A Shimmering Red Fish

by Youssef Fadel

  His name is Rihane. Rihane and I pass by the workshop. I cast a glance at the empty mailbox, and then we cross the mosque’s courtyard, heading toward the beach like two old friends. Fishermen stand on the distant rocks thinking about the migratory fish. Have all of them caught their share so that they can now sit and relax with peace of mind? A few steps away fish is being prepared in the adjacent shops. This is what it smells like. Shops selling fried fish, eggplant, and potatoes are scattered about here and there, and inundate the place with their smells. Deep inside their gloomy interiors, certificates shine in their gilded frames—His throne was on the water. We pass by some shacks. The children who play in front of them stop playing and step back—stunned, frightened, nervous—until Rihane and I pass. The same strength that feeds the pit bull’s muscles flows through my body. I prefer Rihane’s companionship a thousand times more than Kika’s.

  I don’t brush his fur from my clothes, which are covered with his reddish-brown hair that’s been accumulating these past two weeks. It’s as if I’ve grown the same fur. My gait resembles his and my head sways to the rhythm of his steps so much that I don’t recognize myself as I walk next to him. I feel like claws have appeared in place of my fingernails and toenails, and my muscles have started to bulge and become hard as wood. Cautious, on guard, sprightly. I’ve grown a small tail, which I wag cheerfully. Can the poor losers passing by see it? Instead of my own blood, Rihane’s blood flows through my veins. It flows like a full, rushing pack of vicious dogs. For close to two weeks I’ve forgotten all about the mosque and everything to do with it. In truth, the feeling that no one loved me and ambivalence toward my very existence became as sharp as the magical effect Rihane’s presence imposed on me. I am now truly changed. After all the time I have spent with him these past two weeks, I have learned many things—that sleeping outside is no more frightening than sleeping in a comfortable bed, for example, or that human flesh is sweet, especially the fingers, and other equally important bits of information. I tell him stories that make him laugh for a long time—about the copper pipes that Kika and I stole; about Farah, who ran away with my share of the money from the pipes; about Father and his ceiling that disappeared before he could finish it. I spend my days walking up and down the alleyways. Rihane walks next to me, licking the sides of his mouth. We’re happy together. Cocky together, as we scare the little kids, rifling through their wallets and taking their money if they have any.

  We go places I hadn’t known about before, each one stranger than the last. One time, he takes me to an odd place—a tall, black, three-story building hidden among some high eucalyptus trees. He tells me, “There are hundreds of secret prisoners crammed inside these walls.” I look up at the windows. Small open windows covered with steel bars that are hung with drying underwear. There isn’t a window that doesn’t have a woman’s blouse or pants, or children’s clothes. What strikes me about it is that entire families, including children, have been thrown behind these bars. Then he says, “These are the apartments for the guards’ families. The cells are in the basement. The guards’ families live above them. They can’t get away from them, like birds that are unable to live far from the swamp. The prisoners are thrown into subterranean vaults. Dark halls that are dank from humidity and crawling with rats. They remain lying down day and night. Hands bound, blindfolded, forbidden to stand, sit, or speak.” I wonder if they were imprisoned because they hadn’t contributed their share to the building of the mosque. Rihane says, “Pretty much,” and adds that he had guarded the gate in front of us for six months, before they transferred him following this depressing and disturbing visit. We go to the section where Rihane now works. There’s always a fat man in front of the door. Sometimes the fat man is happy enough to shoo us away. Sometimes the office is locked for no reason—it isn’t Friday or Sunday—but then it might happen that the office is open. In those cases, we look in and find it empty. We stand there for a while looking at the gray office and the papers strewn about on top of the only desk and all over the cement floor. Just to prove to me that working at the information desk no longer matters to him, he grabs a piece of paper and swallows it without chewing. I have nothing to prove. I try to recall events that were just as strange, but I have nothing to tell or show him. Sometimes I say to him, “Come on, let’s look at the fig tree that’s losing what’s left of its leaves.” We play in the dried leaves until we get tired, like two nature lovers. That’s all I can do. I pick up a piece of paper from the desk and toss it into my mouth.

  Then we arrive at the Sunday market. We can hear the dogs barking before the market comes into view, before I buy the birds that Rihane will swallow for the rest of the day and in the days to come. We check out the vendors. The dog sellers come first because they’ve been inundating the sidewalk since dawn and now they’re completely blocking the entrance to the market with their dogs, bikes, carts, and smells. I really like this place where people and animals exist naturally side by side. We walk along together on the same sidewalk, toward the same goal, side by side, accomplices, moving up and down the rows as if walking around a bazaar or in a public park. Barking comes at us from every direction, through the air and from under the ground, from places I can’t even see, as if the spirits of all the dogs that had passed through here were still flying above us, filling the place with their cacophonous presence. All sorts of dogs mill about, tied to the market fence or standing without a leash, on the lookout for anyone who might buy them, looking deceivingly friendly. Some sit next to their owners, eating bread or soup with them as if in a popular café. Others wag their tails as soon as we stop in front of them, thinking we’re new buyers. Puppies in cardboard boxes, stepping all over one another, their eyes closed, not having yet seen the light. Then come the pigeon and bird sellers. Goldfinches are the most plentiful. There are hundreds of them, stuffed into narrow boxes like mice. They still flap their wings, futilely searching for a way out, knocking into the sides of the cages, thinking they can fly away. Caught in a trap last night or the night before, and they still think there’s a possibility of returning to where they came from. Kika and I used to catch dozens of them because they travel together. They drink water together and they fall into traps together. Rihane strolls next to me with a dignified manner, like someone who still has all the time in the world to choose which restaurant to go to. Indifferent. A judicious walk. No sign of impatience. He doesn’t even turn to look at the birds that jump around on top of one another and call out from underneath the nets covering them. I buy six birds and stuff them into a cardboard box, poking holes in it so they can breathe for what remains of their lives. Before they come to rest between Rihane’s jaws.

  13

  I can’t think of the house Father settled into without remembering the smell of wood everywhere. It was originally an inn with lots of interconnected rooms. It was built about a century ago on the edge of the old city, flush against the walls surrounding it on the western side. I pass through the doorway at Bab Marrakech and plunge deeply into the alleys of the old city. A plucked chicken—wounded, without feathers, with broken wings and paralyzed legs, blue spots on its yellowed skin, bare, miserable—looks out from between the bars of a battered cage. It doesn’t seem to be in the slightest bit of pain. Despite its injuries, it seems calm and clearheaded, waiting for whoever will end up eating it as if waiting for a savior. I don’t like how it looks at all, nor how those yelling at it so wretchedly look, either. I forget about it. I try to forget its repulsive smell, that disgusting smell that hits you as soon as you enter the alley. Bab Marrakech begins right here. At this smell. I speed up in order to move past it. Luckily, after a little bit, the smell of fish will allow me to forget all about the chicken and its miserable life. To forget about it, I think about Maymouna too. I call her Aunt Maymouna so as not to think about her in any other way. Sometimes I consider her Father’s new wife. She lives with him without any documentation, like all the women who came before her. Ever since the woodworking tools went si
lent and we left this house five years ago, women have come and gone with no set schedule. They live with him for six or seven months, without ululations or rituals or marriage papers or anything of the sort, and then they go back home the same way they came—without papers, pockets empty, their heads filled with the stupid stories he tells them, always the same stories. He tells them about the years he had lived the easy life and about the influential people whose palaces he has worked in. I’m not sure what appeals to them about a man older than sixty. His hands shake. His teeth fell out a quarter century ago. No money or status. The only thing he knows how to do is tell stories about his past glories, along with tales of things that had never occurred, adding details that never happened. He has an old set of dentures in his mouth, left over from more prosperous days, which he places in a cup of water before going to sleep. The women enjoy these made-up stories. They’re enthralled by the lies. They picture themselves sitting at his make-believe gatherings with princes and ministers and other men of high standing, warming themselves like he does in front of the fire of their false greatness. I think they picture him sitting atop a great fortune that someday, they’ll inherit some or all of it. That’s the impression he gives, which is why they stay with him for so long. There can be no other reason. Also, I call her his wife so as not to call her by another name that would only make Father mad. Instead of the invigorating smell of fish, I find myself surrounded by the smell of mint. This is the biggest disappointment I have felt all morning.

  The paint has worn off and many of the ceilings have caved in. The house’s interior resembles a small, ravaged village with its deteriorating walls, pockmarked pillars, and exposed steel that look like the ribs of a corpse. Window frames have fallen out. Chickens have left droppings everywhere. When we were small, the woodworking tools ran day and night before they finally fell silent. Suleiman and I stopped hiding behind the thicket of wood that filled all the floors of the house. The smell of cut wood remained nonetheless, but without the refreshing moistness it used to have. Now, mixed with the droppings of chickens and birds that came in from everywhere, the smell has turned humid, rotten. The strong smell sticks in the throat like a tiny germ, and that’s what I feel rising from it now as I look at the house. Between me and the house there’s an open area covered with dirt, cactuses, and wild thorns, along with an old barbed-wire fence. Our echoing footsteps used to fill the yard with happiness, but now it is empty and silent, floating in a depressing calm under a light mist.

  Father isn’t there. In the middle of his room there’s a desk and two chairs. I picture him sitting there. A large, imposing desk constructed of good, thick wood. Heaped on top of his desk are pens, torn-up papers, inkwells, and folders, along with a cup of stale coffee and some crumbs. There are pieces of dried cookie all over the desk and scattered on the floor. A long line of ants takes advantage of the emptiness to carry their booty back to their storehouses. Maymouna sits on one of the chairs painting her nails, with her foot on the edge of the other chair. She’s the one who said that Father isn’t there. Her arms are bare, just as I’d imagined they would be when I was in the market a little while ago. What are her pinched lips doing? Are they tracing the brush’s movement as she applies the red polish to her nails? Should I keep looking at her nails with the smell of alcohol wafting up from them? Then Maymouna gets up. She casts a not-so-innocent look in my direction. She says that two days ago, my father had picked up his tools and left. Her words suggest the opposite of what she is saying, as do the way she walks and looks at me. Her clothes are practically see-through, her panties visible. This Maymouna is still young and alluring, and she is lying. She likes to play like a kitten, and she looks like a cat as she jumps up from the chair and leaves the room with me hopping along behind her like another cat that wants to play with her. I’m not at all surprised to see that the hallways have been invaded by black-skinned renters: by their women and children; by their brightly colored clothes; by the strong odors of their cooking; by the smell of onions and bluefish. I figure Father has disappeared into some corner or another of the house. I tiptoe carefully. I turn the doorknob to one of the rooms and it opens up. From inside, large eyes peer out. Doors are open. Many doors, and just as many shining white eyes. I ask her how much rent Father is charging for the rooms. She doesn’t respond. I walk ahead of her so I can look for him on another landing. The rustling of her clothes catches up to me. Then I hear her say, “The old man. No one knows where he went.” She says she doesn’t even know if he’s coming back because he took his clothes with him too. Her tender years make her lies acceptable, likable even. Her clothes, behind me, then in front of me, don’t stop swishing. I’m not thinking about my father or his disappearance. Like her, I’m no longer searching for anything. For the time being, I’m not concerned with Father. I move through these twisty hallways and decrepit stairways that are brimming with bare-chested black people. An entire African tribe has taken up residence in this abandoned inn, but nothing matters to me anymore other than her body undulating behind me, in front of me, all around me, in my head. This morning I left the ocean behind, and here I am returning to it with a practically naked woman, swaying in the shadows of ancient hallways that are ready to collapse. Her waves shake me, throwing me onto the sand, and then they come back to drag me down into the depths of the crashing sea. The rooms are filled to capacity, there isn’t a single room free of them and their eyes that shine from deep in the darkness, or their boisterous naked children. And me? What do I want from her in the end? I ask her if she likes children. She rushes off. Her body in front of me urges me to ask again. She moves ahead, swaggering like one of the queens of ancient Ethiopia. I catch up to her like a king from the same timeworn Ethiopia. A bunch of clucking chickens runs between our legs. When she stops at the door of the room she has just come out of she raises her skirt above her knees and says, “Come look at my toenails.” But instead of looking at her nails, I look at her knees that shine in the darkness, my blood boiling as I count one, two, three. I’m about to pounce on her but I don’t, because the children burst in. She laughs loudly. We go into a second, empty room. Father isn’t anywhere in the room or in my thoughts. It doesn’t seem like she’s looking for him either. She just wants to lose herself. I hear her say, “Over here, over here,” but I can’t see her. I hear her clucking, and see her lying down on a box motioning for me to come closer. That’s when I realize that the chicken under the box is what’s making the clucking sound. She puts her hand out and in it there’s an egg that the chicken sitting underneath the box has just laid. She giggles and runs away. I search for the egg in another room until I forget about it. I hear her cursing Father, calling him the devil. I don’t know why she calls him that. I go into a dark room. It’s so dark I can’t see her. I can hear her moving behind me, or in front of me, or in my mind. Enthusiastically, I do as she does. I count one, two, three. I’m about to pounce, but I don’t. I feel her hand on my shoulder. This time I’m the one who moves back toward the door. I hear her say, “Come.” I don’t move. I hear what sounds like a cat’s groan when it twists and stretches, or it could be a snake. She stops under a beam of light and pulls her skirt up high. She moans and flicks her tongue in her mouth like a young viper. In the other room she sat crying next to the window where I could see her and the black kohl from her eyes running over her cheeks in long, crooked lines. Was her nail polish also running? I walk over to her. I touch her. “Everything all right?” “Don’t take pity on me.” She says she’s miserable in this dump and that she’s going to leave Father today. I hear her say that Father is working in the back garage, and she wipes her face and lets out a loud laugh. I think about jumping her—I count one, two, three—but I don’t because she’s left the room. This third room is dark too, or is it the fourth? Then I hear the tools, so I stop playing around. I pause for a moment with my eyes closed in order to listen more closely so I don’t lose the music of the tools as it penetrates the walls and flows through the halls.