I went down into the food cellar to celebrate the imaginary nuptials. First I opened the tap of a barrel and filled a carafe with red wine whose taste I knew and liked. I put some olives and some Danish Blue cheese on a plate. Then I ate and drank slowly. Certain images from the time of Aïn Khabbès activated my memory. From one of the photographs the lovely Monique was winking at me. I blew some life into it, and she stretched. She is enjoying herself now with her husband. I got a cake of hand soap and a glass of warm water from the bathroom. The photograph set off the thrill of excitement that was necessary for the delicious dream to commence. I could not have said whether I was imagining the photograph, or whether it had invented me. The delight in my body increases. I begin the dragon’s massage. It swells and reddens, and lifts its head. It sweats and pants, and I taste honey. Colours take over, one slipping after the other, drowning itself in the other, each changing into another, without colour, or the colour of all colours. I no longer knew where I was.
I heard footsteps. Rapidly I closed my fly.
What are you doing here? she demanded.
Tell me. What are you doing down here? And with my photograph album! What are you doing with that?
She seized the album and started up the stairs. I followed, hanging my head.
Who gave you permission to take my photograph album? Tell me that.
She slapped me. The blow brought about the culmination of my pleasure.
You’re drunk. You’ve been drinking, haven’t you? I forbid you ever to do such a thing again.
I wandered in a blind rage across the fields. Tigre ran along with me, sometimes behind, sometimes ahead of me. I suddenly remembered that I had left the cake of soap and the glass of water in the cellar. Monique will think: And he uses my soap, too. I felt myself drowning in shame. Now she’ll know I make love with her by myself.
On my return to the farm I found all the workmen with their families, standing in a circle around a group of sheep that had been hit by a train. Some of them had still been alive, and they had had their throats cut according to holy law. The ones already dead were of no use. That night the jackals howled and yapped close to the house. They’re eating the insides now, I thought. If I had been one of those sheep, they’d be ripping my belly now with their fangs.
Tigre came in, blood bubbling out of him, and began to run in a circle. Then he runs out and back in, whining the whole time. He is trying to lick the wounds on his neck. I went to my aunt’s house and woke her. She put ashes on him and bandaged him. The bites are deep, she said. Five or six jackals must have attacked him at once.
I tied Tigre up in my cabin for fear he would run out again, and I watched him die, little by little. He was dead before I went to sleep.
In the morning I put his body into a wheelbarrow and carted it a long way out into the country, where I buried it beside an olive tree. This was the first time I had buried a dead body. It gave me a strange feeling. I began to ask myself: Why did this dog have to die in such a painful way? And I thought of the sheep that had been mangled by the train. The shepherd is stupid. Tigre is stupid. If he had known what death was, he wouldn’t have died like this. But the world is full of stupidity. I am stupid too.
That day when I buried Tigre, I did not want to go to the main house and see Madame Segundi. I was still ashamed to face her. If you know what’s good for you, said my aunt, you’ll go and see your mistress. You’re supposed to be working.
Monique herself came to see my aunt, and sat down. I began to translate what one of them said to the other. My aunt knew only Riffian and Arabic. She used Riffian now, and Monique used Spanish. She was lovely and full of charm that afternoon. Women are difficult to understand. When a man is sure he is going to have trouble with a woman, it often turns out that he is wrong. And when he thinks a woman has forgiven him, he may be going straight towards the trouble he originally expected. Salvation and disaster depend upon the way she happens to feel at the moment. I sensed that Monique did not blame me for what I had done, but neither could she let it pass unnoticed. And so she asked me: Are you sick?
No, I’m not sick.
Then why didn’t you come to work today?
I did not answer. Then I said: The jackals killed Tigre last night.
Your uncle told me. Poor dog! He was good and strong. Where did you bury him?
Under an olive tree.
Your uncle will find another dog. She got up and took my hand. Her goodwill made me even more ashamed. Allez! Come to the house with me, she said.
Then she hasn’t told her husband, I thought. Perhaps she was ashamed to.
I had often dreamed of being able to fly. Likewise I had dreamed of being in a cave strewn with lengths of silk and rugs, and where the walls were painted with brilliant designs. I had only to make a gesture, and a platter would be there, bearing whatever it was that I felt like eating. If I clapped my hands, a marvellous girl would appear, one who had never been touched by a man, to dance naked in a fog of incense smoke before me.
One morning after her husband had gone out, I saw Monique go into the bathroom with a packet of cotton and a pair of her underpants. In the garbage pail I had often seen wads of cotton soaked with dark blood. I wondered where the blood came from.
I walked carefully over to the door and peeked through the keyhole. She takes off the underwear she has on and sits down on the bidet. She makes water. Then she washes between her legs. She pats a small towel into her wound, like the first woman I ever slept with in the brothel in Tetuan. She seizes a handful of absorbent cotton, pulls out the towel and examines it, and throws it into the bathtub. Then she puts the cotton into the wound and pulls on the clean underpants. I wondered if all women bled like this one, like pretty Monique. If they bleed all the time, it’s disgusting.
There was a boy who lived nearby, a little younger than I. One day we took a walk into the country. I told him we were going to catch birds in the traps we carried with us. The boy was handsome, and delicate as a girl. He wore shorts that came above his knees. We ate meat and hard-boiled eggs under the olive trees. Then I persuaded him to smoke a cigarette and drink a little wine. He coughed when he tried to inhale the smoke, and after he had drunk from the bottle he shuddered. This is the first time I’ve smoked or drunk wine, he said, and I told him what they had told me in Tetuan: You won’t cough or make faces the next time. That happens only the first time. It was the same way with me.
Do you feel sick? I asked him.
Just a little.
We walked into a field of wheat. To be drunk is relaxing. His cheeks are pink, his lips bright red. We sat down in the middle of the wheat, and I lay back. He did likewise. I thought of Tetuan, of a song that began: I loved a girl in Andalucia. She was young, she was tiny, she was tanned.
The wine ran through me, and I found myself trembling. My hand stroked his. He pulled away and sat up, looking at me with an expression of fear. What do you want? he demanded.
Nothing. What’s the matter? Lie down. I was joking.
I don’t like that sort of joke.
With my eyes I said: I do, with you.
He made as if to rise. I seized his hand. I was still trembling. He wrenched his hand away and got to his feet. Before he could take his first step, I wrapped my arms around his legs, so that he fell. I fell partially on top of him.
I’m going to tell my mother! he cried. And my father too!
First he bites my hand, and then he bites the earth.
That night my aunt scolded me. I was mortified, and denied everything. I swore I had done nothing to him. Later I saw her kissing the boy’s mother on the top of her head, begging her pardon. I was ashamed.
Your mother must have suffered when you lived in Tetuan, she told me. If you go on like this, your whole family will suffer, and so will you. Behave yourself.
I imagined saying to her: What should I do to behave myself, Aunt? How?
And I imagined her answering: Don’t do things you know are wrong.
> Then I would have said: But I have to. I like everything that’s wrong. Those are the best things.
I don’t understand you.
I don’t understand myself.
Madame Segundi began to notice my preoccupied expression and the slowing down in the tempo of my work. You miss your family in Tetuan, she said.
I don’t know.
Listen. We’re going to give you a whole month’s vacation. A month is enough for you to go and visit your family, and get back here.
I agreed to go to Tetuan and return. I saw my grandmother and my uncle very seldom. Sometimes when they came to the farm to visit my aunt, I was not there. I felt no particular fondness for them, neither affection nor dislike.
The only time Oran looked pleasant to me was the day I left. There is a saying that goes:
Ed dakhel en Oueheran zerbanne,
Ou el harej menha harbanne.
On the way back to Tetuan I tried to decide which was better. Oran is exile and Tetuan is imprisonment. And since I am happier in Tetuan than in Oran, that means I prefer jail in my native land to freedom in exile.
I spent two days in Melilla and one in Nador. I talked about Oran with people I did not know. One of them said: With everybody trying to get to Oran, here you are coming away from it!
5
Once I found myself back in Tetuan, I was sure that I should not be returning to Oran. My mother had given birth to another girl, but the baby had died almost at birth. Now her belly was very full again. My father was still happily unemployed. He spent the greater part of his day in the Feddane talking to madmen and friends who had been wounded in the Spanish Civil War. My sister Khemou went on growing, and my mother already relied upon her help at the vegetable stand. Some friends arranged a reconciliation between Comero and me. He now had a scar that ran right along his cheek. At the brothel I found that some of the girls were gone and new ones had taken their place. Because I enjoyed it, I formed the habit of sleeping in the alleys along with the other vagabonds. One morning as I lay asleep in the street a girl woke me up and asked me if I were not the son of Sida Maimouna. I said I was.
Why don’t you sleep at home, then?
My father threw me out.
The girl was lame. She went and got me a piece of buttered bread and a glass of coffee. I should have been ashamed to refuse her generosity. However, I resolved to get up earlier in the future. I was beginning to distrust people who showed goodwill towards me, whether they were men or women.
I returned to the bakery where I had so often slept in the past, where I would roll myself up like a hedgehog, my back pushed against the warm oven. Whenever I move in the night, or get up to go out and relieve myself, I find several cats asleep on top of me. Often I enjoyed the sound of their purring. It reminded me of a motor going in a distant factory. I loved muted sounds, whether they came from far or near. The songs from the cafès, heard from far away, were beautifully sad.
Another morning it was a man who woke me up. Aren’t you the son of Si Haddou?
No, I’m not.
He insisted. Aren’t you his son Mohamed?
No. I’m not his son.
Then what is your name?
Mohamed.
But your father is Si Haddou Allal Choukri. And your mother is Sida Maimouna.
I told you no.
Who is your father, then?
He’s dead. He died a long time ago.
And what was his name?
I don’t know.
You don’t know the name of your own father?
I did know it, but I’ve forgotten. I was still in my mother’s belly when he died.
He looked at me a moment, and then said: It looks to me as if there’s something the matter with your brain.
He held out two pesetas. Here. You must be hungry. Go and buy yourself some breakfast.
I don’t need anything, I said curtly. I have money.
He seemed mystified. I don’t understand. You have money, and you sleep here in the corner like a cat. You’re a little crazy.
I was angry. The cat is you, and you’re completely crazy! Suddenly I howled into his face, like a wolf. Aaaaooou! Then I walked away, leaving him standing there, saying: Bismillah rahman er rahim! Preserve me from the young ones of today!
My mother now gave birth to another girl, whom she named Zohra, after the one who had just died. A rat bit her on the hand one night, and she died, too.
My father had a habit of stealing up behind me in the street and seizing my shirt collar. Then with one hand he would twist my arm behind my back, while with the other he would beat me until the blood ran. When that happened, I knew the thick military belt was waiting at home for me. And when his arms and legs were tired from beating and kicking, he would bite my shoulders and arms, pinch my ears, and buffet my face with his fists. If he catches me in the street, someone usually intervenes and sets me free. But he has learned not to do it in the street. So now, when he grabs me I fall to the pavement and yell as loud as I can. He will sweep the pavement with me for a moment, kicking me all the while, until I manage to get out of his grip and go far enough away from him to be able to curse him.
One morning I sat in a café smoking kif with two pickpockets. We decided to work together that day in order to spend a night of debauchery at the brothel. We went to the Plaza Nueva where the crowd was densest. It was not long before I felt the furious grip of my father’s hand on the back of my neck. Before I had time to throw myself down, my two companions had gone at him with their fists and heads. I heard him shouting for help between groans. As I looked back at him, I saw that he had both hands over his face, and blood was trickling rapidly between his fingers.
What was the matter with that son of a bitch? Abdeslam demanded.
Nothing, I said. That was my father.
Your father!
Sebtaoui came up then, exclaiming:
Son of garbage! Son of a whore! What did he want with you?
It was his father.
His father! He turned to me.
Yes, my father. But you should have hit him harder. He’s a pig.
When we got to the end of the alley at El Talaa, I saw a drunk coming out of a house. It was a cold rainy night.
The rain will cut down the cold, said Abdeslam.
The drunk staggered past us. We heard a thud. He’s very drunk, Sebtaoui said. Then we saw the man struggling to get up. We went on to the same doorway he had come out of. A woman appeared, her breath stinking of alcohol, and showed us into the house. She took Abdeslam’s head between her hands and kissed him on the lips, slowly and noisily.
What did you bring me today? she began. What have you brought for your mother?
Anything, he told her. Whatever you want.
Sebtaoui walked into a brightly lit room from which came the sound of talking and laughter.
Abdeslam introduced me to the drunken woman. Mama, he said, this is a new friend.
She looked at me between half-shut lids.
He’s going to stay up with us tonight, he went on.
She took my head between her hands gently, and kissed my lips, making a smacking sound. You’re welcome in our house, she said, still touching my face, tilting her head back slightly and looking squarely into my eyes. What does this woman want of me? I wondered. Is she trying to put a spell on me, perhaps?
Abdeslam watched his mother, smiling. But is she really his mother? Or is he having fun with me? Perhaps she only brought him up.
Everybody go upstairs, she said.
Sebtaoui and I climbed the stairs to the floor above, leaving Abdeslam talking to his mother. A small girl came in carrying a tray. She placed a bottle of cognac on it, and went out. Nothing better than cognac on a cold night like this, said Sebtaoui.
That’s right, I said.
We had had a delicious dinner. The purse we had finally succeeded in stealing (thanks to a system whereby Sebtaoui opened the foreign woman’s handbag, Abdeslam reached in and removed the purse,
and I was left with it) proved to have in it more than three thousand pesetas.
What’s happened to Abdeslam? I said finally.
He’s getting his mother to send out for three girls. A lot of them don’t whore publicly. They stay home and wait for the madame to get in touch with them. Some of them are married. Once in a while you’ll even find a virgin.
How can you sleep with a girl who’s still a virgin?
You can’t. She just comes along with the other girls. When it’s time to sleep, the madame either sends somebody along with the girl to see that she gets home, or lets her spend the night with her.
And suppose somebody wants a virgin? I said.
In that case, he pays what it costs.
How much, for instance?
He looked at me. Is that what you want? Do you want to break in a virgin?
No, I was just wondering.
You’d have to pay at least a thousand or fifteen hundred pesetas.
Doesn’t Abdeslam’s mother have any girls here in the house? I asked him. I thought I heard some girls talking in that room you went into.
She’s got two professionals here, yes, he said. They’re very pretty, too. But Abdeslam and I are fed up with them. There are other good ones who come once in a while. Tonight there’s only one outside girl down there, and she’s drinking cognac as fast as she can, to kill the pain in her tooth.
We heard the voices and laughter of girls from below. Here they are, said Sebtaoui. They’re coming up.
Abdeslam’s mother appeared, wreathed in smiles, and behind her came three girls wearing caftans. It’s a real wedding, I thought to myself.
The woman poured herself a glass of cognac and went out. Abdeslam brought in a carton of Virginia cigarettes. With no hesitating the girls sat down, one beside each of us. That was the first night.
For three days I did not go out into the street. Each morning the girls walked to the hammam to bathe. They would come back in the afternoon, clean, perfumed and painted. Sebtaoui and Abdeslam go out together. I prefer to stay in, asleep, or daydreaming, recalling scenes from Tangier, Tetuan or Oran. At night, life took on the flavour of eternity. In the three days I spent only three hundred pesetas. Sometimes Sida Aziza, Abdeslam’s mother, comes in to see me, to talk and drink and chainsmoke Virginia cigarettes, or even kif.
For Bread Alone Page 5