Straight from the Horse's Mouth

by Meryem Alaoui

  I buckle my seat belt. Bouchaïb pulls on it to be sure it’s fastened, and he grabs my breast in passing while continuing to look at me with the smile of someone who is very hungry and who has just been served a roasted rack of lamb, coated with butter and sprinkled with cumin. He raises his left eyebrow, makes a little movement of his head downward, in the direction of his thingamajig, which is all swollen.

  I giggle and place my left hand on his backrest, wedging myself into my seat. In front of me, the road is clear.

  The gold bracelets on my wrist knock against each other. He caresses my hand and tickles me between my thighs.

  “Let’s go, anafa!* Bouchaïb says, shifting into first gear.

  Again I make my bracelets jingle and with my mouth wide like a gaping wallet—as Samira says—I repeat after him:

  “Anafa!”

  His associates are slumped on their seats; they laugh and we take off at full speed.

  I don’t know why we’re giggling, but I can’t stop laughing, a deep belly laugh. It’s hot, fat, it fills the space, like my arms, like my stomach, like my breasts, like me on the seat. I feel like I’m swelling, filling the passenger side.

  “Are you happy, beautiful?”

  Bouchaïb smiles at me again with his unending mouth.

  “What makes you say that?” I respond with a grimace.

  I can’t stand when he’s pleased with himself. He doesn’t respond—probably because he’s not in the mood to argue—and turns toward Saïd, saying, “Pass the Spéciales.”

  Saïd leans toward a gray canvas bag at his feet and hands Bouchaïb a beer.

  “What, she’s not good enough for one?” he asks, nodding toward me.

  Saïd leans over again and passes me a beer. I take it and I pull out the Marvels from my bra. The packet is a bit crumpled. I pull out a cigarette, smooth it, and light it.

  We drive fast along the coast, the music blasting. I can’t remember the last time I went on a drive like this. It must have been a long time ago, or else I’m too drunk to remember.

  Chaïba stops at a gas station to buy cigarettes. He leaves the car stereo on with the cassette running. It’s Haja El Hamdaouia.* I stay in the car, and his friends get out to piss, laughing and singing like lunatics. They undo their belts while moving their butts to the rhythm of the music.

  “Stop, you’re spraying me,” Saïd says.

  “Ba Lahcen bechouia, ha aha bechouia,*” Belaïd says, ignoring him, swaying his hips to the rhythm of the music, his arms horizontal.

  His liberated cock moves like him from right to left and from back to front. He sprays piss everywhere. On his pants, on Saïd (who shouts), and on the tall grass in front of them. Bouchaïb comes back and lines up next to them. He has a cigarette dangling from his lips.

  When he takes a drag, he frowns, his lips pursed forward, the cigarette hanging slightly to the left and his mouth twisted slightly to the right. His neck is taut, bending backward.

  “What’s up with you, Chaïba? Sick of your life?” Belaïd says, imitating him.

  “Such an ass!” Bouchaïb responds, turning his body as if he were going to spray him.

  Saïd distracts them. “Wanna bet that I can hit that rock?”

  And all three of them take aim at the large rock in front of them. Belaïd tries, but he’s got no more in him, so he pulls back up his pants and with a loud “ptooey!” sends a big gob of spit onto the rock. “Can you aim like that?”

  Challenge accepted! All three spit toward the rock. I clap my hands to the music to encourage them.

  Our racket accentuates how deserted the station is. But the only two customers, drinking their coffee at a table, smoking a cigarette in the dingy light, don’t give a damn. They turn their heads toward us, continuing to puff on their cigarettes without saying a word. Neither to each other nor to tell us to shut up.

  The calm of that vision suddenly enshrouds us, and we get back on the road.

  We arrive at Jdida fairly quickly. It’s late. We drive along the cliff. We pass a few intersections, we turn down streets that all look the same, and we stop at the foot of a house. A guy, only his silhouette visible, comes out and gives us the keys to the apartment where we’ll sleep.

  I’m tired. I’ve had a lot to drink. Bouchaïb and I do something that resembles fucking. It’s hazy. It’s lethargic. He eventually finishes. About time.

  Now, he’s snoring with his mouth wide open, lying on his back, fully dressed, with his stomach extended to the sky.

  My head is spinning, the ceiling drops closer, grows distant, becomes a blur. I think I’m going to puke.

  SATURDAY THE 19TH

  It’s already morning. I’m in a complete daze. I had my breakfast in a café at the end of the street where we stayed. I ate alone. I don’t know where the others went. A work thing, probably.

  Before going out, I called Samira to tell her to keep an eye on Samia. I don’t trust Halima very much.

  Today, the sun is a bit cold. Even though it’s summer. It must not be very late. There’s still fog, and few people out and about. I’m sitting on a low white wall that runs along the beach. I have my back to the sea because all that water makes me dizzy.

  It’s always been that way, since the first time I laid eyes on it. That was a long time ago. I was twenty years old and had just arrived in Casa. I was beautiful! Fresh as a rose, let me tell you. Now, you see me like this, a bit tired, but you should have seen me in my youth. I had big eyes, long eyelashes. My eyes were shiny, soft, deep as a well. And black. In my neighborhood, they said that I had the eyes of a cow they were so beautiful. And my hair was thick, like a horse’s tail. And my chest went out to the sky it was so proud. Let me tell you.

  At that time, my husband was still around, and he’s the one who brought me to the sea. It was in Aïn Diab,* I remember it well. It was a Sunday, early in our marriage.

  It was the first time I had seen something so big and boundless. Even fields aren’t like that. There are always hills or a tree or a stable that blocks your view. The sea was gigantic, and seeing the line where sky and sea touch, I immediately thought that that was the place where you climb to the sky to reach paradise.

  My husband made fun of me for a long time; every time he wanted to take me to the beach, he would turn to me and say, “Hey, Jmiaa, a quick trip to paradise, what do you say?”

  When he brought me there, as soon as my feet touched the sea, I don’t know what took hold of me. I started to run, run, run on the sand like a horse. It was as if a fire had been lit under my feet. When I stopped and looked up, the world spun. I was scared for my life because I didn’t know if it would ever stop or not. I would spin so much that I would fall, right on my horse’s ass. I wasn’t fat then like I am now. I was simply round and firm. My husband couldn’t stop laughing.

  Since that day, I get vertigo when I spend too much time staring at the sea.

  And this breakfast I just ate, I’m not sure it was such a good idea. I have heartburn.

  Choufi ghirou, a l’azara ’ata Allah, choufi ghirou.* My telephone is ringing!

  It’s Chaïba: “Hello, where are you?”

  “I’m around. What about you?” I said, using the casual voice of someone who’s around.

  “I’m waiting for you at the apartment. Come.”

  I arrive at the apartment. Bouchaïb is already there, without the others. I feel no desire rig ht now, especially not with the dizziness, but I like Chaïba. I approach him with a big smile, asking him, “Are you itching down here?” I caress the bulge in his pants.

  I won’t get too graphic, but it’s not just a bulge he has down there; it’s a mountain. We head to the bedroom.

  This morning, I hadn’t noticed that the hallway was green.

  Bouchaïb grabs my chest. I know that’s the part of me he likes the most. And my ass. I stand on my t
iptoes and I press my breasts against his torso. My hand opens his shirt. His hairs slide between my fingers. He likes that too. I even pull on them a little.

  Beneath his mustache, he’s smiling from ear to ear. He’s already worked up. “You missed me, huh,” he says.

  And he adds, “None of those other losers fuck you like I do, huh?”

  He talks as he sucks on my face with his lips, which seem enormous to me now. If he keeps going like this, he’ll end up eating me. I’ll disappear into that chasm where all his rotten teeth went.

  “And their dicks, what are they like?”

  He leads me toward the bed. He crushes me with all his weight. Between his stomach and mine, there’s a lot of fat. Bouchaïb likes to spread me like a sheet and stretch out over me. He’s lucky I’ve got some cushion to me. But it’s not unpleasant. His large palms lift my djellaba, climb along my underwear, pressing down on my thighs. He lowers my underwear, barely unzips his pants, takes out his whatchamacallit and enters, wriggling to get inside.

  “Is that what you wanted? Did you miss my cock, huh?”

  Fuck, why does this asshole keep saying “huh”? What does he want me to say? Yours is the biggest, the sweetest, and the most delicious dick I’ve ever had, is that it? What is it with guys’ obsession with their dicks?

  He moves faster. His hands don’t know what to grab onto anymore. My breasts, my ass, my stomach, my chin, and my lips.

  Old Mina said to me one day, “They don’t pay you to understand. Remember one thing: if the dick’s aroused, the mind’s in the clouds.” And she was right. He wants me to tell him he’s the best? No problem.

  But Bouchaïb doesn’t really want me to answer. He wants me to make noise. Instead of talking, I make the sound of a cow giving birth. That’s his favorite.

  “Mmmmmmoooh.”

  “Hee-haw,” he responds.

  Bouchaïb has just brayed. He’s happy and I see all of his teeth. He’s lying on the bed and I’m at his side. The ceiling is white and the sheets beneath my hands are wrinkled and rigid.

  My hiked-up djellaba makes a cushion for the top of my butt. I pull on the underwear that’s stuck below my knees while he keeps staring at the light bulb hanging from the ceiling, his mouth agape.

  I never know what to do when Chaïba and I finish. If I get up, I’m afraid it’ll remind him that I do this all day. If I speak, it ruins the ambiance.

  He takes his phone and dials a number. It rings.

  “Hello, Saïd? Come and get me. I’ll wait for you at the apartment.”

  He’s taken care of my problem without even knowing it. I’m free to get up.

  * * *

  —

  Saïd and Belaïd came to get us and now we’re in a bar I’ve been to several times before. Every time with Bouchaïb. It’s on the way out of Jdida. There’s a terrace as big as the sea opposite us, and at the end of the day, the sun sets directly across from the bar. As if you had ordered it off the menu.

  Apart from that, the tables and chairs are ordinary. Bouchaïb always sits in the same spot. In the corner, to the left of the entrance, in a space where there’s only room for one big round table. Between the wooden bar and the enormous windows with the blue frames, overlooking the sea. All the decoration comes from the homes of fishermen. To make sure you know we’re at the beach. That kind of thing. I don’t see how pieces of boats and nets qualify as decoration but if that’s the boss’s thing, why not?

  Chaïba has a business meeting with some people. As soon as we arrived, the boss recognized him and approached us.

  “Bouchaïb, it’s been so long!” he said to him, giving him a big smooch on the cheek. “All’s well? Family’s good? Kids are good? Welcome,” he says, placing one hand behind his back and motioning with the other toward the room to invite him in.

  He didn’t even glance at the rest of us. He acted as if Saïd, Belaïd, and I weren’t there. I don’t care. Besides, I ignored him too. I lit a cigarette and waited for them to finish their greetings and for the boss to bring us to our table.

  * * *

  —

  Since then, I’ve been downing beers. One after the other. I don’t know how many I’ve had. The sun set a little while ago.

  Bouchaïb is sitting with a guy in a brown djellaba who wants to sell him a piece of land that’s not exactly aboveboard in terms of property deeds. They’re negotiating the price, I think.

  Belaïd and Saïd are speaking between themselves. Considering how long they’ve hung out together, God only knows what they still have to talk about.

  Lots of people come and go from the bar. There are a few faces I recognize. Since we arrived, I haven’t said a word to anyone. I’m tired. I want only one thing: for them to finish so we can leave.

  While I wait, I down tapas, Marvels, and Spéciales. But despite everything I’ve eaten to fill my stomach, my head is still spinning. I’ve really been hitting the bottle too much recently. I don’t think I’ve been sober for the last three weeks.

  I see Bouchaïb but I can’t manage to hear what he’s saying.

  He’s making dramatic gestures with his arms. His mouth opens wide when he speaks. He laughs, holding his stomach. He leans on the shoulder of the real estate agent next to him. But it’s like a dream.

  Everything is blurry. I want to go home. I want to be in my room. To lie on my mattress and watch the television until sleep overtakes me. I’m sick of all these people.

  * * *

  —

  We leave. None of us speak. We exit Jdida. We pass in front of the police station on the way to Casablanca. A cop signals for us to pull over. Pain in my ass.

  I put out my cigarette. I act intimidated. They like it when you’re afraid.

  The uniform leans over while shining his flashlight around the inside of the car to see how much he can make off of us. Three men, a whore. It reeks of alcohol. Jackpot.

  “License and registration,” he says, pulling a face.

  As if you need to make an effort for your face to scare people, asshole!

  Saïd leans over Bouchaïb’s knees to open the glove compartment. He takes out a black leather pouch and hands it to the police officer with a big smile. As he gives it to him, he asks the cop how he’s doing. The cop doesn’t respond. He takes the papers, turns his back to him, and walks away. It’s going to cost us.

  Saïd waits for the cop to move a bit farther away and gets out of the car to join him.

  I don’t need to see the scene to describe it to you.

  The cop looks at the registration, the pink permit open between his fingers. He takes out his notepad and writes up an infraction. Saïd joins him. They argue. The cop turns his head toward the other cars that he stopped farther on and who are also waiting for him. Suddenly he decides to go see them.

  Saïd waits alone on the side of the road, like a rejected suitor. Finally, the cop returns, walking slowly. He says nothing and is still sulking. Saïd says something to him, laughing. The cop plays innocent, like a virgin, the hint of a smile at his lips.

  Saïd unleashes his charm. He speaks, making his hands dance through the air. The virgin looks at him, encourages him, but doesn’t cede. Saïd gains confidence. He speaks louder, laughs openly. The virgin relaxes. Saïd has nearly done it. He keeps going. Ingratiating but determined. The cop likes that. That’s it. He acquiesces.

  They barely touch, their hands graze and they consummate the act.

  In the wings, no youyou rings out. Everyone knew the virgin was sewn back up.

  But at least now we can go home.

  We drive fast. We’re all in a hurry to get there. I can’t see anything out of the window, but we’re going fast. Everything is black and nothing has an outline. If I hadn’t already known, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you the direction we were driving in.

  We’re already back. Maybe
I fell asleep. I don’t know.

  Saïd stops the car at the corner of the street. There are people outside and the pepita seller is still there. It’s not yet midnight.

  I don’t have the energy to do anything tonight. Not even talk to anyone. Not even watch television after all.

  “Do you need anything?” Bouchaïb asks, to see if I want money.

  “No, I’m fine,” I say, opening the car door and placing my sandal on the sidewalk.

  I just want to go home.

  “Ciao.”

  They don’t respond. They can all go fuck themselves.

  With a bit of luck, the religious girl and Samia will be asleep. And I’ll go to bed too. I’ve got nothing better to do at this hour.

  * Terms and phrases followed by an asterisk are defined in a glossary that begins on this page.

  SUNDAY THE 11TH

  Today is the World Cup final. Spain versus the Netherlands. They’re playing rig ht now as I talk to you. To tell the truth, I don’t care about the game at all, but I know it’s on because the street is empty. All the neighborhood men are in the cafés and I haven’t had much work for a Sunday. Their energy is focused on soccer and they don’t have any left for below the belt.

  You could hear the wind speak, that’s how quiet it is. Like in the Western films we watched on TV when we were little. The parking lot security guard even abandoned his post and his tea tray on the sidewalk.

  For now, no one has scored a goal. Even though I’m not watching the game, I know.

  When someone scores a goal, you can’t miss it. When it happens—you don’t know where it comes from, but it’s so loud that you feel it in your chest—you hear Ilyeh!* Ilyeh! And the coffees spill onto the sidewalks and the men jump up and down and embrace.