Hallab had found the solution: to pass himself off as a religious expert. So then religion helps us to leave this world behind? Of course: man is weak, he is nothing compared to the immensity of divine grandeur.
Hallab would talk and talk to me, quoting verses of Islamic poetry, but I could never manage to tear my thoughts and eyes away from that cheap wooden box I’d wind up in if I died abroad. Ever since I can remember, I’ve heard that we belong to Allah and to him we will return. That’s what we say over the body whenever we bury a Muslim. I belong to God, I am his property, and he takes it back when he pleases. There is no reason to be afraid or feel humiliated, no: death is not a humiliation even if it makes us angry, for we must understand that our anger is like a wisp of smoke, a bit of mist wafting up into the sky.
Personally, sickness is what frightens me. Suffering before going—that would be unbearable. Plus we say that the true believer, the man faithful to God, is often exposed to affliction and even injustice: al mouminou moussab. I don’t understand why good Muslims, righteous, honest, never straying from God’s path, would endure a harsher fate than crooks. And God knows they’re all over the place. They do well, make money without working, fill their bellies with other people’s goods, enjoy wonderful health, eat more than everyone else, say, Al hamdou lillah! A chokro lillah! [Blessings and thanks be to Allah!], then belch with self-satisfaction. I see them everywhere, those thieves disguised as men of good family; they are legion, and nothing ever happens to them, not even a tiny migraine or the slightest indisposition; they sleep well, do sports, and give the zakat, the 10 per cent Islam assigns to charity.
I’ll never forget the guy from Marrakech, sent, he claimed, by the Ministry of Water and Electricity to collect a tax to fund the installation of metres, thanks to which our women and children would finally get to wash in running water. He amassed a goodly sum, gave us receipts, lots of forms with the official heading, and that was the last we saw of him. A stocky man with malice in his eyes, smiling and laughing like a hyena, who spoke with the Marrakech accent. He had some sample metres in his van, and we all fell into his trap. He pulled the same scam in the neighbouring village. Never got arrested. Even better: I think I saw him on a Moroccan TV news program in the entourage of a minister of public works. It had to be him: that laugh, his squashed face, the little chin tuft—that was his trademark. The sign of Satan’s spawn.
I am not a wicked man, but I’m a devotee of justice, cannot bear to see it perverted, and I do sometimes dream of vengeance. I would love to see that toadlike thief in the hands of the law, then released in our village where everyone would be waiting to demand their money back. I’d enjoy seeing him stripped of everything and imprisoned for life. Personally, I would have set him out in the sun in a cage with no food or water, long enough for him to learn what a daily ordeal it is to thirst for water and go without. But God will punish him! At least I hope so. Ah, divine retribution! Sometimes it’s magnificent, arriving in time to show that anyone who despoils the poor of what little they have will taste God’s wrath, watched by the victims. Doesn’t happen often, though; seems we have to be patient, learn how to wait while God tests us, and not render evil for evil but believe in his justice, for he avenges the robbed and betrayed orphan, and all who are wronged. If I were to meet that jolly Marrakechi dwarf and have the chance to run him over with my jalopy, would I? The thought of seeing him in agony is tempting, I admit, but I’m losing my mind: bastards are better left in the hands of God.
At the auto plant, the French and Portuguese workers welcomed the day when they could finally enjoy their leisure time, take trips, putter around the house and garden, read, even work on their own projects. They made plans, organised their lives as “young retirees.” As Marcel said: At sixty years we’re barely two-thirds of the way through our lives, so why bury ourselves? Life is for living!
Marcel had arrived in France right after the war; he must have been all of ten years old. A bon vivant, a champion drinker and talker, he was the scourge of the shop foremen. Of Polish birth, a Jew and an atheist, he sympathised with the Palestinian cause and didn’t understand why the Arab states were doing nothing for their brothers in the occupied territories. When Mohammed, who grieved over the Palestinians’ fate, said he couldn’t figure out politics at all, Marcel offered to teach him, but Mohammed wouldn’t budge; even thousands of miles from his village, he still feared the Makhzen. It was in France that he heard about human rights for the first time and learned as well that in his own country men died under torture or rotted in prison without benefit of trial. Marcel kept him up-to-date, telling him, Your country is marvellous, but it’s in the hands of some unsavory characters: the Moroccan police were trained by the French, who taught them how to torture, but the Moroccan system is based on fear, and even you are afraid. I understand you: you’re scared of being arrested when you go back home. It’s the same thing in Algeria, Tunisia—as soon as you protest against the politics of repression you’re done for and they pick you up at the border; that’s why immigrants don’t move around much. You, you keep quiet, and I know that what goes on in your country pains you.
Mohammed remembered the Koranic school and drifted off in distant memories of days when everything was simple, when he didn’t even know there were roads, tall buildings, lampposts illuminating streets where no one lived. The world was as big as his village. He had trouble imagining anywhere else. One’s native land always leaves a bitter aftertaste. Mohammed’s country was dry, bare; it had nothing, and this nothing had followed him even to France. This nothing was important. He had no choice: he couldn’t exchange it for another nothing that was perhaps a little more colourful, better equipped. He made do, with patience and resignation. In the end he’d stopped wondering about all that. What the police got up to in their far-off stations, well, he couldn’t imagine, and his village was light-years away from the city.
Did he want to live like the French? He considered his fellow workers at the plant and didn’t envy their lot. Each to his own life and way of life. He didn’t criticise them but was puzzled by how they treated their parents and children. The spirit of family, as he saw it, was no longer honoured in France. This slippage shocked him. He just couldn’t understand why girls smoked and drank in front of their parents and went out at night with boys. And why did huge billboards display half-naked women to sell perfumes or cars? Most of all, he was afraid for his own family and talked this over with his pals. They sighed, raising their arms to heaven in resignation. What could you do?
One Sunday he invited Marcel home to dinner. It was a holiday, and Mohammed told him, Bring your wife but no wine! Marcel agreed to skip his wine and merrily stuffed himself with the good things fixed by Mohammed’s wife. Marcel liked to tell his friend, Time, it’s us. It isn’t the watch face, no. It’s you who make time: when you close your eyes you’re in the past; when you close them again you project yourself into the future; when you decide to open them it’s no mystery that you’re in the present, the one that’s as thin as cigarette paper. You follow me?
Before going home to their families after their weekend French lessons, some of the plant workers went to see women in trailers and waited their turn shamefacedly. Mohammed had always refused this kind of distraction. He was afraid of diseases and of what his friends and neighbours might say. Something like a curtain of fog half veiled one late-afternoon memory, on a Sunday when boredom had played out in what Mohammed considered a bestial instinct. He’d been dragged along by an acquaintance whose name he had forgotten and who told him, Listen, if you don’t empty your balls now and then, it goes up to your brain and you go blind. Another time he said, Even our religion allows us to empty our balls: you simply write out a document and tear it up afterward. You know, the marriage for pleasure. You get married long enough to fornicate, then you divorce, and you’re all square with God and morality.* Mohammed had chuckled to himself and gone off with his chatty companion.
That Sunday there was hardly a
ny line in front of Suzy’s small apartment. A bit fat, as vulgar as they come, Suzy seemed to have made an effort to exaggerate her appearance, as if that were part of whoring, but she was so nice, so human, that everyone overlooked her heavily rouged cheeks, her nauseating perfume, and the alcohol. Her eyes were never still but always vacant; she was there and elsewhere. She knew her work was unusual, and she too was looking forward to retirement because she’d had it with spreading her legs and squeezing immigrant balls. But she liked the men, even found their shyness and awkwardness touching, she said.
Mohammed’s guide explained the deal precisely. You go in, you smile at her (she likes men who smile), and you put your hundred francs in a bowl on the night table. There are licorice and mint candies in the bowl—the mint’s my favorite—to make your breath sweet, so you take one, and you also take a very thin sheath called a rubber that protects you from diseases and other complications; then you lie down on the bed and let her get to work: she’s quick, expert, efficient, and she has a fantastic technique to clean out your balls in a few minutes. You’ll see—you’ll feel a lot better. If you don’t know how to put on the rubber, she’ll take care of it, don’t worry, and when it’s over, hey, you’ll thank your pal!
The fog thickened; Mohammed hung his head, trying to chase away those images from so long ago. Still, he did remember that Suzy had been very kind to him. He’d never gone back, though.
He associated this memory with a more unpleasant one, a humiliating experience. The medical officer at the factory, Dr. Garcia, had been blunt with him when he’d reached fifty: Mohammed, you get up often at night to take a leak? Then you must have prostate problems. We’ll have to have a look at that.
At the appointment, the doctor told him to remove his trousers and underpants and to bend over as if he were praying. Mohammed just stood there, shaking his head. Growing impatient, the doctor pretended to suddenly understand, then said, I know, it isn’t easy, embarrassment and shame, hchouma. I know all about it. But I must examine you, and I can’t do it long-distance. Just trust me: it takes thirty seconds, then it’s over, doesn’t even hurt. Mohammed would have liked to tell him that it wasn’t a question of physical pain, no, but that he’d never shown his rear end to anyone. After a moment, Mohammed closed his eyes, quickly pulled down his trousers and underpants, and bent over. The doctor asked him to bend a little more. Raging inside, Mohammed did so. The doctor performed a rectal exam. Fine, your prostate’s a normal size for your age, but we’ll have to keep an eye on it, right, Mohammed? Let’s have you back here in one year.
When he left, Mohammed walked along staring at the ground. He was angry at himself and sorry he hadn’t asked Dr. Garcia to anaesthetise him for the exam. And he didn’t like the doctor telling him to bend over as if he were praying. He couldn’t bear it that a finger had probed his anus. He never mentioned the visit to anyone and from then on ignored his prostate completely.
8
TIME. He couldn’t have cared less about time. It was an enemy, the one that would be the first to strip him naked before himself and his family. He compared it to a long rope that doesn’t always hold. A rope that frays, slips its knots, dangling at the end of a pole. A shroud, but its whiteness is mere illusion. Time could only be too long, painful, without light, without joy, a line that rises only to fall, air full of dust. Time had several faces; it was a traitor that would break him gently, then finish him off the way it had his pal Brahim.
Mohammed didn’t know how to garden or to tackle projects around the house, and as for travelling, the only trips he’d ever taken, besides the pilgrimage to Mecca, were the ones home from France to his village in southern Morocco. As he liked to say, he drove on and on, covering the 2,882 kilometres within forty-eight hours. He ate up time without speeding. He wanted to be faster and stronger than his opponent. It was a performance, a challenge: he’d get the idea into his head that he was going to beat time, poke holes in it, look it in the face and have a good laugh—and he was a man who never laughed anymore. He liked the fatigue after the drive, a deep, lovely fatigue after a job well done, because once back home, after triumphing over time, he paid no more attention to it. He felt safe, completely safe. Nothing disturbed him, no one bothered him.
He’d sleep through the next day and night. His little prostate problem would interrupt his rest two or three times and, rising to pee, he’d remember Dr. Garcia and that humiliating examination. Mohammed couldn’t understand why the doctor had inserted a finger into his anus to check his prostate. Why doesn’t he take an X-ray? With that, you see everything. That Garcia must be a pervert. The shame! He should just forget the whole thing. Mohammed thought of Khalid, his cousin’s son, who left one day with a Canadian tourist. Rumor had it that he was practically a girl and hid from people because they saw him as abnormal. Boys used to taunt him; some had supposedly even abused him behind the little mountain. Poor Khalid disappeared and hadn’t been heard from since. Living with a man, people said. Absolute disgrace! His parents preferred to claim that he was ill and receiving treatment in America. The fact that he sent them money orders put them on the spot. One day his father had yelled, I haven’t any son! Khalid is not my son! He’s a bastard I tried to adopt, but Islam is right—adoption is forbidden, and I’ve been punished!
Each voyage home was an event in the village. Once there, Mohammed always forgot how he hated cumbersome luggage. He loved that atmosphere, that joy in the faces of children eager for presents; he loved those reunions with the old folks, with the members of a huge family who gazed at him, their eyes brimming with envy. The family was the tribe. From the outside, it seemed like an invading, clinging horde. The doors of the houses didn’t close, and even if they’d been bolted shut, the tribe would have come in through the windows or down from the roof terrace, respecting no limits, for the tribe was at home anywhere in the village. Not only did everyone know everyone else, but they meddled in one another’s affairs. It was a big family organised in an archaic manner, governed by traditions and superstitions. There was nothing Mohammed could do about that; it was in their blood: you can’t escape your roots. He wasn’t even bothered when certain members of the tribe “misbehaved.” His nephew had built a house on some of Mohammed’s land, but he didn’t reclaim it; that’s what family was. When his eldest son, Mourad, protested, Mohammed ended the matter by reminding him that family is sacred and one doesn’t quarrel over a scrap of land. You have to fight back when someone takes your property, Mourad had insisted. Nephew, cousin, brother—if you steal my land, I’ll do anything to get it back. I don’t understand this kind of one-way solidarity! You think he’d have let you grab some of his property? I doubt it!
Confronting the tribe, Mohammed was weak; he knew his complaints would go nowhere. No point in fighting the customs of centuries. His children had almost no connection with all that. And anyway, no one in the village would understand why Mohammed was displeased. The tribe is the tribe. No arguments. No criticism. We’re not Europeans here. The family is sacred! That’s how it is, and that’s that.
Mohammed began to think out loud: But Europeans love their families—they celebrate at Christmas, get together, chat, sing. I spent one Christmas Eve with Marcel’s family. They drink too much, though, and I don’t like that; everybody drinks: the children drink and get drunk with their parents. I didn’t say anything, but I was afraid my kids might one day turn out like Marcel’s. They have their customs, we have ours; we’re not all obliged to do the same thing. LaFrance is my workplace: the plant, the fumes of plastic, oil, and the paint I used on the endless assembly line. My father smelled of sweat and ploughed earth. I smelled of chemicals, an acrid metallic odour I grew used to. But my children didn’t come hug me close for fear of a whiff of it—they pecked me on the cheek and said, Hi, Pa!
Aïe! Hi, Pa! Me, I kissed my parents’ hands and begged them to bless and forgive me in case I might have done something wrong. Hi, Pa! Sure, hi yourself, sonny!
When his childre
n were still young, they’d gone back to the village with him. They’d amused themselves, played with the animals, tossed rotting chicken guts at the cats to lure them within capturing range, and made toys out of any old thing. They had diabolical imaginations and were quite boisterous, annoying, spoiled, without any self-control. The neighbours said they hadn’t been brought up properly, didn’t respect anyone or anything! LaFrance was responsible—unless it was the parents’ fault, for letting the kids walk all over them. The parents couldn’t bear to hear their offspring criticised, however, and blamed that hyperactivity on the vacation itself. As for the children, it never even crossed their minds that they truly belonged to this sprawling clan. They looked after themselves as best they could, ate here or there: every house in the village was open to them. No one thought twice about it. The kids loved the old uncle who claimed to have lived to a hundred thanks to pure honey; they believed him and made themselves honey sandwiches all day long. One even told Mohammed it was almost as good as Nutella!
But after a week or so, they’d grow bored, become aggressive, clamour to go to the beautiful beaches at Agadir. Mohammed would take them there and keep an eye on them from a nearby café. After bringing them back to the village in the evening, he’d feel exhausted but could refuse them nothing. One day his elder sister, Fattouma, asked him, Why don’t you slap them? They’ve got bad manners, those kids, and when they come here they upset our children, teach them things I can’t believe—my God, that’s it: they’re little Frenchies! My baby brother has brought us some little Christians, foreigners.
A Palace in the Old Village Page 6