I returned to the Olive Gardens near the Hotel La Mamounia. I wanted to get away from the places where I might meet people I knew. I wanted to return to the starting point where I had an appointment with a person I did not know, who was supposed to tell me about the mysterious time that had swallowed Yacine. Who had arranged these impossible appointments? Why was I following a man with whom I had no connection, and about whom I did not know anything that gave me the right to expect all of this evil from him?
I arrived at the Olive Gardens exhausted. I sought their humid shade and walked aimlessly, thinking what would happen if I took a taxi and heard the breaking news about a faceless and nameless suicide bomber and the carnage he had inflicted. I shivered when I remembered that I could have informed the police about him.
At some point, still stunned by that possibility, I felt something oppressive behind me, as if someone were breathing heavily. I turned in a panic, but there was no sign of anyone following me. I turned to look right and left, and noticed a body moving between the trees. When I moved quickly to catch up with him, I had the impression it was Yacine chasing someone. I ran after him and called his name every time I saw him, but he neither responded nor stopped. I was upset with him for not answering, and for betraying the promise he had made to me to disappear for good. I was burning with anger and ran faster, forcing him to quicken his evasive movements. I wondered why he had come back at that moment and why he was concocting this stupid chase. Was he the one who had organised this story down to the last detail? What was he enticing me towards? I wondered if Yacine was planning something for me, pushed by some group. And who was that group? I then remembered the scenario in which I imagined Yacine still alive after his death notice, shedding his identity with an imaginary death in order to reappear with another identity and another plan. I was confused by what was happening around me, and I was scared to have Yacine participate, before my eyes, in a bloody event where I would be a victim.
I returned once more to the Olive Gardens, looking for the person I thought was Yacine. I had used all the strength I had left to chase a ghost that had appeared and then disappeared. Then I was overcome with a great fear, lest the vision turn out to be a devilish manoeuvre to distract my attention and involve me in a false chase, while another person was preparing his attack perfectly. In the midst of all this overwhelming confusion, I heard a beautiful voice chanting Qur’anic verses. The voice sounded familiar and close, and I realised I had heard it more than once before this day. But I was unable to recall whose voice it was or the circumstances in which I had heard it. I thought of Ibrahim al-Khayati. What did he know about all this? Had he received a message from Yacine about the dates in Marrakech? I said to myself that this was the missing link. There was something that had not reached me, something that had got lost on its way to me. There was a thread connecting all these separate events that I had not seen until now. I was thus at the heart of a story that I did not understand and where I was not in control of my own role.
I reached the end of the Gardens, right in front of the iron gate leading to the lighthouse. No one but me came out of the shade of the olive trees. Had Yacine been no more than a vision born out of my confusion? Had the person I followed been simply an externalised inner image that I had let loose in the city? I was about to give in to those desperate suppositions when I saw him at the end of the inner pathway of the lighthouse, walking very slowly with the steps of an exhausted man, defeated and desperate. I headed towards him once more, trying to convince myself that it was not him and that he did not resemble the man I had lost. It seemed to me that his shirt was no longer bulging as it had been and his arms fell normally to his sides. There was only a muscular pride to his walk. But when I got close to him, I changed my mind; when we were a few steps away from the basin, I was sure it was him and that something under his shirt was making him walk like a robot.
He reached the edge of the basin, raised his face towards the sun, turned to face the qibla and prayed without removing his shoes, like in a war. This detail in particular was what changed me into the force of a tornado; I could hardly recognise myself or what I had been until that moment. I remembered nothing but a word I had heard from Yacine months ago on our way back, Layla and me, from a dance show – ‘Now, now, now.’
Now, I said to myself and I took off like an arrow towards the person who was praying fervently, his eyes closed. I surrounded him with my arms and pushed him towards the basin.
At that critical moment when he took off from the ground, the man turned his head directly towards me, and, for an instant, behind his thick beard and fierce look, I saw the face of Essam, more terrified than he had ever been, moments before a cold white cloud took us in its awesome detonation.
A Note on the Author
Born in 1951, Mohammed Achaari is a Moroccan poet, short story writer, journalist, former Minister of Culture in Morocco and head of the Union of Moroccan Writers. His work has been translated into English, French, Spanish, Russian and Dutch. The Arch and the Butterfly is his second novel.
A Note on the Translator
Aida Bamia is professor emeritus of Arabic language and literature at the University of Florida in Gainesville. As well as being a literary translator she is the author of The Graying of the Raven, and was the editor of Al-‘Arabiyyah.
First published in English in 2014 by
Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing
Qatar Foundation
PO Box 5825
Doha
Qatar
www.bqfp.com.qa
First published in Arabic in 2010 as Al Qaws wal Farasha by
al Markaz Al Thaqafi Al Arabi
This electronic edition published in 2014 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © Mohamed Achaari, 2010
Translation © Aida Bamia, 2014
The moral right of the author has been asserted
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may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages
eISBN 9789992195451
The Arch and the Butterfly is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places
and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events
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