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It’s a long way to the mosque. If it weren’t for the letter, if it weren’t for the chair I was pushing with Father sitting in it, it would have seemed shorter, and the weather would have felt less hot. Would this weather have hummed a different tune without this oppressive, feverish heat? And it wasn’t even ten in the morning. Those walking ahead of us and behind us were untroubled by it as they were thinking only of the road and what would happen at the end of it. First of all, there were the chergui winds from the east that had been blowing for three days, bringing hot nights that seeped into the skin. They wove a diaphanous, steamy cloak of air, putting our sticky bodies into a daze as they floated along. During the day, rather than walk, they just moved along, floating. Then there were the cockroaches that had driven Khadija wailing out of the house in the middle of the night like someone stricken with rabies, barefoot, with her hair flying every which way, and the others following closely behind. Khadija has always been afraid of mice and cockroaches. These creatures have always been an abundant part of our lives. Then there was the dedication of the mosque. This coincided with the heat and the cockroaches. And it was what prompted everyone to leave the neighborhood before dawn, among them Abdullah. He was the one who had written the letter, although he left out the cockroaches. A polite letter about our suffering in the new neighborhood, about how far the neighborhood was from all of life’s basic necessities—the hospital was far away, the market was far away, even the prison was far away. And the buildings we found when we got there were full of cracks! That’s right, full of cracks. The sewage pipes were broken, the faucets had no water, and the roofs were falling apart after the recent torrential winter rains. Abdullah suggested that the children carry their tablets with Quranic verses written on them. This was the time for it. So that the king would see that we preserved our customs and were raising our children according to necessary religious upbringing. And don’t forget the certificates. The certificates are important. His Throne was on the water. A neighbor suggested that the children wear the new clothes they’d been saving for the upcoming Eid (which was still a ways off), at least for the children carrying certificates; and red tarbooshes and white djellabas for those carrying tablets; and that they should memorize the national anthem. Our neighbor Kenza suggested buying colored balloons and pictures and banners like the ones fans hold at football matches. She said that this was so we wouldn’t look like shameless people whose only purpose was to present their letter to the king and leave. True, their ultimate goal was to return to their old houses, but the best way to achieve it was to not look like someone who wanted to do just that. Rather, they should look as if they had come primarily to gaze upon His Majesty and yell out, “Long live the king!” Essentially, what they needed to do was to not look like someone with specific demands. Otherwise, they wouldn’t gain a thing. That’s how kings are. They give you things when you don’t ask for them. That’s just how it is, and there’s no need to go into it any further. And the letter? Why did they write the letter, then? With all of those details. Our neighbor Kenza stipulated that for buying the balloons, they include her name in the letter. But all those who were so enthusiastic about the colored balloons at first were now wondering how their children would carry flags, tablets, certificates, and balloons, all at the same time. Even if they had four hands and luck came to their rescue as they carried all of this stuff, where was the fifth hand they’d need to wave to His Majesty when he passed by? In the end, they decided that the balloon idea didn’t make sense.
Father would present the letter to the king. He’d hand it to him personally. First, because he had contributed to building the mosque, and second, because he had paid the price with his own flesh and blood so the mosque could stand as loftily as it did today. Abdullah didn’t agree, given the long line of his children who had been martyred so the mosque could stand on its two feet, and so the king himself would come to honor its dedication. The argument went on for a while. Everyone mentioned the ceiling and how much of father’s money and body it had cost. “And don’t forget that we’re from the same family. Don’t forget that,” said Father. Don’t forget that he had spent the night dreaming that he was speaking with the king, the two of them strolling along the corniche, deep in a conversation only they could understand. Who else could talk to the king about perforated wood decorated with Casablanca red? About brocaded colors, multilobed arches, muqarnases made of ornamented, polished, cut cedar, and the eighty corners? Yes, that’s right. Eighty corners, no more, no less, and Your Majesty can count each and every one of them. And after Father was done, nothing more could be said that would be so glorious. After that, every form of eloquent speech would be superfluous. His monologue and the argument that followed took up many hours of the previous night and a good part of the early morning too—a completely ridiculous idea. This old man who looked like a piece of old frayed cloth was still dreaming of the glory to come—before we headed off to the mosque, to our old houses, at about seven in the morning.
The way back never looks the same as the path you took to get there. It’s always different, as if it were a completely different route than the one we’d taken before. I pushed the chair, remaining close to Father, so that the letter in my pocket would remain close to him and he could hand it over at just the right moment. I thought that maybe I wouldn’t take it out at the right moment. I was still debating with myself. I might not remember it because the letter had to do with the mosque. And the mosque had consumed a good portion of my thinking, as well as that of Father’s; it put a hole in my uncle Mustafa’s side, and it made off with Suleiman’s head. And then there was that young girl who used to sing in the mosque. There was no doubt that what happened was written down in one of your files, just as Rihane told me. Your Majesty doesn’t know Rihane? The pit bull that used to work in one of your police precincts? Where is he now? In Heaven. Or Hell. Depends on the file. Ha! It pleased Father to see me laughing, so he laughed too. It was the first time I’d seen a sign of cheerfulness on his face since he was confined to his chair. I stopped, not because of Father’s cheerfulness, but rather because the pain had returned to dig into my toe. The crowd continued to surge around us.
As we passed through wealthy neighborhoods and looked out over the houses of the poor, a large group of people joined us. I didn’t notice them until their smell (which resembled an old stale dinner) wafted over us. The sharp smell of sweat and mildew. Unfortunately, they were going to attend the dedication without having bathed. When we arrive, the ocean will have swallowed up the mosque. My brain was trembling. My entire body was shaking with excitement. Kenza didn’t buy colored balloons, but she did allow the children to bring the calf with them as long as they didn’t lose it in the crowd. We’ll wait for Kika to come out of his room—he has to come out of his room today or tomorrow—with his brown coat and his suitcase, and we’ll slaughter the calf when he does. Ha! Kika will have turned into a skeleton by the time he leaves his room, and he’ll go to Spain in that ridiculous form. The letter in my pocket burned with anticipation, because it too was waiting to see what would happen.
In order to distract myself from the road and the heat, I watched our shadows stretched out in front of us—me and Father in his gold-embroidered selham and the chair that shook underneath him. Sometimes I saw him in front of me and other times he disappeared completely, so I looked around for him. As more time passed, I found a Coca-Cola cap that helped me continue along my way. I cheerfully kicked the cap, completely confident in myself. The letter held no importance because the mosque was destroyed during the week I was gone. I had given the Lord of Heaven and Earth a full week to crush it. Then I started to listen to the hair on my head. I heard it growing as if it were a small garden. I was pleased with the thought that no sign of the mosque would appear, and we had already covered half the distance. Excited and giddy, I was surprised with myself. How could I explain the incredible happiness that had taken hold of me these past few days, all the while fe
eling like I’d been pricked with a needle or stabbed or had banged my head on a door or wall, or even been stung by the pain in my toe or ankle or knee? Things were no longer as they had been. That was the reason. Nothing was the same. Next to me, Karima played with her kite. A huge, brightly colored gazelle made by Father out of paper and thin sticks. Her gazelle didn’t want to go high enough. I told her, “Let’s wait until we get to the beach so we can all have fun . . .” She with her gazelle, and I with my premonition that grew even stronger when I saw Le Matin on the sidewalk with its headline—green, prominent, provocative. The headline still occupied the uppermost part of the page even though construction was finished and work was done. “Citizens! Contribute and pay your share in building the mosque.” Even on Dedication Day they were asking for contributions! Now these mercenaries were stealing for their personal gain. Wasn’t that enough of a justification? These thoughts only strengthened my belief that the time for its inevitable fall had come. I felt sorry for these impetuous souls, so enthusiastic, so unaware of the consequences of their contributions, with a sort of pride as a member of a small gang of insubordinates who had shirked their patriotic duty—me, my uncle, Suleiman, and Farah. “Citizens! Etcetera.” Ha! That was how it was. The mosque had collapsed during the night while everyone was sleeping. There wasn’t a shadow of doubt in my mind, even though, between steps, I wondered whether it was still standing right now. Thinking is sometimes a sort of luxury, nothing more.
These people, the residents of our new neighborhood carrying their worthless baggage, nothing of any value whatsoever, weren’t driven out by the paper-thin walls of their houses that allowed all of their intimate secrets to be heard even in their neighbors’ beds. This didn’t frustrate them or cripple their resolve. The heat of the chergui winds that blew all day and night didn’t drive them out either. They hadn’t even been driven out by how far they were from the great mosque that they had contributed to. They were driven out by the cockroaches. I had woken up in the middle of the night to a strange crawling sound. What I mean to say is that I sat up in my chair when I heard the crawling—I hadn’t actually been sleeping. At this hour, when most people would say that tomorrow will never come, I’m usually sitting and studying her face—Farah’s face—in a mirror of moonlight to see if she’s still with me, after the sharpness of the pains in my knee and the rest of my limbs have subsided. I don’t think the smell came before the crawling—an awful smell that wasn’t coming from the kitchen or the toilet. Nor did it come in through the window. Its source was unknown, as if its stink were something new, unrecognizable. Secretions that smelled like rotten eggs or something of that nature. Even when you finally notice the crawling sound, you think it’s the smell that’s crawling because of how much it overpowers the nose and eyes. So, I didn’t find it strange when I rubbed my eyes. I did find it strange that it didn’t wake up the others who were sleeping next to me—Father in his chair and mother on her blanket. They didn’t even wake up when the sound began to move through the walls, changing from a light hum to this continuous crawling sound like bees buzzing. Then the walls began to crack. All at the same time. A small earthquake was shaking our new house. The cracks that had merely been lines meandering over the walls now widened and filled in what was left of any blank space. An intertwining map of grooves, crevices, pathways, and holes formed in a few seconds, and then they appeared . . . first, their antennae. Thin as hairs that had grown in the cracks’ openings. A wind that wasn’t in the room made them move. Fear kept me glued to my chair for a moment, and then I managed to get up and walk toward the wall, because I realized that this was really happening in the house, and not in my head. I wasn’t imagining these frightening things. Should I touch the insects just to be sure? They were coming out from everywhere. Not small insects, like those we were familiar with in our old house, that crawled around among the cooking utensils and over the plates. These were huge cockroaches as big as chestnuts, and the same dark color. They were crawling around in every direction, sniffing their way toward us with their wings and their antennae. Cockroaches are not like mosquitoes. Cockroaches don’t suck blood, but it’s enough that they give off that smell and swish their wings the way they do. Just as bad. Black. So many of them. On the ceiling and walls. Crawling, flying, bumping into the walls or into one another. They fell to the floor. They crawled all over it. They took off again. Their wings were huge. All they were good for was causing fear. The door to the bedroom opened and Khadija ran screaming and wailing into the street, barefoot and in her underwear.
Then the mosque appeared with its huge frame, its green sloping roof, and its enormous minaret decorated with colored lights all the way up to the top. The closer we got to it, the higher it rose and the larger its shadow grew. Its magnificence was overwhelming. The light coming off of its lanterns became even more luminous as they flashed off and on to the tune of music being played nearby. Soon its shadow would obliterate us completely. I looked up at the minaret rising before me in all its splendor, rising high in the middle of a cloud of smog. And as the mosque rose even higher, when I saw it standing there, I felt a buried hatred welling up inside me that made my blood boil. I was the one who was hoping for the building to collapse as a form of justice. Completely fair. To crumble to the ground. Was it too much to ask to see it collapse? As long as God saw how His mosque was actually built. Perhaps it would take longer than I had imagined. There were still people who needed to be robbed and plundered and flogged and thrown in prison. They still needed a chance to beg for a piece of their lives and to buy another piece. They needed more persecution and oppression and misery and humiliation and poverty before God would come to a decision about the mosque and send His raging winds down to it. He needs a justification in order to be fair. This was the only way to explain all of this delay. He still saw that people need to be plundered, so until the Lord of Heaven and Earth found sufficient reason to bring the mosque down on top of us, He’d leave us to wander on the margins of life from misery to misery, from blindness to blindness, from nakedness to nakedness, from nightmare to nightmare, from wasteland to wasteland, our bodies trembling in fear, our skin turning blue with terror whenever a seed of life blooms underneath our feet. We’d rather crush it underfoot than see it. Amen.
But what were people’s eyes seeing at that moment? Do you think they were seeing the minaret? Or that they were even looking at it? Do you think they were watching the National Department of Electricity employee sitting at the base of the minaret, in front of his control panel, happy that his colored lights had finally found a proper use? No one’s eyes were looking at him—neither Mother’s eyes nor those of the others; not those of neighbors and family members, or women and men, or old folk and young. He hadn’t yet entered their field of vision. They were staring at something that wasn’t there, far from the minaret in the other direction, where there was no minaret or mosque or employee or control panel. Their eyes didn’t recognize the place, as if they had descended upon a place that wasn’t theirs. Standing together in the middle of dust clouds that had been kicked up those walking by. Over there, where we all turned now, there wasn’t anything at all. Just a wide strip of asphalt. Wide and stretching off into the distance. Our houses had been replaced by the wide avenue. Those of us who hadn’t seen the ocean from this angle before could certainly see it now, but we didn’t see our old houses. The ocean. Ships along the ocean’s surface. The horizon behind the ships. And our houses? There was no trace of them. They’d been leveled. Mother sat on the ground and stretched her legs out in front of her, staring at the emptiness left behind by the bulldozers. She didn’t turn toward the minaret. She was still looking for her old house among the bits of dirt. Mother didn’t raise her head up to the National Department of Electricity employee who walked toward us, pushing his control panel in front of him; in his official uniform—the jacket, the dark cap, and the sky-blue shirt. He had never looked more official than he did at this moment as he pressed the buttons on the panel. T
he minaret changed colors, as did its shape. Would he comfort her with words? In any case, he possessed nothing other than that. Father touched his pocket as if asking me to hand him the letter. I told him that this wasn’t the king, that he was the National Department of Electricity employee. And as he pressed the buttons, the employee said, “There’s no dedication today.”
“And the king?”
“The king isn’t coming today. And he won’t be coming tomorrow.”
And when would they be returning?
No one knew. And anyway, they weren’t listening. They were preoccupied with sounds they could still hear even though they had disappeared weeks ago—the clinking of dishes while breakfast was being prepared; the shouts of children as they gathered around the table. The bulldozers had crushed all of it. It was as if they had entered a maze of nightmares and couldn’t find their way out. My thoughts began to move away from them and toward the mosque, a bitter taste on my tongue. I listened with one ear to what the employee was saying about the new street that cut through the city and that allowed the minaret to be seen even before you’d entered the city limits, no matter what direction you were coming from. “The minaret has green zellij that the tourists will be able to see from the capital; from Agadir, even. How can your little hovels compare to this achievement, my children?” Without any warning, they threw themselves all at once at the employee—a huge, heavy throng—shouting angrily and thirsting for blood, and after a moment there was almost nothing left of him. That was the scene. Just like during the mawsim festival of Saint Hadi Ben Issa when the baby goat flies through the air and is grabbed by hands, fingernails, and claws of disciples and eaten by them before it falls to the ground, before even a single drop of its blood hits the ground, before the baby goat realizes what’s happened to it. That was the scene. The National Department of Electricity employee was gone except for his hand. Not even a single drop of his blood had fallen to the ground. Even his official clothing was gone. As if they had swallowed it along with the man wearing it. The attackers disappeared, dispersed, while the National Department of Electricity employee’s hand remained behind, planted in the soil, its fingers moving haphazardly as if they were still operating the control panel and moving along with the minaret’s colored lights.
A Shimmering Red Fish Page 37