Despair? I asked, surprised. Not fear? Are you certain?
Absolutely certain, Mahi said.
It was the man who paid me, he added, and she made him give me a tip even though I hadn’t served them. They’d been standing next to the counter the entire time they were there.
And then they left? I asked, disappointed.
No, she was still eating when your brother walked in.
My brother Mustafa?
Yes, Mahi said.
And then what happened?
Your brother glanced at the woman and stopped in mid-stride, as if he’d been shot. His hands dropped by his sides and he grew so pale that I thought he was about to lose consciousness. Instead he made it to the counter somehow and asked me for water.
Mahi, he said in a voice that was at once thick and faint, give me some water, and make it quick.
When I handed him a glass, he drank half of it in a single gulp and threw the rest on his face. If the gesture was designed to draw attention it could not have succeeded better, for the two strangers immediately glanced at him, startled. Without missing a move, Mustafa wiped the water from his face and stepped forward. He addressed the woman directly, asking her her name, where she came from, how long she planned to be in Marrakesh – all in one breath. He seemed entirely oblivious to the presence of her husband, who looked on with a faint, ironic smile as if he’d had long experience in dealing with men instantly enamoured of his wife.
After exchanging a few polite words, the woman was about to turn away when Mustafa reached out suddenly and grasped her hand, gazing at her widening eyes with a smile of rapture.
Labes? he asked her breathlessly. Are you happy?
Not entirely understanding his question, she removed her hand and said uncertainly: Alhamdullilah, by the grace of God, I am happy.
You speak Arabic?
I am studying to be an interpreter at the United Nations.
Perfect! Absolutely perfect! Mustafa exclaimed. He turned to her husband for the first time and said in a low and fervent voice: Ssalamu ’lekum. Your companion is beautiful. As beautiful as a rare gazelle. Those liquid eyes! They remind me of an oasis in which to parch my thirst.
At this point, Mahi made a sweeping gesture in imitation of my brother. With barely concealed excitement, he repeated Mustafa’s next words. How much will you accept for her? my brother asked.
It was evident to me, Mahi said, that he was dead serious, but the woman, who was the only one who had understood the proposition, which he’d made in Arabic, just laughed as if conscious of nothing but its absurdity.
Still laughing, she translated for her husband’s benefit while Mustafa listened with dilated eyes, drinking in every note of her voice. When she had finished speaking, her husband laughed in his turn. Though every bit as polite as his wife, his reply seemed fraught with condescension, as if Mustafa were no more than a minor irritant, and one barely tolerated at that.
Thank you, he said politely, but I must decline.
Mustafa turned red and his eyes glowed like embers.
I have a lamp shop in Essaouira, he said insistently. I have shares in a beachfront hotel. I will give you both in exchange for her. You won’t regret it – they will bring you excellent profits.
The woman blushed as she translated, and her husband put a protective arm around her. This is preposterous! he said in clipped tones. We are flattered but must decline. Please leave us alone. Goodnight.
Later on, in his prison cell, Mustafa would tell me that he had watched that man with envy, wondering how he had acquired his air of casual superiority, and wondering too if he himself could ever attain the same elegance of manner, he to whom every word, every gesture and handshake seemed fraught with the potential to incite and insult.
When I sought to correct him by pointing out that he had no cause for envy given that he came from old Berber stock, he brushed aside my reminder with contempt. Instead, he said: If only you could have seen his impeccable behaviour and air of refinement, you would have realized that it instantly put to shame my own ill-bred shabbiness.
Why must you always run after Westerners? I asked, greatly pained. Why is your own heritage never good enough for you? We are Berbers, Imazighen, noble men and freeborn, we bow to no one. You have no cause for your sense of inferiority.
Mustafa’s expression showed only that he was controlling himself with effort. We are Berbers, he repeated mockingly, and all that means is that our world is so small that it makes me want to laugh. Open your eyes, Hassan. Have you ever left the Maghreb? The limits of your existence are defined by the length and breadth of the Jemaa, and that leaves me speechless.
Speechless? I asked.
Yes, deprived of speech and gasping for air. On the Jemaa one always sees the same faces, the same dull and provincial countenances, and what inspires you leaves me feeling oppressed.
I replied with dignity that I begged to disagree. The Jemaa was a crucible of people and ideas. One only had to look at it with open eyes to see that it was a microcosm of the world and encapsulated all that was best in it.
You are welcome to your illusions, he said tersely. Now go away and leave me alone, please.
I complied, sadly, but as I left the prison I thought back on that long-distant midnight conversation with Mahi. He’d told me how, when the woman’s husband had first asked Mustafa to leave, my brother had refused, as if blind and deaf to anything but the spell the woman had cast on him.
It was an awkward moment, Mahi said, and I was afraid that Mustafa would do something hasty. But the husband placed himself before his wife, and even though Mustafa tried to evade him, he stood his ground and dealt with the situation calmly.
I felt mortified by this account of my brother’s behaviour and sympathized with the husband’s predicament. Admiring his presence of mind, I asked Mahi what exactly the foreigner had said to make Mustafa leave.
Mahi thought for a moment, his eyebrows furrowing. Then he assumed the role of the husband, drawing back a little and straightening his back. Making his voice deep, he said firmly:
Please don’t stand there and stare at my wife. It makes her uncomfortable. Seer fhalek, go away and leave us alone. Bessalama, goodbye.
Stung by the dismissal, Mahi went on, my brother had stalked out of the ice-cream parlour, but not before he’d cast a last, longing look at the woman he had so admiringly compared to a gazelle.
I thanked Mahi for his account and resumed the search for my brother with a bitter taste in my mouth. I felt ashamed for Mustafa – ashamed, more than anything else, at his inability to respect boundaries.
Many months later, when I had the chance to bring up the matter in the course of another prison visit, Mustafa responded with indignation and surprise. In every inflection of his voice I could detect that sense of aggrieved pride and denial of reality that was so much a part of his character.
She was made to be loved, Hassan, he insisted. And I could tell that she was unhappy with him… clearly dissatisfied. It was in the look in her eyes. The merest hint. It wasn’t much, but it was all I had to go by, and it was enough.
She was married, I reminded him.
That’s what I found out later, he replied, but I didn’t see any signs on that first encounter. Believe me, Hassan, I’m not lying when I tell you that. She wasn’t wearing a ring, and I should know, because I held her hand.
Listening to him, I had rested my elbow on the arm of the chair. I’d felt drained, exhausted by his obduracy. Now, embarrassed for him, I lowered my head. I wanted to tell him – clearly and categorically, so that there could be no mistaking my meaning – that I’d seen her wedding ring. It was made of gold and formed of intertwined snakes. But I realized that I didn’t have the heart to contradict my poor brother when he was rotting away in prison with only his illusions to keep him company. So I kept my thoughts to myself and said nothing at all.
Spleen
I paused in the midst of telling my story and ran my hand o
ver my beard, marking the moment with the gesture. With my mind still on Mustafa, I gazed at my listeners one by one, taking my time to register their faces. Some of them held my gaze; others, clearly uncomfortable, looked away. Some had distinctive features; some others, less memorable, merged with the shadows and I had difficulty remembering them. Quite appropriately, it was the latter that I found more interesting, for they challenged my abilities as a storyteller, holding my attention until I could fix on some quirk or other before moving on to the next face. And yet, in the end, all that emerged from this prolonged exercise in close observation was a simple conclusion, and it was this. There was nothing in any of them that I could draw on to remind me of Mustafa or highlight as a point of comparison. He was unique in every sense, an entity unto himself.
Mistaking my interminable silence for distractedness, someone in my audience interrupted my ruminations. This is not the time to fall asleep, Hassan! he cried. Go on, keep talking, the night is too cold for lengthy pauses.
Acknowledging his point with a smile, I resumed my story by giving voice to my thoughts. I made my memories visible – but I also went a little further. I articulated the astonishment that I felt every time I contemplated the extent of my brother’s incomprehensibleness.
My brother Mustafa, I said, is the most handsome man I’ve ever met. Unusually fair-skinned for a Berber, tall, wide-shouldered, tousle-haired, with light-coloured eyes and a penetrating gaze, he was the envy of all the men in our village. Even as a child, his looks were legendary. The moment he appeared in public, he became the cynosure of all eyes. Once, when he was six years old or thereabouts, my father discovered him dressed as a pagan god being pulled along atop a narrow cart drawn by eight girls swathed in white sheets. At other times he would pose as a statue in the village square, the object of universal admiration on the part of the women and derision of the men.
By the time he reached puberty, Mustafa was spending so much time attending to his words, his expressions, his gestures, that it became a matter of jest in our family. But one day, when I caught him admiring himself in the mirror while smoking his first cigarette, Father decided that something had to be done. He asked me to accompany the two of them to Marrakesh, to the Jemaa, where he knew of a man from the Sahel, an itinerant Mauri healer, who could cure my brother of his vanity.
This man, whose name was Bassou, was immense, heavyset and entirely bald. He sat on his kilim like an impassive monument, smoking a hookah. After he had exchanged the usual greetings with Father, he summed up Mustafa at a glance. As much to him as to my father, he said: There are vapours in the air which contain impurities, and our bodies are like flypaper which attract and soak up these toxins. In past ages, my ancestors used to address these vapours as jinns and deal with them accordingly. But I am more scientific and believe in keeping up with the latest methods of diagnosis. At a single glance, I can tell you that your son is riddled with a number of complexes which have resulted in his attempting to mask an overriding sense of insecurity with excessive vanity. With your permission, I would like to prescribe a foot bath for him that will provide a thorough and painless purging of his – shall we say – malady. The foot bath will clean his organs, glands, arteries, nerves, muscles, tissues and joints, and remove, in the process, the body’s toxins. It will do this by generating a war between good and evil spirits in which the forces of light will vanquish those of darkness by attaching themselves to the impurities and purging them through pores in the feet. I call the process osmosis. It is a scientific term, and you will find it in use in the best hospitals and clinics. Following my treatment, your son will experience a heightened sense of well-being, whose most obvious manifestation will be a healthier attitude towards life and also more energy.
After this impressive peroration, Bassou unrolled a scroll of paper on which were pasted numerous testimonials attesting to the benefits of his technique. They were from grateful patients from all over the Maghreb, and I read out some of them for my father, who was unlettered:
– The eczema on my neck and chest is gone after four baths.
– After years of riding camels, the pain in my scrotum was so bad that I cried every night. Now, after ten treatments, I am able to be a man again.
– My ninety-six-year-old mother had arthritis in both legs which crippled her. Now, after eleven foot baths under your tender care, she is back cooking in the kitchen and doing housework.
– My ten-year-old son is handling his work much better since he started his osmosis treatments. He is less sullen, smiles more often, and no longer complains when he has to wake up at dawn to help me around the farm.
– After two sessions, my wife no longer talks about running away. We are a happy family now and I will return to you when I want to get her pregnant.
Satisfied? Bassou asked Father with a smile.
Satisfied, said my father, highly impressed.
Then it will be twenty dirhams for half an hour’s worth of treatment. The usual rate is forty, but for your son, my old friend, it is half price.
Father handed him the money, and we settled down to wait while the healer went to work on my brother. First, he ordered Mustafa to go and wash his feet in a nearby fountain.
Scrub them well, he instructed. I want them spotlessly clean.
Somewhat sulkily, my brother complied and, when he returned, Bassou immersed his feet in a white enamel basin filled with water.
This water has special cleansing properties, he said. It is from the purest mountain springs near Jbel Toubkal peak. I collect it myself when the winter snows melt. There is nothing else like it.
He watched carefully until my brother’s feet were flecked with silvery bubbles. Apparently satisfied, he covered the basin with an impervious black tar cloth and turned his attention to some other patients who’d been waiting.
Exactly half an hour later, he returned to my brother and removed the tar cloth with a flourish. He directed our glances to the water in the basin. Father and I craned our necks to see. To our surprise, the water had turned a dirty green.
Your son, said Bassou to my father, has an excess of spleen. Green is the colour of bile, and it is floating around freely in the boy’s system instead of being stored. It explains his attitude, and, if it isn’t treated now, will lead to his becoming a poseur and an exhibitionist. It’s an unusual problem, but I see it more and more in our youth. It must have something to do with the general corruption in the air: television, Western-style cinema and the like. I will give you some minerals in a bag. Use them in four foot baths and he will be cured.
To my brother, he said: After the session you will experience thirst, light-headedness, a slight headache, hunger and the need to rest. You may also experience loose motion for a couple of days. There’s no need to worry: these are all normal responses to detoxification. Just make sure to relax, eat fresh food, drink plenty of water and be respectful to your parents. Do you understand?
He paused and gazed at my brother with a benevolent smile.
As if in response, Mustafa, who had been staring fixedly at the green water swilling around his feet, suddenly leant over his knees and vomited directly into the basin.
Merde! the healer cried out in French, all dignity forgotten as he sprang to his feet with an alacrity I wouldn’t have believed possible in a man of his bulk.
I fffeel wweak, Mustafa managed faintly.
Guedra
A few years later, when I visited my brother in Essaouira, we recalled the incident and burst into laughter. At the time, Mustafa was living in a rented room in the working-class Chbanat district, near the Bab Doukkala entrance to the medina. It was a small room without windows, and with a door opening into the well of a gloomy courtyard. The furniture was spartan. The bed sagged in the middle, the sheets were patched and worn and, as far as I could tell, Mustafa possessed only two things of his own: his leather-craft tools – he was just beginning to make the lanterns and lamps that would form the basis of his future shop – and hi
s handmade bendir drum. An inverted wooden crate next to the bed served as his work table.
One evening, Mustafa invited me to meet his friends who played in his drum circle. Their sessions were held in a tiny drum shop located below the battlements of the Sqala de la Ville, a cannon-lined sea bastion overlooking the Atlantic. It was already late in the evening when we arrived, and Mustafa introduced me to his friends one by one: Saad, Abdou, Farid, Mbarek, Khalid, Lahcen, Bouchaib, Abdeljalil. They were mostly young men his age, barring Omar, the owner of the shop, who was also the leader of the drum circle. The room, which was barely eight feet square, was lined with an impressive array of percussion instruments behind which the boys had taken up stations. There were jembes and tam-tams, bendirs and talking drums, doumbecs and darbukas, tars and taarijas, guedras from Goulimine and handheld Gnaoua deffs. Musical names, musical sounds. From hooks on the damp-stained walls hung an assortment of metal castanets, karkabats and various kinds of cymbals played with rods. I sat cross-legged on the floor in what appeared to be the only free corner of the room while my brother, to my surprise, placed a massive, deep-voiced jembe between his thighs and, at a signal from his leader, led the plunge into the first song.
Moments later, a foreigner arrived and, slipping back the hood of her jellaba, revealed herself to be a woman. I stared at her, scandalized, but it was in the middle of the song, and I didn’t think it polite to interrupt, even when she seated herself next to me, forcing me to edge away as far as possible. I was still taking her in when two more foreigners entered. Once again they were both female, but dressed in Western clothes this time. Finally, a statuesque blonde in jeans and a battered sheepskin jacket entered, completing the ensemble and compounding my confusion. On the one hand, it was difficult to resist the hypnotic rhythms of the drums, and, on the other, the tiny room seemed to produce foreign women by the minute. I had never experienced anything like it.
The Storyteller of Marrakesh Page 14