The man’s wonder was doubled when he looked at me. He saw before him a man in full control of his thoughts, even if he didn’t necessarily look as if he was, even if his head was shaved, his cheeks were smooth, and he was barefoot and practically naked save for a light garment. Why so surprised? I’m a normal person and looks can be deceiving. Why did he retreat behind his gate and lock the peephole? I know this type of guard. There he was, standing straight and tall in his gleaming and perfect uniform like an overly important person. Let’s see what you look like this evening in your patched and beat-up clothing, sitting in your pitiful den sharing what’s left of yesterday’s dinner with your children.
The peephole didn’t open, as if I were addressing the wooden door. Perhaps I had to be more humble, to become smaller. They like misery, as do their masters. I know about them and their secrets. I approached the wooden door until I could hear the guard’s uneven breathing from inside his fortress. “I am Balloute, the king’s jester.” I took from my pocket a piece of white paper covered with scribbling that the guard couldn’t make heads or tails of. I told him that it was the king’s personal stamp and I waited. The peephole opened again. He continued to stare at the paper and it appeared that he was starting to weaken in the face of the evidence I was presenting. I kept holding the paper up in front of his eyes, waving it and threatening him, saying that if he didn’t open the door he’d regret it until his hair turned white. The guard grabbed the piece of paper, tore it into little pieces, threw them away, and relocked his peephole. Lord have mercy! At that very moment a gust of wind carried off the little bits of paper. The gate in front of me was high and silent, sealing off its secrets. I felt tears coming to my eyes, but my eyes were squeezed into a squint. Should I cry in front of him? What was the use of crying if the door wasn’t open? I turned toward the passersby who had dispersed. It would be better if my tears could make the gate fall down. The gate was bolted shut, but it could open at any moment, and why not? It could open if God were to will it and I could enter without having to wait for a sign from a stupid guard who didn’t understand anything.
The guard will know what I’m worth soon enough, just as he’ll know the value of the piece of paper he has just torn up and he’ll apologize, but it will be too late. I won’t accept his apology. He’ll leave his post and his job at once (if standing in front of the palace was ever even considered a job) and it will be his turn to stand begging for a face-to-face meeting.
I turned around to see if another group of passersby had gathered so that I could bear witness before them as well when I saw him coming. He was moving calmly toward me, filling the decorated cap I had given to him that day. That same hunchbacked man who I thought had been killed by syphilis—Zerwal! He advanced steadily toward the door in his fancy clothes, waddling like a peacock without a neck or legs. I took a step backward and hid my head in my shirt so he couldn’t gloat at me. Then I saw the door open for him, thrown wide open before him. The guard received him cheerfully and bowed before him. There was no trace of illness on his face. It was him, just as he was, better even, with his hump and his ugly body and his sick face. Had his ugliness made him less fortunate? On the contrary, he seemed to be in his prime. The guard was happy to see him. He didn’t recognize my new look. He didn’t turn toward me to acknowledge me. What would he have said if he had seen me looking so ridiculous?
What’s the use of laughing? I’ve practiced all manner of laughter, even a fly’s laugh. Yes, I can convince you that what you are hearing is the sound of flies laughing. But now, what’s the use of laughing like a cat, or a hyena, or a boa constrictor? What’s the use of all the laughter that I’ve learned when there’s no one to hear it? The worker heads to his workplace and the builder goes to his workshop. I’m not a worker, nor am I a fisherman riding in my boat off to sea. I’m a jester. I have only one job, and only one workplace. Strange, isn’t it? I can only work in one place, and if it’s closed in my face, I won’t be able to find another. Should I change my profession and start from scratch, in the Djemaa El-Fna, for example?
I’m sixty years old, I have two wives and two children, my second wife’s mother deals in black magic, she has a son who hides a large knife under his jacket, and they’ve decided to sue me in a court of law. Perhaps my first wife has done the same thing. Why not? Who will prevent them from tightening the noose around my neck? Now I realize why I returned to my first house—so as not to give them the chance to drag me to court, so that they wouldn’t be able to establish a new file on me. Pretty sneaky, don’t you think? I know exactly what their plans are.
They are preventing me from seeing His Majesty. They are opening files in the courts, inserting money into them to bribe the judges with. They are taking their revenge. For two days they have turned the garçonnière upside down, taking off with every piece of furniture of any value. Can I really attribute this to burglars? And what can I say about the restaurant? Even the restaurant where I eat has changed. In place of the usual stylish ceramic dishes, the waiter puts tin plates down in front of me, and he asks me to pay in advance. How am I to link all the co-conspirators in this plot against me? How can I gather together all of these people waiting expectantly for my downfall? How am I to sort out all of the worries that taunt me? I will choose the worry that is closest to my heart.
I sit in my old room. I look at the wall in front of me. I had taken down the pictures hanging on it, pictures of me with His Majesty in all sorts of places—the Champs-Élysées, the Place de la Concorde, the beloved forests of Ifrane . . . and the two of us leaning over the side of the ferry looking at the sea laughing behind us.
21
Day Nine
THIS IS THE DAY OF the father, a day whose end will be a surprise. People usually die at night. Only jesters die at inconvenient times when everyone is busy—in the morning, for example, which is what happened with my father. They die at these extremely inconvenient times to force people to leave what they’re doing, or working on, as if they are continuing to jest after their deaths. The most cunning of them don’t die. Rather, they cling to life before your eyes, neither dead nor alive, in order to prolong everyone’s suffering as a final form of revenge. All old people savor these difficult hours that can last for years. I woke up intent on asking him for some money, asking myself what other reason he would have for returning home. I thought about it for a long while and came to the conclusion that he was obligated to give me some money. All bets are off with this kind of person, but I didn’t want to take the path of a thief. Rather, I said to myself, “It’s as if he came home for that rather than for Fadila’s wedding, as he claims, or for anything else really. If only he knew that it was the fourth time her engagement had been called off. No, he didn’t know anything about all that. Apart from giving away his fortune, his coming here makes no sense. How is his coming so late supposed to benefit us?” Fadila won’t be any better off for it. Her second fiancé disappeared. Her first engagement wasn’t any luckier.
Two days before the writing of the contract her legs failed her and she no longer had the strength to walk. Then she was confined to her bed, not getting up until the engagement was called off. Dada said that the girl was possessed. Despite all of her visits to the faqihs and holy tombs, despite the harsh séances she endured, the jinn did not leave her body. Will his presence here make the jinn that have been possessing her just up and leave? My mother regained some of her youthfulness, it’s true, but only externally. Her misery won’t be erased by siwak for her teeth, kohl for her eyes, and the strange paint she puts on her cheeks.
I spent the morning wandering around the house of the doctor and his wife again. When I returned to my mother’s house, no one paid any attention to me as they had the day before. An unusual worry inhabited their faces and eyes. My mother and Fadila were sitting in the house’s courtyard staring at Father, who was pacing in the bedroom, looking at the pictures hung on the wall. Bald and plucked, like a character who had emerged from some drawing. Ther
e were numerous magazines and pictures strewn all over the floor. I wasn’t expecting a scene like the one I saw before me now, although I didn’t pay much attention to it. I came home because I was in serious need of money, ultimately for Zineb, of whose whereabouts I had not a clue.
When I came in he was barefoot and had on a light robe. His head was shaved, his eyebrows had disappeared, and his eyes were swollen as if he had spent the night drinking and hadn’t found the time to sleep. In fact, he had spent the night like this, without sleeping, cutting out all the pictures of himself next to the king and hanging them on the walls or scattering them over the tiles. He would stand in front of one of the pictures and utter a word or two of commentary. Then he would repeat some Qur’anic verses before moving to another photo. One could write interesting stories about this scene, but they wouldn’t be funny. After all, what can you say about a bald man with plucked eyebrows raving over pictures hung on the wall?
Fadila’s eyes glistened with tears as she said, “Shall I prepare you a glass of tea and a piece of bread before you faint from hunger?”
She had noticed my emaciation and deteriorated condition, but I had no desire to eat. I asked for a black coffee. I sat while Fadila and my mother headed to the kitchen to prepare the coffee. I paused again and wondered what had brought me here. It seemed to me that I had made a mistake. He really looked pathetic. He was standing still, looking at his feet. He wasn’t looking at me. Fadila came back in carrying a brass tray with two cups of coffee on it. I took a sip. It was cold.
Father came out of the bedroom. He stood before me. Without lifting his eyes from his bare feet he said, “So you’ve started to write sketches? You make people laugh like I do? Ha! Do you expect the king of this country to pass by to take you to his palace? That time is gone. Something like that happens once in a lifetime, and it has already happened, thank God.”
Now he looked at the table and the coffee cups between us, and without lifting his gaze from the table he asked, “Do you really want to make a living with this sort of work?”
I replied, “It was never my intention to write sketches criticizing the government, but now with all this chaos . . .”
He burst out laughing and started walking toward the kitchen, then turned back to where he was standing before. “How about you write me some stories so that just once I can criticize the government?”
He looked bad. I gazed at him, wondering if I would be able to get the money I needed from a man like this. Had he done one useful thing in his life that would indicate to me that he was a good man? Did he know how we spent our childhood after he left? Did he know that we waited for the neighbors’ scraps, and did he know what those scraps consisted of? Potato peels swimming in a bit of broth. There was never a day when we found a whole potato; they were always half potatoes, and sometimes lots of little bits, like chickpeas that other fingers had squashed and played with, but they were delicious to young children who hadn’t eaten all day. All while you were shaking your belly at parties and growing fat at banquets.
What brought me here? I was furious as I observed his movements and shifty looks. After a few moments he said, “You want to follow in my footsteps professionally? This is why you insult the government, to secure your future at my expense? You’re lucky because you’ll be able to pass easily through the door. At the door you can say to them, ‘I am the son of Balloute the jester,’ and they’ll open the door wide for you. How can you not consider yourself lucky to have a father who, just about, works as a jester in the palace? Now that this uprising has passed peacefully you don’t have to do anything more than present yourself at the first door you come to and announce who you are. You’ll never understand how much the good fortune God put into your two hands is worth until the day you realize that work isn’t just lying there for the taking in the middle of the road. The only things that you lack in order to replace me in my trade, as far as I can tell, are desire and self-confidence. As for luck, I’m the one who gave it to you. Tomorrow you’ll start your new life. I will beg His Majesty to accept you as a second jester next to me. Thus, when I retire, you will have learned the profession. And they need a new jester.”
I really was wrong in coming here.
I had walked some distance from the house when I heard him yelling behind me. Fear stopped me in my tracks as if the blood had stopped flowing to my legs. He was barefoot and wore the same rough clothing, and had a strange look that was barely human. He stood there yelling that I had dashed all hopes of his returning to work and to his former life. “Do you want to kill me, you infidel? You want to send me to prison? You attack ministers and make fun of the government? You assault the masters who feed you, you dog! God’s curse upon you until the Day of Judgment! I’ll go around to visit all of the officers, ministers, and businessmen that I know in order to wash my hands of you! I love the king and the government! I love my country and would die for it! I’ll explain all of this to them, one after the other! Do you want to kill me, you unbeliever? You’re the reason! You’ve ruined me, enemy of God! There isn’t another son on the face of the earth who enjoys throwing his father into prison cells to be forgotten. I’ll explain to them that I don’t have anything to do with what you do, God damn you! You’ve been an ungrateful son since you were a child! In front of all of these witnesses I’ll curse you. ‘God’s curses upon him until Judgment Day! God’s curses upon him until Judgment Day!’ I am not your father, and you are not my son!”
His eyes were red and white foam was forming on his dry lips. Some passersby carried him home after he fell unconscious. We placed him on the bed. His clothing had acquired the color of the dirt he had been rolling around in. When he regained consciousness he began to complain of a headache, as if someone were pressing on his temples and tapping rhythmically on them to torture him. In the early afternoon, his pain increased and he began to moan. He said that he had received anonymous threatening letters. Zerwal the hunchback, who had become a private jester, was ordering him to leave the country for any exile of his choosing. He really had a lot of enemies and to catch him they had set many traps. They asked that he stop telling the jokes at their expense that he told in the presence of the king. He fell unconscious again for about half an hour. His friend the barber put a damp rag on his head, and that woke him up. The barber said to him, “Do you know who I am?” He paid no attention to the question. He didn’t understand it. He had already entered another stage of delirium. The last stop. He said that if he had made a mistake, whatever it may have been, they should have summoned him, asked him about it, interrogated him about it like they would have done with anyone else. He said that Balloute was not a criminal, but was prepared to submit to any interrogation to clear his name of any charge that had been leveled against him. But on one condition: that the king himself conduct the interrogation. Then he smiled, as if a glimmer of hope flashed in his mind at the very thought of this interrogation. No doubt the king would interrogate him to hear what he had to say. One day long ago he had listened to his story when he had killed the three soldiers. Maybe he’d laugh again, especially since this time he hadn’t killed anyone.
“All of you, everyone in the bedroom—you, the barber, my daughter Fadila—knows my story from beginning to end, but you must be quiet and pretend that you don’t have any knowledge of it. Perhaps you had something to do with it.”
He studied our features and said that he knew each and every one of us; that he knew the traps each of us had set for him. He had known everything from the beginning. Then he grabbed the collar of the barber’s djellaba because he was the closest to him and began to shake him violently, yelling at him to confess to the conspiracy.
Balloute was yelling like someone suddenly stricken by a fever: “Why don’t they come directly to me, after all of these years, and accuse me to my face? They have consumed my money, stripped me down to my bones, dragged me before the prosecutor, and they don’t even possess the courage to face me! I am Balloute, the private jester of His
Majesty, and anyone who still has doubts should present himself before me and show me what’s what!”
Balloute was moaning, and continued to moan for another half hour.
The doctor came. Balloute thought that he had been sent from the palace, so he began to call him “esteemed officer” and to ask him whether he could leave everything he owned to him so that his children wouldn’t inherit a single cent. The doctor nodded, grabbing his arm to take his blood pressure. Father warned him of the perils of marriage. “Don’t get married. Don’t have children.” Then he grabbed his hand and imagined returning to the palace, after which everything would return to its proper course, as it was before. My mother began to cry when he said that he felt cold. The misery she had tried to hide from us had returned to the surface. He asked for a cover, but it didn’t do anything to alleviate the chills. The doctor told my mother not to lose hope, and to put her trust in God. When a doctor talks like this it means death is not far off. The doctor gave him an injection, after which he fell asleep for a few moments.
He entered the final stages. He stopped talking out loud, communicating only through sign language. The right half of his body was paralyzed, and his lips contorted until they seemed to touch his ear. The old man seemed small, trivial, and shriveled up, as if he had never been young. He stared at us with his two small, squinty eyes, as if he were jeering at us. He appeared overly disfigured and it was as if this was how he had always looked, having become as ugly as can be. Impossible to think that a woman had once loved him and even kissed his shrunken, twisted, toothless, dry mouth. Perhaps he had been born looking like this—old, weak, toothless.
A Beautiful White Cat Walks with Me Page 19