Things changed, and little by little the anxiety disappeared, giving way to a new form of intimacy, a new mutual understanding through language, as if we had brought new meaning into our lives. Speaking through writing seemed to me an eloquent luxury, something exceptional. My fondness and attachment to her grew. Even though her handwriting wasn’t attractive, we didn’t need to speak. I would have preferred a thousand times over to be like her—listening to idle chatter without responding to it—but my profession doesn’t allow me that luxury. I am an actor whose bread and butter is words and whose reward is laughter, sort of like my father. In the end, it was all quite funny, at least to us. Her slanted red writing recording on paper the amount of tomatoes, potatoes, and lentils I had to bring home made us laugh for weeks on end. “Two red peppers and a half kilo of squash. Don’t let the vegetable seller do as he pleases because he’ll only give you damaged vegetables. And milk. Don’t forget the milk, and pay attention to the best-before date. . . .”
In the end we sought help from the doctor, as if he had been waiting for just this opportunity to intrude on our lives once again, to renew contact with us and to settle in between us, he and his wife, bringing with them their new party and their new views about change that would include all of society, thanks to their leader with the enlightened ideas.
I arrived at the farm. Flags fluttered above the door, national flags next to those of the party, and below them were pictures of the party’s candidate. The woman in the picture was smiling for the camera, having put a black piece of fabric around her head to cover her hair and a large part of her forehead. The smile was sad. The garden inside the farm was neglected but pulsed with movement. Other flags flapped above the orange trees. The cooks were preparing a feast for the evening, but the doctor and his wife weren’t there because of the election campaign. The cooks didn’t know when they were coming back from their tour that kicked off their electoral project, nor did they know anything about Zineb. My description of her wasn’t specific enough. “There are a lot of women at this gathering,” the cooks said, and my description could have fit most of them, with nothing that would distinguish Zineb. My description wasn’t exact at all. How could I explain that I found it difficult to define the features of her face, her skin, her hair, her eyes, as if walking down a road you don’t recognize even though you pass by it every day? Had I really been away for so long? Eleven long days is not enough time for someone to forget the features of the road.
While I was intently devoting myself to recalling these details car horns outside the farm blared. They barreled toward the iron gate, which remained open. They got out of the car, many men and women, among them the doctor, his wife, and Zineb, wearing the black piece of cloth. Zineb, my wife! And with the same smile that was on the poster. The doctor came toward me with prayer beads wrapped around his wrist, which he played with between his fingers. I didn’t know who was paler, he or I. He pushed toward me, while the two women remained behind him surrounded by a group of men.
“Is it really you? When did you get back? I can’t believe my eyes!”
This was the doctor’s response to my completely unexpected appearance before him, as if a mythical creature had come from the world of the unknown. I turned toward Zineb, who was engaged in discussion with a group of farmers. I didn’t know where they had come from. She wasn’t looking at me as she was busy addressing the peasants. All this time the doctor addressed me, pointing at her.
“She has become an important person. Her popularity has exceeded all expectations. She’ll win the elections, God willing. The people here believe in her and her ability to change their lives and social status. Yes, she finally discovered her gift. I always knew that there was something precious underneath her routine life. It’s a great day for all of us.”
I thought he was joking. But he wasn’t. Perhaps the doctor thought I was one of the supporters of his party, which is why he had launched into his trite speech, whereas I shifted my glance between Zineb and her picture on the farmhouse wall. Now I recognized her. I hadn’t recognized her at first. Had she changed that much? I looked closely at the details of her face again, waiting for the doctor to finish his speech so I could take her by the hand and return home with her. Now she was addressing the group of farmers, who were crowding around her and appeared enraptured by her words. No, I hadn’t recognized her before, just as I didn’t recognize her then.
The doctor grabbed my arm. “Don’t you know why we’re here? Didn’t you die in the war? News of your death came to us yesterday. Your family received the coffin this morning. Everyone here is saddened. Look at Zineb. She’s wearing black. It’s a big day for her, but despite that she’s wearing black, mourning for you. As for all of us, we were planning on going to your father’s house to attend your funeral. I now see that that won’t be necessary. This will allow us to complete our campaign to promote our party’s platform and to remain on schedule. Would you like to accompany us?”
More cars had come and lined up behind the doctor’s car, honking their horns—truly an awe-inspiring procession. I forgot about Zineb for a moment as I was trying to pull away the spider’s web that had wrapped itself around me, looking at the black rosary whose beads danced between the doctor’s fingers.
I stood in front of Zineb. I didn’t throw myself into her arms as I had expected I would. For her part, she made no move that would indicate any eagerness or longing. What she had been discussing with the peasants still dominated her thoughts. Finally, the shadow of a shy smile formed on her lips. The members of the electoral campaign went into the farm, their playfulness and simmering energy following them. We remained alone, Zineb and I, with the doctor and his wife three steps away watching our meeting, looking anxiously at us as they had before. They were smiling and nodding for no reason. The best response to their bad behavior was for us to return home, but it seemed inappropriate to ask her to go back with me right in the middle of this party.
I don’t know exactly what I was expecting from her at that precise moment. I don’t know what purpose elections serve. Perhaps they’re something good if they’ve helped Zineb finally find her way. She’d spend the day moving about between villages—that day she was the belle of the ball—and in the evening we’d find ourselves back home once again. Maybe the campaign would last a few more days. No problem. She could be the belle of the ball for a few days after, and then everything would return to the way it once was. This time I’d sever all ties with them, once and for all.
It seemed to me that her condition had truly improved. She was no longer depressed, as I had thought she was just a little while ago. This was Zineb as she was, and as she would remain, Zineb no more and no less, enthusiastic as I had known her before. Her lips whispered a word or two that I didn’t hear, as if she were searching for the right words with which to initiate our meeting, or as if what she said just wasn’t right, so she retreated.
The doctor approached us, followed by his wife. Nodding, he said, “Despite everything, news of your death came to us as a gift from the heavens.”
He said it while directing his smile toward Zineb and continued to talk without looking in my direction, as if he were afraid I would explode before he finished speaking, or as if he were frightened that a hurricane would hit and cut him off.
“We got married a short time ago, Zineb and I. Our marriage was in accordance with religious custom, attended by witnesses from the cinema club and some friends, with the expectation that God accomplish a matter that was already destined. We got married about . . . about . . .”
I turned toward his wife, who finished his sentence: “. . . before she got pregnant.”
Then the doctor picked up the thread of what he was saying. “Yes. The abortion wasn’t what anyone wanted. It was a real problem for all of us. It was necessary because at that time she wasn’t sure of anything, whether she loved you or not. She didn’t know herself, nor did she know what she wanted out of life, but things became clearer to her little
by little. Little by little she became sure that she wanted to live with us—with Suad and me. We make a very harmonious trio.”
His wife nodded in agreement, as did Zineb. His fingers continued to fiddle with the beads for a few moments. I watched the fiddling, unsure of what I was supposed to do. All I know is that for a long while I didn’t move, as if I was waiting for them to offer me their condolences.
The neighbors gathered at the door near the hearse. The two soldiers standing in front of the door would have prevented me from entering were it not for my glowering face. The house’s courtyard was full of mourners gathered around a coffin made of wood. Four men dressed in white djellabas surrounded the coffin to prevent the mourners from getting too close or from trying to open it. You wouldn’t have known that they were soldiers except for their heavy shoes and khaki uniforms showing from under the djellabas. The boards were firmly nailed shut, and inside it there was me, or Mohamed Ali without a head, or Naafi without a leg, or Brahim, who had perhaps fallen into some other snare. My mother was weeping, for me, or maybe for all four of us—Mohamed Ali, Brahim, Naafi, and me.
The soldiers wearing the djellabas walked out carrying the coffin on their shoulders, placed it in the hearse waiting by the door, and hopped inside. Then all of the mourners lined up behind it yelling, “God is great!” Fadila came out crying. She stood in the doorway with my mother, supporting her so she wouldn’t fall. The procession set off and the women went back inside. Little by little the street emptied out. I followed the procession on foot. The procession got farther and farther away until it could no longer be seen. I was walking in no particular direction. My only thought was to get far away from there. I thought about Aissa. What was he doing right now? He was probably preparing the props for a new performance, or setting a trap for a mouse he hadn’t yet figured out how to get rid of, even though he’d say that they had become friends. The mouse no longer annoyed him at all. Quite the contrary, he found something useful and real in his presence, something that made him forget his own loneliness. I’m not like them, and I don’t possess his naïve optimism. I am a ruined person who has reached bottom on my own. I picked up a cigarette butt to complete my new image. I stood in front of one of the cafés. I reached my hand out toward a nearly empty cup of coffee while glaring angrily at the young man sitting before it. He didn’t say anything. He appeared gentle and frightened. I drank down the last gulp in the glass, violently slammed it down in front of the young man, and cursed the weather. The little money I had in my possession I had scraped together over the last three days.
I’ve neglected my exercises, forgotten about them. I need to think about them. I’m an artist. I’ll discuss this with Aissa. He needs to forget about his mouse for a few days. We’ll prepare a new show. The theaters are closed to us, Aissa. Theaters are filthy and havens for lovers, drunks, seamstresses, and railroad workers. Still, they’re forbidden to us. His Majesty’s governors have forbidden us to go to them. We won’t present our show to them. We don’t need television either. We don’t need governors and officials and their permits, or television and its director. They put their permits on chairs and sit on them! We’ll present our show in the cemetery for our dead friends, for Mohamed Ali and Naafi and Brahim, and for me, the newcomer.
The alleys of Marrakech became dark, no light at the end of this tunnel. Then a glow like that of a candle appeared in the distance. The more I walked toward it, the farther away the light became. Sometimes a brilliant, blinding light appeared, so close I could almost touch it and feel it burning the tips of my fingers, and sometimes it receded and slunk back so that it could only be glimpsed. At times I walked and at other times I ran, as if in one of those dreams when you see yourself panting behind the same light, unable to stop or turn back. On the walls were pictures of Zineb with her new look, with her confounded smile. I turned and saw a beautiful white cat walking alongside me, looking at me as if it were calling out to me, as if it were smiling at me.
I thought about Zineb, about that day we went down to the beach and were rolling around on the sand kissing one another when two gendarmes came and stood over us and asked for our marriage papers. I gave them another piece of paper, a ten dirham note. We laughed afterward, Zineb and I. We laughed a lot. It’s true, we used to hide in all sorts of isolated places in order to live out our love freely. Another time four young men came out from behind a cactus fence and threatened to rape us. Again I took out the magic piece of paper that quelled their anger. Lots of funny stories happened to us that made us laugh for a long time. But this time she was in the doctor’s arms, lying down next to him with his wife on the other side of the bed or in the next room waiting her turn. Her place wasn’t there next to him. Her place was next to me. It always was and always will be next to me, not in anyone else’s bed. If only she knew what sort of trap the doctor and his wife had laid for her. My sadness transformed into overwhelming hopelessness and grief. I thought about how to pull her away from him. Zineb. Her natural place was in my arms.
Our first kiss. The honey of our first kiss was still in my mouth. I was at home lying on the bed with nothing in particular bothering me—a fever of the senses in the excitement of waiting, a fever of the soul approaching the source of life. I heard the rustling of her pink dress. Zineb approached on tiptoe, worried about me. She looked at me and smiled. Her halo of coal-black hair lit up her smiling face. Her face approached mine and she placed her hand on my forehead as if she were taking my temperature. I could see her breasts under her light top. She passed her fingertips over my hair and my stomach fluttered. Her smiling face got very close to mine and I could see the nipple rising above her breast, so close to my thirst, and that just made me more feverish. Our gazes met. My lips were dry, as if blood no longer flowed to them, maybe having stopped flowing in my whole body at that moment. My wretched soul appeared naked before her. My heart beat so violently in my chest that I imagined it could be heard. Then, slowly, her hair got closer and lowered its darkness over my face as she scraped her delicate nails across my neck. I closed my eyes. Her naked breast lay calmly on my chest and her lips gently touched mine as if in a dream. I was like someone soaring in the clouds. Then our lips came together with all the thirst and violent passion that we had been carrying for months.
While I was walking I remembered the star that had died hundreds of years before but whose light still shone. Like it I have died, and what I was seeing could very well be a nostalgic memory for something that had finished, but whose echo still resonated, waiting to fade away forever. I bought a bottle of wine with what remained of my money and headed to Aissa’s house. I’ll get drunk and I won’t go to sleep. I won’t regret a thing, especially when I go to the cemetery tomorrow to attend my funeral.
SELECTED HOOPOE TITLES
A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me
by Youssef Fadel, translated by Jonathan Smolin
Whitefly
by Abdelilah Hamdouchi, translated by Jonathan Smolin
No Knives in the Kitchens of this City
by Khaled Khalifa, translated by Leri Price
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hoopoe is an imprint for engaged, open-minded readers hungry for outstanding fiction that challenges headlines, re-imagines histories, and celebrates original storytelling. Through elegant paperback and digital editions, hoopoe champions bold, contemporary writers from across the Middle East alongside some of the finest, groundbreaking authors of earlier generations.
At hoopoefiction.com, curious and adventurous readers from around the world will find new writing, interviews, and criticism from our authors, translators, and editors.
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A Beautiful White Cat Walks with Me Page 21