“There’s no shame in religion . . .”
“His is the big one.”
“Mine’s bigger than yours.”
“Mine’s bigger than both of yours.”
Laughter burst out from every direction. The judge kept repeating his questions while watching their effect on Najat’s face. He hoped to be surprised by her reaction. Like her cheeks would turn red or desire would shine in her eyes. The gendarme with no epaulettes on his shoulders stuck his leg out and prodded the woman with his shoe. “Answer His Honor, the judge.” The woman kept her head bowed as if she was thinking. Unconcerned with the shoe’s poking, tickling, and prodding, she remained deep in thought for a long time, or at least that was how it looked, then a tear fell from her eye to the ground, followed by another tear, which fell next to the first one. This second tear burrowed more deeply into the dirt than the first one.
*
The wind has its ways. Cold in the winter and hot in the summer. And it has its whims. Like when it blows past when no one is expecting it. This strangely playful wind mussed Farah’s hair as it would any creature’s hair. As if this frivolous wind had been waiting for her at the door. Farah went back inside, grabbed a kerchief, wrapped it around her hair, and went out again. Farah was changed right at that very moment. The neighbor greeted her, kissed her on her cheeks, and congratulated her, as did the grocer, who whispered something she couldn’t hear. Farah thought that the grocer’s voice was as sober as the color of the headscarf she had put on her head. She didn’t understand why right then. And in the street. In the café. Baffled, her friend pointed to it, to the headscarf. Farah looked all around her before realizing what she was talking about. She said it was because of the wind, but her friend gave her a look filled with doubt. What did the wind have to do with a hijab? This isn’t a hijab. This is Mother’s headscarf. As if one door had closed and another one had opened in its place. Noisy. Sitting in the café was no longer the same. The coffee tasted different. As did the water served by the waiter, and the look he gave. Everything was different. The young man sitting on the chair next to her, who was used to the way she looked before, said to her, “What’s with you? Your hair’s so pretty.” She turned to him apologetically, explaining that it was just the wind, but the same doubtful look remained on the young man’s face. His eyes continued to wonder: Was this the same girl who sat with us yesterday, with her short, light hair that danced above her forehead and around her face when she turned? It wasn’t the same face. What happened to it and to the girl it belonged to? It was the wind. But no one believed it. When Farah looked and saw it blowing in the street, rising and falling, she went back home and wrapped her hair in the first piece of cloth she could put her hands on. That was all that happened. But the others saw it quite differently. This wind wouldn’t last long. She’d take the kerchief off when she went home. The kerchief was just a temporary covering that would go away once the wind died down. Who knew—maybe the wind would continue long enough for the grocer to see that she had changed. And for her friends to see that she had changed. And for the neighbors to see that she had become rational, mature, and balanced. And her father would see. That was the most important thing. That her father would see that he no longer had to put his disability on display in front of the General Command office, all because of a form of respect that came within reach thanks to a pale kerchief his wife had used for years without him or anyone else showing any interest in it. The piece of cloth made her father happier than she had expected it would. It was just a piece of cloth, no larger than a meter square. It wouldn’t even cover the dining table in their house. But it calmed his heart and put his mind at ease. Instead of the constant fear he had felt for her before, he now sat relaxed on the doorstep, smoking tobacco brought to him from the base by his friend who hadn’t yet retired. In this regard, he wasn’t worried about his daughter anymore. Instead, he was worried about finding a fish that had been extinct for decades. And Farah? She continued to wrap the kerchief around her neck and cover her hair—at home for her father’s sake, and outside for the neighbors, the grocer, and the waiter. Even on the day she found herself on a bus that was taking her away from her father, the grocer, and the waiter. Taking her away from Azemmour altogether. She opened the bus window and allowed the kerchief to free itself of its labels, to go back to what it was before—just a piece of cloth fluttering in the wind.
Suddenly, some clouds appeared on the horizon, darker than the night that was wrapping itself around everyone. The man said they were very close. They’d been creeping toward them for some time now. As for the gendarme, he was now leaning against the clay wall looking at the stars in the clear part of the sky as if examining another earth. From between his teeth he let out something resembling a horse’s whinny that might have been some sort of drunken laugh. He wondered out loud whether any of them had seen a gendarme fly, adding that gendarmes are earthly creatures, and that the ones who fly end up with their wings smashed. Then he let out the same drunken laugh that sounded like the neighing of a winged horse. Still, the gendarme with the epaulettes was an even-keeled man. He had drunk just enough to cause his head to lean slightly upward, enough to cloud his eyes so he could see that his wings wouldn’t work, and to see that, whatever else happened, he wouldn’t go any further than the yellow epaulettes on his shoulders.
The other gendarme shifted in his chair. “They’re here.”
“Who?”
“All of them.” The gendarme with no epaulettes on his shoulders was as alert as a panther. Ready to pounce. The night enhanced his vision. This was part of his job. Waiting for his boss to finish the lost episodes of his intense dream, he took a step into the darkness. “You don’t see them?” The man walked halfway across the field behind the gendarme with no epaulettes on his shoulders. They stopped. “Now do you see them? They’re here.” Everyone who had been making their way over during the day. The night had been hiding them, and now, after the gendarme had spoken, their presence seemed more intense. A single cohesive throng. A single body stretching out, then contracting. Under the darkness of night, it became even more threatening and present, even more ominous. The two men went back to where they had been sitting. They were wrapped in a deceptive stillness, a false stillness resembling the roar of the lurking mass in the darkness. Eyes surrounded the two men. The fact that there was no shine to them became more threatening than if the shine had been there.
“Are they waiting?”
“They’re not waiting for anything.”
They weren’t waiting for a conclusion because the ending was in their heads. They wanted the woman and her lover. They wanted meat. Not the grilled meat, though. They wanted live flesh. “Do you hear that sound?” The man heard the sound now but didn’t know where it was coming from. Or, more precisely, it had a new, unfamiliar rhythm. It was the sound of rocks in their hands and pockets. Their hands, whose patience had run out, were moving them. Those hands had been ready since morning, since last night. Until they saw blood, until they saw two crushed heads and bones mixed with blood, flesh, and hair flying through the air, until they’d quenched their thirst for violence on two defenseless skulls, they weren’t going anywhere. The man, even after going back to where he had been sitting, could picture the stones as they came down on the two, bare, defenseless heads, blood gushing out over their faces and covering their eyes. White rocks the size of a palm, maybe a little bigger, rained down from everywhere, and their two heads were stunned, not from the pain, not from the force with which the rocks struck their skulls, but rather from surprise and shock.
What were the two gendarmes waiting for? And the judge who had forgotten that he’d been wearing his judge’s robes for a while now? As for the two prisoners, they didn’t expect anything less than the worst. They certainly couldn’t be hoping for a possible rescue. And Najat (whose name actually meant “rescue”) had gotten drunk, laid her head down on the judge’s thigh, and fallen asleep, which prevented him from moving. His robe lost
its dignity, and the magistrate lost his prestige. The gendarme with the epaulettes turned toward the judge. Why was he waiting to issue his verdict? The judge said that he would allow the man who was hosting them to rule in the case, and whatever his verdict was, he would accept it. The man continued to follow the clouds’ movement across the sky. It didn’t appear that he’d heard what the judge said. One of his legs scraped the dirt for a bit. The gendarmes started to feel that it was getting late, that the road was awaiting them, and that they had to return the two prisoners to the car before the crowd lurking in the dark attacked them. Then the man said, “Let them go.” Silence descended once again. It crept along noiselessly, like the clouds above. The judge removed the car key and threw it in the dirt at the young man’s feet. The young man couldn’t see the key because of the darkness. He didn’t have to see it. The hand is what sees in situations like these. He didn’t possess anything other than his hands to see. He used one hand to grab the key while helping his lover up with the other. Then they made their way to the American car. All of this happened without a movement from anyone. They could only watch, unable to move, as if it were happening someplace else and they were separated from it by a wall or a trench. And even after the engine roared and the car took off, the man continued to look at a sky that was no longer the same sky. All of a sudden, the rain started to gently fall, and the dirt took a breath. From deep within the earth the smell of forgotten grass and stored-up promises rose. Could the two gendarmes leave now that the road had turned to mud? Yes, their car was made for this. After they left, the judge grabbed his companion’s arm and they went inside. The man stood there, taking pleasure in the droplets of rain falling on his forehead, tickling his nose, going into his mouth, and flowing sweetly down his throat. As he got up, he thought that it hadn’t occurred to him before to get up, go into the room, take Farah into his arms, and hum to her until she fell asleep, so he got up and took Farah in his arms as if to test his emotions once again. Perhaps he expected more than he had when he passed his hand over the small lump just a short while ago. Yes, perhaps the time had come for him to change.
44
A Grave in the Water
How does luck arrive? Luck is life. Luck is relationships. It’s money. It’s the woman you meet on the street corner—this street and not any other street. Or on the bus—this bus and not any other bus. And luck is not meeting her as well. This little bit of luck that a person needs in order to jump to the other side without falling into the abyss of despair. I watched her for two days, telling myself she might get up. It was a temporary stumble, and with a little bit of luck, she’d get back up. Her luck wouldn’t betray her again. Then, when she did get up for a little bit and stepped outside the workshop, I continued to watch her from the window while she laid her body in the sun not far from the door, and I wondered whether her strength had betrayed her this much. What was missing? She wore my light shirt so as not to hurt her injured skin, along with my leather sandals, and she had on a large straw hat from which she hung a translucent white veil that concealed her face and neck, which were covered with burns. Today, when sitting down tired her out as much as standing did, she went back into the workshop and stretched out among the pieces of wood. For a long, long time she didn’t move. Seeing her in that frozen position, I figured she was sleeping, which was a good sign. I walked back and forth between the pieces of wood on which she had painted red cats that didn’t look like cats at all; with legs like sticks and round white eyes that looked like moons. Farah was laid out next to her paintings. Distant. Had her strength betrayed her as much as her luck had? I looked nervously at her. I saw her chest moving up and down underneath the shawl in the shadows of this small forest, brocaded by the sun’s rays at the peak of its radiance. Her burns were minor and no cause for alarm. There was no need to imagine things that weren’t there. Should I take her back to the hospital? What would I tell them at the hospital? I didn’t even know if Farah was her real name. For no logical reason, I continued to think that she had a name other than this one. Farah isn’t a name. It could be the name of a plant or a flower. There isn’t a girl named Farah in Azemmour or anywhere else. Then she moved, and hope glimmered inside me. She let out a faint sigh. She was returning little by little. She was waking up bit by bit, and the fresh burns and pains were waking up with her as well. Should I prepare the little sardine balls she loves so much? I got a sardine that had been caught in a fisherman’s net today at dawn. I cleaned it and mixed it with garlic, cilantro, and a bunch of other spices, making it into a paste, exactly how she likes it. I waited for her condition to improve enough for her to be able to sit up, just long enough for her to eat a mouthful. Just long enough for me to see that her condition had improved. It had been six days since she had run away from the hospital while I waited for her condition to improve. But no sooner did she gather her strength—no sooner did she gather just a tiny bit of strength and try to get up—than she collapsed and went back to sitting or lying down for hours. From her deepest slumber I heard her say that she wanted black coffee. She moved slowly. She raised her hand, and with the same slowness removed the blackened piece of cloth that was covering her face revealing gouges and lacerations that were difficult to look at. She took off her dress and sat in the middle of the void that surrounded her. It was difficult to recognize Farah in what she was doing right then. And there was no way of knowing what I should do. Should I cry? Farah was on the other side of the world, wallowing in her pain and loneliness. I went to her and helped her lie down again, throwing a cover over her and placing a cloth on her face.
I boiled the water. I poured a bit of coffee into the glass, added the boiling water to it, and placed the glass next to the blanket. She’d wake up and remember she had dreamed of coffee, and she’d be happy when she saw the glass. A small dream come true. A little bit of luck to brighten her dark day. We always need this little bit of luck, this piece of luck that hadn’t been there before. The world is made according to this incomplete principle. Nothing is complete. We’ll always believe in another possibility, in second chances. But there are no second chances. I won’t find the lawyer, or Naima. Just as Farah didn’t find the man who was going to take her by the hand to make her a singer. No one takes anyone’s hand. No one helps anyone except in fairy tales. She opened her eyes and looked around from underneath the veil. She might have calmed down by now. Her fear had conquered her pain, so she forgot everything and became calm. She said she had been sleeping, but had remained conscious of what was around her. Not too long before, she had managed to flutter her eyelids, right? I nodded. She could lift her left arm and remove the veil hanging over her face. She moved her head right and then left. I was still hesitant. Was she there or not? I heard what she was saying and pretended to understand. She said she had heard sounds. Footsteps on stairs that weren’t there, and grass growing on the banks of a river. “The Oum Errabia, our house on the banks, trees, birds chirping, a car horn. I heard and felt all of this around me, but I didn’t see it. Maybe next spring.” She continued to babble incoherently.
After the sun set, her condition suddenly improved again. Astonishing. As if nothing was wrong with her. Not even the burns meant a thing anymore after this stunning turnaround. She threw aside the cloth that was covering her face and went out. From the window I watched her go up the sand dune that separated the workshop from the beach and sit down. Farah radiated beauty even though she hadn’t completely healed. I went and sat next to her. My desire to throw my arms around her and embrace her tightly caused tears to come to my eyes. I just put my arms over her shoulders. After about two hours, night fell without us noticing. As we sat there silently, a small moon appeared in the middle of a circle of clouds that looked like colored steam. The moon’s round edges shone magnificently. The water’s surface shone as if there were another sky filled with stars. Farah and I counted them one by one, even though we didn’t see them. In the stars, Farah saw that the days to come would be radiant. I didn’t say w
hat I was thinking, which was that I didn’t know what good radiant days would do, given her condition. A light wind blew, enough to make her thin body shiver. Walking back to the workshop, she said that she felt a sense of tranquility, that her mind was calm. I slowed down, letting her go ahead of me so I could watch her walk from behind, thinking that I’d jump in through the window to beat her inside. Instead, I went in after her, again mulling over the shapes she had painted on the pieces of wood. I stood there looking at them in the candlelight. Besides the cats that weren’t cats, Farah had drawn triangles linked like a chain. She said they were flowers. Flowers as she saw them. I had never seen flowers like these in my life. I turned around. She was naked. Lying on the blanket, naked.
Farah’s fingers are thin, translucent. You can easily see the life that fills her veins. When I turned my face away from the candle, the fingers appeared. Then I turned my gaze toward the mosque and the fingers disappeared. I contemplated the mosque as it had risen to its full majestic glory. Then, instead of fingers, I saw her body. Her thin body. White and naked. It lay on top of the old cover in the workshop. Completely naked. Amid the panels, plastic bags, empty jars, and cats. For the first time since that day I’d looked in through the window and run away from it dumbstruck, I was looking at her naked body, lying in front of me. For the first time, I was looking at a female body, being generously offered like a gift. Was this what I had always secretly craved without having had the courage to articulate it? Wood panels stood up straight in the dark like forgotten ghosts in a thicket. She lay there languidly. When I put the cover back over her body she kicked it off, raising a cloud of dust. Then, when the beams of moonlight came in through the window and dust enveloped her exposed body in a translucent purplish cloak, a wave like a bolt of electricity passed between us and lit a flame in my chest. I went back to the window. My vision was blurred. In my eyes, desire was like fear. Desire is fear. My penis embarrassed me as it peered out from an opening in my pants and laughed, after desire had transformed itself into what was now between my legs. With it, fear settled in. Desire was the fear between my legs. What my legs were saying was unclear. They weren’t used to standing so close to a naked body. My mouth was dry, as if there were a ball of wool inside it. The mosque looked at me with its many eyes. What was Farah doing? Was she showing her body to the moonlight? She opened her eyes then closed them, smiling. Her nipples smiled invitingly atop the two quivering mounds. For the first time in my life a woman was inviting me to do this and I didn’t know anything about it, despite the twenty years I had been registered under my current civil status. And what did this seagull perched over my head and pecking at the tin want? There were many eyes around me. Farah’s eyes, as well as those of the mosque, the seagull, the window, the wood with the many cats on it with their moon-shaped eyes. And the eyes of desire. The eyes of desire asked what I wanted to do with this heavenly gift in front of me. Her breasts were large. Heavy. Weighed down with promises. Captivating. Larger than my adolescent desire could contain. Full. The creeping sensation moved from my head to my thighs. Her nipples urged me down. I took two steps forward to become better acquainted with her body’s contours. What should I do with the mosque that was watching me? Should I close the window? Would it disappear if I closed the window? And then what would the window think about this? Would it have an opinion about something as complicated as sleeping with a woman? I closed the window and sat close to her. Bashfully, I removed my clothes and lay down next to her. No need to look at her face. Not now. Perhaps I’ll need to later. Her disfigurement helped me overcome my fear, and her boldness and severity. Looking at her through the lens of pity helped me gain the upper hand. In the state I was in, I’d need that disfigured face, and all disfigured faces. Had the time come for me to look at the face? Her disfigured face called out to me, but I didn’t look at it yet. I didn’t want to try to decode what was there. I might do that later. I didn’t want to put my hand on the burns on her face because I didn’t want to cause her any pain. I might do that later. My hand moved over her body’s soft skin. Her body called out to me. Her face slept. The burns shone. Her eyes had narrowed and turned red, and the edges of her mouth had been consumed by the fire of the sulfuric acid. My hand passed over a world it was unfamiliar with. Here it descended a hill and stopped at a delicious crevice. It settled deep inside the cavity like a bird that had found a nest just its size. The hand rested for a little bit before continuing its jaunt, inclining toward the roundness of the buttocks. It was pleasantly surprised that the roundness fit exactly inside its palm. I hadn’t been interested in her body the night I saw her for the first time in the cabaret. And I didn’t think about it afterward, simply because I hadn’t been expecting her. The first time you sleep with a woman, with the woman you love, it always comes as a surprise. Spontaneous. When you least expect it. The first time. That’s why you find everyone talking about their first time. Because it leaves an indelible mark on them. They have eaten from the fruit and they spend the rest of their days trying to find the taste that’s still there, though not on their tongues, but in their tongues’ memory. A unique taste they won’t find in any other fruit. The first time you sleep with a girl you love is the only time. After that it doesn’t have the same taste, nor does it provoke the same intense desire or the same feeling of apprehension. It doesn’t show on the father’s face or the mother’s. No doubt they remember their first time. The times that come after are nothing but a rehearsal for a long play of maneuvers, intrigue, bribery, deception, oppression, despotism, deceit, and what you’ll later call “life.” No one constructs his own life. Your life drew it that first time. And what remains are failed attempts to repeat it. Without meaning. Without pleasure. Without desire. Perhaps there are glands in the body that secrete a substance that might help you recognize the girl who will take you by the hand and lead you into the abyss. Or that will help her recognize the boy who will take her by the hand and lead her into the same abyss. My hands moved gently up to her chest. My mouth sucked the cherry. Little by little my thirsty mouth was filled with the cherry’s nectar. My hands moved up to her face, fingers passing gently over it. The burned, wrinkled skin had softened. The burns had disappeared. The wounds on her face were neither ugly nor repulsive. They were just wounds, like any other wound. Maybe I saw them, maybe I didn’t. I did see that they weren’t defects. They were drawings that looked like crimson roses with yellow and orange petals I’d drawn many times on pieces of paper, wood, and walls. Why shouldn’t I love them just like I loved the drawings I did on Father’s ceiling? The wounds on her face were radiant like the drawings I loved. I loved Farah because of the drawings on her face. Small dark leaves all over her, even reaching her neck in a delicate and brilliant arrangement. I kissed the orange petals first, one rose after the other. Farah was beautiful in all her rainbow colors. The colors of the mosque’s ceiling blossomed on Farah’s body, giving her a unique brilliance. I moved up onto her stomach and thighs, holding myself above her chest. Between her chest and me was a gap of air where currents and smells and thoughts and discernible golden rays pulled at one another. Had the time come for my thirsty eyes to take in her face? The more I lowered myself, the greater my desire became. And the greater my desire became, the easier it was to enter her. Her body was warm, as warm on the inside as it was on the outside. She sighed without a sound. She clung to me, so I moved down. She scratched my back with her small nails, so I lowered myself farther. She scratched my back, slowed it down, sped it up, pushed it away then brought it closer, lifted it so it rose, and lowered it again. Her nails scratched my back, penetrating deeply into the skin, digging into it. When I finally rose back up her face had transformed. It had become Farah’s face as it was before. Gorgeous. Radiant. Her curving waist was colored by the light of the moon when I leaned over slightly. Her body was the moon. She was tranquil now, or sleeping. I closed my eyes and opened them again. I turned toward her and saw she was asleep. I covered her body. I waited for her to move, but
she didn’t. She was more than sleeping. I kissed her little finger and saw that the finger didn’t respond. I moved it, but it didn’t move. I lifted it and it fell. I moved her, but she didn’t move, and it was as if someone slapped me across the face, and darkness closed in around me.
A Shimmering Red Fish Page 34