I said to Joumana, “He has to keep practicing, especially someone like him who’s trying to find laughter for the first time.”
His Excellency thought that the matter was this simple? But how many years does it take a man to regenerate his blood? An entire lifetime perhaps, and that’s how it is with laughter too. A disposition that is closed and hard requires a lifetime to transform itself into one that is open to the world and to people in all their seriousness and silliness, harshness and levity, intelligence and stupidity. He didn’t get this, but tried to enter a new world: the world of satire. What did he expect? What exactly was His Excellency expecting? That his heart would just open up to laughter, free of charge, for nothing? I understand perfectly well why the general doesn’t laugh. It’s because of the uniform. Once you put a uniform on in order to become another person, the person who was there just moments before is hardly recognizable, as if a demon takes you over, whips you into a frenzy, and pushes you to kill the first man you run into.
His youngest daughter settled into the room that was intended for her father. His daughter Joumana, after wandering from one void to another, decided that she was going to become a professional photographer, so she came to photograph the Sahara, to capture what her father had never been able to see during his quick tours of duty. She saw it in her dreams—spaces overflowing with femininity, a sea of pain and desire, shadows like eternal bodies, an unspoiled expanse extending out into infinity, all the way to her empty heart, shadows secretly sleeping and dreaming of the girl who will immortalize them with her camera. The captain ordered me to stay up all night at her service. I watch her going in and out of her room carrying her small dog in a dreamlike state. She’s a skinny, ugly girl, and where her breasts should be there’s a camera hanging from a strap around her neck that swings back and forth with the rhythm of her uneven steps.
Captain Hammouda said to her, “I present to you the conscript Hassan. He is an artist just like you, miss. He appeared on television once and presented a sketch entitled ‘The Butcher.’ Did you see it?”
“No.”
“Did you hear about it?”
“No.”
She went back to playing with her dog.
The general has three daughters. The middle one got divorced after having been married for two months to a lawyer from Marrakech. The oldest one went abroad without marrying. She lives in Paris. As for Joumana, since becoming a quasi-orphan, she hadn’t done anything except play with her dog from the time she gets up in the morning, until she hit upon the idea of photography. She really seems like an orphan. No one cares about her. In fact, she’s like a shadow or a piece of furniture, and I found that she was even uglier than I had previously noticed. At twenty-eight years old she resembled the dog she carried around. She was so ugly, in fact, that it made one want to turn away so as not to have to look at her, and she was dumb too. She spent her time in the company of dogs, thinking about taking pictures of rooms and doors and the crumbling walls of the fort, and here she was today, waking up with the idea of photographing gazelles. Where were we going to find these gazelles?
Four of us set off in the car, before sunrise, going to hunt gazelles. In addition to the idiot Joumana, the general’s daughter, there was Naafi and Mohamed Ali. I told them that we were going to be tortured by this creature. From the beginning, I felt no affection toward her but they just felt they were on vacation, with the general’s daughter no less, happy with their luck. Joumana scanned the horizon with Captain Hammouda’s binoculars—binoculars that no one else was allowed to get close to but that he had handed to her, practically melting with happiness. Naafi had been polishing his rifle since we left the fort. He wore a taraza made of palm leaves and, having gotten rid of the military cap, he did look as if he was on vacation. Mohamed Ali was smiling. He was still happy because he had been delivered from at least one unfortunate day of stringing up barbed wire. The others—conscripts and non-conscripts alike—saw no end to their labors and were bent over the wire, stretching and stringing it up, all to remind them that they were at war while they burned a little bit in its false hell.
We were going to hunt gazelles.
I was like the attaché to the general’s daughter, as if that were a new, high military rank. I was also an artist like her, an artist who wrote sketches and performed them on TV, while Naafi and Mohamed Ali were the specialists in gazelle hunting. I wasn’t sure who exactly had told her that the area was filled with gazelles, but I had added, “And for hunting them, you won’t find anyone better than my friends Naafi and Mohamed Ali. We have barely been apart since we were brought together by accident, by the barracks, by this strange war.”
She’s really an idiot, this girl. She had never seen a gazelle in her life, living or dead. She squawked every time one of us turned our head. Every time one of us moved, she thought he’d seen a gazelle, so she let out a squawk and stopped in her tracks. She wouldn’t stop squawking or standing up and sitting back down. She was expecting a gazelle to appear at every turn, even under the car’s wheels, as if it were cats we were hunting. The idea of seeing a live gazelle and taking its picture had lodged itself in her head. I would have preferred being in the tavern with Fifi, angry over the disappearance of her turtle, watching her come and go, just as Brahim used to do, instead of running after this spoiled brat. Where was Brahim now? In some other tavern. In front of another turtle, or in front of a bride his mother was able to find from among the young women of some village. Brahim didn’t want to marry a city girl because he was afraid she’d laugh at him. I hoped he found what he wanted.
And us? We scampered over rocks like monkeys. Two strong slaps on the idiot Joumana’s face. That was all that would be needed to return her to her senses, but instead we went along with her because she was the general’s daughter, allowed to ruin our day. We crossed over rivers looking for a gazelle that refused to appear, that threatened to thwart her adolescent plans, and that left us wandering in these wastelands. All around us, as far as the eye could see, there were extremely high mountains. We moved slowly forward, following narrow, dry riverbeds. The silence was absolute, savage, and we moved along to its rhythm. Naafi sang a Sahrawi song because he had Sahrawi roots. He once told us that his grandfather came from the Sahara to Marrakech with nothing but his sword. Naafi swept the mountains with his eagle eyes, humming a song that never ended.
We stopped when the rising sun shone on our backs. No sign of a gazelle. Mohamed Ali lit a fire and Naafi said, “I’ll take a look around.” He jumped without a sound onto the rocks, lightly, doing away with anything that would weigh him down except for the rifle that he raised up in front of him like an Indian getting ready to pounce on a White Man. He walked away with quick steps, jumping carefully from rock to rock without a sound. Naafi knows the desert. No one knows it like he does, which was why he walked as if he were in his own garden. After a little while, we heard a gunshot. Mohamed Ali said that Naafi had found a gazelle, whereupon Joumana jumped up from where she was sitting and screamed—baffled, happy, and frightened all at the same time. She said that she wanted her gazelle alive. I wasn’t interested in what she said. She remained standing and gazing at some distant spot where the gazelle was going to appear, coming toward her in surrender. Mohamed Ali said that Naafi hadn’t fired another shot because he had wounded it, and began to prepare the cooking pot and get the fire ready. Joumana calmed down a little and waited like us, sitting on the ground wrapped in a blue cloak, watching Mohamed Ali’s every move with mesmerized eyes. Everything mesmerized her—the dust, the turbid water we drank, the car as it rocked and almost turned over, day, night, the wind, the emptiness, sleeping in the emptiness, the fire, and Mohamed Ali as he lit the fire. Naafi came back without prey. He had wrapped a covering around his head to keep the burning sun off. He put his rifle down. He lit his Mauritanian pipe after filling it with tobacco, and sat smoking.
He said, “The wind changed the bullet’s trajectory.”
“You di
dn’t get it?”
“Nope. I found no trace of blood.”
“Should we go back to the base, then?”
“No!” yelled Joumana.
All of us understood the meaning of the “no” that had shot out from this childish girl’s mouth—until we got her gazelle for her, there was no use in even thinking about going back.
I was the one who said it from the get-go: This girl wouldn’t allow us a minute of peace and comfort until we found her animal. Where was this damned gazelle? Why wouldn’t it show itself and deliver us from a night or even longer in the wild? And it might all end badly. Our hides could be roasted if the enemy were to come upon us. We hadn’t seen an enemy up till now, but they were out there. However, it was the general who would roast us if anything bad should happen to his daughter. Nonetheless, I spent some of the afternoon hoping something bad happen to her. For example, a scorpion could sting her, or a snake could bite her, or the enemy could show up and take her to their camps in the heart of the desert, thus ridding us of her forever. Otherwise, being stuck in this labyrinth with this creature would know no end.
But the enemy didn’t appear, just as the gazelle didn’t either. We were not worth observing, as we were when they ruined our night at the well. I spent the afternoon repeating, “This is when it will appear,” but it didn’t appear. All I heard was the sound of Naafi singing or the sound of Joumana dreaming of the gazelle. Wasn’t there an enemy out there reasonable enough to appear when we need them? Wasn’t there an enemy who could rid us of this girl who dragged us across the desert waste, dreaming of gazelles night and day?
We spent the afternoon as we had spent the morning, driving through dry riverbeds and narrow ravines, and over bumpy roads. The car rose and fell as we bounced from side to side with its unsettling rhythm. Our meager rations were close to gone, and this pleased and excited Joumana’s capricious mind even more. After having tasted being lost in the empty desert she wanted to know the taste of hunger too. She refused to drink in preparation for this festival of famine. Naafi and Mohamed Ali got out of the car. They would go around the mountain and we’d meet up with them on the other side, maybe after they’d found their rare animal. The girl had begun to get on their nerves. The whole affair had begun to irritate them. That was why they had gone off. The car chugged along and it seemed to me that we would never get to the other side. It had been a while since Mohamed Ali and Naafi had disappeared. After half an hour they came up to the car, but without results, while the sun rose high in the sky, burning above us.
Then, totally unexpectedly, a gazelle appeared in front of us, a little to our right, grazing contentedly. We stopped, frozen where we were. It lifted its head. The gazelle raised its head and looked at us with its black, calm eyes that were not expecting anything bad to happen. There was no trace in them of what was about to occur. We froze, the gazelle and us, exchanging curious looks. There was a silence among us, a sense of surprise, the idea that death could arrive at any moment. When Joumana let out a squawk, the gazelle jumped up and fled. Naafi immediately knew what to do and hit the car’s horn. The gazelle stopped. It went back to guardedly watching us and the car, which it took for an animal like itself, a little bigger but with the same two eyes. The gazelle approached the car. Its initial tranquility returned and the same inquisitive look remained in its eyes. At that moment a gunshot rang out and the gazelle fell to the ground, dead. Joumana screamed like someone who had lost her mind. She jumped out of the car and went over to where the animal lay on the ground. She circled it in disbelief. She sat down then stood back up again. She took some pictures of it—pictures of the gazelle, pictures of its dead eyes that it had seen us with, just moments earlier. Joumana said that life continues in a gazelle’s eyes after it dies, but we didn’t understand what she was talking about. She was delirious and we were walking along beside her in her delirium. As Mohamed Ali busied himself with skinning the gazelle, his arms covered in blood up to the elbows, Naafi sat on a rock, smoking his Mauritanian pipe and singing.
14
I DIDN’T ADVANCE ONE STEP. There was no way of knowing that they didn’t need me at all; no way of being absolutely sure of anything. I think about leaving the city for the citadel, or for any unnamed village just as Rahhali did. When he fell out of favor he packed up his bags and went to Settat, but I don’t have the same conviction as he did, nor do I feel the same despair, and no one is angry with me. I haven’t done anything that would harm anyone influential. I’m nothing but a jester, and no one has anything against a jester. Oh God, but what about what I said about the minister of the interior? I’m still hopeful, though. A mere misunderstanding that will pass. They might call for me at any moment so I must remain where I am, close to the palace. Things will be much worse if His Majesty asks for me and I’m nowhere to be found, neither at home nor at the barber’s house. Then, it would look suspicious. I mustn’t give anyone a pretext. There are so many evil people. I must be careful, extremely careful.
The last time I stood in front of the palace door, the guard assured me that God would do what was best, and that for his part he’d try to get my messages and gifts through, one way or another. But I don’t need someone to reassure me or prove his good intentions to me. All I want is for someone to remind His Majesty, to tell him that there’s someone at the door, or to say to him, “It’s been so long since Your Majesty laughed, since we’ve seen your face break into a smile, all because of the problems in the damned Sahara,” or “I can’t remember a day when we laughed like we did when Balloute threw himself naked into the swimming pool,” or “Does Your Majesty remember the day when Minister So-and-so came before us in a bad way complaining to you that he was late for a government meeting because he was suffering from severe intestinal pains, and you asked your jester Balloute whether he had any medication to treat him? ‘Yes,’ replied Balloute immediately. We laughed and your brilliant jester added, ‘There’s an easily taken, quick-acting cure. It’ll be enough for your minister to stick one finger in his mouth and another finger up his ass, after which he should proceed to switch and alternate them. After half an hour he’ll see how the wind whistles out of both of his holes. He’ll feel completely better and will be able to devote himself entirely to the venerable government meeting.’” Just a few words is all I ask. At that moment, His Majesty would wonder, “Where did that weasel who used to delight us with his sense of humor, his anecdotes, and his different types of laughter disappear to? Every laugh was stranger than the last. What was his name? Hold on, I remember it now. Why, his name was Balloute!”
Is this too much to ask? Isn’t there anyone who can perform this good deed for heaven’s sake, or for a rare wall clock?
Another time, the guard told me, “Since I started working here, all sorts of people have passed by, and all of them have said that they work in the palace. There was even someone who said he was the king’s uncle! Am I supposed to believe everything everyone says?” Your words push one to despair, guard, but I won’t despair, even though all this really does make me lose hope.
Two weeks have now passed. No sign has come from behind the locked palace walls. His Majesty is devoting all of his thoughts to the Sahara, and specifically to General Bouricha, who isn’t responding to him. This general, he’s the reason. He’s the one who has so ruined his mood. Damn him! It doesn’t seem that he’ll respond to him anytime soon, which is what I said from the beginning. I said to His Majesty, “Don’t give him your finger because he’ll devour the whole arm!” This man was once a mere shadow. Now look at him. No one knows what’s going on in the Sahara or what’s going on in the general’s head, not even His Majesty!
The ideal way to find out what’s going on and to put my mind at ease once and for all is to write a letter begging his forgiveness, but I don’t even know what grave error I’ve committed that I could possibly try to explain and justify. Perhaps I’ll just write something with no connection to what has happened. No, all of this would be of no use. Gifts a
re the way to reach the hearts of these sorts of people. Yes, gifts. A gift for the guard to soften his heart, and another for the servant. A gift for the cook and another for the gardener. Once the gifts are distributed around the palace, I will have taken the first step. My goal is for my gifts to reach the king so that he’ll remember me. That’s the important thing. I’m sure that with just a passing mention of me, he’ll remember me, and he’ll remember that he loves to laugh. The king needs to laugh, especially now in these tense times.
Aziza and her mother discovered the right time to form an alliance against me. Their collusion has gone as far as it can go. I had lost control over the household some time ago, and had begun to scream endlessly. Those two damned women would let my yelling just float there in the air, in the open space of the courtyard, as if it didn’t concern them, while they continued scheming against me. They would whisper to one another, deliberately cloaking their gestures in obscurity as they plotted away. All the while I would say to myself, “Soon I’ll find the wind whistling through this house that has been emptied of everything. If things go on this way, the furniture, the dishes, and everything large and small will disappear.” And Aziza, of course, said that she cannot rein in her dear mother. But even after having had the door closed in my face, I still clung to the notion that a thirst for goodness has not disappeared completely from people’s hearts. I reassured myself with the hope that things would return to the way they were, but unfortunately, little by little, things only got worse. The mother had set her daughter against me. She had delivered her and her children from misery and beggary, and then she rewarded herself by throwing me out of my own house.
A Beautiful White Cat Walks with Me Page 12