In one of his letters to me, he wrote:
Storytelling is a cruel talent, haunted by ghosts and spirits. I would like to do something else with my life, something more realistic and meaningful.
I wrote back:
I reject your criticism because only love can grasp and fairly judge any form of art. You can be fair in your assessments only if you are committed to understanding without judging.
He replied immediately, in a lengthy telegram:
I would at least like to leave a mark that is permanent. People visit the places where I have laid zellij and admire my handiwork. I know that it will give pleasure for ages to come. I could never tell stories day after day and watch my words dissipate into thin air. Where is the satisfaction in that? Where is the necessary smell of fire and kiln and clay? Where is the glory of a victorious struggle over matter? Empty air is not an adequate substitute. Nor, for that matter, are echoes. It’s the difference between reality and artifice. Your work is a mirage. That is the impossible truth. When a man lives out his entire life telling stories, reality disappears and something else appears in its place: a random collection of details reworked by the imagination.
I resisted the temptation to reply in a telegram. I couldn’t afford the gesture, for one. But in the letter I sent him, I wrote: Even your work is a fiction, my dear brother, if only you would have the humility to admit it.
His response:
Where is the fiction in my work?
My answer:
Your belief in its permanence. The next time you are in Marrakesh, visit the rubble of the El Badi Palace, considered incomparable in its time, and recall the remark made by the court jester to his emperor that it would make a great ruin.
I waited for his reply, but it was several months before he retrieved the thread of our correspondence. During the interval, he’d moved from Fès to Meknès and set up his own business there. He became the first member of my family to live in a brick house. My parents visited him and, on his return, my father said, with more than a trace of irony: Prosperity has conquered my son.
In his next letter to me, in which he enclosed a photograph of his house, Ahmed wrote:
Do you remember what I said about zellij a long time ago? I compared it to poetry, but deemed it even better. Well, Hassan, that assessment still stands.
My reply:
Why compare, my brother? Poetry is everything that you find sublime. The sublime is what gives you pleasure. The rest is nothing but fleeting emotions. Be happy with your art, as I am with mine, and let us share in each other’s happiness.
I agree wholeheartedly, he wrote in response, but then he felt the need to add: I’ve just added a third story to my house. Naturally, the floors and the walls are covered in zellij up to shoulder height. I ought not to be writing this, but it is some of my best work. There are places where the geometry of the panels gives rise to uncanny optical illusions. A friend of mine who teaches mathematics compares it to fractal patterns, even though I have no idea what that means. Amina, my wife, says it gives her headaches, but shows it off to her friends nevertheless. It feels as if we are living in a palace, Hassan. You should visit us sometime.
In a postscript, he added: Please give my regards to our brother Mustafa. Do you know what he plans to do with himself? Father has written to me complaining about his lack of direction. Tell Mustafa there will always be a place for him in my business if he would care to join me here.
The Lion of the Atlas
It is written in books that the great prides of Atlas lions died out in Roman times, reduced to half-starved captives in gladiatorial circuses. Ahmed once told me that the Roman ruins of Volubilis, near Meknès, are rumoured still to resound at night to the roars of the captured beasts as they fall victim to some power-mad proconsul’s bloodlust. He said the locals avoid the place like plague after dark. Other books record the death in 1922 of the last Atlas lion, a magnificent beast with a reddish-black mane encircling its face like a beard. Yet both Abdulkhalek and Fathallah, shepherds in our village, insist that they have heard the roars of lions prowling the higher mountain slopes at night. They are reliable men, so there is no cause to doubt their word. And they are not the only ones. In the neighbouring villages, as well as in the pastures of the Jebel Sahrho region, we have heard of livestock carried away at night by marauding lions.
Sparked by these rumours, a team of zoologists from Rabat spent several months in our valley, interviewing shepherds and tracking alleged sightings. The government backed up their efforts, offering a sizeable reward. What they wanted was proof: body parts, skulls, bones, earthen casts of pugmarks, photographs. It caused considerable excitement in the villages. Numerous objects were brought in as evidence. A trader in the Dadès Valley produced a perfectly preserved pelt, but it turned out that he had stolen it from a qa’id who had purchased it in a caravanserai in Mauritania. Someone else in the Todra Valley presented a set of canine teeth, but they were found to be more than a hundred years old. The zoologists from Rabat eventually ended their search without reaching any definite conclusions, but the government’s offer for a reward in exchange for evidence still stands.
My eleven-year-old brother Mustafa heard about the reward when a group of government officials passed through our village. One of them spoke of the matter to my father. It was a lot of money, and Mustafa was immediately entranced.
What is the Atlas lion? he asked.
Father laughed. It is the only large wild animal left in our mountains, he said. The rest have all been hunted out.
But what about the Atlas bear and the Atlas leopard? I asked.
They were killed off a long time ago, even longer back than the lion, Father replied.
How does one recognize this Atlas lion? Mustafa asked.
Father showed us the illustration in the booklet the officials had left behind.
Look at the heavy mane, he instructed. It is dark brown in colour, almost black, with a blond fringe around the face which creeps down the belly to the hind legs. It is the largest of the lions in Africa, he added with pride. Its closest living relations are the lions of India, but ours are bigger at the shoulder, with larger skulls and more luxuriant manes. They are truly magnificent beasts. The Romans had hundreds of them in captivity. They used them to kill the Nazarenes.
Mustafa fell silent, lost in thought. My father and I chatted for a while longer about the lions, then turned our attention to the more pressing matter of our forthcoming sojourn in Marrakesh. But Mustafa did not join in our conversation. My father winked at me and stroked his white moustache. We left Mustafa there, his chin propped in his hand, staring first at the picture of the Atlas lion and then into the distance where the mountains creased the horizon.
That night he confessed to me that the lions had fastened on his soul. I am intoxicated, Hassan, he said in a whisper so as to not wake our parents. I had a vision this afternoon while you and Father were talking. I saw a lion with a mane of flames instead of fur and, as I gazed, that lion was transformed into a man.
Did you recognize him? I asked with interest.
No, but I am convinced that the lions exist. I must find them, or at least their traces.
They are woodland creatures, I warned. They remain in the shadows and reveal their presence only after dark. Don’t you think many others have tried and failed? They will not be easy to track down.
I will find them, Mustafa declared. And when I do, I will kill the biggest male and claim the reward. Give me your hand, Hassan, and wish me success. I’m off tomorrow to find the lion of the Atlas.
All right, I answered drowsily, not believing him for a moment. Now go to sleep.
He set out the next morning, at dawn, before the rest of the household had stirred. His absence was first noticed by my mother, and it took me all of my composure to tell my parents where I thought my brother had gone.
The entire village set off in search of him. It was the week after the spring harvest, and I think everyone n
eeded an excuse to release their pent-up energies. It was like a picnic, really, and no one minded that it took us two days to catch up with my errant brother. And even when we did, on the high ridges near the tizi that led out of our valley, it was difficult to censure him because he was so crestfallen. Instead, we smiled at the motley collection of objects he’d gathered in the course of his lion hunt: a dented copper canteen; a folded red banner bleached by the sun; a desiccated elephant shrew, that peculiar mouse-like creature with a nose that extends into an oversized proboscis; an oak branch sculpted into a spear by the wind; an old dynamite fuse; a large, flat stone with vivid white scars that Mustafa insisted had been caused by a lion sharpening its claws.
I fastened on this last object as possible proof of the existence of lions in our valley in order to salvage my brother’s dignity, but it wasn’t enough. On the procession back to the village, some wag nicknamed Mustafa “the Lion of the Atlas”, and all of us, including my father, burst out laughing.
Later on, Mustafa would tell us about the small grey bird that had dropped out of the sky and died at his feet as he’d set out on his odyssey.
It was a bad omen, he said darkly. I should have known that nothing was going to come out of my search.
In an attempt to mollify him, Father said: What is important is the dream, not the trophy.
But Mustafa remained inconsolable.
My father was convinced that it was that signal humiliation that lay behind my brother’s subsequent decision to leave the valley and his resolve never to return. But I knew better, because Mustafa himself told me the real reason. It was due to something else altogether, something that transpired a few years later and irredeemably altered the course of all our lives, for much the worse. I knew that my brother’s departure had to do with his sense of helplessness when faced with the death of my beautiful young wife – whom he’d adored, like everyone else in my family – in childbirth.
Nasib
Zahra had been named after the morning star, Venus. There was always a scent of lavender about her. She had the most infectious laugh. She was my chosen one, the heart of my hearts, the love of my life…
These were my scattered thoughts the evening we buried her with my stillborn son on the slope of the hill behind our house. The memory of that evening will never escape me: of the dust rising from the twin graves; of the hopelessness on the faces of those all around; of my own suffocating sense of desolation; of the night heedlessly lighting up with stars, and the one bright star suddenly snuffing out as if extinguished by a hidden hand.
Sleep was evanescent that night. Zahra’s slippers stood by the bed as they always had. I arranged the blanket as I’d always in the past. I breathed her lavender scent on the pillows. I continued saying her name over and over again in my head as if that would bring her back.
Early the next morning I told Father I was going for a walk.
I left the house and, turning my back to the valley, headed for the mountains. Far below lay the cricket-sized houses of our village.
The day passed. Night came, then went. Then day again; night once more. I lost track of time. Meaningless days; sleepless nights. The stars shone, some white, some blue. Clouds trailed like smoke along the ground. The sun spiked fingers through wooded slopes. I watched an eagle soar into the air in spirals. The east wind, that messenger of love, stirred fallen leaves and dust.
A young girl herded sheep, life going on as usual.
In the village in the next valley they were celebrating the greengrocer’s second marriage. The ululations of the women rose in joyous song. The slate-roofed dwellings vibrated with the pulse of drums. Past the village, the stone-strewn path shone white in the sun. All the land was covered with pastures, thick and endless, stopping short of the highest peaks in cliffs of rock. Tangled trees interrupted the pastures. A cooling breeze blew up in quick gusts. There was autumn in the air. Half the meadows were already golden.
I ascended a steep slope. The grassy meadows gave way to a broken landscape, half trees, half shrub. Rows of stunted pines stood about in aisles. I emerged from a bank of cedars onto a narrow ledge overhanging a ravine. Around me only bare cliffs gleamed sheer and stark. A stream was visible below, and in the distance, the snowy crown of Jbel Toubkal, remote and white.
The sun was in my face as I sat down. I leant my back against a boulder, resting in its shadow. I remained quite still and the embers of my life began to draw near. Only then did I become conscious of the silence of what was missing now that Zahra was gone.
When evening came, a fog crept over the rim of the mountains. A film of moisture covered my rocky perch. Rigid with cold, I watched a lavender pallor suffuse the sky and wash over the dark ramparts of the mountains. For an instant, it penetrated right through them and coloured the entire world. Moments later, with a rush of shadows, night descended.
Stars lit the sky; a crescent moon rose over the earth. From behind a high ridge, there floated a thick grey cloud which proceeded to envelop the ledge I was on, wholly obscuring my surroundings from view. The stars went dark, the sky black. And so I was left in the night, literally alone.
I took out Zahra’s slippers from my pocket and flung them over the edge. I followed them down with my eyes, imagining what it would be like when my own body slammed into the rocks. I held on to the thought, conscious only of feeling entirely unlike myself, at a great remove from the world.
The sound of hastily indrawn breath encroached upon my stillness.
Turning my head, I saw Mustafa crouching in the haze, his eyes riveted on me. He looked grey, haggard, more desolate than I’d ever seen him. I felt an uncanny calm overtake me at that instant. I motioned him to sit down beside me and pulled myself back from the edge.
How did you find me here? I asked.
I’ve been following you ever since you left the house, he said huskily.
Then: Hassan, you’ve been gone three days!
Has it been that long? I asked.
He flung his arms around my shoulders and burst into tears.
Maniyya
I found my parents aged almost beyond recognition on my return.
Mother held on to me and trembled without cease. Father’s thin, dark face was tense with insomnia. He said he could no longer carry on with the storytelling: his heart was not in it.
He said: Zahra is now beyond our world, but her spirit will always remain with us.
I said: Yes, Father.
But what about you, my son? We watch you, as from a distance, helpless. This sorrow is like a shadow in our hearts.
I said: Don’t worry about me.
Everything is up to fate, Hassan, and death is nothing but the end that fate prescribes.
I said: I know, Father.
Mother said: Zahra is now in a much better place than this. She was too good for this world.
I said: I know, Mother.
She said: We grieve for you. We don’t know what to do.
I said: Give it a little time, Mother.
We must leave it up to God, Father said. It is His will. Everything has a reason and a purpose.
What about my stillborn son, Father?
He lowered his head and remained silent.
The Storyteller of Marrakesh
Ten days after Zahra’s death, I asked Father if I could take up his storyteller’s mantle, since he was resolved to give it up. It took me a long time to convince him that I felt strong enough, but when I finally said that I needed to do it in order to lose myself in another world, he understood immediately and no longer resisted.
Come with me, he said, gathering up his story sticks in their bag.
We walked to the cave where he practised his craft every morning without fail. On our way there, he paused and said: I have never felt more tired than I do now, Hassan. I suppose old age is when you begin to feel the motion of time as a dead weight.
You’re hardly that old, Father. This will pass.
I don’t know, Hassan, but
I hope that you are right.
We entered the cave and sat down on its cool grey stones. He didn’t speak for a while, but merely looked around as if he were seeing the place for the first time. Finally, he drew a deep breath and said: This has been like a second home to me.
This, and not the Jemaa?
He smiled. When I’m in the Jemaa, I imagine that I am here. It suits me. I feel safe.
He turned to look at me; he had a strange expression, a mixture of joy and regret. My father brought me here as a child, he said. I was three or four, I don’t remember. It hasn’t changed a bit.
His eyes were bright.
Generations of our family honed their craft in this humble cave. These living stones have absorbed hundreds of stories. Countless flights of fancy. Countless. When I was young, I liked to press my ears to the walls and listen to what they had to tell.
I’ll remember that when I’m in the Jemaa, I said gently.
He nodded. Don’t worry. I’m not going to reminisce endlessly. I know we’re here for a purpose. He wrapped his arms around his body as if he were cold.
I’m not worried, Father. I have plenty of time.
But we should begin, or else I’ll do all the talking. It’s time.
Opening his arms, he made a wide gesture embracing the cave.
Imagine that we are no longer here, but in the Jemaa, in Marrakesh, he said. He held out one hand horizontally before him and angled the other at a perpendicular to it. This is the Jemaa, he said, indicating the horizontal plane, and this other hand represents the minaret of the Koutoubia. Now: tell me what you see.
The Storyteller of Marrakesh Page 12