I didn’t know how much time I had spent running toward who knows what when I came to a sudden stop. I didn’t see the man and almost tripped over him. He was crouching on the sand, wrapped in a sand-colored aba tinged by the color of the evening falling upon us, so I didn’t see him until I almost ran right over him. He was listening to a radio he held up to his ear. I greeted him. He offered me some water from a small canteen. I needed his water. There were a number of amulets around his neck. I sat next to him. I saw a camel lying down not too far off. He said it wasn’t his camel. Under his aba he wore his military uniform. I guessed that he was running away like I was, and maybe the same idea occurred to him as well. I wondered if I should I tell him the story of Mohamed Ali. Instead, I asked him about the war. He said, “These Sahrawis want to establish their own state here in the desert so that they’ll have their own set of thieves. Rather than have the same families who loot us seize their possessions too, they prefer that a family or two from their own tribe rob them.”
I liked his response. It seemed understandable, reasonable, and funny to me. That’s how all revolutions, uprisings, and protests end—they end with you giving your throat over to your own kin so that they can slaughter you and suck your blood.
He asked me if I knew General Bouricha.
“Is he that man who fills his swimming pool with mineral water?” I asked.
He didn’t answer right away. He was silent for a moment before saying, “General Bouricha’s car exploded while he was on the road to Agadir trucking his oil. His car was completely incinerated. They didn’t recover anything from the wreckage except for a bit of bone and half a skull.”
Then I told him about his farm—that it had thirty rooms, each with its own chimney, that he had brought in a Japanese architect to design it, that he had a modern oil press attached to the farm, and that he would receive his visitors in a white shirt spattered with oil. He always enjoyed receiving them in that shirt with his hands dripping with oil. The most important thing in life to him was using his own two hands to press his oil, which he would export to the Canary Islands in army trucks. Nine months had passed, with him leaving his farm only rarely. He would receive news and issue orders from his oil press. He would win battles in absentia, he would lose others, and from there he sent one of us to die because he didn’t want to marry his stupid daughter. We laughed together while he prepared a cup of tea for me.
I regained some peace of mind sitting with this man. I was looking at the sky as it took on brilliant colors. A purple sky and a purple evening. The air was tinted with the same hot colors. A few date palms and a camel grazing not too far off. The soldier next to me told me about the mission he had been charged with before fleeing to save his skin. He said that he was supposed to supply the enemy with weapons to fight us with, and to lay ambushes so that they could find us. “Once, we arrested one of them and the general told us to shoot him immediately.”
I asked him about the cannon and he smiled and said that he was the one who sold them the cannon that shot at us, and that he had sold it that time for his own private gain. The man laughed, tickled by his story. A breeze blew over his mind, invigorating his memory. He said, laughing, “And when the general discovered this agreement, I fled.”
Then, as if he wanted to find a solution to my problem, he said that this was the best place to hide. The desert.
That evening a calm washed over me that I hadn’t known before. I thought about whether I should phone Zineb from the first place I came across on my way.
20
I SAT IN THE CAFÉ and took off my tarboosh, trying to make it so that no one would recognize me. I had been deceived from the beginning. It was no use. I put my tarboosh back on my head as if the customers were merely waiting for this in order to be transformed into my friends, acquaintances, and relatives and all that went along with that. The time for friendships has passed, though. I won’t be deceived a second or a third time, although I won’t hide the fact that a certain amount of pride can overwhelm a man when he suddenly becomes the focus of everyone’s gaze, as if the sultan himself is preparing to distribute gifts. The customers smiled submissively, but I was not deceived.
A real fear seized me. There were no longer limits to the customers’ flattery, nor boundaries to their friendships. Now they did everything more effusively than necessary. One of them plucked a rose from a pot of flowers and offered it to me with words of exaggerated praise. Another turned toward me and chuckled like an idiot. Another ruse. As a rule, I don’t generally frequent these sorts of places, but I came to wait for my wife, Aziza, to pass by. Her mother had sprinkled her black magic on the house’s doors and walls in order to get rid of me, and her brother was carrying a knife underneath his shirt. And Aziza? The touch of her skin was so soft. Her mother convinced her to submit a formal court order against me because I left her without support, but what would the judge do when he found someone standing before him who was no longer as he once was? God is great and I put my trust in Him.
Everyone in the café turned toward me and laughed. For some it was enough to smile and wave, as if they expected me to get up on stage to make them laugh. Another customer came and sat in front of me and said that he was the King of Jokes of all of Marrakech. He proposed selling me a joke, but got up before I had had a chance to think about his strange proposal. The strangeness of the idea appealed to me. I’ll buy jokes. I’ll go around to the different cabarets collecting jokes for five dirhams each, like the ancient poet who used to go around the markets and public plazas purchasing words, with which he would then weave his poems. The idea infused me with a new confidence. Maybe the length of time I had spent in the palace had made me boring and unfunny. I hadn’t thought about it from this angle. I always made every effort. I performed every possible prank and ridiculed everyone and it seemed to me that His Majesty’s face was always brimming with satisfaction. What had happened, then? I would have to buy some new jokes, by the hundreds, and keep them in a safe place. For next time.
It’s not too late, not entirely. That person who’ll sell me his jokes wholesale will come. If he doesn’t come, I’ll go to him. The King of Jokes. Ha!
I sat in my house watching the small fish chase one another. I saw now that the time had truly passed, that no one would come to present his jokes before me. Over the aquarium was a mirror, and over the mirror was my face. Do you, Balloute, know what royal anger is? Royal anger knows no rhyme or reason, or rather it’s difficult to know its causes. There are only explanations that may or may not come close to explaining it. You’ll never be honored with a reason. He’ll never direct a single word in your direction, or even a glance as he passes in front of you, and to show how angry he is at you he’ll distribute pleasant words and laughs like gifts to the rest of those who come calling, all except you. You need to listen to his abuses one after the other, and you need to swallow every insult. But they’re not insults! As long as you haven’t been banished from his presence entirely, there’s still hope. The important thing is that you—the one with whom he is angry—must know that your presence is necessary, a duty in fact, so that you can see your master’s anger, so that you enjoy it, study it carefully, analyze and explain all aspects of it, and so you taste the flavor of humiliation as you try to understand it as best as you can, even if it is all in vain. You must show that you are willing to drink your shame down to the last drop, waiting and expecting to be pardoned after two days, or maybe eight years. You plead with God to sustain the period of your indignity as long as you are allowed to remain close to the king’s presence, even if only in this degrading way. Disgrace is a blessing from God, as long as you are not relegated to this position forever, and as long as you haven’t been cast aside with no hope of return. But Balloute has not even been given the honor of thoroughly enjoying his humiliation in the presence of His Majesty.
And do you know what the barber said to me when I visited him yesterday? “Why do you continuously tire yourself out in front of th
e palace door? Maybe His Majesty has a new jester.”
I couldn’t bear facing my loneliness at home, and my questions wouldn’t find a clear answer, so I had headed to his house for a puff of kif to allow me to forget the bitterness lodged in my throat. What exactly was my friend the barber saying? A new jester! I got up and headed to the toilet. I locked the door and sat meditating in the dark, thinking.
There’s a distinct possibility that the king has a new jester, but a human being should not treat others this way. My mood darkened completely, as did the mood of my fish, and the headache that had announced itself without fanfare a few days before now pounded violently in my forehead, and also in my foot, or was it the other foot? I don’t know which one is the good foot. I only know that this is my limp.
“Why do you tire yourself out? Maybe he has a new jester.” This was the final blow. We live by luck and we die by it, and the barber proceeds to kill me by stabbing me in the back like this. But Si Hussein the barber did say “perhaps.” All options are still on the table, and there is the possibility that the king does not have a new jester. This “perhaps” that the barber said contains this possibility too. Perhaps he has a new jester, perhaps he doesn’t. If only I could be sure. “Perhaps” is a word more poisonous than any other, a word that contains within it all manner of anxieties. It contains the future and the past. Perhaps it ended, perhaps it didn’t. And what does “a new jester” mean? It could mean a new minister, or perhaps a new diplomat. What does the minister in the palace do if he isn’t jesting? Or perhaps nothing of the sort happened. Or perhaps the barber Si Hussein’s head was filled with so much kif smoke that he had lost his mind. Perhaps he wasn’t thinking about what he was saying at all. Perhaps . . . perhaps . . . perhaps. . . .
I took the barber’s razor. I shaved my head and my cheeks down to the last hair—the final measure, the ultimate trick. A minister called Hamad had resorted to this in order to gain His Majesty’s pardon. History books are filled with stories of this sort: influential people, ministers, and great statesmen have resorted to it, and it’s not even a trick. Rather, it’s a necessary stage of one’s professional life. That is what historians write: “bald and clean-shaven, barefoot, with a loose outer garment covering the body.” That’s how you have to appear before His Majesty, and that’s how you have to remain, standing before him for as long as is necessary for him to see you and your humiliation and how far you’ve fallen, even if you have to stand there for your entire life.
This was how I went out, like the day I was born—naked, barefoot, and seeking the help of an extended hand. I was seeking just a gulp of air so that I might live. I’d buy a wig to put on my head later. Buying jokes and a wig. A full program awaited me in the coming days. As for right now, let me stand in front of the door—the Big Door; the Door of Hope; the Door of the World; the Door of Life and Death—with no hair on my head or whiskers on my cheeks.
“I stand before you a dead man and I want to live. I am a corpse in front of Your Majesty and I want to be resurrected. I have a son whom I sent to the front lines to protect your back. He’s still wearing his uniform, ready at any moment to throw himself into battle for you, but I won’t let him return to the front until I’ve been dealt with justly. I gave my son to this country and I don’t expect anything more than to be treated justly. Someone like me who works in the palace, who moreover bequeaths his son as a sacrifice for the nation, expects at the very least to be treated in a decent manner in return. Is that expecting too much? I only ask for justice. Let them judge me. I’m ready. But judgment has its conditions.”
What judgment are you talking about, old man? I’m hallucinating. “What I’m demanding is not a favor from anyone. Never in my life have I expected favors from anyone. You must choose. Either give me justice, in which case my son will return to the front with his head held high—all of us will go to the front with heads held high—or we will remain in our houses and you won’t find anyone to defend you. If you can win your battles without our children, especially one like Hassan who can hold a weapon while at the same time hardening the resolve of the soldiers with his comedy and his jokes, then go right ahead. And Hassan won’t stop there. He’ll buy more jokes to strengthen the soldiers’ bold resolve. We’ll walk side by side, lifting the soldiers’ morale by jesting, and we’ll explain to them the advantages of a man dying while laughing. We won’t demand anything in return. Laughter is the right of every citizen, whether he works in the palace or not. There is no difference. That’s my opinion, but only God knows the truth.”
One of the guards approached and dragged me far away. What was with him? Why was he threatening me? Was I yelling? And, in the end, why shouldn’t I yell?
A strange feeling came over me while I was in the street. The windows were all closed. The remnants of the recent disturbances could still be seen—buildings torn apart, the charred remains of cars. People walking stopped as I passed by, and this too was an occasion for feeling proud. Our people are great. They love the pageantry I represent. Should I let them kiss my hand? I don’t know where they got this custom—four kisses at least—and don’t think that I could extricate myself from them by merely saying no. They lined up along the street, preparing to applaud me. Perhaps they were waiting for me to tell them some jokes. They laughed in advance. Three people were doubled over in laughter. Was I that funny without even having to say anything, without the slightest effort? I had no idea I was that funny. It was all traps and snares, but I wouldn’t fall into the trap, kind sirs. The shop owners of the bazaar stood in front of their stores, waiting for me to pass by. They laughed in turn. People have no shame. They have no dignity. They don’t know that I understand all of their hellish tricks.
A feeling of optimism, not because the unrest has passed and His Majesty would be able to see to his more serious concerns, at which time he’d remember me, but rather because some wild pigeons flew out from the ruins and pooped on my shoulder. That is always a good sign. I returned to the garçonnière. I took down the last expensive wall clock. I approached the peephole of the guard who was standing at the palace door, perhaps the very guard who threw me out last time (I didn’t know, and I wasn’t concerned with such generalities). I knocked on the door. For a while I didn’t expect the peephole door to open, as if it no longer mattered to me who was behind it to hear my complaints. All guards look alike, whether it’s a new guard or an old one, because the first lesson they learn is how to be deceitful—an old guard makes himself look like a new guard and vice versa. Nothing mattered to me except that my gifts arrived along with my complaints and grievances.
I told the guard that I was Balloute, the king’s private jester, who had made him laugh for twenty years, and that I was bringing a gift for him. I told him that I had been walking around for days without being able to find anyone who could tell me how I could meet with His Majesty simply to ask him, “Do you have a new jester?” That was it. Was it too much to ask for a jester such as myself who has been exposed to every indignity to try to put things right? No sound came from behind the peephole. It remained closed and the large door remained bolted.
“I just want to know if a new jester has joined His Majesty. I won’t cause any fuss over something as simple as that, but it’s my right to know. And by the way, I will say to you, my friend, dear guard, that I am innocent of everything that has been said about me, I swear to God. I beg you to deliver this message to His Majesty, or to whomever it may concern. As long as you’ve made your decision, at least . . .”
I felt the blood boiling in my veins, and I stepped back so I wouldn’t feel obliged to charge the door. I moved a bit farther away from the door and turned toward some passersby who had gathered on the sidewalk facing the palace door. Their presence there didn’t prevent me from protesting. “That’s no way to deal with people. The civilized person is the one who summons you and says to your face, ‘Mr. So-and-so, we are no longer in need of your services,’ and he thanks you without having to give you
anything in exchange. God is the One who gives.’”
I stood before a guard who didn’t equal the babouche I wore on my feet, and he didn’t deign even to respond to me. I wasn’t asking anything of anyone, but the least he could do was treat me with respect, not like an old useless rag. “I’m a jester, if you didn’t already know, and the king himself is the one who made me a jester. Everything is allowed for the jester, even heading to the palace in the morning without having to ask permission, and the proof is this protest that so threatens you!”
I approached the gate again, and in frank terms demanded a meeting with the king so that each of us could take his fair share of the responsibility. My sit-in at the gate finally yielded results when I heard the guard say that he was new on the job, and that the orders he had received were not to open the door to anyone. Then he added that he didn’t know the palace had jesters. Didn’t I tell you? They learn the art of the dodge from an early age. All guards are the same. “You didn’t hear, dear sir, that there are jesters in the palace?” Ha! A new guard, he said. Don’t make me laugh. New, and he doesn’t know who Balloute is and it’s not his job to open doors. He’s a guard. He neither opens nor closes. I saw him peering out of a small hole almost sympathetically. He asked me to move away so as not to cause him to be fired from his job. What about me? Who will give me my job back?
A Beautiful White Cat Walks with Me Page 18