“But I feel sorry for you. Take this. Here are some of my rations. They’ll be enough for a month, before the sand swallows you up or the snakes eat you, if you don’t surrender yourself because, as you said, your wife is sick. You’ll have enough time to run away or surrender.”
He put his box down on the ground and walked out carrying a light rucksack, and I walked out behind him.
He stopped for a moment, gazing out in every direction. Then he began to cross the courtyard. We watched Brahim, who we thought would stand before the firing squad, cross the courtyard toward the gate. We waited for the squad to open fire. But no, Brahim walked toward his victory one step at a time. He took one step out of the fort and turned around, bidding each of us farewell without a nod or a wave. Then he left the fort—with no special team following him or dogs following his scent—toward the last rays of daylight that shone in the distance, and he headed west, toward other villages, big cities, and the sea. Not toward the east, where the boss had indicated when they arrested him.
10
ALL I CAN SAY IS THAT mysterious things are happening. No news comes to us from the desert, neither bad nor not bad. It is June. Communications have been severed and the general is not responding to His Majesty, who had decided that he would personally bestow the medals that would decorate the chest of his great general, but he never showed up. His Majesty remained in his palace waiting for him for days, but nothing came except a telex saying that he and his army were tied up in the desert, forced to hold their positions. His Majesty was extremely angry. Usually he only put his wig on in the afternoon, but after receiving this unfortunate news he started putting it on as soon as he woke up. Perhaps it is his new way of receiving bad news. Now he spends his time walking around the palace gardens waiting for the general to appear. He has begun to reveal his true nature, and this is what I have been saying the whole time. My prediction concerning this dog had come true. I can read people better than anyone else can.
I consider the bird that smashed into my window during the night to be a bad omen. A general unease spreads over the palace, and over the city as well. The streets are empty, as if everyone’s hopes for a staggering victory have been dashed. Hatred seethes in the eyes of the few people out walking. There are burned and overturned buses that some protesters had attacked the previous night, stores whose doors have been bashed in, and smoke rising from the tires that the rioters had put in the middle of the street and lit on fire. For the first time, I see the square completely empty. From between the ribbons of rising smoke, an old man comes out carrying a sack on his back, searching for something among the fires. He picks up a babouche from the middle of the pile and proceeds to try it on for size, smiling.
It is true that people have been grumbling about the rise in prices for some time, and strange stories have reached the palace, of protest marches where villagers carry huge loaves of bread, but rather than complain of their hunger and their children’s hunger, they are shouting, “Long live the king!” and, “Freedom for the Sahara!” When have people ever complained of the rising cost of living like this? I don’t understand this form of protest. Surely it’s a trick by the politicians. This is generally what politicians do—they whip people into a frenzy from time to time so that it seems they bear no responsibility for the situation. What I like about His Majesty is that he considers what they do to be completely useless. Even though the politicians take advantage of every protest to present themselves as spokesmen in his name and saviors of His Majesty’s regime from peoples’ wickedness, when has a politician ever been interested in other peoples’ fates, especially those ambiguous multinational types of wealthy politicians who hang foreign flags inside their own palaces?
A dreary atmosphere falls over the palace, the streets, and the whole country. The king doesn’t leave his palace. He doesn’t receive anyone. His face is pale and lately he has neglected to put on his wig, after he had been wearing it on his head all day long, as I mentioned before. He seems almost entirely isolated. He doesn’t want to see anyone or hear so much as a word. The palace is silent. Is he comfortable with this state of affairs? You can no longer tell if he is happy or sad, as if he wears a mask that hides his true face from the few visitors he has. He no longer gives any indication of what he is feeling so I am unable to ascertain what’s going on inside his head. No doubt there are scary thoughts. He goes to the clock repairman’s workshop and watches him repair the thousands of clocks of different sizes and types that adorn every corner of the palace. Maybe he is starting to see that he has gone down the wrong path, but is there another one? I believe that every road is the wrong road. Why? Because you don’t know where you’ll end up when you start out. To me, this just seems to be how it is. I only wonder whether he feels some sort of regret because he let his general get away from him. His punishment will fit the crime, that much I hope.
A new guest came to stay at the palace. He was a French engineer who had come to plan a project to build a mosque overlooking the ocean. Although it was a fabulous idea, I didn’t understand how His Majesty could put aside the subject that was currently occupying him and direct his attention toward something else, such as the mosque. He was poring over the plans when the French engineer pointed to the highest part of the minaret and explained that sailors would be guided by the laser light affixed to the top, which would be visible from a distance of forty kilometers. His Majesty appeared to be convinced by the Frenchman’s explanation, if only to be done with the matter as quickly as possible. For the first time I saw him showing not the least concern, as if he had lost all interest. Out of politeness to the engineer, he nodded twice, but after the engineer left he fell silent again. He valued the engineer, which was why he was nice to him.
Many soldiers have fallen in the Sahara, and twice as many have been taken prisoner, yet the general is nowhere to be found. The time for fun and games has ended. Not more than two years ago, the atmosphere in the palace was cheerful. Now it is tense. There’s no comfort or relief. His Majesty’s health has deteriorated a great deal in the last few months. He takes his binoculars and focuses them in every direction. I don’t know what he’s looking at. Perhaps he is looking at the slaves frolicking in the Mechouar square without a care in the world, as if he were saying to himself, “Now that the house has fallen, is it possible to save the furniture?” One of his ministers came to him with a rug made of lion skin. He paid no attention to it and the man left disappointed. The soldiers quartered in the barracks haven’t received their pay in months and now they’re selling their uniforms and furniture in order to find the means to save themselves. And the ministers? Some of them have gone abroad claiming they needed medical treatment, while the ones who remain stopped going to meetings, where anything could happen, so as not to have to meet the gaze of His Majesty. If His Majesty did get angry at someone, it would be of no use to slaughter a lamb at his feet or appeal to a holy man for help. All of them know about the terrifying secret prisons he has recently built. For this reason they stay home, and the majority of them have, in fact, traveled abroad for medical treatment.
His interior minister was unable to escape. I had never seen such anger on the face of His Majesty as I saw that morning when he received him.
The interior minister entered with a downcast gaze as he usually did and said, “I have learned that Your Majesty is angry with me, but you must know that you won’t find a man more sincere than I in the entire kingdom.”
Even though this was not the time for joking around, he took the opportunity to add, “It’s true. In the entire kingdom you won’t find a man better at lying to its citizens than your minister of the interior.”
Finally, the king laughed. It was a short laugh, but it brought back a bit of his optimism. However, it didn’t take long for his depression to return.
He turned to his minister and said, “Tell me. You’re the one who gathers information on the rabble. What are they saying? Are there more seeds of rebellion?” Then he added, �
��Is building the mosque a good idea? Something to entertain the people and make them forget the difficulties we’re facing?”
The minister didn’t know how to respond, as if he had swallowed his tongue.
The king continued: “You’re the expert in these types of ruses. What do you suggest I do to divert peoples’ minds? Do you have a better idea than the mosque?”
I was dumbstruck. His Majesty was no longer sure of anything. I had never seen him ask anyone about anything, but now he was asking about everything and seeking counsel on every issue, as if the compass he had been using to guide himself all these years had broken. Nothing was as it once was, may God preserve him.
When I returned to the palace, His Majesty didn’t recognize me. He was in the middle of the palace courtyard bent over a small clock, fiddling with its insides. He asked what my job was, which took me completely by surprise. The king didn’t recognize me! I told him that I was Balloute, the court jester.
“Jester?”
“Yes, I make Your Majesty laugh.”
He gazed at me with a look of contempt, and said, “Shame on you! A man of your age laughing! Don’t you fear God? Satan is the one who laughs. He’s the one who invented laughter to fulfill one of his missions—to seduce the sons of Adam in this world so as to laugh at them in the next. Does God laugh? Have you ever heard of God laughing? Have you heard of angels laughing? There’s nothing uglier than when the sons of Adam lose their composure. What do you find so pleasing about a face that distorts what the Almighty has created, and who brays like a donkey?”
Then he headed for the clock repairman’s workshop.
11
The Fourth Day (Conclusion)
FOR THE WHOLE DAY, SINCE beginning the search for Brahim, we see a cloud of dust rising in the distance. It’s General Bouricha. The Sahara is his Sahara. Ever since it became his affair, say the soldiers, he has moved around it as he pleases, on foot and by plane. From time to time we raise our heads and say to ourselves, “Look, it’s the general’s convoy passing by. Those are his flags and that’s his convoy.”
But we don’t actually see him at all. The sand is his sand, and the desert wind is his wind, taking him from one place to another. Every place is his, to the east and to the west. He’s really busy. For five years the war has moved from one place to another. These difficult days are still upon us, now as before. This became clearer with the general’s arrival. He has always been out there somewhere in the desert, but now he’s here. We don’t see him with our eyes, but we do see him in the panic that has seized Captain Hammouda and Brigadier Omar who have left Fifi’s tavern, and Sergeant Bouzide who has hidden the playing cards under his bed. His existence hadn’t taken a clear form before today. After Brahim’s flight, it was as if he had come here to fix a mistake we had all made together. Since he became the one holding the keys to the war in the Sahara, we hadn’t heard any name besides his. He had been an undistinguished officer, but became a star when he took it upon himself to take control of the war.
The war has been going on here for years. They say that the king tried to get him on the telephone, but he didn’t answer. It was the first time I had heard of someone not responding to the king. Rather, he just sent a telex saying that the king’s messages hadn’t reached him because the enemy had destroyed our telephone lines with their advanced weaponry, and as long as the king remained unable to travel to the battlefield himself, there was no more to be said. The general is an intelligent man. He said that the enemy had destroyed our lines and that their weaponry was so advanced that the king should remain where he was. In the telex he said that the enemy possessed the latest in Soviet technology. Meanwhile, we haven’t seen any enemy. We haven’t seen Russian-made weapons, Your Majesty, nor would we be able to say with one-hundred-percent certainty if weapons were Russian, or modern, or deadly. The general is forced to resist with the little ammunition he has, with no power nor strength save for in God. God willing, we will be victorious. Then His Majesty sent him another message saying that he wanted to hang another medal on him to honor the great services he has rendered during this war. He responded by telling the king that he is a soldier, and that a soldier doesn’t leave his post. So, what could the king do besides send the medal to the desert where it would find its own way to the general’s chest carrying the king’s gratitude? And with that, the line went dead, as did the thread of communication. The lines of communication disintegrated and disappeared completely. The king sent messages summoning him, insisting, and promising to bestow every medal available in the kingdom on him, but the general remained in his desert, on his farm, pressing olives and keeping track of the foodstuffs he would sell to his soldiers.
We stopped stringing up barbed wire. We prepared a special wing for the general at the fort’s entrance. It had three spacious rooms that we covered in rugs, drapes, and chests. There was also an air conditioner, water, electricity, and rare fruits, all because the general was coming with his youngest daughter, Joumana. While she played with her dog, the general was in the courtyard selling drinks and donuts to the soldiers. That’s right—he had come dragging carts full of goods behind him and he was selling them himself! There was sugar, raisins, salt, and cigarettes, as well as all sorts of drinks and sandwiches. As for the fresh olive oil whose pressing he had personally overseen at his farm, he sold that to his officers. That was why he always had the smell of oil on him. After he was done with the Brahim affair, he returned to finish selling what remained of his wares. Every once in a while he would go to his apartment for a few glasses of whiskey while he watched his daughter Joumana play with her dog, or to change the rags he had draped over himself as clothing. He rubbed her shoulders with some satisfaction. Between one good deal and another, the general looked at his daughter and asked her, “Everything all right, Marjana, my dear?” He calls her Marjana instead of Joumana. When he’s drunk, he thinks about his wife Marjana, who was a servant in the royal palace. “Everything’s fine, Papa. The desert is beautiful, as is the heat, and the soldiers are good men. Everything is wonderful here, Papa.” Then she waits for him to leave so she can gulp down what’s left in the bottle.
His face is gaunt, harsh. He neither laughs nor smiles and his eyes remain hidden behind dark glasses. No one has ever seen him without his glasses or uniform. They say that he only takes them off when he goes to bed. It’s impossible to tell where the person ends and the uniform begins; it is stuck to him like a second skin. He walks along dusting off the arms and legs, tugging on his sleeves, and smoothing down the collar as if there were two people struggling with one another, two lives occupying the same body—his life, and that of his uniform.
For one reason or another I spent the afternoon thinking about Zineb and the nerve-wracking state I had left her in. Whenever I tried to turn my thoughts to something else it proved impossible. One week would be enough for me to see Zineb and to feel the throbs of longing in her that have only gotten louder during my absence. Just one week, but how would I get this time off? There are spring days during which the heart becomes light and restless, wanting, if only it could, to flee its cage and soar through space or roll in the dirt like a child on the morning of a holiday, or to shake its wings like a bird that has finally landed close to a pool of water. The heart is prepared for a first whisper, for the most distant memory, for the first snatch of breeze, as if God has grasped it between His palms with all possible gentleness, out of fear that it might break or dissolve because of its excessive fragility and trembling, the trembling of a man consumed by deprivation, thirst, the desert, and longing for Zineb.
Three years ago Zineb decided to put an end to her pregnancy. We went to bed late, after our evening with the doctor and his wife. A viscous liquid in the bed woke me up. It was past midnight when I carried her, covered in blood, to the hospital. She remained unconscious for a long time. The hospital was empty and silent while I stared at Zineb’s face as she lay on the bed. I watched her pulse. Every once in a while some patien
ts stopped at the door. They didn’t make a sound as they passed through the hall, nor did they make a sound when they crossed through the doorway. They passed over the edge of her consciousness like shadows, like passing shadows. They cast a glance at the bed then disappeared into the darkened hallway, the smell of their breath lingering, mixed with medication and camphor, as well as the smell of disturbed sleep. No one else was in the room; no one except for us, Zineb and I. Zineb was sleeping on the bed. A yellow pall covered her face. Drops of sweat on her forehead glistened under the light’s depressing glow. “A Corpse in the Moonlight.” A good title for a story, but this wasn’t the time for stories or for titles. Zineb didn’t die that night, but she wasn’t all there in the hospital either. Rather, she was traversing the swirl of another life, while I wondered how to cross over into it.
The hospital was silent except for the patients’ shadows that passed without a sound. The echo of distant footsteps. A door closing, or opening. It’s all the same. I wasn’t too interested in the difference. I was only interested in when Zineb would wake up so that we could go home.
It was past midnight when I carried her, covered in her own blood, to the hospital. It was the blood of another life that she had in her womb that had flowed onto the bed. I woke when my fingers touched the viscous liquid. I sat up and pulled the cover away. Zineb was swimming in a pool of blood, completely awake and looking at me with eyes free of fear, surprise, or wonder. In fact, she was smiling as if she had spent the night waiting for something like this to happen. The look on her face was saying one thing and her smile was saying another. She remained smiling for a few moments before she fainted.
I had been expecting to dream of her laughing, because she had spent the evening before laughing constantly. When I went to sleep next to her I was looking forward to waking up early to prepare her coffee black and strong, just as she likes it. I wasn’t expecting a disaster like this when I went to sleep next to her, or when we were at the house of the doctor and his wife that evening, despite the atmosphere that was fraught with conspiracy.
A Beautiful White Cat Walks with Me Page 9