prison. Everything is possible: we’re in a world where nothing functions normally. Soldiers are anesthetized, their officers are half demented. They, too, are punished.
Akka is nervous; he comes and goes with his hands clasped behind his back. Ababou is not pleased. The story of the surprise attack did not go over well with the commandant. We get scraps of information from the staff of the canteen. Their ears stretch everywhere.
We’re given to understand that something is going on: a different camp, even more arduous maneuvers, or several days’ leave, or the commandant is getting married, or Akka is sending his wife back up country . . . A strange atmosphere. The sky is gray. This autumn seems like an early winter. It’s cold. A rabid dog bit a sergeant, who was sent to the hospital in Rabat. Akka set out with a few soldiers to hunt dogs and he killed a few. It seems that prostitutes visited some young officers, which was discovered when a lieutenant developed virulent blennorrhagia. He went off to Rabat as well. Ababou is angry. Headquarters is not communicating. He feels isolated. And now he invites the main politicals over for dinner. There are three, all members of leftist parties. They are serious, take themselves seriously, and think they can teach the commandant something. They are naive. They inform us afterward that Ababou is a leftist: it seems he confessed to them how distasteful he found his duties as a prison warden. They believed him. He was testing them. They failed to realize that he is shrewder, more prudent than they are. I can see that Ababou is a complicated man of whom one should be wary, but I have no say in the matter. I’m only a grassroots activist, a student who believes in justice and the law. It appears that in his home the commandant has a picture of Oufkir, autographed like the photos of movie stars. Oufkir! That’s dreadful! They say his wife is quite lovely and that he shares her with the king. They say so many things . . . Who could verify the truth of everything people say? I don’t see myself gravely asking General Oufkir if his wife really is the mistress of Hassan II. Solitude makes us think about shameful things. What do I have to do with the wife of this general reputed to be a killer? Nothing. Better just drop it. But if I were a superman, I would park him on a chair and grill him about his hand in the disappearance of Mehdi Ben Barka.
Beginning in mid-November, the rumors about our release become insistent. The doctor who arrives every Friday has the best information. Dr. Noury comes from a poor family in the north of Morocco. Only the army offered him any financial aid for his medical studies, so he became an army doctor. He told one of the politicals that some higher-ups at headquarters took a dim view of our “punishment,” that two officers had even argued bitterly about it, and that the Palace had gotten wind of the business. At the same time, our release poses a problem: now that we have suffered so much mistreatment, it would be hard to keep us completely quiet about how His Majesty’s army deals with the young people of our nation. Commandant Ababou has supposedly received very specific orders to prepare for our release from prison: better food, no more frequent and dangerous maneuvers, and we’ll be allowed to go on leave. In short, they want to treat us better to make us forget what we have endured.
An ambitious program. Akka distributes packs of playing cards and cartons of Troupe cigarettes, has our bedding changed, and asks us not to shave our heads anymore. His honeyed words are completely false and hypocritical.
These new measures provoke worried discussions among us. The politicals, who are often summoned by Ababou, report that he says the whole situation was forced on him by certain important noncommissioned officers and that, anyway, he has taught us things that we’ll find useful one day. He believes in the importance of “military service” and insists that it wasn’t punishment, just military training a bit tougher than usual, and that when he himself was in boot camp, he had it worse than we do . . .
Abruptly, at the beginning of December, a new reversal of our situation. The decks of cards are collected, our food is again crummy and insufficient, Akka puts us back on the double, and his tone turns hard and threatening.
It’s snowing on Ahermoumou. We’re very cold. The officers’ quarters are heated. A guy from Sefrou confirms it: he spent the night with Lieutenant L., who likes boys. Our fellow has managed to worm some things out of him while sleeping with him. Our release seems to be imminent. Certain bigwig officers at headquarters don’t like the Royal Army being used for extortion and settling political scores. The order has supposedly been given to release everyone. But the commandant doesn’t see things that way. He’s dragging things out and prolonging our sufferings through below-freezing temperatures. Every day, one of us is summoned to receive a morale lecture and a warning that if he talks when he gets out, the commandant will bring him back to endure terrible tortures. Then he has him sign a letter affirming that he has spent his military service under good conditions, and thanking the Royal Army for its warm welcome and kind treatment . . .
We organize a secret meeting to refuse to sign that piece of junk. We don’t invite the fellow from Sefrou, the lieutenant’s little friend. Impossible to take the risk of pillow talk ruining our plan. A watchword makes the rounds: sign nothing.
We carry the day. No more signatures. The commandant gives up. Orders have arrived from Rabat to speed up our release. The commandant drags things out as much as he can, releasing four to six of us a week. The threats are all made viva voce. Before leaving the school, a medical checkup. We are not ill, but our general condition is not good. Our morale in particular has suffered, although the idea of regaining our freedom does give us some hope. We’re afraid of traps. No confidence in these dirty brutes. We don’t know how Ababou and Akka choose whom to release. No logic, no criteria. We wait. I realize that our trials have not created any bonds, any friendships: we put up with one another, but don’t talk about getting together again in civilian life. That’s normal, it seems. See one another again? Why? To remember the long days of sadness, exhaustion, and misery? We’re still anxious among ourselves for no precise reason. I retreat into silence, do not participate in animated discussions—there’s no point to them. I’m afraid they will keep us here; anything is possible. At night I have more and more explicit nightmares: imprisoned for life, fear, cries, chaos, madness . . . I’m surrounded by rats; I hate those creatures, I’m allergic even to the sight of them. Rats and moles, they’re at home in this prison—I’m an intruder who disturbs them. Some bite me, others lick my face, I scream for help, no one comes, I’ve no more voice, no sound comes out of my throat, the rats dance and laugh, whirling around me, their new prey, I feel tired, I’m done for, I let myself be devoured, and I die in my sleep. My shrieks awaken my three companions. Each has had this kind of dream. Usually we don’t talk about them, in an effort, perhaps, to ward off their malignant power. Even bone weary, we don’t sleep well. We’re eaten away inside by the turn our fortunes seem to be taking. How will this “military service” imprisonment end? Getting out, yes, but when, and in what state? I have evil premonitions. Maybe the truck taking us back to the city will lose its brakes and wind up in a ravine. An accident. They’ll tell
our parents, “It’s God’s will!” I try to go back to sleep and forget the maybe-out-of-control truck. I find rest by focusing my thoughts only on my grandmother Lalla Malika, whom I dearly love.
In the morning, I look at myself in the mirror: I’m thinner, pale, bleary-eyed. Need air, need to take a hot bath, need to drink some good coffee and go for a walk. I feel sick, have a nervous fit; someone mentions epilepsy; I’m taken to the infirmary. The doctor isn’t there yet. I’m given hot coffee and stretched out under a blanket smelling of naphthalene. My heart is pounding. “You have to be sent home,” the doctor says, “it’s the only remedy.” For once, I believe it: I know that I’ll be leaving this accursed place, I know that if I don’t get out I will make the walls pull back of their own accord. I smell the odor of those little white mothballs that repel fleas and mites. It’s the last stink I will carry away from this prison.
I am strong, I’m no longer afraid, I know that we have triumphed over those who tried to bring us to heel, I leave with the sure knowledge that they are pathetic wretches, the garbage of this army that fosters a deep racism between those of the South, the Amazigh, and those of the North, the Rif; between the people of the cities and those of the countryside, between those who can read and write and those who jabber in anger. I take off my army clothes. They hand me back a bag containing my white shirt and my gray trousers. They’re dirty. So what. After nineteen months, they’re too big for me. I put them on. I’ve lost a good twenty-two pounds. I wait for my papers. In Administration I see Captain Allioua, the one who tore up my medical exemption certificate. He hasn’t changed: a fake smile, dead eyes, the indifference of those from the North. He wants to say a few words; I don’t listen. A pile of red tape. Stamps, signatures, remarks . . . When we part he stares at me with a finger to his lips: Not one peep! Yes, silence, we won’t denounce you, you bunch of bastards, no, we’ll paint an idyllic picture of our stay, young men will rush to join an army that punishes instead of educating, that terrorizes instead of unveiling new horizons, an army where they recruit psychopaths instead of sending them to consult Dr. Benaboud, an excellent psychiatrist, a humanist, and a philosopher who lives in Salé, just outside Rabat.
The Punishment Page 8