by Yasin Adnan
He sat solemnly scrutinizing the painting with his fork in the air, a long piece of bell pepper dangling from it. “I’m opening an investigation,” he mumbled aloud.
Having caught a few indistinct sounds, the proprietor came hurrying over. “Monsieur Chief? More bread? Some water, perhaps?”
Taken aback, Hamdouch coughed, then pointed his fork at the wall, causing the piece of bell pepper to bob dangerously. “Who made this painting?” he asked.
The proprietor looked from the fork to the painting. He frowned. His forehead puckered up—he was pretending to be deep in thought—and he finally replied: “It’s a young man by the name of Brahim Labatt. He lived on a street nearby, across from the blacksmith’s souk.” Driss leaned in closer to the chief and, adopting the funereal air that precedes this type of disclosure, whispered: “He committed suicide a few years ago. God preserve us!” He uttered the macabre word so softly that it could barely be heard. “It seems to have been the last thing he painted before he . . .” Driss didn’t finish the sentence.
The chief registered the information and mentally opened a file under the name of Brahim Labatt, a young man who’d died under suspicious circumstances. He knew—the statistics didn’t lie—that suicide was rare on Islamic soil. And so, the case would have to be investigated. With a flippant gesture that made the piece of bell pepper, still hanging precariously from the tines of his fork, appear vaguely threatening, he dismissed Driss, who hurried off to welcome a group of Japanese tourists at the door. The proprietor could be heard bragging in his eccentric English, punctuated with little sucking noises, about his restaurant and its cuisine (The best in Marrakech, of course!).
The chief finished his meal, still unable to look away from the work of art—was it, in fact, a work of art, or something else? And in any case, what was art? He began to lose himself in a labyrinth of reflections.
* * *
Back at the station, Hamdouch called in one of his employees, Ba Mouss, who’d been nicknamed “The Computer” because he possessed a phenomenal memory, at least when it came to the crimes, misdemeanors, and other incidents of note that took place in the neighborhood. Aside from that, he didn’t know much about anything. Ba Mouss had never been transferred elsewhere, since transferring a computer would mean, in a sense, erasing all the files it contained—and what would be the point of such an operation?
Short and skinny, with big green eyes, the man-machine entered his boss’s office. The chief didn’t bother with preliminaries. “Ba Mouss, have you ever heard of a certain Brahim Labatt? A painter?”
As if Hamdouch had pressed the enter button, Ba Mouss stood to attention, cleared his throat, and recited: “Brahim Labatt, son of Abdelmoula, was a plumber. No high school diploma and the only son of the widow Halima. He lived with her on Derb Dekkak, then stayed there alone after his mother’s death. He was also an amateur painter, you might say. He painted when he was out of work, which was quite often, and showed his artwork on the street, next to the barbershop. He managed to sell a few to some German tourists.” A short sniffle announced a sad turn in the story. “Excuse me, chief . . . Brahim Labatt committed suicide seven or eight years ago. By hanging. May God have mercy on us!”
Hamdouch nodded his head, frowning. This was his way of thanking his subordinates. “Are we sure it was a suicide?” he asked.
“Only God knows, chief.”
“And aside from God?” Hamdouch was growing impatient. Mouss’s last response had been close to blasphemous—but then again, what kind of computer invokes the name of God? Give us facts and figures, and leave God to the faqihs.
“Your predecessor, Chief Madani, closed the case,” Mouss explained. “The poor painter had—”
“Hold on.” The chief winced. “You say it was Madani who closed the case?”
“Yes. He closed it immediately . . . well, very quickly,” the man-machine answered. “There was nothing suspicious about it.”
“Very good, that’ll be all. You may go.”
Ba Mouss nodded and left the office without a word.
Hamdouch began to rub his forehead frantically with the fingertips of his right hand. A raging headache was coming on, a sign that one of his many intuitions had arrived, the kind that had helped him solve particularly tough cases throughout his career. His dear departed wife, Hélène, half-mocking and half-affectionate, had called these episodes les migraines de mon Maigret. Ha!
Still, he owed much of his success to his intuition. His most recent transfer from Safi to Marrakech had been a flattering promotion. He had solved several high-profile cases, including the Hay el-Majd killings, which had been all over the newspapers and had given everyone nightmares at the time.
What was presently setting his brain on fire was a coincidence he had just become aware of: the man in his dream who’d tried to put a bag over his head . . .
But back up, first things first: Madani, the ex-chief, had been forced to retire over a scandalous case of corruption (or embezzlement of public funds . . . it had all been very confusing) in which he wasn’t directly involved, though he’d tried to cover up for the main beneficiary, who was none other than the ex-pasha Moulay Mimoun.
So, there were two exes in this story, a hanged man, plus a painting that connected all of them.
Suddenly, Hamdouch remembered the man in his dream who’d tried to put a bag over his head: it was Madani himself!
Without even knowing it, Hamdouch had recognized him in the painting—and now his predecessor had resurfaced, in the night, from the depths of his subconscious, with an air of murder about him. “The plot thickens,” he murmured.
* * *
The chief rushed out of his office, down Boulevard Fatima Zahra, rounded the corner, and walked into the restaurant. The place was nearly empty at this hour of the afternoon. A cat was asleep in a corner, curled up in a ball. Only three French tourists, three men, were lingering over their cups of coffee.
Hamdouch ignored the owner’s startled greeting and planted himself directly in front of the painting to confirm his suspicions.
Yes, it was indeed Madani there, beside the pasha’s horse. You could distinguish his hideous mug, crudely painted though it was—on the verge of caricature. But then, nature seemed to have caricatured this man as the typical corrupt brute. The painter hadn’t had to embellish much.
The chief noted another detail that aggravated his migraine. While all of the figures’ gazes were fraught, there was an exception: Madani was not looking at the ex-pasha; he was staring out at the viewer of the painting. At that precise moment, Madani seemed to be staring into the face of the man who had succeeded him—Hamdouch. The ex-chief’s expression seemed to depict a kind of confusion, a mixture of fear, arrogant disdain, and . . . something else. But what else could it be?
And what was more, his right hand, which at first glance looked to be stroking the horse’s neck, was in fact placed on the left hand of Moulay Mimoun. The two men, hand in hand, seemed to be bracing themselves against the crowd’s anger.
Yes, anger! That was the meaning behind the fraught gazes that Hamdouch had noticed before. That was it! The late Labatt was certainly no Rembrandt; he hadn’t always pulled off the desired effect, but it was clearly anger that he’d tried to convey on the faces in the painting, with the exception of the ex-pasha and the ex-chief.
Turning to the three tourists, Hamdouch arranged his face into a cheerful expression despite the migraine that was stabbing at his temples, and called out heartily: “Welcome to Marrakech!” He said it in French, rolling his r’s.
Surprised, the men hesitated a few seconds—long enough to reassure themselves that this elegant man, with his graying hair and dashing mustache, wasn’t a beggar, a nuisance, or Clark Gable risen from the dead—before one of them returned his greeting: “Merci, monsieur . . . ?”
“Hamdouch, at your service.” A pause. “I’m an art collector, and I’d like to ask your opinion.” The chief gestured at the painting in a sort of i
nvitation. “What do you think of that?”
Clearly amused, the three men got to their feet and moved toward the painting. They had polished off two bottles of Volubilia and, feeling mischievous, they spontaneously decided, without even conferring about it, to play the experts. It’d be fun—they were on vacation, they’d have a story to tell when they got back to Paris. What followed was a smorgasbord of clichés uttered in the most affected tones.
“That light, gentlemen! That light . . . it’s like something out of Claude Gellée, dit le Lorrain!” one of the tourists exclaimed.
“See, the way that djellaba hangs! There, in the corner . . . lovely as the day is long,” another added.
“That horse, the energy, the movement . . . pure Delacroix!” the last man in the group added. “And what a noble-looking chevalier—is that your king?”
The chief, whose migraine was wearing down his patience, said, “Gentlemen, calm yourselves! If you’ll allow me, I’d like to ask you a specific question: what do you see in the eyes of all these men? Forget the horseman, it’s the others who interest me.”
The tourists went to work, no more messing around. They examined the faces frozen in time by the painter, and the verdict was unanimous.
“Oh là là, they don’t look too happy . . .”
“No, no, they don’t look friendly at all . . .”
“I would even say they’re angry.”
Hamdouch, satisfied, pointed to the ex-chief. “And this one?”
The three men brought their faces up close, their noses nearly touching the surface of the canvas. This time, their opinions differed.
“A nasty fellow,” the first Frenchman decided.
“Arrogant,” said the second.
The third, a gangly redhead, took his time before answering. “Not quite, messieurs, not quite. I’ll tell you: he looks guilty. Like a delinquent caught in the act. Like a good-for-nothing who gives himself away just by the expression on his face.”
All four of them studied the nasty fellow’s face. There was no doubt about it. That was it: Madani looked guilty.
“Bravo, Christian!” the first tourist cheered for the redhead.
Delighted, Hamdouch thanked the Frenchmen for their observations.
“And now, are you going to try to sell us this daub?” one of the tourists asked boldly, grinning. “Not a bad technique! Bravo! We fell for it like a couple of chumps. How much?”
Hamdouch fixed the man with an icy stare. “I’m not an art dealer. And for that matter, this . . . this thing doesn’t belong to me. Au revoir, messieurs!”
The three men headed back to their seats, tickled with this little interlude. But just when the chief was about to leave, the redheaded Christian called out to him: “Ho there! There’s something not quite right with your daub . . . sorry, your painting.” The redhead stood up again, walked over, and pointed to the left-hand corner of the painting. “I’m not an expert, obviously, far from it! But I’ve never seen zellige tile on a wall. That’s zellige, right there, isn’t it?”
Hamdouch, already standing in the doorway, turned around and walked back. With his index finger, he touched the spot that Christian had pointed to. “You’re right,” he murmured, perplexed. “Yellow zellige, on the exterior side of a wall—it makes no sense.”
How had he not noticed this detail? Were his powers of observation in decline? He felt sheepish for a moment, but didn’t let it show.
Christian returned to the table where his friends gleefully teased him (“He’s got an eye, this one,” “Good work, Sherlock!”) while Hamdouch slipped away, lost in his own thoughts.
* * *
Back at his office, the chief left his door open and called for his computer: “Ba Mouss!”
His voice echoed through the station and the little man appeared almost instantly, his eyes more greenish than ever. This melancholy shade seemed to spread out over his entire face, so that he looked like a tiny Martian who’d been woken from his nap.
“I want you to tell me everything you know about the ex-pasha, Moulay Mimoun!” the chief barked. “Everything! Facts, fiction, rumors, gossip . . . everything!”
Ba Mouss sighed and began to drone on about the rich life of the pasha.
The chief let this flood of information flow past him, interrupting the human computer every now and then to ask for clarification. When Ba Mouss had finished, the chief was silent for a moment. Then he said: “This story about the murder of a rival. Can you tell me more about it?”
“It’s only a rumor, chief. And there’s no proof that there was any murder. A coppersmith, a certain Dadouchi, had asked for the hand of a very beautiful woman in the Kennaria District, and it was granted to him. The marriage preparations were coming along nicely, but alas! The pasha, Moulay Mimoun, had designs on this same woman. Then one day, the coppersmith disappeared. He went to see a customer and didn’t come back. In fact, he was never seen or heard from again. And so, after a few months, the pasha could add the lady to his stock of wives. But he rejected her a few months later, to the great anger and shame of her family.” Ba Mouss lowered his voice. “Word spread that it was he, the pasha, who’d made the coppersmith disappear.”
“Cui bono?” Hamdouch whispered to himself. He knew a few Latin expressions of great practical value that had circulated at the École de police, a legacy of the French.
“Pardon?”
“Nothing, nothing. Go on.”
“I was saying that word spread that it was the pasha who’d made the coppersmith disappear. And there’s more: rumor had it that the evidence of his crime still existed somewhere, and that one day it would appear in plain sight.” Ba Mouss hesitated a moment, then blurted out: “It was said that the truth would be revealed by a magical bird.”
Just as Ba Mouss had expected, the chief shrugged his shoulders in irritation. “A magical bird? Why not a flying elephant? You’d think we were in The Thousand and One Nights. Could you be any more gullible? It’s up to the police, not the birds, to find evidence!”
Without entering into the debate between science and superstition—a debate the chief always won by force of his arguments and outright threats—Ba Mouss concluded: “Voilà. That’s all we know of the story.”
“Thanks. You may go.”
The computer seemed to shut off, and disappeared. The chief went to close the door, then settled in comfortably at his desk; with his chin resting on his folded hands, he began to think. This business of the magical bird annoyed him to no end, but the more he tried to ignore it, the more it refused to leave him alone. He imagined a sort of giant, multicolored simurgh that soared to the heavens, then plunged back down to earth, carrying a violently writhing snake in its talons. I’m getting all worked up about a silly legend, he thought, peeved.
Then he remembered an expression that Hélène had sometimes used: oiseau jacasseur. She’d had to explain the verb—jacasser—to him: to talk very quickly, in an annoying manner.
A talking bird?
That reminded him of something. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the image. Memories of his childhood and adolescence, things he’d read or heard, appeared in a sort of halo . . .
After a few minutes, he opened his eyes and shook his head. Then he picked up his telephone and, after the usual greetings, asked one of the guys from the archives: “Do we have access to a list of the assets belonging, or having belonged, to the former pasha? . . . Yes, Moulay Mimoun . . . Can we get that? . . . It’ll take time? I have all the time in the world!” He let out a slightly bitter laugh, thinking of his status as a childless widower. “You’ll send it to me by a trustworthy messenger?”
He hung up, lit a cigarette, and randomly opened one of the files scattered on his desk.
* * *
A few days later, Hamdouch received the list he’d asked for. He ran his finger feverishly down the page and stopped at a name—the name of a riad that had belonged to the pasha.
“Bingo,” he said out loud, smiling.
* * *
At the end of the alleyway, most passersby would turn left. Rarely did anyone turn right. On the ground, black marks left by thousands of mopeds over the years indicated only one direction: left. This was the way leading to Bab Doukkala, the main road that wove through the medina.
The chief, accompanied by his deputy Hariri, turned resolutely to the right. He knew where he was going.
In front of the riad, an old watchman was seated on a stool. The watchman saw Hamdouch and Hariri approaching and stood up straight, discreetly dusted off his clothing, and seemed to come to attention.
“Assalamu alaikum!” the chief greeted.
“Alaikum as-salaam, S’si Chief,” the watchman replied anxiously.
“Are the French people here?”
“No, sidi, they went out to buy some fruit and vegetables. But you may come in if you wish.”
“It’s fine, I’ll wait until they return,” Hamdouch told him. “And don’t ever let anyone enter a house in the absence of its owners. Not even me! The law forbids it.”
Fifteen minutes later, the owners, François and Cécile, came back from the souk. The chief greeted them with a smile and gave a sort of salute by bringing two fingers to his forehead, then introduced himself and his deputy.
“The police? Nothing serious, I hope,” François said.
“No, no,” the chief assured him. “I just wanted to take a quick look around, with your permission. This has to do with an old case that has no connection to you whatsoever. It all happened long before you bought . . .” Hamdouch paused, then gestured vaguely at the door to the old building.
François and Cécile exchanged a look and raised their shoulders in unison. “Well then, come in,” François said. “We can’t offer you any tea, just some fruit juice.”
“No thank you.”
The four of them entered the house while the watchman stayed outside. The chief started looking around, turning his head every which way.