A Shimmering Red Fish

by Youssef Fadel

  22

  Our Neighbor Kenza

  New Year’s Day is an exceptional day as far as I’m concerned. You always think the earth will stop turning, that the day will be longer, and that it will be unusually sunny. The night before is always rainy and you think it will be like this until the following day, but then you wake up to a clear blue sky. Always. For as long as I can remember. Praise God! I spread out all the fruits and vegetables I bought yesterday and remained at a loss, not knowing where to start. After buying all the fruits and vegetables and everything, and returning from the market, after paying the taxi fare, I only had a few dirhams left, with which I bought four Marquise cigarettes. I gathered up the vegetables and put them in the basket. Mounir’s been in prison for three years. He’ll get out in a month. He’s waiting for the basket I’m to bring him this afternoon. He doesn’t know that he’ll never see it. This time, I’m not bringing him a basket. I’m not happy, despite the visa I finally got. After more than a year of back and forth, begging and waiting. During my last visit, Mounir said that I had written him off. He’s always known that I go out with other men. But I stopped, pretty much, as soon as he asked me to quit working. I haven’t gone out with many men after promising him. And now he says I’ve written him off while I’ve taken it upon myself to bring him his weekly basket for three full years. All so he wouldn’t lack for anything in prison. When I visited him last week, he said that I had humiliated him. I think he’s searching for some justification to break up because of his imminent release. Nothing else would cause him to change like this. So as long as I’ve humiliated him, as he puts it, let him look for another woman to bring him his basket. I think the visa came at just the right time. He’ll have nothing but air in front of him when he asks, “Where’s Kenza?” She left. She went to Spain to earn some honest money. He wouldn’t be able to find me even if he were to turn the earth and sky upside down. I don’t need men anymore. I won’t expect a thing from them from now on. They don’t add anything to my life except for problems. May they all rot in hell! From the beginning, I’ve always looked after myself. I won’t come back from Europe with less than thirty million. I’ll buy an apartment like I’ve always hoped to, with a bathroom and a balcony looking out onto the minaret so I can hear the call to prayer all the time. I swear to God I won’t come back without that thirty million. Before that, though, I’ll buy a table and refrigerator for Kika so he won’t lack for anything while I’m gone. He didn’t say a thing about the visa I got. What’s he going to say? That’s how things are, so what can you do? Instead of giving him the visa, they put it in my passport. They handed his back as it was, its pages blank, with no visa. I explained the situation to him as best as I could. I put the basket to the side. I light the gas burner and put some water on to boil. I promised my neighbor that I’d make a batch of vermicelli with cinnamon and sugar. Mama Fatima loves vermicelli the way I make it, with cinnamon, sugar, and almonds. Instead of almonds, I’ll put in a few peanuts. Almonds are expensive these days! I light a cigarette and blow the smoke out down between my legs. It’s a funny habit, and I’m not sure where it came from. Am I happy now? I’ve never been happy in my life. Why should I be happy? I don’t have anyone next to me telling me what to do and what not to do. People just love taking advantage of others. There isn’t a person in the world who, given the chance, wouldn’t take advantage of someone else. I was ten when my father brought me from Taounate to work. When you work for rich families, you’re always working for idiots. I’m not sure how God decides that they should be so stupid. They never stop asking mean questions, and when you ask for a raise, the lady of the house asks you, “Are you building an antenna that makes you think you should be paid four thousand riyals, you ass?” Father would come once a month to take the hundred dirhams. I didn’t make much money. There were days when I went hungry and days when I had enough to eat. Then there was the fact that I didn’t like living locked up in other people’s houses. I didn’t work in any house after that experience. These people don’t deserve you wasting your good health on them. There’s good and bad waiting for everyone. That’s how it goes. It’s enough for us to be in the right place at the right time. I’m no longer hoping to meet a man who’ll buy me a watch or a car. They say that the work is hard in the strawberry fields in Spain. I was born for hard labor, but not when exploitation or contempt come along with it. And if I have to be exploited, at the very least there are other places I could choose instead. Exploitation along with poverty exists only here with us. I’ll come back and buy an apartment in a clean neighborhood. I’ll quit smoking. All so that Kika can see that it’s possible to aspire to something better. I don’t like the name they’ve given my son, Abdel-Haqq, but I’ve gotten used to it, and I too have started to call him Kika. His father used to work in construction. He was far away when Kika came into the world. Off building somewhere. Where? One time in Agadir. Another time in Tetouan. Every time the same question: “Where?” I’d spend the day at the post office attached to the telephone, because he wouldn’t stop asking, “Where are you?” “In the post office,” I’d reply, handing the receiver to the woman standing next to me so she could verify that I was in the post office, and that we were waiting for him, the little one and I, while he was going from apartment to apartment, building to building, city to city, saying that he was building us—the child and me—a house. I was sixteen when I gave birth to him. He said we’d get married as soon as the house was done. He said that he was jealous. That the jealousy was consuming him. But he disappeared. The last time I spoke with him he said he was going to Las Palmas, and then he disappeared. We never saw the man or the house. We didn’t hear anything more about him, neither good nor bad. He had disappeared from the world without a trace, as if the earth swallowed him up. At least I had some relief from the pressure of the phone receiver on my ear. The first thing a man talks about when you meet him is marriage, but it’s the furthest thing from his mind. Because we’re fools, we open our legs for them knowing full well that they’re lying, because we love to get a taste of their fruit before we wilt. When he asks about him, I tell Kika that he’s in Spain, in prison, so he won’t mention his name again. So I lied, may God forgive me. Mounir is the latest man I’ve met, and in the last few weeks he’s been saying that I’ve written him off. I’ve never written anyone off in my life.

  I switch on the tape player and let the faqih recite some verses. I always relax when I hear a Quran reciter, especially if it’s Abdel-Basit, or a voice that sounds like his. I put out the cigarette, put the vermicelli in the couscoussier, and leave it to simmer. Mama Fatima says I should learn how to sew and work in one of the embroidery ateliers. I missed the boat for learning anything, Mama Fatima. Moreover, those ateliers are far away, on the other side of the world, and the women who work there leave their houses when it’s dark and get back home when it’s dark. They never see the light of day, and I love the daytime, Mama Fatima. I won’t sacrifice my days for six thousand riyals a week. Locked up in an embroidery workshop or in some idiot’s house, same thing. The ones who own the embroidery shops are like the rich people whose houses I worked in. They’re all sons of whores. My visa is in my pocket. The work is better in the fields of Andalusia, out in the fresh air rather than in suffocating embroidery shops. Or maybe I’ll go to Sweden. Why not? My friend Atiqa says that she’s comfortable in Sweden. Sweden was always better, my God! Atiqa, who used to drink and smoke cigarettes, weed, and hashish, met a movie producer who married her and took her with him to Sweden. After all of the sins she had swallowed in Ain Diab, she finally found her happy ending in Sweden. She goes with him to film festivals in France, the US, and Canada. The important thing is that this is an opportunity not to be missed for someone like me, who’s thirty-six years old. God brings about every blessing. I’ll forget all about Mounir and everything connected to him, and I’ll start from scratch. I’m no longer willing to go on any more adventures with men I don’t know and who expect who knows what from me.
Especially when it comes to Kika. All the toil that awaits me is for Kika’s sake. I don’t want him to be looking for his mother in courtrooms and in the backs of police vans when he gets older. Poor Kika, he’s always been high-strung. That’s why he could never hold down a job. I used to say that abroad was the most appropriate place for a boy like Kika. But he has no luck. He came into the world a bundle of nerves, because he was born without a father. That’s what I say.

  I can hear the sewing machine downstairs. Mama Fatima is working on a day like this! Her machine never stops. She’s always consumed with work because she feeds so many mouths. I let the vermicelli simmer and take out the flour to make some cookies. I pour boiling water over the flour. Mama Fatima also likes cookies with lemon.

  The basket next to the wall is overflowing with fruits and vegetables. I walk over to it and check to see if anything is missing. Women are fools because they’ll believe anything. I light another cigarette and go back to preparing the basket. This time I put a cover over it so I don’t have to go back to it. I get up. Evening is still far off. I remove the couscoussier from the flame. I won’t make anything right now. Maybe later. What did he say? That I’d written him off. Now I’ve become someone who writes people off. That’s all I am? I always helped him after he was arrested for hashish, even though he denied it. And I followed him from prison to prison so he’d have everything he needed. I spent a lot of money. And what did I get in return? After the trial, I spent more than two years going between home and the municipal prison. I borrowed money for the weekly basket, and he didn’t lack for anything. If people were eating an orange at home I’d buy him a kilo of oranges so he could show off in front of the other prisoners. If people were eating a piece of meat I’d cook him a whole chicken. I fulfilled his every request, small and large. All the food he craved. I didn’t keep anything for myself. Baskets filled with fruits and vegetables and everything. And add to this the fact that I was stuck at home, not going out with other men unless absolutely necessary, so as not to give people the wrong idea. He kept on saying we’d get married as soon as he got out of prison. He said he was ready for that day, and that he had prepared the paperwork and everything. I was also ready for that day, as every woman is. Birth certificate, certificate of residency. Divorce papers weren’t among them, though. Marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman, not between papers. Marriage is a mutual understanding. Instead of that piece of paper I paid ten dirhams at the district office for a certificate of celibacy. And after all that, he says that I’ve written him off. How will I make do with the money I spend on him if I don’t go out and meet people? Not to mention that he’s pretty well off even though he’s in prison. He sells hashish to the other prisoners, but he keeps it a secret so I won’t ask him for anything. His take from one night would be enough to last me a whole month. Why am I running myself ragged with this shit? I’m not the one who’s coming out ahead here. I’ve gone through more difficult periods.

  I take a look around the room I’d been living in for fifteen years and tell myself it’s time for a change. I won’t find a better time than now. The room is small, but it’s enough for two people. It has everything I need. A gas heater. A blue plastic strainer. A television on a stand made of chipped, peeling wood. Various types of cookware. An ashtray that has yesterday’s cigarette butts in it. A table that has everything on it I need for cooking—oil, sugar, green tea, flour, and all sorts of spices (with cockroaches walking all around—I consider these insects members of the family; they’ve lived with us since day one), buckets for the bathroom, toothpaste, mint, tomatoes, and potatoes. The time has come for a change. I stand in front of the mirror. I don’t like how my face looks in the mirror with these rotten teeth. I no longer have the hair I had before that used to knock men off their feet, nor the dark eyes. Under the mirror are a few pictures, including a picture of Kika and me when he was four years old. We’re laughing. Then there’s a picture of him alone after he was all grown up. And a picture of Mounir with his siblings and mother. In the snow. In the picture they are laughing, just as they did in real life. They have everything they need because Mounir spends money on them. There are people who are always lucky. Even while he’s in prison there’s this idiot woman who provides for him, borrowing money and drowning in debt so he’ll lack for nothing. And one month before getting out of prison he has the nerve to say that I’d written him off. Great. I swear this New Year’s Eve I’ll sleep with ten men in one night. Just so he knows what sort of pen women use when they’re intent on writing someone off once and for all!

  Then I take out the purse I had hidden in the cupboard. While waiting for the vermicelli to boil and the cookie dough to rise, I go to my neighbor Mama Fatima’s apartment. The door is always open. She is in front of the sewing machine like she always is. Her daughter, Habiba, is rolling out dough, with Karima beside her forming a small loaf. I stand there hiding the purse behind my back while she tries to guess what I’m hiding. “A loaf of bread?” “No.” “Cookies?” “No.” She doesn’t know what I am hiding. But she remembers that it is New Year’s and draws in her breath. She smiles. Then she says, “Perfume?” “No.” Karima shouts, “A purse, a purse!” while I stand there with the purse in my hand for her to see.

  I hand her the purse and tell her that this year would be better than the one we had just said goodbye to.

  “How much did you buy it for?”

  “Four hundred,” adding, “May God bring health and wealth with it. A nice purse. Practically new. All that’s missing is the strap. It just needs a good polish and it’ll be as good as new.” She picks it up and turns it over. Then she looks inside, laughing. Maybe she’ll find a thousand or two thousand dirhams.

  Mama Fatima gets up and comes back out of the room with a small wooden box. She sits in front of the sewing machine, takes out a simple mirror, and begins to apply black kohl to her eyes. I sit cross-legged in front of her, no longer feeling like I had just a short while ago. I feel much better watching Mama Fatima lining her eyes with kohl.

  “Who’re you putting kohl on for, Mama Fatima?”

  “For the new year,” she replies.

  Then I add, “May this year bring health and wealth to you and your children.” We hug, cry, and say, “Amen.”

  Life is like this dough Habiba is kneading. Without a hand to combine all the ingredients together, everything will stay separate.

  IV

  23

  The man sitting in the wicker chair brushing the ground impatiently with his feet listens to the familiar roar, the roar of the judge’s car engine. He’s passing by in his Oldsmobile on his way back to his house, his office, and his family. It’s Sunday then. He’s returning to his other life, which he had left behind when he moved to the city. The judge lives in the city. He comes to his farm on Saturday nights when he wants to get drunk with one of his many mistresses. Barbed-wire fences separate the man’s field from the judge’s vast land holdings. He could walk in them for three days without covering all of it. He passes by in his old American car so no one will recognize him, just like he did yesterday when he was coming from the city. On his farm he drinks alone and in silence so that no one sees him getting drunk. But he doesn’t walk the courthouse hallways silently, and he doesn’t skirt the walls to avoid attracting attention. The judge is everything in the courthouse. The courthouse is his kingdom. He sends whoever he wants to prison and he pardons whoever he wants. On his way back from his farm he sits with the man and they spend some time exchanging news about everything under the sun. He’s a mysterious man. Secretive. The man doesn’t know why the judge likes sitting with him on Sunday afternoons before he returns to his family, his house, and his office. Every Sunday afternoon he waits for him to tell him why he sits there. The judge says he likes talking with people. He likes the bread the man’s mother-in-law bakes, and the breeze that blows in the late afternoon. Instead of bringing bread, the mother-in-law brings boiled eggs with oil, olives, white cheese, and two
forlorn cups. And the bread? The mother-in-law forgot the bread. The two cups remained forlorn until the judge poured their share of whiskey into them. It was an exceptional day. Maybe he came to ask about the newborn. This was also possible. But he didn’t say a thing about the woman in labor or the baby. Nor did he say anything about the land. Was he planning on taking ownership of his land? If that idea occurred to the man, it certainly occurred to the judge too. Or not. The judge didn’t say what he was thinking. The man knows he doesn’t count for anything next to whatever it is the judge is thinking about; next to all of the ideas that emerge from the judge’s brain, or from that of the gendarmes—any gendarme, with or without epaulettes on his shoulders. His life is empty. It doesn’t amount to anything. It hasn’t known anything worth mentioning. There’s only one story in his head and it is named Farah. There might have been other stories. He could have gone to the Gulf to join his brother Suleiman. He could have become a skilled carpenter or a famous thief (but all he had stolen in his life were some silly copper pipes not even worth thinking about). He could have been anything. But now he’s nothing. Nothing to his wife, who’s ready to swap his life for a pup that will come out into the open soon. He’s nothing to the judge, to the thought that hasn’t yet emerged from the judge’s head. He’s nothing to the plastic bag. The judge is fifty, but from so much use in courtrooms, his voice has come to resemble that of a seventy-year-old. The judge said, “This is Najat.” He forgot that he introduces her every time. “This is Najat,” and she got out of the car with some difficulty because she’s fat. The judge doesn’t like beef. At his farm, in order to stay thin, he only eats lamb that has had the fat removed in order to avoid the cholesterol. However, his passion for fat women remains. She got out laughing loudly, her djellaba pulled up above her knees so it didn’t rip. Her lips were bright red, as were her fingernails and hair. Her pocketbook was tucked under her arm and her mouth was filled with laughter. Sounding like an old lady, the judge asked, “Do you know the story of the man who was stung on his penis by a bee?” The woman laughed, showing all of her teeth, and the judge threw an arm over her shoulder. The man wondered what wind blew him in on Sunday afternoons. Why did the judge love to sit with him every Sunday afternoon? The country was his country. The borders were his. Rusted wire that had long ago lost its ability to intimidate anyone separated their lands. The thought that the judge was planning on taking over his land made the man grow larger in his own eyes. The thought that the judge was interested in him and his land made him feel his own presence. He was happy to be with the judge whether he spoke or not. He felt protected. No harm could come to him while he was with the judge. Harm had been left behind, praise God. Harm is the judge himself, praise God. Harm, when it comes from the judge, is a blessed form of harm. But the judge didn’t say a thing about why he had come. The judge turned to Najat and asked her to retell the bee story without omitting any of the details. She couldn’t speak because her mouth was full of olives. Afterward. Maybe he came for another story. Then the mother-in-law brought some bread. The judge said that he had seen the gendarmes’ car by the dam. The man told him that they were searching for cattle thieves. The judge replied that they were chasing after a young man and his lover who had been caught in the act. No one had seen cattle thieves in these parts for at least two years. The woman with the red hair knew all the stories about thieves that were in the judge’s head, and on the judge’s desk.