–Then you were lucky. My aunt in another village died in childbirth because there was no doctor. Who knows what’s in those herbs?
But no doubt he was right. The woman Cathérine was under a spell. She would get better because she believed. –You should take her away from here, Lalla said sharply. –Take her out of Africa. This place doesn’t agree with her.
Henri said nothing, merely watched a buzzard circling overhead as though around some invisible pole. Lalla went back inside with the cellphone. Her mother always looked at it as though it might suddenly leap up and seize her by the throat. That thing, she called it, or, That demon-mirror. She had once seen her face in the darkened screen and been genuinely frightened.
In Lalla’s small apartment in Fez — two rooms, really, in what had once been a sprawling family home — she gave no quarter to demons, especially those invented to control women. Twice, early on, daring herself, she’d brought a man to this apartment. With the first she’d held hands and kissed, both of them too inexperienced, too shy, to go further. The second had been rougher, had grabbed her and shoved her on the bed. When she wouldn’t take her clothes off he had slapped her, hard, across the face, had screamed abuse at her and left. The sting of his slap still dwelt there, in her cheek, a part of its tissues and cells. These days she chose somewhere she could run from: a darkened doorway, a disused building, where they could rub up against each other hungrily, explore with hands and tongues. She’d done everything with a man except allow his penis inside her. Her friends — except for Zahra, who said she was waiting till marriage, to the others’ laughter — had all done the same.
–Why are you saving yourself? Najia teased. –Do you think they are? More laughter.
–And you, when you’re betrothed, Zahra said, looking round fiercely at them, will all head off to the nearest clinic to have your — she gestured at her crotch — to have that restored.
–I won’t, said Amina, emphatic. –Because I’m not planning to marry. Mernissa isn’t either. Or Najia, or Lalla. They looked at each other and then away, affecting blasé, bored expressions. –Why would anyone get married anyway? No offence, Zahra, your Muhammad’s a lovely boy, but really.
In her inmost self Lalla was sure this was only bravado, except for her. The others would succumb, eventually, to their parents’ pressure, their family’s scorn, but she would work forever at the Hôtel Zalagh, become a manager some day, perhaps even run the place. A life of catering to others, yes, but at least you were paid for it, unlike living in your husband’s village and trying to please your in-laws. Not to mention having babies one after the other. Here was a way of living, hitherto unimagined, where in her free time no one told her what she must do or where she must go. She could not, now, go back to being blind and deaf.
The midwife left the room only to eat a quick bowl of harira. The foreign woman was delirious, raving — she believed she could see the boy. Lalla went and stood in the doorway, watching her mother hovering over the bed. –Azemmur, Cathérine muttered, over and over again. What did that mean? It wasn’t a person’s name. What did an olive tree have to do with anything?
–Cathérine. Lalla shooed her mother out and leaned over the bed, took her damp hand. –Cathérine, can you hear me?
Cathérine opened her eyes, focus drifting from Lalla’s face to a far corner of the room. –Bourdoud, she said, Bouazzoun. So that was it — she was remembering place names, perhaps the names of towns she’d been to or intended to visit, looking for the boy.
–You’re here in the village, with us, Lalla said firmly, and shook her shoulder. Cathérine looked at her as though she was trying to decipher Lalla’s English. –You’re not well. You have a fever.
–He chose me, Cathérine said. –He’s relying on me. She turned her eyes to the window as if she saw him there. Lalla couldn’t help it; she followed Cathérine’s gaze. And could have sworn she saw something, some shadow, move across the shutters. She ran and pulled them open, but there was no one there, only a woman climbing the hill from the fountain with her bucket.
–Why would he choose you, of all people? she said, turning to shut out whatever Cathérine thought she saw. It was preposterous, such a claim. But Cathérine had closed her eyes and did not answer. Lalla’s mother and the midwife came back in then, bustling, purposeful, and Lalla slipped out. The room smelled of stale sheets and sweat; she was glad to escape.
Firhun wanted his English lesson. –How are you? I am fine, he repeated after her as they sat round the table outside. Her younger brothers Tabat and Kenan leaned on her shoulders, staring at the textbook she’d bought in Fez. It came with a CD so Firhun could practise when she wasn’t there. –Fine, fine, fine! sang the youngest until she slapped him. He pretended to fall to the ground, clutching his arm in exaggerated pain.
–I need other words, Firhun said, annoyed. –For when they’re being pests. He swung at Tabat, who leapt deftly out of reach.
–Just concentrate. I’ll ask the questions, you answer. How are you?
–I am fine.
–Would you like a drink?
–Yes, a coffee, please. He pronounced it pliz. Lalla corrected him and had him repeat it.
Her mother came out into the courtyard, frowning.
–Firhun. I need you. Now.
–Only because she doesn’t want me practising, Firhun said in an undertone, standing up and slouching after his mother into the house.
–Would you like a drink? Kenan said. He was a good mimic; he had a better ear than Firhun. –Yes, a coffee, please — answering himself. –It’s my turn, Lalla. Teach me, teach me.
She sat holding the heavy textbook. This was the way of the world, wasn’t it? Who was she to stop them? For a searing moment Kenan lay lifeless on a beach somewhere on the Spanish coast. How would she feel then? Her father wasn’t alive to blame her, but she would blame herself. I bore children only to give them away.
She was supposed to return to Fez the next day, but her mother and the midwife would not want Henri in the room, and anyway he knew no Tamazight. Why had Cathérine come blundering into their lives, ruining everything, dragging that strange man in her wake? Lalla would wait another day; that was all. She was due on shift at the hotel desk; she couldn’t afford to take more time off.
She sat outside in the shade against the wall, turning the collar on one of Tabat’s shirts to hide the wear while her mother napped indoors. –My eyes aren’t what they used to be, she’d said the evening before, trying to sew in lamplight, and for the first time Lalla understood that her mother, at forty-five, was old. Women of that age in Fez, at least the well-off ones, were still trim, still desirable. With her drooping breasts, her bulging stomach — seven pregnancies in fourteen years, including two miscarriages — her mother looked twenty years older. What would happen when she died? Would Tabat and Kenan have left by then, too? In which case there’d be no one to uphold the Tanzir name in the village, to honour the Tanzir dead.
Her grandfather had spoken of how his father and uncles fought the French and Spanish on behalf of the Rif Republic in the 1920s. She’d grown up hearing the stories of how they’d massacred thirteen thousand Spanish troops at Anoual. One day, insh’allah, their leader, ’Abd al-Karim, would come back from exile to avenge them, though he’d been dead for nearly fifty years. One of the uncles — Lalla couldn’t remember which — had died within a week from the mustard gas the Spanish had dropped from their planes, his body a mass of yellow blisters. Two others had died of cancer in their fifties. It was common knowledge that many fields in the Rif were still contaminated.
Under the fig tree Henri was talking to her brothers about Germany, about Holland. Phrases floated her way: three and a half million people in Berlin now…ride past the canals on your bicycle…yes, many young men like you speak English… Would their Dutch or German wives know how to turn the collars of their shirts? She stabbed her needle into the fabric, her jaw tightening.
–Don’t believe him! she called ou
t loudly. –Don’t believe everything he says!
–What do you know? Tabat called back. –You’ve never been there.
It didn’t matter what he said or how he said it; her brothers would take it all in without question. Especially Firhun — he was such a romantic. He’d argued with their father about what had happened to Yunes. Of course Yunes wouldn’t desert them like that. He only wanted to surprise them, to come back with his pockets spilling money. Even now, Lalla was sure, Firhun expected Yunes to swing into the village any day, perhaps at the wheel of some new American car.
–But I hear stories, she called back, which was true. Some of the hotel staff had worked in Europe. All the Germans knew how to do was make money, her boss, Ghanim, said. Told her of being spat at, called a dirty Arab. The Rifi people were not Arab, of course, they were Amazighen, but the Germans didn’t know the difference.
–Of course there are others, many others, who are kind, Ghanim added, but never in a million years will you be German. Even your kids will not be German.
After her brothers tired of tales of paradise and ran off to find their friends, Henri came to join her. Lalla laid her sewing down on her lap and accepted a cigarette.
–You shouldn’t tell them such things. Encourage them.
–Why not? There’s nothing for them here.
–Have you been there lately? Not for years, I’d bet. What are you doing here, anyway? She looked at him closely, but behind his sunglasses his expression was unreadable.
–Living. Living more fully, that is. Life is a risk or it is nothing. In Germany… He pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose, in irritation perhaps, his glasses riding up. –But for your brothers — it’s better than this, isn’t it? Do they have other choices?
–They can do what I did. Go to Fez, look for work.
But even as she said it she knew it wasn’t true. The cities were full of the uneducated, the unemployed. You might find work as a labourer but it paid nothing. Firhun and Tabat and Kenan were bright, especially Firhun, but university was as distant as the moon.
–I’m useful here, Henri added without prompting. –Useful in a number of different ways.
–You’re a spy, then. An informer.
He took off his glasses and stared at her with his pale blue eyes. –What have I done? Why don’t you like me? He leaned toward her and touched her hand, though this time she felt nothing. Had she imagined it before?
–I chose your country. I chose it over mine, thirty years ago. Believe me, I’ve no desire to be thrown out.
By evening the fever had broken. Lalla didn’t know if the herbs were responsible and didn’t care. Cathérine and the man needed to be got rid of as soon as possible. Perhaps the swirls of unease and excitement they had stirred up would settle down, once they were gone. Cathérine was actually able to sit up and eat a little soup.
–You must thank your mother for me, she’s been so kind, she told Lalla, her voice slow, laboured. –And the other woman, too. She asked for her purse and drew out dirham notes, but Lalla wouldn’t take them.
–You were ill, were we going to refuse you? Of course not. It’s unthinkable.
Cathérine’s eyes filled and she took Lalla’s hand. –Do you see? she said, pointing to the shutters. –Do you see, there?
Did she still think she saw the boy?
–There. It’s a sort of glowing.
–It’s the sun. It’s setting, Lalla said impatiently.
–But within that. Can’t you see it? What a pity. They all come back, you see. So Azemmur says.
–She knows, that one, Lalla’s grandfather said as Lalla and her mother served the evening meal. Henri was eating with the Hasnaouis; Darifa said he was picking up some words, he had a quick ear. It was almost ten o’clock, vivid streaks of light still visible in the west. A moth butted clumsily against the metal lampshade that hung above them.
–Which one, grandfather? Lalla said patiently, humouring him. Much of the time he was a boy again, bringing down birds with his slingshot, running barefoot across the hillsides.
–The foreign woman. A rare thing, for a foreigner to see.
Lalla and her mother exchanged glances. –Allah chooses whom He will, the grandfather murmured, his fingers coated with couscous. –My sister saw. Also my mother. I’ve told you these things, mother of Yunes.
–Yes, you have, Lalla’s mother said briskly. –Now eat up, while it’s hot.
He’d taken to wandering, she told Lalla later as they washed the dishes. –Riuza’s father did that, too; she had to tie him to a chair. I’m so afraid he’ll fall and we won’t be able to find him.
Later, getting ready for bed, Lalla saw her grandfather standing outside, staring at something. Was he lost in his mind again? When she went to urge him to come inside, he pointed at the window of the room where Cathérine lay. –It was there a moment ago. It’s gone now.
–What, grandfather?
He glanced at her with an amused, pitying smile. –You live in the city now. No one in the city sees these things. Those big lights — he spread his hands wide — blot out everything.
Cathérine and Henri left the following morning, just before Lalla’s taxi arrived. She’d suggested they ride with her, but Henk insisted on returning the donkey to its owner. They moved down the hill and out of sight, Cathérine swaying unsteadily on the donkey’s back.
Lalla sat with her back against the house wall, smoking. The taxi would take her to the main road; from there she could catch the bus that went to Fez. She’d be in the city, the city with its cries of muezzins and street vendors, its packed sidewalk cafés, its minarets and wide French streets, by early evening. It was home now, not this dusty little place, though the smell of lavender through a doorway changed her instantly into a nine-year-old again, helping her mother hang sprigs in the sleeping rooms as protection against bad dreams. Her mother had sent a cloth pouch of it with Cathérine, the same pouches embroidered with symbols that lay between the underthings in the dresser in her own apartment.
A biologist staying at the hotel once had told her that lavender was antibacterial. It was even used to help cypress trees grow in the High Atlas. He’d come to Morocco as part of a study financed by his own university to find out why.
THE OUD-MAKER’S SON
He lay half-asleep among the wood shavings of his father’s workshop. The sound of the file lulled him as his father fitted the ribs for the bowl, planed the wood for the peg box. The clop of donkeys’ hooves filtered in from the street, the bells of the water vendors. His father had promised him an oud of his own for his next birthday. For lessons he would send him to the famous blind oud player in Rue Sidi Boujida, where people gathered at the doorway to listen, sipping mint tea in silence. A thin beam of sunlight struck his cheek and he nuzzled deeper into the fragrant shavings. His mother was calling him but he’d stay here forever…
Law du ‘ā’ al-kalb yustajāb, kān bitishtī al-dunyā‘izām. If the prayers of dogs were answered, bones would rain from the sky.
He sat up abruptly, heart juddering. Where was he? He pressed the heels of his hands to his temples. He was sitting in a study carrel, sunlight flooding a window, other students at nearby tables whispering together in twos and threes. The library at the university, of course. Where he was supposed to be studying for tomorrow’s exam.
Except that, for the third time this week, the voices had returned.
They’d disappeared so long ago he’d forgotten about them. The voices — sometimes it was just one voice — spoke in a language he didn’t understand. Sometimes they were staticky, as if a frequency wasn’t tuned in. As a child he’d repeated what they said to his mother, who laughed, and then frowned, and then scolded, and then ignored. As he grew older they came less often, and eventually they went away.
He stood up and tried to shake himself free. Perhaps ignoring them was the answer. Otherwise it was a kind of possession, which frightened him. How could something like this happen to someo
ne in the twenty-first century? To him, of all people — Nicolás Alarcón Hortelano, someone who believed in reason and precision, in the beauty and formality of mathematics. Numbers were predictable; they behaved. Tame lions, with him holding the whip, leaping through hoops at his command.
Núria was stirring soup and Maite was setting the table when he opened the door. The light in the hall was out, something to do with the switch — the landlord had been promising to fix it for months.
–Abuelito’s coming to eat with us. Núria took soup bowls from a cupboard, not looking at him. –Now don’t start any arguments, okay?
–More stories about the Guardia, then, he said resignedly, dropping his pack on the floor as Núria gave an irritated shrug. He’d never understood why his grandfather had joined up, though his little brother lapped up the tales. Nowadays the Guardia had a new official name — Protectores de la Patria — and sweeping powers to arrest anyone they deemed a threat to the state. On campus they patrolled in their black uniforms, visors on their black helmets pulled down, rifles at the ready. The head of the PP — the students called them las putas de la patria, the whores of the state — was known to be the real leader of the government, paralyzed and squabbling since the Crash eleven years ago. His uncle Felipe was a deputy with the government for the province of Seville, and he didn’t understand that, either. His grandfather didn’t talk about Felipe.
Daniel, sitting in the living room’s one good chair, was watching his InScreen — Nicolás could tell by the glazed look in his eyes — even though he was only allowed to for an hour after dinner. Nicolás cuffed him, none too gently, on the side of the head, and Daniel sheepishly tapped the tiny chrome implant in his ear. Apart from addiction problems the InScreen was expensive. They couldn’t afford another bill like last month’s.
The doorbell rang and Daniel tore off to answer it. The elderly man who stood there, erect, whitehaired, swung Daniel upward as if he was still small instead of eight years old. –¿Qué tal, chavalito? he said, grinning, and to Nicolás –Hola, grandote. He always called Nicolás that because of his height. –¿Qué va los estudios? And Nicolás, murmuring automatically that his courses were going well, thanks, heard a phrase in that strange language erupt in his head. For the first time he understood its meaning: One should not contradict the words of old men.
Hour of the Crab Page 8