MONDAY THE 28TH
Truly, my luck has been strange recently. If someone is watching over me from the beyond, I have no idea who it might be.
In Casablanca and in all of Morocco, chaos broke out when that Tunisian guy poured gasoline over his head. It’s been two Sundays since then and downtown still hasn’t emptied. Everyone who’s in want of something, everyone who has nothing to put in their mouths, everyone who’s at war with their wives, everyone who isn’t happy with their circumcision, they’ve all taken to the street. Everyone has their own demand.
It gets on my nerves. There’s no more order around here. When I saw them all arrive, I thought maybe there’d be more opportunities for work or something like that. But in reality, there’s no work, no nothing. Nothing but hassles, like always.
Yesterday was Sunday, I was calmly waiting in the street. A little bit past the market, on that road that intersects the avenue. That way, I could take care of my business and see what was happening with the protesters at the same time.
When I saw the cop, or maybe it was a Cimi,* I retreated a little so he wouldn’t bother me. With all this mess around them right now, they’re quicker to fly off the handle. And I have no desire to be hit with a stray bludgeon since I’ve only been back out here for the last few days.
Anyway, I was standing on the street and a group of young guys approached me. I don’t like it when young people hang out in packs. They don’t belong to any religion or other group. You have to be on the lookout with them because you never know what might happen.
The other night, Samira could have been slashed to pieces. There were three kids who came to see her. She went up with one and when he finished, he told her that his friend downstairs had the money. That bothered Samira, but she went down with him anyway. Her plan was to take the money and send the other two on their way, even if they wanted to do something with her. Once they were downstairs, they refused to pay. So she said to the one who had come up, looking him straight in the eyes, “Cough it up, you nasty kid. Cough it up or I’ll make you regret it, you’ll bring shame to your entire family.”
“Oh yeah? And who’s around to hear you at this hour, you dirty whore,” he answered, looking left and right in the street.
There was only Samira and his two friends around. Samira got mad and started to say, at first softly and then, faced with his silence, louder and louder, “Cough it up, cough it up, cough it up.”
On the fifth or sixth time, she let loose her siren song. And normally, those little brats get scared when you start to yell. But that night those parasites didn’t budge and the one who had gone up with her said in her face, with a vicious smile, “Remember what I did to you up there? Well, I’ll do it again down here. Over there, under the porch. And this time, my friends will join in,” he added, pointing at the door of the building next to the restaurant that had just opened, starting to undo his zipper.
Before he could finish his sentence, he realized that Samira was running toward our building, yelling at everything she could. It must have been one in the morning. The three others followed her, also yelling: “Dirty whore, we’re going to catch you and fuck up your face.”
Samira was holding her djellaba above her waist with both hands, she abandoned her sandals in the street and took off in a sprint like she hadn’t done in a long time, she said. It wasn’t until she’d arrived at the bottom of the building, where the night guard was, that she turned around to insult them and throw rocks in their faces. They took off back where they had come from. And Samira went upstairs, her hair disheveled. She woke me up and we finished my bottle while she called them all the names she could think of, those sons of bitches. If they had caught her…It’s best not to think about it.
Anyway, yesterday when those kids approached, like an idiot I hung around the small street to the left, just to see if they were going to follow me or not. They followed me. I sped up to keep them at a distance. The street curves, and I knew that at the end there was the avenue full of people. But from where I was, I couldn’t see it. That street is peculiar: you’re walking along on the sidewalk and then suddenly the road passes under a building. It’s like a tunnel. And when I reached the bend, I saw that the end of the street was blocked by barriers. I quickly turned around, thinking that in any event it was the middle of the day and those young people might try to pull something but it wouldn’t go very far. One of them looked at me and said. “Hey, you, come over here. Where are you going?”
I turned toward them and got a better look. This wasn’t a pack of dogs. They were clean and well dressed. Students, surely. But that doesn’t mean they were smiling and welcoming. They looked at me as if they were staring at a stinking pile of shit, excuse my language. I didn’t respond and continued on my way. They crossed the street so that they were rig ht in front of me. They surrounded me. There were four of them. A violet djellaba passed at the end of the street. I waved to her but she took off. When I saw that I was cornered, I softened, thinking that I would butter them up. I put my hands on my hips and angled my chest toward them, saying, “Which of you would like a taste of something sweet?”
They looked at each other, laughing, and all at the same time, they said:
“Whore!”
“We’ll give you a lesson you won’t forget.”
“That’ll teach you to walk through these streets wiggling your behind.”
“…perverting the people…”
“…devil…”
“…right path…”
After a moment, I could only hear fragments of what they were saying because they were all talking at the same time. I was about to start insulting them and push one so I could get away when I heard a booming voice behind them say, “What are you doing? We came here to protest, not to engage in things like this.”
They all jumped and turned toward the man. He must have been fifty years old. He was wearing gray suit pants and a white shirt. The first thing I noticed was that it was very clean. His hair was half-black, half-gray, and he had a small, well-groomed beard, dark black. He didn’t turn his head toward me for a second. His face didn’t express anything in particular. As soon as he spoke, the man turned his back to us and started to walk away. He didn’t need to say anything more for the dogs to tuck their tails between their legs and follow him. I don’t know if he was their boss or their imam or what. I don’t know how those Islamic organizations function.
Behind them, the violet djellaba I had seen run past earlier brought up the rear. She was the one who had called the older man. When my gaze met hers, the woman lowered her eyes.
It was Halima. Halima who had lived with me in my room.
I didn’t have time to say anything to her. Because all of this happened in a flash. In any event, there was nothing to say. The truth is that when I saw her, I felt a bit uncomfortable. But who knows, maybe she has no idea that I was the one who told Houcine to kick her out.
And besides, everyone has their own destiny. I’m starting to believe in all that bullshit. Who would have thought, for example, that I would act in a film? Who would have thought that on top of it, I would play the most important role and be paid well for it? Who? No one.
Maybe there are things that happen in life for no reason. Or maybe everything that happens is already foreseen, planned, outlined, all of it. Like in a film.
TUESDAY THE 15TH
The day is over and I still haven’t had a drop to drink. I only took some of those pills that knock me out and now I’m sitting alone in my room.
I have the script in front of me.
When the guy who works with Horse Mouth gave it to me—about ten days ago—he explained to me that I have to learn my part, meaning all the places where “Hasna” is written. And you know how many times Hasna is written in this script? One or two thousand times. I have no idea how I’m going to memorize all of this.
But I’ve had no pr
oblem learning the story, it’s easy. It’s like a film. You simply follow it.
In the story, my name is Hasna. I work on the street and I have a boyfriend. His name is Brahim. I’ve never been married and I don’t have children. I don’t speak to my parents anymore, nor to my family. I don’t have any girlfriends, I have no one. And basically I live on the street. The truth is that I’m in deep shit.
The guy, my boyfriend, he’s a real son of a bitch! You can’t imagine what a son of a bitch he is. He and I, we decide to carry out a heist together in a jewelry store—thinking that will get us out of our shit. I give him the jeweler’s schedule, he’s an old fogey, his shop is on the street where I work. I describe his routine to my boyfriend, and he does the robbery. That idiot, once he’s pulled it off, he grabs all the necklaces, all the bracelets, all the watch chains, and he takes off, leaving me like an asshole on the sidewalk. Then, lots of things happen. With the police, the neighbors…It’s an unbelievable mess. There are investigators who come and interrogate people. I’m interrogated too, but they don’t know I’m a part of the heist. And after that, other things happen too: I meet another guy, named Mouad, who likes me, one of my clients commits suicide, I’m assaulted. That’s another horrendous mess.
Next, Mouad and I, we get together and go off looking for the bastard. We’re lucky because—serves the guy right—we find him dead in the room where he was hiding out. And since he didn’t tell anyone where he was, no one else found him first. So we take all the gold and get out of there. You see us take off in a car on a road where there’s no one else, just us two, there’s music playing, a bag full of gold on my knees, and we’re happy. But that’s still not the end.
We stop at a gas station near the Algerian border, I get out to piss and when I come back, the idiot’s taken off, leaving me in the middle of nowhere. And that’s it, that’s the end of the film.
If you want my opinion, I think that part’s horrible, and if I’d written the script, I would have stopped earlier, when we were in the car. But that cunt Horse Mouth didn’t want it that way, so that’s the story.
The guy who gave it to me told me that from now on, I have to keep this script with me at all times. I have to spend all my free time reading it. When I’m eating, when I’m waiting somewhere, when I’m in the bathroom, all the time, until it’s coming out of my ears. As if I’d eaten too much, and instead of food bursting out of me, it’s the script.
And that’s what I do. Whenever I can, I take the script and I read it. I read, I read, I read. All the time. At first, it was a bit difficult because I hadn’t read anything since the end of elementary school apart from signs, but now, it’s fine. It’s come back.
When I’m not reading, I’m going over it in my head. I’ve cut back my work in the streets to a minimum, just enough to pay the people I owe.
Except for my husband, because I think I’ve managed to get rid of him for now. I haven’t told him that I’ve started working again. Every time he called, I told him I couldn’t, that I was in a bad state. And every time, I stopped at the description of my shitty situation just before attracting the attention of the evil eye. You never know. Even better: the last time I spoke to him, I told him that he had to send me money to help me pay for the medications and that he had to send money to Mouy for his daughter. Since that day, he hasn’t called back. I can rest easy for the moment.
You know, I’m not going to tell anyone else that I’m acting in a film. Otherwise they’re all going to start coming up with pipe dreams. As if we’re going to make billions. Well, honestly, what I’m going to make isn’t half bad. I’m not going to be as rich as the king, but I’ve done well for myself.
They called me one morning, I had just woken up. It was a guy I’d never heard of. He told me that he was calling on behalf of the film production company. He wanted me to come see him in the afternoon, at the same place where I went to do the screen test. I said okay, but since I didn’t know who this pimp was, I called Horse Mouth first. It turned out that she knew him. She knew that he was calling me to talk about money. To tell me how much I would be paid for the film.
I got dressed, I put myself together, and I took off. Alone. I didn’t bring Samira with me. I saw that she was busy so I didn’t ask her to come. And to tell the truth, it was better that way.
When I arrived, the mute at the entrance had me go into one of those rooms that was closed the first time. It was also yellow, like the hallway. There was a man sitting inside. I entered and I remained standing until he told me to sit. He was wearing glasses. He was tall. And rather skinny. He had a serious air about him, like a school principal. He stressed me out. I sat down and I almost didn’t speak. He told me that he was going to give me two million and that he was preparing the contract. And then I left. That was it. I didn’t have time to understand what was happening, and then it was already over.
When I told Horse Mouth how much they had offered me, she made a funny face and when I pushed to find out why she was making that expression, I understood that I should have been paid more. Because as soon as we start filming, they’re going to put me up at a hotel and I won’t be able to work anymore. From now until then, I can. But as soon as we start filming, I’ll have to stop.
So we talked, we made an agreement about the amount that I would ask for, and I called the guy back to negotiate. I was relentless. I asked for five million. In the end, we both compromised and met in the middle. And that’s how I raised the amount to three and a half million, and I got to work.
WEDNESDAY THE 23RD
I would never have thought that I could kick so much ass. I have no idea how this all happened to me. I’m not saying the script entered into my head by magic. Not at all, far from it. I’ve been working my ass off. Whenever I’m not at the market, I devour the script. I even have a whole system for practicing.
The first thing I did, since it’s not practical to carry such a big notebook under my arm all the time, is that I tore out all the pages. It’s easier to walk with sheets of paper than with a notebook. And most importantly, it saves me from embarrassment. The other day, I don’t know what came over me, but I went out with the entire notebook. That’s all anyone saw. The entire neighborhood made fun of me: “Studying for your anatomy class?” “You don’t think you have enough padding on your behind to cushion your seat?” “Did you get a job at the moqataa*?”
Let them laugh, with their big flapping mouths. Later, we’ll see who’s laughing. While I’m making my money, they’ll be swallowing flies.
Here at the house, I piled up all the sheets of paper. They’re all neatly arranged. When I go out to bring someone up, I quickly gather them into one big pile that I stash under the table. And I cover it all with a plastic tablecloth that hangs to the ground.
And if I want to practice while I’m in the street, I just take out the relevant sheet. When I forget the line, I quickly unfold the piece of paper, I read it, and I put it back in its place, in my bra. No one has noticed anything yet.
I’m also at home most of the time. Since I’ve started working on the film, I’ve been locking the door to my room to have peace and quiet. I only go out when I need to go out. And as soon as I’ve made my keep for the day, I come back home to relax and mind my own business.
“Open sesame!”
Samira whispers behind the door, “Open sesame, motherfucker, open this door, if you would be so kind.”
As soon as she has a free moment, she comes to see me and we rehearse together. She takes the script and concentrates deeply to decipher it all, and she plays the other characters. I say Hasna’s lines that I’ve memorized. When I forget a word or a sentence or what comes next, Samira tells me.
I promised her that I would bring her with me to the shoot one day. They announced that it would start at the beginning of April. And that it would last a little more than a month. Five weeks.
I open the door and a gust of
cold air enters the room. Time to warm up with a drink.
“So, where were we?” Samira asks, gesturing dramatically with her arm.
“Come in, we’ll have a glass and we’ll remember,” I answer.
She enters and sits down. “So, how did it go? Were you there today?”
“Sit down first,” I say to her, taking out the bottle I still keep in the cabinet.
* * *
—
I did tests today. At the same place again. I borrowed a djellaba from Samira to change things up a bit and I put on the scarf that Chaïba gave me when I was sick. Back when we still spoke. Since then, I’ve decided to stop seeing that piece of shit. You remember how that moron went off with Hajar to piss me off when I didn’t answer his call? And remember how when I was sick, he gave Samira some money for me?
When he helped me, I let go of what happened with Hajar. I told myself that everyone makes mistakes and does stupid things. And since on top of it that bitch never misses an opportunity to piss me off, I told myself that she must have gotten him worked up on a night when he was good and drunk. And I forgave him.
I was going to call him to meet up but I didn’t have the chance. Ten days ago, I happened to run into him at Pommercy. With that whore Hajar again. And then Samira told me that she had run into them together twice. And that bitch, every time she saw Samira, bared all her teeth.
I’m sure she wriggles her ass in front of Chaïba just so that Samira will come and tell me. I know perfectly well what she’s up to, that little slut. She flirts with men by giving them bitch-in-heat eyes. And she walks with her butt cheeks sticking out, like a goose. I’d like to think that each night Bouchaïb left with her, she’s the one who came onto him. But when did he get so stupid? Did he eat the brain of a hyena? Humiliating me like that. Taking off with that worthless whore. In front of everyone. Leaving with her when he knows that she and I are like cat and mouse! No, that’s not cool.
Straight from the Horse's Mouth Page 14