A Shimmering Red Fish

by Youssef Fadel

  “I want my things.”

  Mother had bought her a double bed and a refrigerator when she went to live with Omar, or Hassan, or Hussein. “But the room is empty. Empty, sister.” Except for the bed. No cabinets, no refrigerator, no dishes. Khadija said, “He sold everything.”

  “The refrigerator?”

  “He sold it.”

  Omar, or Hassan, or Hussein said that the dishes weren’t good for anything since they didn’t cook at all.

  “And the bed?”

  “What about the bed?”

  “I want my bed.”

  I told him that Khadija wanted her bed. He replied that the bed wouldn’t fit through the door because it was too narrow. But hadn’t it gone in through the same door? Did it come in through the roof? The man who looked like he had an intestine between his legs stood there solemnly, looking at the door as if he were seriously thinking it over. Then he said, “Go ahead and try.” Surely he was being sarcastic. The sarcasm of someone who knew that the bed was bigger than the door. That was how I found myself measuring the bed’s dimensions against those of the door opening. First by eyeballing it, then with my arms. This time I didn’t ask him how the bed had fit into this room because it would only make The Intestine mock me more. I didn’t want to give him the chance to mock us. If only Kika were here. But Khadija wasn’t going to leave without her bed. “Her bed won’t fit through the door,” The Intestine said, laughing as he straightened the covering wrapped around his waist. Happy now that he was done with his nightmare. He headed toward the room, walking like a triumphant pimp. Khadija remained standing in the doorway, determined to take her bed before Omar, or Hassan, or Hussein sold it to some other man to sleep on with some other woman in some strange house she’d know nothing about. I stood there waiting. I no longer thought about how that bed had gotten through this door. I no longer wondered how the bed had grown larger than the door. All I was thinking about was why such a wide bed was so important. What use did she have for a double bed that only she would sleep on? Then I thought about the wisdom behind the invention of these sorts of beds; a bed wide enough for two people who don’t know one another. I thought about why a man and a woman needed to be in the same bed at all. What was the wisdom in remaining attached to one another for thirty or forty years? Who says that they have to live a full lifetime in the same bed? It’s not as if this custom can be found in any book. Khadija says that she won’t leave without the bed, because it’s her bed.

  19

  She was sleeping inside the workshop. The rain had stopped early. At dawn. It didn’t stop completely. At ten it turned into a light drizzle. My thoughts were calm and peace of mind washed over me. I stood in front of the mirror and flexed my left hand to see how solid it was. It was as muscular as could be. I was fine. When I heard something rattling outside I stopped moving and listened. I wondered if there was someone at the door. Then a light knock made me more than wonder. I was really terrified that the knocking or the person knocking had something to do with her. I took a look at her as if to assure myself she was still there. Then I walked toward the door and placed my ear against the wood, but I didn’t hear any sound or movement. I peered out the window but didn’t see anything in particular. The courtyard in front of the workshop was empty. The ocean below had turned back to gray. The sky seemed to have descended and turned gray too. We were at the start of a dark day that would bring little light. Gray clouds had rolled in over the workshop, the courtyard, the ocean, and the mosque. I put out the lamp that was still lit and opened the door, only to see the dog Rihane, or rather his corpse, laid out straight, his tongue limp and hanging out of his mouth. It caused me to take a step back. His lifeless legs were outstretched on the dirt. His eyes were half closed, flat and lusterless like two pieces of cheap glass. I stepped out of the workshop. Perhaps someone had thrown him onto the doorstep and run away. No one was there. I went back to Rihane and turned around to see if Farah had woken up. Then I satisfied myself with sitting on the rocks, thinking about his unfortunate and unexpected end. There were no wounds on his body. Maybe he died by poisoning. What use were the precautions he had always taken? And why would he come to my door to die? Perhaps his presence on my doorstep was some sort of threat, a way of telling me that there was no way out of paying my share of the construction, which was just about finished. Or maybe his death had something to do with how he felt about the job he was no longer doing as he was supposed to. Or he might have died a natural death and preferred that his end be at the workshop’s door so I could bury him instead of leaving him to rot out in the open like all the other dogs. All of these black thoughts were finding fertile ground now. Then there was a less-black thought: with Rihane’s death, I was truly and irreversibly alone. There was a grapevine we had sat under one day. A bare grapevine. The strange thing about it was that its purple color couldn’t be seen all year, but only revealed itself at the very end of the year. I buried Rihane in the shadow of its branches without shedding a single tear. I tried to, but couldn’t. Look how harsh and hard-hearted I’d become, like Kika, and even more so. Look how I’d changed.

  Farah hadn’t woken up yet. She’d slept a lot since she arrived, and spoke very little. Perhaps this was for the best. The things people say always make me laugh because, at the end of the day, they don’t say anything important. What they say usually means nothing. So why do they speak, then? Maybe they find themselves somewhere in all that chatter. They don’t know themselves except when they’re making noise. Over the course of eleven days we only exchanged words that were absolutely necessary. I let her tell me what she viewed as essential: the small room she rented after Naima kicked her out, the work her father used to do, the Oum Errabia River, her sister Raja. I asked her about where the room was, but she wouldn’t say. It was a small room on the first floor, which she might get rid of the first chance she got when she straightened things out. And the address? When she didn’t respond, I asked her about her health and what she wanted to eat that day. We didn’t need anything else. Yesterday, after she had eaten some delicious little sardine balls that Mother had prepared with olives and red peppers, she went to sleep. During the days she stayed in my workshop, I noticed that she didn’t seem as happy as she had been before when she had first set foot in Casablanca. She didn’t walk along the seawall, arms outstretched, trying to fly. She was preoccupied. Long periods of absentmindedness, or complete absence. Not once did she laugh like she had before, not even a little bit. Farah wasn’t with me. She was far away. I just didn’t know what was worrying her. My joy was incomplete. It remained that way the whole time she stayed with me.

  Then I became preoccupied with the notion that perhaps she was tired after what it had taken for her to convince herself to come back. In reality, this meant nothing. No one would be convinced by it. It was an attempt to console myself. I didn’t go to sleep until late. I spent hours mulling over all the possible reasons why she’d come back in the end. I couldn’t keep myself from thinking about it, always ending up at the same result: Perhaps she had done something bad. Maybe she had been living in the street, got hungry, stole, and in the end came to hide out. She didn’t say anything to that effect. It was up to me to figure it out on my own. Just as she didn’t say a thing about the money she had stolen from my pocket. And I didn’t ask her about it. After I buried Rihane, I stared at her through the window. Weak sunbeams streamed in and settled on her face. Her collarbone stuck out dramatically. Before, she hadn’t given me a chance to worry about her, but this time it was up to me to show my concern for her, wanting her to regain her confidence and joy. For a time, the image of the white skin between her throat and shoulders never left my mind. Her delicate fingers. Her thin, white, translucent toes. For a moment I felt a spark of desire inside me, but I snuffed it. A hidden heat caused my body to tremble shamefully; why don’t we wait until the beginning of spring like other creatures do? From the ocean, despite the bitter cold, or maybe because it, the smell of seaweed wafted up fro
m the beach. Some fishermen were out there catching octopuses out of season. I wondered whether she remembered the spotlight that had shone down on her round breast, giving it a warm purple color the night of the cabaret. She seemed to be in the right place, surrounded by stacked pieces of wood that were strewn everywhere, each piece painted with care as if in any forest in bloom. That was what I tried to convince myself of. She slept calmly. What would Father say if he saw her stretched out in his workshop, surrounded by his wood, tools, drawings, ideas. Then I went back to where I had been sitting to look out over the mosque’s courtyard, allowing myself another moment to clarify things in my mind. I was filled with misgivings. The chaos of her life wouldn’t get any better as long as she felt that I was distant from her, as long as she didn’t feel that I was with her, as long as she didn’t realize that my heart and my thoughts and every hair on my body were with her. As long as that was how it was, she would remain like this. As long as I remained unconcerned with her, she’d remain oblivious, distant, cold like this, like any rock.

  The seagulls reappeared. Because of the clouds, they weren’t fully visible. In the middle of the courtyard there was a podium that hadn’t been there before. In the far corner of the courtyard that looked out over the ocean, metalworkers’ and carpenters’ workshops had been erected. And there, this podium rose in the middle of the courtyard as if it had sprouted up from nothing. Standing on the podium was the National Department of Electricity employee motioning with his hands, as if delivering a speech to the workers who were covered in gray, the color of the bags of cement they carried day and night, rain or shine. Down in front of the podium were enormous yellow spools of cable that would bring electricity to the mosque. I walked forward a bit, only to realize that the employee was scolding the workers, threatening them because work on the mosque hadn’t progressed far enough after five years. It was as if work had just started. The mosque and its courtyard were an enormous open-air workshop on the ocean. Covered in dirt, all dug up. Columns strewn about and arches too numerous to count. Ceilings still being held up by wood and steel scaffolding. A ceiling that wasn’t there—our ceiling. Huge piles of rocks, sand, dirt. The wind blowing. Metal blackened by the rust that had accumulated over time. In the middle of this ruin, in the middle of this enormous marketplace, the employee stood on his podium pointing to the four corners of the square in disapproval. “All of them are cheaters. All of them are thieves. They steal the mosque’s copper and the latches from its doors. They even steal the toilet fixtures. But when it comes to work, they waste time. The good Muslim worker is a pure person who doesn’t steal.” The National Department of Electricity employee couldn’t understand how thieves could enter into God’s house. “What will all these sinful hands say on the day when they stand before God? And on top of this you want new houses? On top of this you spread rumors? Who said that the new houses aren’t there? And that your old houses were going to be destroyed to make room for a wide boulevard? The mosque doesn’t need a boulevard so it can be seen by believers.” As soon as they heard about the new houses, the other workers who had been pretending to be busy with their tools now hovered around the employee. For a little while, they forgot all about their hammers and ladders and sweat. Look at how they waited now that the employee, after his usual threats, was going to explain to them the benefits of the electricity that had barely made its way to their closed eyes. Soon. The employee stood up straight on his high podium. Around him were electrical cables and boxes of different sizes. The workers, as well as some women from the old city who were sitting on the low wall that formed an extension to the mosque’s courtyard and some elderly retirees who were pretending that they were looking at the ocean view—this whole crowd was now surging forward around the podium. And the National Department of Electricity employee, like a professional actor in his long khaki coat and black cap, explained with elaborate gestures how every wire and every plug worked. He clarified for them the many benefits that electricity would bring to their new homes. “After the work is done, not before. Do you hear me?” It seemed that he finished off his speech with one of his jokes, because laughter rose up from a number of spots in the crowd. It might not have been a joke though, because people sometimes laugh at things that aren’t funny. The employee now leaned over the box and took out a black panel with a number of lights on it, which he showed to the onlookers wondering what it was. In front of the baffled crowd he pressed a button, after which lights began to flash without any intervention from anyone. Praise God! Then he turned them on again and explained how life was going to change in their new houses with electricity instead of candles. “When electricity enters your dark hearts, you thieves, these are some of the benefits that will come from working on the mosque. As long as work progresses, you’ll see the affordable housing project move forward as well, right? Because in the end, God’s light is what will illuminate your houses and your minds, you ignorant illiterates!” In the same sharp scolding tone he asked them, “Has your work progressed one inch in the past four months?” He responded to his own question: “No, of course not. Because instead of working you’re protesting in front of the prefecture or assaulting the security forces.” Then he leaned over the box again and replaced the lights with different, colored, ones—yellow, blue, red, and green. Then he pointed to a man standing at the foot of the podium. “Ahmed! Write down how many rooms each family will need, and how many electrical outlets in each room.” The man pulled a small notebook out from the pocket of his djellaba and began to write: “Three rooms, six plugs, five lights, inshallah, God willing.” And here’s one who needs four rooms and ten lights, or thirty. It depends on how many people are in the family. Inshallah. Not to mention the cables and electrical wires and plastic tubing, inshallah. “The proper place for the breaker box is by the house’s front door. That’s for the inspector who will pass by your houses once a month when it’s time for you to pay your bills, because electricity isn’t given away by the state for free. Do you think the state is a charitable organization? You’ll even be able to put a bell at the door, and its chime will be heard in every room. Yes, a bell, like in the big houses. Each with a different tone, depending on your taste. From the particular ring of the bell you’ll be able to know who’s there and you’ll open the door for him if you so desire, or you can keep him from coming in if you feel that he doesn’t deserve to see your new house. Ahmed! Write this down: ‘A bell at every front door.’”

  Maybe Farah had woken up. Should I go back to the window to watch her wake up? This would also be enough. I wouldn’t find her sitting drinking the milk I bought for her yesterday, because she doesn’t like milk. I headed for the workshop, then stopped halfway and retraced my steps, giving her the chance to wake up on her own. I liked this game. I forgot all about Rihane’s death. Perhaps a car hit him while he was on his way to my workshop. All dogs die under car wheels. Why would Rihane be an exception? I put aside all of those negative thoughts, happy to replace them with all of these pleasant ones. Then I seemed funny to myself. This was also something that felt soothing, now that I thought about the world around me so joyfully. The voice of the National Department of Electricity employee waxed almost poetic. “Electricity changes life. With electricity comes the refrigerator, then the radio, then television. Once you get used to electricity, your mentalities might change too, and your children’s sensitive eyes won’t strain in the candlelight as they study their nationally mandated lessons. The light will illuminate their young minds because electricity, as I explained before, changes lives . . .” Then he switched off his lights. He looked at them now, and they nodded as if they’d finally understood. The employee watched each and every one of their movements. Every change on their faces further convinced him that they hadn’t understood. He watched their nodding heads and their fake enthusiasm. Had his words changed their way of thinking at all? The employee seemed calm, and then he seemed unconvinced; disappointed almost. Without hope. Despite the explanations he had just presented,
as he had the day before and all the days prior to that one, he saw that work was progressing slowly. He jumped down from the podium with surprising lightness and stood in front of the man with the notebook. He repeated his orders to write down what everyone needed—how many rooms each family would need, the number of lights each house would require, the number of outlets and how many meters of electrical wire. “Don’t forget a single house or the price of the electricity that will be within every household’s reach.” Then, when the throngs surrounded and obscured him from view, his words could no longer be heard amid the din. But I still got their meaning. “There’s nothing more effective than electricity for fighting the sinful thoughts that have taken root in your heads . . .” Then his voice disappeared completely.