28
Night. A night we’re not a part of. We’re busy with other things. Sitting on our neighbor, the baker’s doorstep watching the entranceway to our house. Kika smokes while I count the people going in who have come to offer words of consolation. In addition to some lit windows, there’s a dim lamp that casts a small spot of light, and we’re in it. Other than this, the street is sunk in the blackness of night. Kika leaves the spotlight. His cigarette flickers intensely in the darkness. He hasn’t forgotten about the visa. There’s nothing funny about it, but I secretly laugh because our neighbor Kenza is the one honoring the Spanish streets of Malaga, Madrid, and Barcelona with her presence. There are many cities in Spain, and even more streets. From now on she hopes not to find any Moroccans who will fuck her, or Spanish men who are like the Moroccan ones. The most she hopes for (the most any woman can hope for) is to find men to fuck who don’t beat her after emptying their massive loads. His mother, our neighbor Kenza, is the one who got the visa rather than her son. After so many long months of going back and forth, sometimes sleeping propped up against the embassy wall. Isn’t that funny? But I don’t laugh because I don’t want him to become even more enraged (though there’s a tremendous laugh stuck in my throat just waiting for the chance to burst out). I know what he’s feeling; I know he sees now that he’s not going anywhere. A visa good for a year! And his mother is the one who got it. She can come and go whenever she pleases. With this stamp in her passport, Kenza can cross many borders. She can cross the whole Spanish Kingdom if she wants—Seville, Granada, Zaragoza. Kika is the one who bought the brown overcoat to show off to the blondes of Amsterdam after traveling across so many kingdoms and republics. Then he was to marry a Dutch woman, or a Belgian. But her poor son Kika has no luck. He punches the wall, having come back to the spotlight. He chews on his lit cigarette. I stand and avoid looking at Kika in order to keep from bursting out laughing.
The few people walking by brush along the wall like shadows or ghosts. We don’t hear the sound of their shoes. Some of them go into our house to offer condolences to Mother. “Did he die?” “We don’t know, sister, whether he’s died or whether he’s hanging on somewhere between life and death.” With people like this, we’re not sure how to act anymore. We’re all waiting for the doctor who will settle the matter. We’ve been waiting since noon, but the doctor hasn’t arrived yet. He took his children to the circus to watch the lion tamer put his head into the lion’s mouth, and as long as the tamer’s head remained inside the lion’s mouth, all we could do was wait. Women go into our house, but most of the men don’t. Some of them don’t even know what’s going on inside. They continue on their way for a few moments before the darkness swallows them up. I’m not sure why I decide to speak to Kika about a letter that doesn’t even exist. Everything I hadn’t said while we were hanging off of the minaret’s steel scaffolding comes back to me now. I tell him it arrived this morning from my brother Suleiman, and I pretend to remove a piece of paper from my pocket then put it back in. “This is his most recent letter, Kika.” Even if I had waved it in front of him, Kika wouldn’t have cared because it was too dark for him to see it, much less read it. He sits back down next to me. “His fourth letter, Kika. Do you know what letters are good for? They’re not good for anything, really. Suleiman says that the papers are ready, and that even the agent who will take care of me is ready and waiting. Housing, salary, car, the plane ticket that will take me, and all the other wonderful things I’ll see when I’m there. And when I come back it’ll be with two gold watches, one on each wrist, and gold chains around my neck. All I need is a few administrative rubber stamps. This is how administrative offices do things.” I don’t know if talking about the letter is starting to make Kika angry or not, because he remains stone-faced. “Administrative offices love to take their time. This is well known. But in the end you start to think the same way they do. After a while, though, I won’t even have to think about this anymore. In two months. Once I’m there. Comfortable. Suleiman and I. Our pockets full, drinking beer on the sixty-fifth floor, on the balcony of a ten-star hotel. Doesn’t that sound good, Kika? As for the letter itself, whether or not we can see it in the dark, whether or not we can read it, how about the news it contains, eh? What do you think? The plane will take me over land and sea. It’ll fly me over all sorts of countries—Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Senegal, and if it takes a sharp turn, we’ll see Somalia too, even Ethiopia. I won’t get another chance to see all these countries in one trip, Kika.” Then I ask him, “How many hours is it to Abu Dhabi?”
Kika gets up and disappears into the darkness. I laugh. The laugh doesn’t come out as I’d hoped it would, but I laugh anyway.
Women from who knows where are going into our house to offer consolations. Their mournful keening comes into the circle of light even before they appear, but it doesn’t disappear when they do. Inside our house the mourners cry. Up until now, they have been gently weeping. It has a painful echo on this dark night. If Father has died, why don’t I smell cooking? The deceased’s family isn’t supposed to light the cooking fire. The neighbors are the ones who cook. They cook, set the tables, and eat. And why do people love to eat so much at times like these? Why do they want to eat so badly in the house where someone has died? To fortify themselves. To know that they are still alive, and to reassure themselves that this time they too have been saved. Death missed their house and knocked on their neighbor’s door. And passersby, so as to banish death from their own houses, go into their neighbor’s house and gobble down his food in order to confirm that he has died. They eat in proportion to how far they think they are from death. But they can’t eat forever. One day they’ll be all full. One day they will have had enough. One day death will catch them. One day death will grab them by their throats. One day they’ll stop eating. And one day they’ll die, like those who stopped eating before them. As I mull this over, I start to feel hungry. I long to see the deceased laid out on my bed in my dimly lit room. From inside, in place of the smell of food, the mourners’ wailing emerges more forcefully. I get up so as not to think more about food than the topic deserves, and go into the house.
The foyer is filled with women. It smells of lavender, cloves, henna. The smell of women. That’s what gives the impression that death is present. The women’s eyes are red from so much crying. Most of them lower their eyes when I walk in. Women sway left and right, moaning softly as if their wailing tanks are empty and all they have left is this low-level moaning. It’s their way of sharing in the family’s sadness, even though there’s no reason for them to keen so embarrassingly. None of them have a reason to be sad. He’s neither their father nor their uncle. He’s not related to them in any way. I don’t know where they keep all the sadness that leaks out of their faces at times like these. Women are always sad, but they love these occasions. They hope that opportunities for offering condolences will never stop coming. My sister Khadija sits among them, but she doesn’t cry. She’s the total opposite of my sister Habiba, who slaps her cheeks nonstop as she looks all around her, no one paying any attention to her. Khadija is brushing her knee-length hair. It tumbles down and covers her face and chest. Her fingers dig into her hair and pick at each strand with extreme care. Then she puts some oil in the palm of her hand and rubs it over her jet-black hair underneath the hijab, massaging and massaging from the nape of her neck all the way to the tips of her hair resting on her knee. Other women are done with their share of crying and are taking a break now. The few men who are there are in Abdullah’s room. I know they’re deep in conversation about the hereafter and the punishment of the grave as they wait for the doctor and his family to leave the circus. They couldn’t have come up with a better topic to discuss even if they wanted to. I hear roaring laughter, so I turn around. It’s Mother who is laughing as she comes out of her room. She’s rocking back and forth on high heels I have never seen her wear before, and she has on a green, gold-embroidered kaftan that shines in the light coming dow
n from the ceiling. She says she doesn’t see any reason for sadness or tears. She stands with us all around her—looking livelier, more youthful, with kohl-blackened eyes and reddened cheeks—as if she has just come from the hair salon. Standing up straight in her high heels, she’s happy because God has saved her. Her gray hair disappears underneath a scarf adorned with orange and blue roses. God has liberated her from the sadness she has lived with her husband. He has saved her from the pain and suffering she had tasted because of him. Now she has to thank her Lord and thank Him again. She releases a relaxed laugh, playfully hitting the shoulder of the woman beside her. God has shown her His love and sent her this gift. There couldn’t be a more valuable gift. And she has no place in her house for mourners. “If there’s anyone who wants to cry, she can go to her house. The one gift that God can give to a woman in life is to hasten the time of her husband’s death.” She turns on the television. The women stop crying, talking, and everything else. The singing coming from the box distracts them. It soothes them. It dispels their discomfort. Brahim El Alami the singer, the one with the red hair and the long coat, gets them singing while Mother dances to the song’s tune. “Leave me far away. I’m afraid of falling for you.” She moves to the rhythm of El Alami’s music. And what do the other women do? The celebration surprises them and they are unprepared. They have cried enough. Luckily, Mother reminds them of that. Could there be a better time to celebrate the death of a tyrant? Then Mother pulls one of the neighbors in to dance with her. Khadija gets into the middle of the circle to dance as well. This is a singular occasion, not to be missed. Dancing instead of fretting about a dead man who doesn’t deserve a single tear to be shed over his corpse. Relief doesn’t come every day. A woman asks Mother to turn the volume down because the dead can hear us, can distinguish our voices, and can even recognize whose feet are doing the dancing. The woman pushes the button and the singer’s voice disappears. The dead can still hear for a while. The dead can hear what’s going on in their house. They can hear the water boiling. They recognize the hand that places the embalming herbs into the water. They know the hands that stitch the shroud. They know the mouth that wishes them well and the mouth that comes up with bad things to say about them. Most of the time the dead take this moment to seek refuge by fleeing. Without stopping her dancing, Mother says, “If God takes him to Him, there’s no possible way he’ll come back.”
I take a few steps across the men’s room and look down at him. At Father. He’s lying on his back in the weak lamplight. Completely dead. In his final repose. His hair is blazing white. I get closer to him and see that he looks like he’s sleeping. From here, death doesn’t appear to be too painful. I hear the music and turn. I see Mother leaning against the television and pushing the volume button. The singer’s voice fills the foyer once again. I turn back to the deceased and see him lying on his back as he was before, except that his eyes are open. There’s no sign of death in them. Completely open and looking toward the crack in the door. What does he see? Father lies on his side watching Brahim El Alami sing. Without taking his eyes off of the screen, he asks for some water, without saying anything, with a gesture of his hand. He’s more alive than he was before, as if he had woken all of a sudden from a short nap. Father always loved Brahim El Alami.
29
Father
In a way that didn’t surprise me, I saw that I had fallen into a forest, and I knew right away that I was on time. The first thing that struck me was that I wasn’t alone, and that I might have missed the appointment. Suleiman and Outhman were with me. The three of us were looking for the mosque in this extremely shady, sprawling, intensely quiet forest. We couldn’t even hear our footsteps as we walked over the dried leaves. The fog didn’t help us to recognize anything either. Because of how sweaty and tired we were, and how we were panting, it seemed that we had walked for a long time, and that we had begun the search days before. Maybe we had lost our way. We couldn’t be sure of this either, since the trees all looked the same. Outhman was walking ahead of us holding a basket with some paint cans in it. Suleiman was carrying a camera, and every time he pressed the button, the flash went off. Why was he taking so many pictures of a forest where everything looked the same? Outhman said, “Don’t you see that we’re in the mosque?” I couldn’t see anything around me except for the thick tree branches, and I couldn’t see anything under my feet except for dried leaves, even though I couldn’t hear them at all. Outhman insisted that they were the mosque’s columns and not trees, and that we were walking over mosaics in the mosque’s courtyard. They were walking in front of me now, pelting each another with paint, colors dripping down off of them. They’re good boys. I don’t understand why they’d disappear whenever I tried to hold onto them or tell them not to do something. The moon’s rays reflected off the ground and turned the courtyard’s mosaic floor into a sea of moving colors. A clock struck in the distance and Suleiman yelled that it was two in the morning. We still had a bit of time. Why did they walk in front of me as if I needed them to guide me, especially now that it was clear which way to go? I walked past them and rushed into the courtyard, where I could no longer see them. I could see the mosque, and that was all that mattered to me. I looked closely at it with a wary eye, wondering whether I’d find someone in the mosque if I looked in. The thought made my hair stand on end and my knees shake. I focused my thinking on the mosque so as not to waste time on things that didn’t matter. On this intensely dark night, its frame seemed threatening, frightening even. Who would this someone be who would venture into it on this dark night even if he was on time? I walked toward it. I stood facing the mosque, which was missing its minaret. The minaret had been swallowed up by the forest. It was right at this moment of excited thinking that I saw a shadow move inside the mosque, a light breeze playing with its djellaba. The djellaba was wide, like a banner rustling musically. The first thing I said to myself was, “Am I that specter that’s walking around inside the mosque?” The mosque was completely dark, but it was an unusual sort of darkness. Cascades of soft light flowed in from nowhere in particular, as if coming from more than one direction, from above and from the sides of the mosque, like in a theater. I watched it from the courtyard, a few steps from the main door. I didn’t know whether to walk forward or back. I wondered what a man other than me would be doing in the mosque so late if he weren’t the man with whom I had the appointment. Suleiman and Outhman ran around the pillars yelling at one another. It didn’t surprise me to see them having turned into children. Two kids laughing gleefully. They’d always been like that. Unburdened with what went on around them. I’ve never depended on them or on anyone else. I’ve never relied on anyone in my life. I don’t have any children I can rely on. I forget about them and focus my thoughts on the person moving not far from me, on what’s about to occur. At two in the morning. Right on time. Not a minute before or after. I told myself that it would be unreasonable for something not to happen tonight. It’s not normal for nights like this to pass without leaving some sort of a sign that it has passed, however small it may be. He seemed to agree with my way of thinking. He continued to stare at me. He approached me and I didn’t act at all stunned. I didn’t tremble in front of him. He too was wondering what a man was doing in the mosque’s courtyard so late at night. What were we all doing here? No, he didn’t ask. Nor did I. Because at that moment I knew that he was the king who had come to inspect the work. I almost fainted when I realized it. I lost my balance and my limbs trembled in happiness and dread. Where were my children so that they could see with their own eyes? I looked around but couldn’t find them anywhere. That’s my son Suleiman, and that’s Outhman. They’ve been careless since they were little. Where were they so they could see for themselves? The devils had disappeared. I heard about Your Majesty’s upcoming visit to the mosque, and I expected signs, banners, drums, and songs. I wasn’t expecting it to be like this, at two in the morning, with no entourage or white limousines or motorcycles or carpets or trilling or fire
works or music. Where were the signs, the banners, the drums, the songs? He looked around as if he too were looking for his entourage, while some shadows that might have been his moved around him. When I heard the rustling of his djellaba as well as that of his shadows’ djellabas, I remarked that people always have shadows accompanying them. The king was wearing a djellaba decorated with black and white squares, like someone on vacation. “I present to you my children: This is Outhman, my youngest, ‘the last of the line,’ as they say. Suleiman, the oldest son, is in the Gulf. He ran off to the Gulf so I wouldn’t demand anything of him. I’ve never demanded anything from anyone in my life. Suleiman’s a skilled carpenter. Where is he? Where’d that devil disappear to? He always does this—disappears just when we need him. I taught him carpentry when he was young. Then he ran off. He went to the Gulf to help strangers rather than help his father. He’s waiting for me to die so he can sell the ruins that shelter me.” The king stood and looked over the mosque’s ornamentation, encircled by something resembling a delicate halo of light. I waited for him to lift his eyes to look at the ceiling. The king handed me a pair of slippers with turned-up toes as a gift for the work I had done. I wasn’t surprised to see that they resembled his slippers—the same yellow, with the toes pointed up. I kissed the slippers three times and put them on, with some difficulty because my feet had swollen from fear. With a delicate gesture, imperceptible to anyone, he indicated that I should take a seat underneath the halo of light emanating from him. He asked, “What do you think about building a mosque on the water?” to which I replied, “Everyone will build their houses on the water to emulate your idea.” The response pleased him. Then we discussed all sorts of things—England, the United Nations, the issue of the Western Sahara. All of a sudden, he said, “Did you know that you’re the most intelligent man I have in the kingdom?” My eyes overflowed with tears of modesty. I was amazed he didn’t see them on my face. I was at a loss as to whether I should talk with him about the ceiling because the ceiling . . . in case the crack appeared . . . Better to talk to him about the boys . . . Where are they? They’d run off. Thank God I wasn’t lacking for anything and didn’t need kids. Then we sat and talked for a long while about the English capital. He told me that he had spent years there; that he had studied medicine, engineering, and law; and that he had memorized the Quran at one of its universities. Then he laughed because he could no longer remember the name of that university. I laughed too. Ha! On the topic of England, I said that I too had been there, and we laughed together because he knew I was lying in the hopes of prolonging our time sitting there together. And then, in order to prolong the time even more, I told him that, like him, I liked to laugh too. Yes, nothing delights me more than laughing and making fun of things. I had always loved to laugh. Still do, even at the age of sixty-five. “Between you and me, I don’t know how to be serious, nor do I like it. Especially at work. When I used to work, that is. I used to carve magnificent palaces that still bear my name, but it was more like a diversion for me. Work is an art. Not a craft for earning money. Whoever wants to earn money should open up a shop in the bazaar. That’s right, Moulay, my lord. I spent three years ornamenting a single dome in the Glaoui Pasha’s house, may God have mercy on him. I’d come and go as I pleased. I’d work at night or during the day, before evening or after daybreak. My provisions of food and drink and my share of kif would come to me daily. I’d smoke as I worked. According to my mood and my desires. No one would say ‘work’ or ‘don’t work.’ Even if the work had taken years longer, no one would have complained, because work, as I see it, is like that. It ends when it ends. No one would trade it for anything. Unfortunately, the profession is starting to disappear. I’m not the sort who would bargain, who would ask ‘How much?’ Because of these silly words, craftsmanship is being driven to extinction. What do master craftsmen do these days? They go from one rich person’s villa to the next with nothing in their hands but the words ‘how much?’ Because of these words, they replace one piece of wood with another of lesser quality, instead of the cedar that I use. They use paints with lifeless colors.” Then crystal chandeliers of different colors were lit and shone above us like a thousand stars, creating a soft, brilliant ringing that sounded like music. “The time for the visit has come,” he said as he got up. He began to inspect the ceilings above us, one after the other, asking about the type of wood and paint, the master builder who did the work, and how long it had taken to complete, recording it all in a small notebook—where it came from I didn’t know—with a golden pen. He came to a spot underneath the ceiling, and as if the king could guess what I was thinking, he turned to me, placed his hand on my shoulder, and said, “You’re right. We won’t find a better ceiling than the one you’ve made here anywhere in the kingdom.” He proceeded to examine it at his leisure, writing everything I said in his notebook. That’s when I saw Outhman looking in through the crack, and the devil laughed. He was hoping to destroy me. To amuse the king and distract him from the crack, I continued to explain: “For more than three years I calculated. I planned. I recalculated. Chiseling here and there. Calculating again. Planning first on paper, then on wood . . .” I related all of this to him without looking at the ceiling, but he looked up at the ceiling. He took his time looking meticulously at my drawings. The pen between his fingers flowed with golden ink. I told myself that I had to distract him so he wouldn’t look up. But I didn’t understand how I’d come to be wearing a djellaba just like the one the king was wearing. Right then I remembered what was important. I said to him, “Can you believe it, my lord? While I was sleeping, Buraq the mythic steed came to me and carried me on his wings to my grandfather Bouya Rahhal’s tomb. That’s right, my grandfather was the saint Sidi Rahhal, who transformed desert sands into wheat seeds and who soared over Marrakech for forty years on a green prayer rug. I’ve never told this to anyone. You’re the first man to know about this secret—the first king to gaze upon this dazzling truth—and I’m telling it to you now because we’re practically from the same family. Each has his own grandfather, but we’re all the same, as the foreigners say. Ha! Our grandfather traces his lineage to our virtuous lady, Fatima al-Zahra, may God be pleased with her. Do you know what that means? This is a coup d’état, a revolution. Ha! Do you at least know who Fatima al-Zahra is? Do you know how much our lives would change were you to be so kind as to acknowledge us and take us under your wing? We wouldn’t need any other form of protection, at least for the moment.” I took out the book. “Everything is recorded in this book, my lord. Everything is made clear in The Methodology of Journeying toward the Knowledge of Shaykh Sidi Rahhal by the jurist, the most noble and erudite Sidi Mohammed Larbi ibn al-Bahloul bin Umar al-Rahhali al-Mijnawi al-Mishwari, may God grant forgiveness to him, his parents, his teachers, and his loved ones, amen. When someone ignores his lineage, every bad deed can be expected of him, amen. This lineage can be traced back to the son of Adam, who doesn’t equal a thing outside of his family tree. Look, my lord, at the long list of names. One hundred and fifty-one pages of names and titles. And where do they end? At the name of my father and paternal uncles. Si Taher. Si Rahhal. Si Larbi. Si Omar, this last one being my father, who gave me his name so I wouldn’t forget him, may God have mercy on him.” Then I saw him scowl, his face turning red hot with anger. It changed instantaneously. He yelled in my face, “What’s that?” “What’s this, my lord? Why, this is The Methodology of Journeying.” No, he wasn’t asking about the book. “You’re right. My children. They’ve never helped me with anything. Suleiman, for example. What’s he doing in that country? Isn’t there enough work here? Aren’t we one family? You and I and he and everyone else? We need to work hand in hand. I worked with the kids as a boss deals with his employees, because they both deserve everything good, and because they’re both smart boys. They’ve always been smart. And the result? Nothing! What rational person would emigrate to the Gulf?” Then the king yelled, “What’s that I see?” pointing up at a specific spot in the cei
ling. “That’s right, my lord. Children hate their fathers. That’s well known. What son doesn’t want to throw his aged father into the fire or bury him alive? That’s just how it is. It isn’t strange or unusual anymore to find a son dragging his father through the mud. This old man, as you call him, has wasted his life for the sake of raising you! Aren’t we one family? I told Suleiman I’d work with him this time just as a boss works with his employees, with a salary, rights, benefits, and all the other things an employer gives his workers. But he preferred going to the Gulf. Was all the effort I expended on their behalf for nothing? The kids didn’t give me a thing. They soak up all of our sweat then leave for the Gulf and beyond. Nothing’s good enough for them. Nothing will be of use in the face of children’s ingratitude. Your ancestors weren’t like this. Did any of them ask who their grandfather was? Take the man who walked on fire. He lived on wild plants and mustard seeds, and died of poisoning because no one wanted to hear words of truth. That’s right, he died of poisoning during his first prostration of the morning prayer, or in the second sajda of the first prostration, or the second. His grandchildren and his grandchildren’s grandchildren ate snakes and put hot metal in their mouths . . .” The king wasn’t listening to me. He was following the ceiling’s curves as he wrote in his notebook, and then he raised his eyes to the ceiling while shaking his head in disbelief. At that moment, I knew that I was doomed. I continued with my nonsense, and with that I completely washed my hands of them and the craft. “‘Times have changed,’ they say. Times haven’t changed. People are what’s changed. Now they chase after money. Believe it or not, I’ve been close to some important people—from Hajj Tehami Glaoui to Si Bargache, the prefect of Casablanca, may God have mercy on them both. I’ve been inside their palaces and eaten at their tables. I’ve been with them at weddings and funerals. Money used to flow from my pockets like water. But it wasn’t for money, or for fame, that I worked. Or even for women. All of this comes and goes. Rather, it was because my blood required it, just like the stomach needs bread. The money disappeared when the craft was ruined and I didn’t go on any further.” At that point, the king’s voice reined me in. The notebook and pen disappeared, but his finger remained pointing up at a spot on the ceiling. “What is that? What is that?” “That’s a crack. Yes, a crack, a small crack, our lord. You can hardly see it.” Hidden hands took the djellaba and slippers from me and left me standing there practically naked, looking up at where his hand was pointing, while I stumbled over some words I myself didn’t understand. It was true that, when I looked at it now, there seemed to be a crack in the ceiling. Really. But between you and me, it was in a spot that couldn’t be seen. It was a crack that only someone who knew the secrets of the profession could see, like us, experts in the decorative arts. Like us. Then, as he pointed toward the crack, I heard the king say, “This warp needs to be straightened, and we won’t find anyone better than you, because you’re one of the family, but the crack isn’t as small as you say. Come on, let’s climb up and take a look at it.” So I climbed up. The king began to shake the ladder and shout, “This is quite a ceiling,” as he shook the ladder, and shook it some more. “This is quite a ceiling. This is quite a ceiling.” He shook the ladder until I fell, and I suddenly opened my eyes—the return to consciousness had made me extremely thirsty—so I closed them just as quickly. Still, I found the time to ask Outhman to fetch me a glass of water.
A Shimmering Red Fish Page 22