One day their mother told me: A father should have authority or else nothing works. Just what is this authority? Is it the authority of fear? Is it being harsh, like those who beat their children only to lose them because they run away, get into drugs, and wind up in prison or the hospital morgue? I always thought that authority came naturally, that I had no need to shout or say the same thing over and over, but when children don’t listen to you, when they do only as they please, then you’re helpless. That’s how it is, so you can only wait it out and hope they’ll be smart enough not to get in trouble. My children have never torched a car or trashed any motorcycles. When the projects blow up, my kids are the first to be frightened by what their friends get up to. They always wanted to be successful, were never tempted by violence and disorder.
It was Nabile who came to console him. He took Mohammed’s hand, embraced him, and they looked into each other’s eyes. Then they went out to a café to have some ice cream.
That afternoon, his head heavy with sorrow, Mohammed hugged Nabile tight without saying a word, blinking back tears. He waited for Rekya to get home from school, kissed her, packed his suitcase, prepared a few provisions, and told his wife, I’m going back home to rest for a while. You’ll come join me with Nabile and Rekya over vacation, so, I’ll leave you some money, and if you need anything, go see Sallam.
Mohammed was going to take the train, since his car—along with many others—had been torched that October, when some youths had gone on a rampage after the accidental electrocution of two of their friends.* The 78—the postcode for Yvelines—had not erupted, but some kids eager to play copycat had set fire to cars in the neighbourhood just for the hell of it, to impress everyone, make a statement. What were they trying to say by burning my Renault? thought Mohammed sadly. Bought on credit at a good price because I was an employee of the firm…. What did I ever do to those wretched kids? Why did they take away my car, when I’m on their side, when we’re of the same blood? Who knows! Someone forgot to bring them up right. Great: those kids, lowlifes, raised rotten, lousy students, disobedient to their parents, couldn’t find anything better to do than set fire to my old car that was so useful to me, especially in the summer. And the insurance guy told me to forget it. Without even looking up at me he says, We are not liable. Those are risks we don’t insure: bad weather, natural catastrophes, civil disorder on public thoroughfares—that’s not our responsibility. We insure against accidents, not gang rebellions, and anyway, if that’s the case, it’s one of your kids who set the fire, because my son isn’t going to torch my car, you follow me? So I can’t help you. Forget your car, buy another one, but if I were you I’d wait for things to calm down. They adore new cars, such a temptation…. Au revoir, monsieur, so sorry, really.
Mohammed had left the insurance office in despair. Why didn’t the French state reimburse poor people victimised by these disturbances? He looked around him; there were almost no parked cars: people had taken precautions. Mohammed just couldn’t understand how young people he saw every day in the elevator would abruptly try to set the city on fire because they were bored, because they wanted to stick it to LaFrance. But I’m not LaFrance! I’m a simple family man stranded in the street without a car to drive back home, that’s all. I’ve never shouted at those kids hanging out in the neighbourhood, and my children didn’t have anything to do with them, I’m sure of that, because they went to work at an early age and don’t live here anymore.
What should I do now? File a complaint at the police station? No, they won’t listen to me, and they’re swamped in any case and too angry. Never talk to an angry policeman. Besides, I hate going into a police station. I’ll take the train, then the boat, then the bus, then a taxi. It will take a long time, I’d better travel light—I’ll have to repack my luggage. Or I could wait until Thursday to take the Gennevilliers–Agadir bus. Yes, but last year the driver fell asleep: twenty dead and as many injured. Can’t trust it. Run by Moroccans who want to make a lot of money in a hurry, so they hire drivers they pay poorly and give them a small bonus only if they drive fast and get there first. So, the driver in the accident got a big bonus: death, poor fellow! The government ought to do something about those buses, but the companies are all corrupt, they pay for whatever they want—permits, surcharges, speeding. Too bad, I’ll take the train, at least I’ll be able to sleep. Well, maybe not, but I’ll try.
12
FOR THE FIRST TIME in his life abroad, Mohammed did not drive on and on (as he had put it) to get back home. He had already forgotten his ruined car and bought his train ticket but was in no hurry. Retirement meant time he now needed to occupy, to fill with projects. He spent all night planning how he could finally gather his entire little family back around him. Although tempted to curse Lalla França for stealing his children, he pulled himself together and asked God to return things to normal. And for him, normal meant that the children would stay home, even when married; that they should come visit him often in the village; and that they should make plans together. For instance, what if they all went to Mecca as a family? Mohammed daydreamed about this expensive trip, imagining everyone going around the Kaaba and praying. Folly? Madness? Not at all: the duty of every Muslim. But he was not in a Muslim country. He had to abandon such ideas and find more viable projects. Open a grocery store? No, wouldn’t work. Why not offer his family a complete tour of Morocco, from north to south, like those French families who visit the country by stopping everywhere, staying with the locals, eating in little restaurants, and having a ball? He’d buy a small van, and they’d go off on an adventure! Since his children all worked and couldn’t schedule their vacations on the same dates, he’d do the trip two or three times, showing off the country, meeting its people, admiring its beauty and wonderfully varied landscapes. The travellers would talk to one another, camp out, invent games, spend many happy hours together. Why didn’t I do that when the children were little? I never thought of it. I followed the same ritual every year from July 15 to August 28, doing the same things. That was our destiny. We had to accept that, without any questions. I don’t know of a single emigrant who has toured Morocco with his family. We’d leave the 78 and head for the village, a place without a number, in the back of beyond.
He would tackle the construction of the house as soon as he returned to the village, in that flat, arid, pitiless countryside without a trace of green. No tree had ever survived out there; no vegetation had ever managed to thrive. All along the road were thistles, thorn bushes, grey shrubs with stalks like slender knives, and big stones, yellow dust, flies—flies everywhere, especially on days when a sheep’s throat was cut. When it’s hot, people go to ground in their homes until dusk, learning to wait, learning to do nothing. They don’t talk about the climate and its hardships. They sit cross-legged on mats, shifting positions, then changing places. They don’t even look at the sky. They cover the well, afraid that the water will evaporate, and they forget about the hours that drag by. Instead of passing from one person to another, words seem to bump into the walls and crumble away. So no one speaks. There’s nothing to say, nothing to do. Perhaps folks following the progress of a line of busy ants will watch a few stragglers tumble into crevices, and let them die. Such harshness hardens hearts. Codes of behaviour are cold and rigid. A disobedient child gets slapped silly. A girl who looks too noticeably at a man is shut away. No argument, no negotiation. Life is simple, and simply terrible. A tiny window onto the outside world came only with the first butane-gas-powered television sets, but people laughed as they watched them, seeing an exotic world even more savage than their own flicker into the village on the black-and-white screens. Everyone watched films, and whenever a man and woman held hands, our women would veil their faces, some of them exclaiming, These Christians have no shame! No modesty at all. We’re better off here at home. But what do our men get up to in those countries? Do they let these scrawny shadows seduce them into vice? Do they squander their money on these loose women?
Begun five years earlier, work on the house had stopped for lack of money. Now that Mohammed was determined to finish it, his life in retirement had meaning. He no longer saw time as a terrifying spectre: time had expanded, grown light, colourful, airy; he imagined it as a kite on a soft breeze in a clear sky. Time had let go of him, allowing him a second chance. Perhaps he had failed somehow in France, but time was letting him pursue a different success in Morocco.
Mohammed envisioned a big, handsome house, full of light and children; he’d never been bothered by the shouts and rambunctious antics of youngsters. He smiled. He drew the house in his head, left enough space for the flower garden, counted the trees to be planted, reviewed the varieties of roses to be ordered at the market in Marrakech, and organised the kitchen garden, which he decided to entrust to Nabile, who would certainly take good care of it.
Tears welled in his eyes as he thought of the boy, but he blinked them away. Nabile had a winning personality, lots of imagination, and he made Mohammed laugh, helping him forget his conflicts with the other children. Mohammed saw him as a prince in the new house, a prince and a leader. Nabile was the only one he could count on. The boy liked to be trusted, to be given things to do. He had always wanted to grow up, to be an adult at an early age and leave behind the childhood he associated with his own backwardness. By growing up, Nabile thought he would become like everyone else. He used to say, Me mgolian? Head’s mess up? Me sixteen, champion, fishing! So, Grampa, we go?
The closer Mohammed came to the Moroccan frontier, the larger the house became, the taller the walls rose, the bigger the bedrooms grew, while the ivy climbed faster, plants swayed, birds sang. Mohammed could even hear the soft sound of the fountain he would install in the courtyard. It wasn’t a house anymore; it was a corner of paradise, a kind of palace with gardens, parks, animals of all kinds. A tale from One Thousand and One Nights. A huge carpet woven by hundreds of hands. All that was missing was Harun al-Rashid and his court. Nabile would play his role perfectly, since he adored acting and conjuring tricks.
All alone, Mohammed was dreaming and laughing, seeing himself dressed in white, welcoming the authorities arriving to inaugurate the ideal house built by the model emigrant, who had always sent part of his salary home to Morocco, who had invested in his country and intended to repatriate his entire family. On the day celebrating the Feast of the Throne, commemorating the accession of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, the king would bestow a decoration on the model emigrant, who would appear before him in his grey suit (slightly rumpled), a brand-new white shirt, and a flowered tie. Placing a hand on his shoulder, the king would walk a few paces with him in front of the television cameras, filling Mohammed with such pride that his problems would melt away, and the sovereign would send a special plane to bring his children and their mother back to Morocco.
Mohammed saw himself as tall, slender, his pockets stuffed with money for him to distribute to the needy. He was wild with joy. He envisioned himself running through fields, leaping in delight like a carefree child. That’s what it was to please oneself, to arrange things so that life now offered him a superb gift. He had always felt that God had been lenient with him by making him a good father and husband. None of his children had ever been involved with the police, and he thought of poor Larbi, whose eldest son was in prison for armed assault, while the youngest boy suffered from that disease Mohammed was too superstitious to mention. Mohammed considered himself lucky. He thought of his youngest daughter and was determined that she should study veterinary medicine.
Someone at the auto plant, an activist who strongly opposed the politics of the French state, had explained to him why almost no sons of immigrants attended French universities: You see, our children aren’t dumber than others; it’s that they’re discouraged from primary school on, quickly channelled into technical schools. And I’m not saying that’s bad, but why can’t our children go to the competitive state-run universities, you know, the ones where they wear uniforms as though they were in the army? Why aren’t they in banking, doing research, involved in the big doings of this fucking country? I’m not talking about our friends on the left who’ve done zip; I mean, in Holland and Belgium there are deputies—yes, deputies!—with roots in the Maghreb, and there’s even a young woman of Moroccan background who’s a minister of culture in Brussels, while here, in France, we have the right to fill up the prisons, wait around in police stations, and be harassed as soon as we speak up. That’s what disgusts me, and our generation. We’re done for, but why should our sons suffer the same fate? You know what? It’s the old colonial reflex: doesn’t matter how perfect you are; you’ve always got to jump higher and farther than their champions, that’s how it is, that’s our lot. So the kids get scared, pissed off, feel lost. They try to set everything on fire. They burned my jalopy, and the insurance people told me “no coverage,” “exceptional circumstances,” “kiss your car good-bye.” And the kids don’t go to ritzy Neuilly to put on their act, no, they burn their schools, our buses, our cars, they hurt themselves—then get labelled evil immigrants. And do you think my son’s an immigrant? He’s never left the 78. He’s a Frenchy, 100 per cent.
13
WHEN THE TRAIN STOPPED in the middle of the countryside, putting an end to his dream, Mohammed stood up to stretch his legs and looked out at the sky. The moon shone so intensely that some of the shooting stars seemed, in its brilliant whiteness, like drops of water from a summer rain shower. Mohammed began to pray, to thank God for having helped him escape ’tirement by giving him a good idea to keep him busy. He felt proud and, above all, impatient. Time was flying by; he had to get to the village quickly and immediately call the master mason, Bouazza, to set him building again. When the train began to move once more, Mohammed sank into a contented drowsiness in which he saw himself surrounded by all his dear ones as the seasons rolled by. He gave a colour to each season: white for summer, a greyish blue for autumn, luminous green for winter, golden yellow for spring. He liked painting time with colours. Now that he’d left France, the colours had come back. And music, too.
When Mohammed disembarked at Tangier, he had to wait a while for the afternoon bus to Casablanca. Leaving his suitcase in a locker, he took a walk along the sandy coast road. Everything had changed since his first discovery of the sea. Young men were playing soccer or loitering nearby; a few beggars stopped him, and he gave them some coins. Around him he saw more and more buildings under construction. Mohammed sat down at a café and was approached by a salesman: You want to buy an apartment in one of these fine buildings? Ten thousand dirhams a square metre! It’s a good buy: you choose from the blueprint, then move in a year later with everything—running water, electricity, television, telephone, and even the Internet, everything! You give me a down payment, I give you a receipt, and next year we meet again in this café, right here at this table. Is it a deal? No, thanks.
In the meantime, at least ten beggars had passed by with their hands out: women with babies, cripples, healthy young people, elderly folks showing him crumpled old drug prescriptions. There are more and more of them, Mohammed thought. This country has lost its pride—it’s overwhelming, there are too many beggars, too much corruption and injustice, and the longer it goes on, the more it becomes too much.
Thinking about the journey still ahead of him, Mohammed figured he would arrive home at last in a day and a half, thirty-six hours if all went well: Tangier to Casa, wait; Casa to Agadir, wait; Agadir to home in a taxi. Wait, wait, patience, patience! That’s what he’d been told in Mecca: As-sabr ya Hajj! Patience, Hajji! The magic formula. He had learned patience during the pilgrimage but had lost it over time, becoming anxious and trying hard to hide it. Now Mohammed felt a tiny flame of anger flare up in him again: Why did they burn my car? Why didn’t the insurance company give me anything, not even enough to rent another one while the government found a way to help those thousands of people who lost their cars, which they often needed for their jobs? Then Mohammed remembered that he hadn
’t had the presence of mind to correct the insurance guy when the fellow had put the blame on immigrants. Those youngsters who torched cars and set public buildings on fire are not immigrants! They’re probably—maybe definitely—the children of immigrants, but they aren’t immigrants! Even the TV had talked about immigration. There was nothing normal, nothing fair about all this. The only thing Mohammed knew for sure was that he’d had nothing to do with it, and neither had his children.
Bouazza, the master mason, had moved to Marrakech and was busy with several building sites at the same time. He had grown rich and hard to get hold of, having evidently forgotten where he came from. Once he reached home, Mohammed forgot about Bouazza and called upon his many nephews and cousins, who set to work. He recovered the energy of his youthful days, and his worries were erased by concrete and whitewash. Neighbours came to see this strange, shapeless building so unlike their own homes, and after asking a few questions, they went away wondering if Mohammed had lost his mind. He was definitely losing weight, sleeping next to the building materials, not taking care of himself. He had paid an architect to draw up plans, but instead of using them the mason was following the instructions of Mohammed, who wasn’t managing to explain very well what it was he wanted.
A Palace in the Old Village Page 9