THE ROAD FROM MOROCCO

by Wafa Faith Hallam

  By the fall, she had enrolled my two brothers in the Lycee Descartes’ boarding school with Nezha and me. Then she moved to a small apartment in Salé while awaiting the outcome of her latest course of action. My father did not even have that address, and Mother quietly and anxiously counted the weeks that separated her from victory. She was lucky enough to have the monetary support of her sympathetic younger brothers, who paid for our schooling and living expenses. But she was acutely aware of the need to earn an independent living.

  That opportunity presented itself when she found a small, fully equipped hair salon for sale in Rabat, not far from the old ramparts of the ancient Medina. After a mad scramble to find the necessary financing, she got a small loan from a family friend and shortly thereafter opened her new shop.

  My father was in the dark about what his wife had in store for him. Amazingly, we did not see him once that entire summer or during the weeks and months that followed. At one point, we heard that he had briefly worked in a farm in the northern region of the Gharb, but that the main house on the farm was too small and insalubrious for our family to live in. And so after only a few months in that job, he made his way back to Meknes and kept a low profile, either out of guilt, or shame, or both. My mother was not asking anything from him, which made it easier for him to drift and hope for better days.

  After school started in the fall, we only saw our mother sporadically too, and only during school breaks. She worked long hours, trying to keep afloat, pay back her debt, and make ends meet. But she was not complaining, so hopeful she was she would soon be free at last.

  In the early summer of 1972, she moved from Salé to Rabat into what became our home for the next twenty years. The new residence was located in the center of the city, in Place Piétri, a lively neighborhood near the main train station and the quaint old marché des fleurs. It was also only minutes away from the beautiful Cathédrale Saint-Pierre and the Royal Palace, known as the Méchouar, with its contiguous mosque and white minaret.

  The two bedroom apartment was right across the Alliance Française, on the fourth floor of a clean and modern walk-up building. Uncle Khalid had first rented it as a bachelor pad before passing it on to Mom. But, while the flat was too large for a single man, it was barely big enough for a family of five and, often, a live-in maid as well.

  My siblings and I had to share a medium-sized, square bedroom with a small balcony overlooking low rooftops and the rear facades of neighboring buildings. It was sun-drenched every morning and for most of the day, and had two large built-in closets. The four of us slept in two bunk beds, and we shared, with mother, one large blue-tiled bathroom fitted with a bathtub, a sink and bidet, and a small window allowing in both daylight and fresh air. The toilet itself was in a space adjoining but separate from the bathroom, with its own door and casement. Next to our bedroom, the large airy kitchen opened onto a small laundry veranda with a sink and clotheslines.

  On the opposite side of the apartment, mother occupied the master bedroom. Through its west-facing windows poured the golden afternoon sun. Adjacent to it, a fairly spacious, rectangular living room overlooked the street from a narrow covered terrace. In the dark, windowless vestibule, which every room opened onto, a dining room table with six chairs was squeezed in. A round, white low-hanging paper lantern radiated a warm glow in the center of the wooden table, providing the only light. This was far from luxury living and rather cramped, but it provided us with a convivial home where we entertained countless friends and enjoyed some of our greatest memories over the years.

  At long last, the attorney notified my mother that she was officially a free woman. One unlikely morning, my father, who was staying here and there at different family and friends’ houses, was summoned in front of a judge in Rabat. To compel him to agree to divorce, my mother formally promised to drop all charges and forfeit any subsequent legal action for child support or alimony. My father was deeply humiliated, faced with either granting her a divorce or going to prison. He chose to let her go. After more than a year of absence, he did not even find the courage to pay a visit to his children that day. He took the train right back to Meknes.

  She had reached her goal. After almost twenty years in a reviled union, my mother had defeated her husband. As our father vanished from our lives, so with him did everything that was seemingly backward and old-fashioned. We had once and for all chosen our mother’s camp, and it was firmly set on the grounds of modernity and French culture.

  My father, I imagine, was devastated by the break-up, but he must have been far too exhausted by the relentless battle my mother had waged against him to put up a fight. Years later, he confessed to me that he had never quite understood what happened to him. To him, the shocking rupture was a cause of misery and mourning. He was without a job, without a home and family, homeless and desperately alone, he had no clue what would become of him.

  His wife and children had deserted-no, “rejected, him, like a dog,” he often liked to say… And yet, what crime had he been found guilty of? What had he done to deserve such hatred from those dearest to him? His bewilderment and despondency naturally led him to search for a modicum of comfort where he always turned to, in his faith.

  In his hour of estrangement, my father soon was attracted to mysticism as preached by the Sufi mystics of Northern Morocco, in the region of Tetouan. Before long, he was drawn into the religious brotherhood known as the Tariqa and embodied in a shrine founded two centuries earlier by a descendent of an ancient Sufi clan. In Islam, the Tariqa is the “special way” of mystical Sufis. It adheres to the basic principles of Islam while encouraging its disciples to deepen their personal interaction with God with prayer and meditation. It is more spiritual, inclusive, and gentle and stands in contrast to the Shari’a, Islam’s orthodox religious law.

  Each Friday, the shrine would hold religious recitals and spiritual concerts in a characteristically Morocco-Andalusian style. There he met the woman he was going to marry within a year of his divorce.

  Lalla Badia was everything that my mother never was and could never be. A deeply devout woman, a musician, and singer at the shrine, she was the unmarried daughter of its current leader.

  A very gentle, very petite woman—she stood no taller than five feet—with light blue eyes, blondish hair, and a melodious voice, she was about thirty years old and still unmarried. She spoke in a soft voice with the accent of the people of Tetouan, skipping the “r” in a distinctive way, mixing Spanish words into Moroccan dialect. She had a cheerful disposition and was a dutiful and humble wife, cooking and cleaning for her husband and sharing his love of God, the Tariqa, and a modest traditional existence—all of which put her worlds away from my mother’s aspirations and way of life.

  Only a few weeks after the divorce was finalized, my father was invited to Fes by Uncle Mohamed, who met with him in one of his rug factories and offered him a managerial position. Not surprisingly, my uncle was still staunchly against his young sister’s unconventional divorce. She had gone against his wishes, and he was not about to forgive her.

  With little introduction, he sternly exclaimed, “You can get your wife back, you know,” adding authoritatively, “by force, if necessary.” He paused and stared at my father, waiting for an answer.

  My father looked away, an expression of deep resignation and hurt about him. My uncle leaned over his cluttered desk agitated.

  “I can tell you this, her divorce shenanigans are a fraud and unsustainable in a religious appeal,” he said angrily.

  My father kept silent, frowning, his thick black eyebrows forming a dark cloud over his eyes.

  “No,” he finally said, staring at his hands. “I no longer wish to compel her to live with me in eternal discord. After almost twenty years in a wretched marriage, it’s time for all concerned to move on.” He looked up at my uncle, his eyes betraying the beaten man he was. “I thank you for your support, Mohamed, but it’s too late now, and it’s for the best.” He added in a sigh, “It’s G
od’s will, and I surrendered to it!”

  When he returned to Fes to start in his new job, he was a newly married man. He appeared to have found closure. His union with Lalla Badia had helped him heal his wounds and calm his heart, although, I discovered later, his unrequited love for my mother never completely died away.

  My mother never once paused to consider the consequences her divorce would have on her husband. I can still remember that sunny Sunday morning, sitting in my pajamas at the small kitchen table, buttering my toasted slice of French baguette ready to dip it into my bowl of café-au-lait.

  “What’s going to happen to Dad, now, mom?” I asked, concerned.

  She was reaching for a clean cup in the cupboard overhead. She turned her head and glanced at me.

  “He can go to hell for all I care,” she said between clenched teeth. “He only got what he deserved as far as I’m concerned,” she added, pouring the steaming black coffee.

  She had her back to me, but from the tone of her voice, I knew better than to pursue the conversation. In my heart, I felt an unfathomable sense of loss and grief, although I could not put the feeling into words. So I pretended to quietly rejoice with her.

  My siblings and I were without a doubt relieved that our parents’ miserable marriage had finally ended. But we were also, consciously or not, ambivalent about the future, and there was a considerable level of financial and emotional insecurity that persisted in our minds despite our mother’s cheerful optimism. At least, there was for me.

  My mother had dreamed of her freedom since her wedding night, and it had finally happened. She had successfully liberated herself from the yoke of matrimony, willfully closing that chapter of her life, and was now ready for the next one. For a while, she displayed her official status of “divorcée” as if it were a trophy for everyone to see.

  Since we resided in Rabat, my siblings and I were able to live at home and take the bus to school, which presented us with enormous unsupervised freedom. My brothers were twelve and thirteen years old, respectively, Nezha was about to turn fifteen, and I had just celebrated my sixteenth birthday. Our mother felt we were old enough to handle most situations on our own, and she to have a life, too. We had a roof over our heads and all basic necessities, but she had little understanding of our terribly contradictory emotional needs—or indeed even her own.

  On the evening of August 16, 1972, one day after we celebrated my sister’s fifteenth birthday, we were at home waiting for dinner when, suddenly, like an ominous presage of things to come, the summer sky was torn by the thunderous roar of the four F-5 jet fighters and loud artillery fire at the nearby Royal Palace.

  8

  The Loss of Innocence

  Having escaped two military coups, the Moroccan king was pretty much divorced from his countrymen, isolated, and in constant fear of another rebellion. As never before, suspicious of everyone around him, he clung to absolute power. It would take three long years for Hassan II to finally devise a strategy—an expensive war in the sands of the Sahara that bankrupted the nation’s treasury and kept it frozen in time—to once again unite his people and his opposing political parties around him.

  Those years were marked by a period of intense confusion for me. I was in a state of limbo and felt terribly lonely. My mother appeared unaware of my inner turmoil, perhaps because of her own personal tumult. Shortly after her divorce, she began dating. At first, I was consumed by jealousy and resentment. Eventually, I got used to the idea of my mother seeing other men. In fact, my siblings and I even liked her first serious boyfriend, a smart and friendly young engineer whose widowed mother expressed alarm at the news of her unmarried son seeing a woman with four children, including two teenage girls. He and my mother bravely resisted his familial pressure, but after only a few months their liaison succumbed and they broke up.

  My mother was well aware of the baggage she had to carry with her in any relationship. Four teenagers are a more than taxing load for a thirty-four-year-old, newly divorced woman desperate for true love and a little support. Yet she was too feisty, and she had fought too hard for her freedom, to let that hold her back. She was a gorgeous woman-child, often reckless, her zest for life contagious.

  She was sought after and pursued by many suitors. Had she been living in Paris, her conduct would not have raised an eyebrow, but in Rabat she was living on the edge of appropriate behavior and needed to be considerably more discreet. There was too much gossip, too many rumors circulating around, fueled by the narrow-minded, conservative mentality of the Rabatis. Such tittle-tattle and hearsay never failed to make its way to my uncles’ ears.

  Fearing that their divorced sister’s liberated behavior would bring shame and dishonor to the family name, her brother Abderrahim-himself under pressure from his associates and older brothers-bribed her into closing the hair salon that could have made her autonomous. Barely eighteen months after starting her own business, she foolishly agreed to return to the fold of dependency. The truth was that it had never been easy for her to be a hairdresser, and she was already drained by the long hours and back-breaking work.

  Financial independence meant considerably more perseverance than my mother was ready to endure, especially at a time when she was beginning to savor her single life. Hence, when Uncle Abderrahim promised to put her on his payroll and deposit a fixed monthly allowance directly into her checking account, she accepted the offer. She sold her shop and no longer worked for a living. But if the stipend gave her a degree of security, it was barely enough to pay for rent and bare necessities.

  It was not nearly enough to support the lifestyle she so desired—the hobbies, the car, the clothes—all the material things she needed to appreciate the leisure life, which her free time now allowed her to pursue. As a result, we were always in debt, falling behind on the rent, utilities, grocery bill, car installment, and auto insurance. We were incapable of living within our means. We even run a long monthly tab at the corner grocery store.

  The more frivolous the spending my mother indulged in, the more fragile our financial situation became and the more distress I personally felt. Throughout most of my adult life, the monetary question was unlike any other psychological issue in my mind and remained my greatest source of stress. It never failed to plunge me into an emotional quicksand in which every attempt to fight my perceived entrapment sank me even deeper. It suffocated me to the point of actual physical pain, as if the world around me span out of my control, annihilating my vital need for order and security.

  So it was that my parents’ separation and our uncertain financial situation, combined with my adolescent growing pains, triggered yet another episode of severe depression. The summer of 1972 ended on a horrifying note for me. My mother simply could not comprehend the reasons behind my frequent crying fits and temper displays. A doctor prescribed a period of rest in a clinic, but in Rabat the only place that would accommodate a depressive teenager was the psychiatric hospital.

  One late morning my mother, armed with the doctor’s note had me admitted to the Hospital Al-Razi. By nightfall, I thought I would indeed go mad if I stayed in that place. It was terrifying to be among severely disturbed patients. I felt powerless, could not believe that my mother had left me there, and for hours frantically implored apathetic attendants to call her back, to no avail. Eventually, after a good dose of tranquilizers, I went to sleep.

  When my mother visited me the following day, I ran into her arms in tears and begged her to rescue me.

  “Please, Mom, please, get me out of here,” I sobbed, “These people are really crazy, Mom. I’ll die if I stay here. Please don’t leave me…”

  “Okay, honey, yes, of course, I will take you out of here.” She was kissing me, holding me tight. I breathed her scent with relief and, for a brief moment, wished I were a little girl again. She immediately agreed to sign me out and took me back home with a Valium prescription. I shall never forget that harrowing day. I know its scarring memory was still lurking in my psyche years
later when I was faced with a different tragedy, in a nightmarish role reversal I could never have fathomed then.

  After my failed suicide attempt two years earlier and my ignored cry for help, my short stay in the mental institution did nothing to reconcile me with my mother. I begrudged her perceived carelessness, and my animosity toward her did not diminish. Mine was a grievance that only amplified with time and remained beneath the surface, ready to explode in a torrent of anger and sullenness.

  This inner volcano, forever on the verge of erupting, was to haunt my close relationships all my life. Deep down, I did not trust my mother’s judgment and I thought her decisions, particularly the financial ones, were flawed and foolish. I knew she was uneducated, and even though she hid that burdensome fact beneath a sophisticated front, she could not overcome many of the barriers that her near-illiteracy subjected her to.

  Gradually and willingly, I assumed greater responsibilities until the burden of the world nearly squashed my spirit down. Unconsciously, my mother and I switched places; I took on the role of the serious and trustworthy parental figure that in my eyes she seemed ready to vacate. I was sixteen and felt driven into a portentous adult reality while my mother was drawn to a bright youthful world of indulgence. The question was whether she had robbed me of what was rightfully mine or had I been the one to unwittingly hand it over to her? Either way, I was frantically trying to make sense of the world, as perhaps most teenage girls do, regardless of their circumstances.

  I was in tenth or eleventh grade then and fiercely argumentative, questioning of established authority, and developing lofty ideals. Evidently, I had little or no experience myself, but I was convinced I knew the Truth. At the same time, I struggled with violent mood swings, and my mother was invariably the main target of my wrath. Today, I can only imagine how helpless she must have felt and why she appeared to be so unsympathetic when in fact she was at her wits’ end and had to leave me be or lose her mind altogether.