A Palace in the Old Village

by Tahar Ben Jelloun

  Mohammed had been staring at the wall for so long that he began to think he was drawing closer to it or, rather, that the wall was advancing toward him. He felt trapped in that little room, which his children never entered. He had the impression that the voice was talking to him about his retirement. That word, “retirement,” flitted through the air just like that big buzzing fly.

  Mohammed’s mind was elsewhere, however, in Mecca or the mosque of his childhood. His thoughts had turned toward the village, back to a colourless time of strange solitude. Because of lice, scabies, and other afflictions, the butcher, who doubled as a barber, had shaved all the children’s heads, and whenever Mohammed had rubbed his hand over his scalp, he’d felt a kind of boil, slightly infected. Those days had the acrid smell of Fly-Tox and antilouse powder, but there was also the taste of pure honey and argan oil. He well remembered the meals his girl cousin would bring to him after he’d taken out the livestock: heavily sugared mint tea, crêpes, honey, oil, and occasionally a bit of amlou, an almond paste mixed with argan oil, honey, and a few spices. The mornings were cool and quiet. In the natural course of things, his cousin would become his wife, but they almost never spoke when together. They would look at each other; she would lower her eyes, then leave.

  One day her little brother brought the food, and Mohammed understood that the time for the marriage proposal had arrived. His cousin was quite young, barely fifteen, yet the next summer would see them married. Sweet memories, full of tenderness, modesty, and peace. Mohammed loved the silences that could last the entire morning, and would let himself sink into reverie.

  For the marriage ceremony, the best singer in the area had come with his cheikhats and musicians. They had sung and danced until dawn. Vulgar, professional, and efficient, the cheikhats were female singers who looked like gypsies and stank of clove oil. As the ceremonial prince, Mohammed led his wife to the house of his parents, who had discreetly absented themselves to allow the newlyweds to be alone. Once more silence fell like a brief night on the young couple, who did not say a word to each other. That was the tradition. Mohammed said his prayer and pinched out the candle. It all happened in the dark. He’d been very intimidated and, above all, inexperienced. For him as for her, it was clearly the first time. He let himself be guided by instinct, and the blood traced a pretty design on the sheet. Honour was saved. After a few days of celebration, the village returned to its routine.

  Mohammed had already been thinking about joining his uncle, who had emigrated to northern France, and for that he needed a passport, the little green booklet with the star of Morocco stamped in the centre of its cover. At the time, such documents were granted only to well-off city families. Every now and then the caïd, the local headman, would receive orders from Rabat: Need 104 robust men in good health for France. The caïd would arrive in the village in a jeep driven by the state police, an arrival heralded from afar by billowing dust. Taking himself very seriously, the caïd would first require some refreshments, then have the village men pass before him in review. The caïd scrupulously imitated everything the French had done during their colonial occupation, and despite being barely able to read he kept a dossier at hand, which he would leaf through from time to time. França is waiting for you. Do not shame us. Be men, soldiers, worthy representatives of our country! The jeep would drive off, leaving behind its cloud of ocher dust and a few wives in tears.

  2

  THE VOICE WAS INSISTENT and was now addressing Mohammed in French, a language he had finally learned to understand but did not use. It was only thanks to his children that he knew a few words of it, because they would speak nothing but French to him, which made him deeply unhappy. He had patiently taught them a few elements of Berber, but for nothing: they persisted in speaking French and made fun of him when he mispronounced it.

  And now this unknown voice was talking to him in that tongue, repeating a word he knew perfectly but did not want to discuss. That’s what it was: a word he did not want to hear, a word echoing like a condemnation, announcing the fateful date he wanted to postpone until later—as late as possible. It wasn’t death, but something very similar, and it had nothing to do with Mecca. He had so dreaded this day, this moment. It wasn’t a question of a trip, a holiday, or a long and lovely stroll around Medina at a time outside the official period of pilgrimage, no—the voice was telling him something specific, definitive, and irreversible: to stop working. To break a rhythm acquired over forty years, to change his habits, to no longer rise at 5:00 A.M. and put on his grey overalls, to adapt to a new life, turn over a new leaf, change his mind, toss away the crutches of his old routines, those familiar landmarks. To stop working was to learn to be politely bored and do nothing, while trying not to sink into melancholy. Work didn’t make him happy, perhaps, but it kept him occupied, kept him from thinking.

  Mohammed was afraid. Afraid of having to climb mountains, pyramids of stones. Afraid of tumbling into the ravine of the absurd, of having to face each of his children, over whom he had lost every scrap of authority. Afraid of accepting a life in which he no longer controlled much of anything. He lived through his routine, the long straight line that carried on regardless. He’d gotten used to this and didn’t want to change, didn’t want anything else. Everything seemed difficult to him, complicated, and he knew he was not made for conflicts, for combat. He had never fought; even as a child he’d stayed on the sidelines, watching others get into fights, then slipping away, wondering why there was such violence in a place so far from the city and forgotten by God. Working kept thoughts like that at a distance.

  At night he counted on his physical fatigue to put him to sleep before he had to confront the familiar mountain, which kept growing bigger. Sometimes it came to him wreathed in thunderclaps, then toppled onto his back and buried him. He would see heavy stones piling up on his body, crushing the breath from him as he lay paralysed and defenseless. He wasn’t in pain but in trouble, pinned down. When the mountain finally withdrew, leaving him for dead, he would wake up, drink a large glass of water, and go sit in the kitchen to wait for dawn. To keep busy, sometimes he cleaned the spotless floor—old linoleum printed to look like wood—by polishing it with a wet rag. He’d rearrange the small stock of provisions, check the refrigerator to make a mental note of what was needed, brew himself some tea, and study the sky while awaiting the first gleam of sunrise.

  He’d never thought the ax would fall so soon, so brutally. He was stunned. Lost. And already in mourning, because there was no escape from retirement, or, as he called it, “’tirement.” No matter how often his children corrected him, he still said “’tirement.” That was his invisible, two-faced enemy, because even though for some people it represented freedom, to him it meant the end of life. Period. The end of everything. No more daily routine, no more paid vacations back home, year after year. Well-earned vacations! His conscience was clear: he had worked hard to earn his living. He detested easy money, hated cheaters, swindlers, loathed fraud and deceit. He’d seen how some of his co-workers’ children lived; he knew what “fell off a truck” meant and had expressly forbidden his children to buy stolen goods.

  On the first day in July, he would fill the family car with suitcases and gifts and head straight down the road, like a migratory bird anxious to catch up with the flock. He didn’t speed, rarely stopped, and was happy only when he reached his village, a full 2,882 kilometres from Yvelines. The children and their mother would sleep; he alone drove on and on, covering the distance with impeccably steady resolve. Sometimes he drove with another family—the cars would take turns following each other—but he really preferred to make the trip as the sole person in charge. At the wheel he had but one thought: to get to his house in the village, arrive at the best time to hand out the presents, visit his parents’ tomb the next day, go to the hammam, get a massage from Massoud, and eat crêpes prepared by his elderly aunt. He drove, and in his mind’s eye he saw all that in living colour, bathed in light. He used to smile to himself whil
e his wife slept beside him in the front seat.

  At the automobile plant, Mohammed was a creature of habit. Always on time. Determined never to be late or absent. Except when bedridden with flu, he insisted on going to work even if he was sick. He brought his lunch, ate quickly, parked himself on a bench, and closed his eyes. When his comrades teased him, he replied that he needed this little doze, a ritual that never took more than ten minutes. He was as reliable as an expensive watch. Never angry, never at fault: a model worker. In fact, he dreaded the thought of botching anything, being reprimanded; he couldn’t have handled that. At first he was assigned to the automotive assembly line, moving later to the painting shop, which was less tiring but more dangerous. He worked there with a face mask. His health hadn’t suffered; he didn’t smoke, had never touched alcohol. He had a sound body, which too much sugary mint tea was threatening with the first signs of diabetes.

  Retirement? No, not for him—and especially not now! What was it, anyway? Who invented it? It was as if they were telling him he was sick and no longer useful to society. An incurable illness, a prognosis of endless ennui—that’s what it was, a curse, although he knew other workers longed for it impatiently. Well, he didn’t. He didn’t think about it. He’d watched his pals retire, and the next thing he knew, death had done for them. Retirement was the introduction to death, lurking at the end of the tunnel. It was a trap, a diabolical invention. He saw no need for it and no possible benefits, especially to his health. No, he was convinced that the real face of retirement was just a skull wearing makeup.

  The memory of Brahim then flared up like a flame in the darkness: Brahim, who died five months after leaving the plant in good health, permanently retired by ’tirement. Yes, done in by utter uselessness, condemned to die a few months after his sixtieth birthday. Sentenced by silence to die of idle loneliness. He, Mohammed, was useful! Whenever flu laid him low, knocked him clean off his feet, he knew the assembly line would be less productive, less profitable that day. One morning when his car broke down, he’d raised the hood to see what was wrong and thought, This is a flu car! Whenever he was out sick, nuts, bolts, and other things did not get properly tightened and adjusted. Mohammed was so strict, so meticulous at his job, that he figured the car company would soon collapse if it put him out to pasture. Being useful was vital to him, in fact he wondered how the factory could survive without him, without his obsessively conscientious care, and without men like Brahim, or Habib, who’d quit overnight after winning 752,302 francs in the lottery. Then Mohammed remembered Brahim’s only daughter, who had married a Senegalese and abandoned her family. That story had made the rounds of every Maghrebian family in Yvelines and beyond.

  Kader and his spiteful tongue had had a field day, unleashing all his hatred for black Africans: Brahim gave his girl to a black! A black went off with his only daughter! Blacks and Arabs can’t mix! Berbers and blacks aren’t meant to marry. We’re not racist, but the tribe has to stick together! Our daughters should stay within the tribe. At least if he’d been Algerian or Tunisian, there’d be less talk! Back in Morocco, we call blacks abid, “slaves,” and we don’t mix. That girl must be a natural-born slut, you know what I mean? Racist we’re not, but to each his own! Me, I’ve nothing against black Africans, I even think they’re okay, but what I can’t stand, it’s their smell, and yes, we all have a smell, but me, I’m allergic to the smell of Africans, I can’t help it, but I’m not racist, and besides, they probably can’t stand our smell, either. Brahim should have laid down the law—there’s no way his daughter would have disobeyed him!

  But Kader, you know we have no control over our children now, and for the slightest thing, a little slap, a light tap on the shoulder, they up and call the police! It’s LaFrance keeping us from educating our children, LaFrance giving them too many rights, and then it’s us in the shit. France, Belgium, Holland—those countries haven’t a clue what authority is anymore.

  Too true, my brother, children here are not like those back home: here you can’t raise your hand or chastise them for coming home late or not doing their homework—here everything is ass backward! Poor Brahim, he hasn’t slept a wink since that business. His wife left him; he’s just a shadow of himself, victimised by his daughter, gone off to make babies with a black who claims to work in a bank when the truth of it is, he’s a doorman there, so not only do they smell, they lie! We Algerians, we have no blacks at home, while you Moroccans and Tunisians, you’ve got plenty of them, ’specially in the southern provinces, so if Brahim’s daughter plays “knees up” with a Negro, it’s because where you come from other women do it too!

  Well, you, you’re just looking for a fight. Algerians are all aggressive, they’re violent and don’t like the other countries of the Maghreb, everyone knows that, so if Brahim gave his daughter to an African, it proves that us, we’re not racists!

  Pondering that episode, Mohammed had to admit that although immigrants from the Maghreb were the targets of racism in Europe, they in turn despised black Africans, whether in France or at home in their own countries. Racism is everywhere! he thought. How would he have reacted if one of his girls had married an African? He even found it hard to imagine such a situation until he sorted things out by considering Moha Touré, his co-worker from Mali on the assembly line. He knew Moha’s family well and had been impressed by the education this man had managed to give his children. I’d rather my daughter married one of Moha’s sons, he told himself, than a Christian boy who hasn’t even been circumcised. Moha was an observant Muslim, unprejudiced, and especially concerned with presenting a good image of Islam. He lectured his children—taught them manners, tolerance, and respect. He was lucky, because they obeyed him. Mohammed’s kids did whatever they wanted. He had no say.

  3

  MOHAMMED THOUGHT ABOUT his five children. They would stand by him, no question; they wouldn’t abandon him or let him fall prey to sadness but take care of him, fuss over him, give him presents, send him on another pilgrimage to Mecca. No, the children were his pride and his protection against feeling lonesome. They respected him even though they rarely spoke with him. He never said much to them, either; they hadn’t a great deal to talk about. When a problem arose, they’d go to their mother, who would then talk it over with him. Habit and tradition.

  They hadn’t seen a lot of their father. He’d always left for the automobile plant while they were asleep, come home in the afternoon, and gone to his room to rest. He praised them when they received good grades at school. He gazed at them tenderly and gave them big smiles. On Sundays he saw his pals at the mosque, then at the Café Hassan, which served no alcohol. It was a place of weary melancholy. Strictly male clientele, some of whom played dominoes. Against the background of a TV always tuned to a Moroccan station, they discussed the high cost of real estate in Agadir and Marrakech or watched Parliament in session and ridiculed those Westernised men dressed up in white djellabas. They talked about plans to go home and sometimes discussed their thorniest problem: their children’s future.

  So all that only to wind up without our children! No, that’s not quite it. Let’s just say that our kids are more up-to-the-minute than we are. They’ve discovered modern life and they love it. When you take them home to the countryside, they find everything old-fashioned, don’t like it; at first they’re happy enough, but then they get bored, they’re tourists, tourists in their own country, but they’re not even curious about it, they’re uncomfortable and don’t understand why we love being there while they complain about the dust, the flies, the starving cats, and the old people who do nothing. The landscapes seem weird to them; they expect to see some hero from Star Wars pop up with a light sword in his hand. They wait for something to happen. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens. There are only stones, prickly pear cacti, and dogs staggering around in the stifling heat. Back home is the back of beyond: tons of boredom. It’s hard to talk to our children about our roots. They’ve no idea what home means to us!

  But just a mi
nute, my brother! It isn’t their country, let me explain this to you: it’s your country, you’re the one who’s attached to it, while they see it through the eyes of foreigners, and most of them don’t even speak the language, so the truth of it is, it’s our fault, for not teaching them Arabic or Berber! I’m not going back, that’s for sure. When I get my ’tirement, I’m setting myself up here, I’ll open a small café and wait for them to give me some grandchildren! I sold the house in Agadir, at a good price. It was French retirees who bought it; they’re going to live out their lives over there, in the sun—it’s the world turned upside down! And look at the Frenchies themselves: they have kids, who then leave them behind to fend for themselves, and they all go their own ways!

  Yes, you’re right, the parents do the best they can, and then one day it’s real hot, really, really hot; it’s a huge heat wave, and then they croak, alone: fifteen thousand old people died from the heat, can you imagine? Alone, with nobody to give them a glass of water, and where were the children? On vacation. Hey, wait a minute—lots of them were in Agadir for the sun and the sea, while their parents were dying alone back in France like animals forgotten by the roadside!* Well, if my son does that to me, I’ll … kill him—no, I’ll disown him—but our children are blessed, they won’t let us die like dogs!

  It’s true: in Morocco we don’t have old folks’ homes. We’re not modern, but we’ve still got some good things going for us. You know, the children of the people killed by the heat, they didn’t all come home to bury them. Some of them waited for LaFrance to do that before they bothered to show up! Why? I don’t understand! It was just because. Because they didn’t want to pay for the funerals. Oh yes, my friend, they pinch every sou in this country, they’re not like us. Our parents—Allah said you owe them respect or you’ll go to hell.