His destination on that day was Bab Ftouh, and he set off at break-neck speed. Namouss got there without a minute to spare. Dakhcha, a muscular man whose face had been ravaged by the pox, was just about to close the doors. Before letting the latecomer in, Dakhcha warned him he would have trouble finding a place. He was right, the movie theater was at full capacity. There was no hope of finding a seat. Namouss was forced to make do with the benches right at the front, which were almost on top of the screen. Even there, he had to haggle with the children already tightly squeezed into a tiny space for a sliver of bench barely large enough for one of his buttocks. For better or worse, he managed to wedge himself in. Then later he’d maneuver himself to create a bit more space. An opportune moment came when the cinema’s manager walked in and was welcomed by a roar of applause and cheers.
“Long live Bel Mokhtar!” the spectators shouted.
Some of the people next to Namouss carelessly stood up to better express their enthusiasm, allowing him to nonchalantly make his move. Mr. Bel Mokhtar got up on the stage. He called for silence and launched into a speech.
“Gentlemen, you’re only going to hear good news. You will love this week’s film. We had it sent from America. It features great actors. No idle chatter in this one, only action, and plenty of it. A hundred fists and two hundred gunshots – with both revolvers and rifles – and seven kisses. Have no fear, laâribi is going to face great dangers, but he will escape unscathed. At the end, he will marry l-bent who stood loyally by him through all his challenges. Next week’s film, which you will see a trailer of, will also be to your liking. Don’t worry. The same hero will return to take you on new adventures. He will marry a new heroine since the last one, poor thing – may God protect her soul – died in an accident. One last thing: Please remain calm should the reel snap or catch fire. We’ll fix it right away. I don’t want any mayhem, otherwise we’ll cut the film short. There you have it, I’ll leave you to it and see you next time.”
More cheering followed the end of the speech. Before long, the lights went out. Pathé’s robust rooster appeared on the screen and sounded its triumphant cock-a-doodle-doo.
“May God cut your throat!” one of the spectators cried at the top of his lungs.
Another spectator took the joking further and belched, emitting a stupendous burp, letting everyone know – all messages were coded – how he would have loved to feast on such a fleshy-looking bird.
The images that followed made the audience shut their beaks. The magic of the incomprehensible. They spoke of troubles in faraway lands: a flawlessly choreographed military parade, a grand dame baptizing the hull of a ship with a bottle, important men shaking hands, a factory where machines had replaced workers, a castle ballroom where a dance was being held, an ancient street where a blind man was playing the accordion. The rooster then crowed again before moving on to local news, where the images became more familiar. The audience loosened up and reacted to the images ad hoc. The appearance of a fellow Moroccan astride a donkey that was trotting along in the open countryside caused an outburst of hilarity.
“Cha!” someone shouted at the donkey.
“Rra!” another shouted.
“Tikouk, tikouk!” cried a third with a straight face, convinced that he would be able to startle the beast of burden.
Snap! It rolled to another scene. The donkey driver was now in a room, bare-chested. A French doctor was examining him. He made him open his mouth, pressed down on his biceps, turned him this way and that, and then finally swabbed his forearm. Snap-snap! A ceremony taking place in front of a caid’s tent. An officer heavily decked out in insignias and with a kepi on his head was pinning a medal to an official sporting a djellaba and a burnous. The voice-over specified that the Moroccan man in question was a close friend of France.
“Boo! Boo!” resounded through the room, then followed by a “Hush!”
Unable to hold it in any longer, some foolhardy loudmouth broke the silence and shouted, “Long live independence!”
The audience held its breath.
The next reel brought some much-needed relief before sparking allout jubilation. Could it be? Fez’s municipal stadium came into view followed by a few highlights from the match between MAS and Roches Noires. The reel focused primarily on the goal scored by the visitors and accorded only five seconds to Couscous’s equalizer. The whole room broke into the MAS chant to celebrate his feat:
We’re going to the stadium
Oh champions of ours
Pass us the ball
Don’t forget about us . . .
The trailer advertising the following week’s film restored a tenuous calm. Then came the long-awaited moment. The opening credits rolled, the atmosphere began to heat up. Thanks to his reputation as a man of the law, Gary Cooper was greeted as a hero. Regardless of his actions, as far as the public was concerned he could do no wrong. They urged him on whether he killed bandits or Indians. They warned him about gunmen lying in ambush that he hadn’t spotted, especially when they would sneak up on him from behind. When he gained the upper hand in a brawl and dealt his adversaries a decisive blow, they started to count the punches: five, six, seven . . . Needless to say, they were impatient to see the kisses too. Whistles and sucking sounds could be heard as soon as the heroine made her appearance. And when she hit it off with Gary Cooper and their lips drew close, most either sighed longingly or made quick-witted remarks that were accompanied by heavy slaps on their thighs.
“Drink up, cousin.”
“Oh take pity on me, little mother.”
“It’s God who provides.”
Namouss didn’t join in with these verbal excesses, but neither did they bother him much. He was a prude, though without being conscious of it. He would get swept away by the action, sure, but in between the shooting matches and fistfights, he’d take in other elements offered up quietly during the horseback rides and the dismounts: breathtaking mountains and rivers, the chiaroscuro sculpting faces at a campsite, and – why not? – the feelings that emerged, knotting and unknotting as the characters interacted on an emotional level. How free they were, tied down to nothing but where their thirst for adventure might lead them next. Could he not compare them with Driss, Ghita, and all the others? Which of these characters did he resemble the most? Who should he aspire to be? Not for a single moment did he question the reality of what he saw on the screen. In that sense, he wasn’t that far removed from the others in the audience all around him, who took this theater of shadows at face value.
CHANGE OF SCENE. Destination: the Boujeloud cinema. A different kind of atmosphere, and the venue for a very special occasion: Ghita’s initiation into the world of cinema, which Namouss witnesses in the company of his sister Zhor.
Driss spared no expense this time. He gave his wife enough money to purchase tickets for balcony seats so she could avoid mixing with the clientele on the ground floor, which consisted only of men. Namouss could hardly believe his eyes when the usher led them into an honest-to-God box, where seats upholstered in velour were waiting for them, and where he had an armchair all to himself that was larger and softer than the mattress he slept on. This uncustomary luxury was not without consequences. For a good part of the show, Namouss had to struggle against falling asleep and was only able to follow the narrative – and his mother’s reaction to it – intermittently.
When the lights went out and the first images flashed across the screen, Ghita’s reaction to it made her cinephile son smile.
“Wili, wili!” she exclaimed. “A power cut! We’re off to a good start. Are we going to watch the show in the dark or what? It’s as if we were at the hammam.”
Displaying a remarkable aptitude for pedagogy, Zhor shed some light on the situation.
“They have to switch the lights off at the cinema, Mother, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to see the images.”
“Oh good, I didn’t know that. But the dark makes my heart race, sweetheart.”
“Just be patient, d
ear Mother. Look, the film is starting. Here’s Farid al-Trash.”
“Is that him? That’s not how I imagined him. He has a crooked mouth. And he’s cross-eyed, too. You see that?”
“Stop it! He has a golden voice. Just wait until he starts to sing, then you’ll see.”
“What’s he waiting for then? He’s just babbling on and on and on. I can’t understand a word he’s saying.”
“He’s telling his friend that he’s going to meet a girl who has stolen his heart.”
“Where is she?”
“She’ll show up soon. It’s Samia Gamal, the dancer. You’ll spot her.”
“Finally someone’s going to show up! If you say he’s doe-eyed, then she must really be something.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet. Just wait until she starts dancing.”
“Why didn’t they start with that? Singing and dancing is what I like, it soothes my heart. I’ve had my fill of idle chatter. Come on, fellas, get a move on and treat us to some hypnotic dancing!”
“Here we go! Look!”
“Allah, that’s what I wanted! Oh yes! We haven’t wasted our money. Give thanks to the Prophet! Her skin is like ivory and she’s as slender as bamboo. Look at how she sways her hips! It’s as if she didn’t have any bones. May God make sure her parents guard her. But, tell me, is she going to marry that man with the crooked mouth? What a shame! He doesn’t deserve her. His friend would be a better match for her.”
“He’s already married, Mother.”
“So what? All he has to do is get divorced and marry Samia Gamal instead.”
“But she’s in love with Farid.”
“Girls today don’t have any taste, even when real beauty is right in front of their eyes. But it’s true, greed can blind you. That Farid must be very rich, that’s why she prefers him.”
“No, he’s actually poor, but she’s in love with his voice.”
“What voice? He brays like a donkey.”
“That’s enough now, Mother. Plenty of people go crazy over his voice.”
“I prefer Abdel Wahab’s voice. Next time we’ll go see his film. At least he’s a handsome man. He wears a fez and it suits him. As for this Farid, well, his head is so enormous. No fez would ever fit on that.”
AN INTERLUDE. Namouss has fallen asleep with the story of the fez in his ears. Another screen unrolls in his dream. He is at the El-Achabine cinema, and the long, pockmarked face of Eddie Constantine has replaced the smoother one of Farid al-Atrash. Lemmy Caution is wearing his legendary hat. He is sort of in love with a dancer who is playing both sides in a plot strewn with dead bodies. A suitcase full of money is at stake. The villain is a casino manager who loves animals and drinks Cinzano. Constantine is masterful at landing punches on his adversaries, each one tougher than the last. But then things take a turn for the worse. Constantine is suddenly surrounded by a bunch of burly henchmen in a cellar. They remove his hat and tie him to a chair. One of his captors pulls out a switchblade and points it at him. Close-up on the blade as it draws nearer and nearer. Gunfire is heard just in the nick of time. All hands on deck. One barely has the time to see Constantine free himself from his constraints and jump back into the fray before the image starts to skip, blur, and finally go up in smoke. The spectators howl. His eardrums feel like they are going to burst, but then Namouss opens his eyes and finds himself once again in the calm, cozy surroundings of the Boujeloud cinema. He takes a deep breath.
Much had happened in the course of the film. There was a big problem between Farid and his lady love. Farid was unkempt and unshaven as he sang a soul-shattering lament. Zhor was sniffing and crying, wiping her tears away with a handkerchief. Ghita seemed to be going through the same motions. She unjustly blamed Samia Gamal’s father for opposing his daughter’s marriage to Farid. Though she’d initially disliked him, she’d eventually turned her vitriol against the stone-hearted patriarch.
“That man is an enemy of God,” she said. “He has no pity or compassion. What’s to become of the poor?”
The next image pulled her from these considerations. Having finished his song, Farid, now in a café, was leaning his elbows on the counter. The bartender was pouring him glass after glass of a dubious-looking liquid. Ghita didn’t fail to notice this particular detail.
“Wili, wili!” she exclaimed. “What’s that he’s drinking?”
“A cordial to make him forget,” Zhor replied diplomatically.
“Go ahead and call it what is: wine. You think I don’t understand anything? The Egyptians are clearly sinners. That’s enough, we’re leaving! Otherwise we’ll be corrupted too.”
“It’s only a film,” Zhor said, trying to explain. “Farid is actually only drinking water mixed with red pigments.”
“That’s fine by me, but I’m still afraid. Fine, how long is there to go until the end? This is getting rather gloomy. You’d think we were at a funeral.”
“Don’t worry, Mother, good will prevail.”
“So are they going to get married?”
“Of course.”
“Will Samia come back to dance?”
“No, Farid won’t want that. He’ll insist she look after the house.”
“You’re right. But what a shame.”
Namouss had once again fallen into the arms of Morpheus. He woke up just in time to see Samia Gamal in a wedding dress with Farid, looking much happier, seated beside her, while a new dancer was swaying her hips in front of them. On her way out, Ghita had one last comment for Samia Gamal’s father, who hadn’t been able to prevent the young couple’s union: “I hope you die of shame, you old baboon!”
18
THAT’S ALL FOR Namouss.
Allow me now to retrace his footsteps and place myself back in the house in the Siaj neighborhood where I stayed the night of Si Mohammed’s wedding. The sandman came at the moment when Ghita ordered my brother to go back to the bridal chamber and “finish the job” that by his own admission he’d botched. I don’t know what happened after that, not even if his efforts were crowned with success. I had mentioned at the time that I had nothing to say on the subject of that questionable ritual involving the display of the bloodied sarouels.
Over the course of the following days, I felt a sense of relief take hold around me. Not that anyone was actually cheerful. It seemed that one needed to exercise the utmost self-restraint during those dark days the country was going through. Ghita was of the opinion that something fishy was going on. It hadn’t quite slipped my mind that ever since we’d received those written threats, my mother had seriously begun to strain against the reins, giving vent to her anger against the nationalists who were standing in the way of her celebrating her son’s wedding in style.
I’d only understood dribs and drabs of the reasons for this change of heart. The most salient of these was her desire to make plain for all to see, from the very first days, how committed she was to her new role of mother-in-law. She needed to start her relationship with her daughter-in-law off on the right foot, ensure that their respective roles were firmly defined, and impress upon her who was boss. Gone were the smiles, the caresses, and the convoluted pleasantries. The only line she dared not cross was not addressing the girl by the title to which she was entitled by virtue of being one of the Prophet’s descendants. Ghita therefore continued calling her daughter-in-law “Lalla” Zineb. But that’s as far as it went. Having waited for three days, she announced on the fourth that it was time for her daughter-in-law to roll up her sleeves and take on her fair share of the domestic chores. She wanted to put the qualities the girl’s mother had raved about during that preliminary visit to the test. “Let’s see if her hands really are made out of gold,” she said. So Ghita – rather unimaginatively – made recourse to the classic test used in such circumstances: the preparation of shad. A veritable trap for someone with little experience in the kitchen. This was because the chabel was a noble fish and could not be handled as if it were a common sardine or whiting. Once scaled, one
had to scrub the skin until it was smooth, carefully gut it, gather its eggs without breaking them, chop off the head and tail just at the right place, slice it into even pieces, then wash it three times with salt water in order to blanch the skin and get rid of the smell, which was considered too strong, and leave it to drip dry. One could then begin preparing the marinade: a lovely bouquet of coriander, cloves of garlic, capsicum, a pinch of hot chili pepper, cumin, salt, oil, and vinegar. One could spot the expert cook if she used the right proportion of ingredients, as well as by the consistency of the resulting paste. Assuming that the marinade went well, one would have to move on to the most delicate step: the actual cooking. One would have to coat the slices of fish just so and, before frying them, know how to get the timing just right so that they wouldn’t be too tepid or too scalding when they were finally served. While the slices were being cooked, one had to beware they wouldn’t lose their shape and retained a crisp, golden crust.
The Bottom of the Jar Page 16