by Laila Lalami
After she let go of him, he remained standing in the same spot until she guided him by the hand toward the divan and forced him to sit. She did not ask him the questions he expected—Did he throw you out? What about your school? What about the job?—but instead sat next to him in a silence that resonated with solidarity.
Youssef’s throat was dry. His jaw was so tight that he was unable to speak. He stared at her, and after a while she put her hand on his forehead, then caressed his cheek. He watched her, still immobile. She asked if he was hungry. He did not answer. “Do you want to go lie down, then?” He managed to blink his approval.
She helped him to his bed. He tucked his knees to his chest and turned to face the wall. Chills ran down his arms and legs, despite the blanket with which his mother had covered him. He heard her turn off the TV out in the yard before returning to the bedroom to sit on her bed. As darkness fell, the house grew quieter. He could hear her breathing across the room. He closed his eyes, though he knew there would be no sleep for him tonight.
Youssef did not leave his mother’s house over the next few days. Although he was due to sit for his final exams, he could not bring himself to go to school. He did little but sleep or stare at the ceiling—counting the dips in the corrugated tin above him, and then counting them again until he fell asleep. He wanted never to wake up. What purpose was there to his existence? If his mother had aborted him, he would have escaped the life that she had condemned herself to, and he would not have had to endure the fate that had been decided for him even before he was born. His anger took many shapes: sometimes it was soft and familiar, like a round stone that he had caressed for so long that it was perfectly smooth and polished; sometimes it was thin and sharp, like a blade that could slice through anything; sometimes it had the form of a star, radiating his hatred in all directions, leaving him numb and empty inside.
When the end of the month finally arrived, he called his father. The line rang, but no one answered. Rather than leave a message, he hung up. Now he had to contend with the doubts: Had his father ignored his call, the way he used to ignore his wife’s? There was no other alternative but to go meet him at work. Youssef put on his nicest shirt, a pair of black pants, and the tasseled loafers he had bought from a store on rue Aïn Harrouda. He ran up the street like a fugitive and caught a bus to the west side of town. It was still early. His father was probably making his morning calls and getting ready to go out for his rounds—to the factory, the hotel, a trade conference, or a business meeting. With enough luck, Youssef might still catch him.
The sun was already high in the sky when Youssef arrived at AmraCo. The mirrored windows reflected the rays of light, blinding him. He reached for his sunglasses, then suddenly remembered that he no longer had them; they had been left behind in the apartment. With eyes cast down, he walked inside the parking lot and stood by the entrance, waiting for his father to emerge. Cars and cabs fought for space at the semaphore across the street, starting up in a cloud of dark exhaust as the light turned green. A policeman whistled at a motorcycle and then spoke into his walkie-talkie when the driver failed to stop. A truck stopped by the minimarket up the street and delivered canisters of gas. It was scorching hot, and Youssef could feel pearls of sweat forming on his forehead.
Finally the double doors swung open and Omar the driver came out, followed by Nabil Amrani. Youssef held out the hope that somewhere in his father’s appearance, there would be a hint of Youssef’s passage in his life. But Nabil looked exactly the same as ever: harried, elegant, authoritative, in control. Nothing about him hinted at the events that had come to pass.
Omar saw Youssef first. He calmly left the door he held open for his boss, went around to his side of the car, and climbed in. Youssef walked up, standing now face-to-face with his father. “Youssef! What are you doing here?” Nabil asked. He sounded genuinely surprised.
“I came to see you.”
Nabil’s gaze shifted. “I’m sorry about what happened. My wife and my daughter found out … it’s complicated.”
“Weren’t you going to tell them? Why would it be complicated?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” Nabil said wearily. Then he reached out and touched Youssef’s arm. It amazed Youssef how much and how often both of his parents underestimated his capacity to understand. He did understand. A small part of him had known, all along, that his dream of a real-life father was impossible, but he had wanted to turn the impossibility into a possibility. Why could they not understand that?
“So this is it?” Youssef asked his father. “You don’t want to see me anymore?” There was a touch of threat in his tone; he did not know from where it came.
“No, that’s not it. I do want to see you. But right now is not the best time.” He looked up at the building, as if afraid of being caught. “I am still trying to see if we can reach a compromise. Please be patient.”
Promises, again. Youssef was ready for them, though, the way a traveler in the desert cannot discount assurances of an oasis up ahead; it was better than continuing forth without hope of relief. “Where have you been this whole time?” he asked, his voice softening.
“I was in Los Angeles until mid-June, and then in Spain, and now I have so much work to catch up on, I haven’t been able to handle this. But I will.” He let his hand rest on Youssef’s shoulder once again. “Okay?” He got into the car, closing the door. Youssef jammed his fists into his trouser pockets and stood aside, watching the car ease its way out of the parking lot.
For the first time, Youssef could see why Nabil Amrani never seemed to get emotional when they watched sad movies together in the apartment, or why he never seemed to get angry when he heard news of the war on the radio. The world was the way it was; Nabil Amrani took it as it came and did not think about anything else besides his own existence. Someday, Youssef knew, his father would come to see that life could not be lived like this, that the wider universe had a way of intruding upon people’s private world.
TWO WEEKS WENT BY, but there was no word from Nabil Amrani. No matter how often Youssef played images of a future with his father in his mind, he could not bring himself to believe in them anymore. He called his father’s mobile phone repeatedly, but his father never picked up. He tried him at the office, but the secretary said he could not come to the phone, and to please stop calling. He even went to the office, but the security guards would not let him go upstairs.
He came to understand that his father had made a choice. Amal was his real child; Youssef was the bastard. He belonged here with all the other young men no one talked about, except every few years when there was a natural catastrophe, a terrorist attack, or a legislative election. He had grown up in Hay An Najat, away from the eyes of the world, and now he became convinced that it would be his grave, too.
12
A PERFECT CIRCLE
AT FIRST, HIS MOTHER did not ask Youssef why he spent most of his days in bed, staring at the ceiling, but once it became clear his father would not call, the questions began. “Why don’t you shave?” she asked. She stripped her bed of sheets and blankets and took them outside to hang in the sun.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, rubbing his beard.
She watered her potted flowers, started the kettle, turned on the radio. When the tea was ready, she reappeared at the door of the bedroom. “Why don’t you come eat your breakfast in the yard?”
The delicious smell of mint and sugar drifted in with her. Still, he replied, “It’s too hot out there, a-mmi.”
She ate alone without complaint and later brought him a glass of tea and a plateful of fritters. “Why don’t you invite Amin to come over?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t feel like seeing anyone.”
As she was getting ready for work the next day, she told him she would no longer serve meals in the bedroom. “If you want to eat, you will have to get out of bed.” He looked at her in despair. Could she not see that he was unwell? He turned to his side and faced t
he wall, picking at the paint with his fingernail until he heard her leave. When she came home that night, she did as she had promised. It was the same the next day, and the day after that, until hunger drove him to the yard, where he made himself a pot of tea on the Butagaz and ate a piece of bread from the basket under the awning.
In the morning, she shook him awake. “Here,” she said, handing him a fifty-dirham bill. “I need you to get some sugar and some oil today.”
“I can’t,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to go out.”
“I don’t want to go to work, either, but here I am,” she said, putting a blue jellaba over her uniform and zipping it up. From the armoire, she fetched her purse and checked for her keys.
“People will ask me questions. They’ll want to know what happened.”
“Then tell them.” She snapped her purse shut.
“I can’t.”
“Then don’t tell them. Look, you’re not going to stay locked up in here the rest of your life.”
Why not? Youssef thought. Here, he was safe.
“I have two shifts to do today,” she continued, “because Jamila is sick and can’t come to work. So I won’t be back till after nine o’clock. Get me one liter of oil and half a kilo of sugar.”
“Please, a-mmi,” he pleaded.
She ignored him, slipped her shoes on, and left. Wrapping himself up in his blanket, he went to the yard, where he turned on the TV. Though he watched the show, his mind was elsewhere. The errand seemed insurmountable, but the thought occurred to him suddenly that it might be possible to do it without being seen. After all, it was only seven thirty in the morning.
He cast the blanket aside and hurriedly put on his shoes. The street was quiet as he walked toward Moha’s hanout, on the other side of the hill. Before Youssef had moved out of the neighborhood, he had rarely gone to Moha’s, so when he appeared in the store today, no one asked him where he had been. He paid for the sugar and the oil, picked up the plastic bag, and left. He was already congratulating himself on having gone and come back unseen, when, turning a corner, he glimpsed Amin with two street urchins. His heart sank.
“Bellati!” Amin yelled. “A-Youssef, wait!”
Youssef walked faster, keeping his eyes locked on the ground.
Amin and his friends crossed the street. “Can’t you hear me calling?”
“Ah, Amin, my brother,” Youssef said, trying to do his best impression of his old self. “Forgive me, I wasn’t paying attention.” Amin wore a jean jacket streaked with dirt around the collar and sleeves. His eyes had that vacant stare they sometimes had when he smoked hashish. Youssef did not recognize the two teenagers standing by his side; maybe they were fresh additions to Hay An Najat from the countryside.
“What are you, deaf?” Amin said, looking at his two friends, who laughed as though he had just told the best joke in the world. “What’s this?” he asked, pointing to the plastic bag.
“This? Just some sugar and oil.”
“You’re running errands for your mother,” Amin said, “like a good little boy.” And he laughed again.
Youssef shrugged and walked away. Amin followed. “Where have you been?”
“Around.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Around.”
“Leave us,” Amin told his friends.
The house was less than a block and a half away now.
“Your father kicked you out,” Amin said.
“No.”
“You think that just because I live here, I’m stupid?”
“I didn’t say you were.”
Another thirty meters to go.
“What are you doing here, then?”
“Buying sugar.”
“It’s a long way to come for sugar. He threw you out, didn’the?”
Youssef didn’t answer. He felt his anger sharpen inside him again, taking the form of a blade, ready to strike at his friend.
Ten more meters.
“He threw you out,” Amin said. “I told you those people aren’t like us. I told you. But no, you had to go on pretending you were someone you’re not.” He was close enough that Youssef could smell cigarettes and hashish on his breath. “I told you!”
“Fine, you told me, O Professor,” Youssef said, shooting him a dark look. “Bezza’t. Get over yourself.”
Five meters.
Amin stopped abruptly. “I should have known better,” he yelled, “than to befriend a son of a whore.”
THE WORDS TORTURED Youssef all day. When his mother came home from work, he told her he had a migraine and felt dizzy and nauseous whenever he stood up. He gave her such a look of distress that she did not bother him further. But the next day, she brought him painkillers from the hospital and stood over him as he swallowed the recommended dosage. “Now, why don’t you go out to stretch your legs?” she suggested.
“I don’t feel like going out, a-mmi.”
“You don’t want to go out and see your friends?”
These were words he never thought he would hear from her. Although he savored the irony, he also wondered how much longer he could avoid seeing Amin. The man was probably parading around the neighborhood with his new sidekicks, telling everyone how his joke had sent Youssef running home—what an intolerable thought.
That afternoon, just before dusk, Youssef went to the Oasis. The Party’s building looked better than it had the last time he had been there. Huge flags with the motto THROUGH GOD. WITH GOD. BY GOD hung from the main door, lights outlined the facade, and all the windows were open to let in the cool evening air. Youssef could see young men clustered around the tables in the café. Maati stood guard at the entrance. When he saw Youssef walk up, an expression of shock lit his face. He opened his arms wide. “Long live he who sees you, my brother,” he said. “Where have you been?”
Youssef stuck to the story his mother had told the neighbors: a cousin of hers had helped him find a job at a hotel in Marrakech, but now he had been let go. He was grateful for the hug Maati gave him, for the gruff pats on the back that made him feel that things could still be the way they used to be. He scoured the café, looking for familiar faces: Simo was playing chess with Rachid; Mounir was doing a crossword puzzle; Rachid’s brother was watching a football match; Hatim was reading the paper, holding it with one hand, while with the other he fingered his green prayer beads. And there, at a corner table, was Amin, with his new friends.
“Go in, go in,” Maati said. “Order some tea or coffee. I’ll look for someone to cover for me and I’ll come join you.”
Youssef asked for two glasses of tea at the counter, carrying them to a table at the other end of the café. Before he could sit down, though, Amin cried out, “Look who came here today. He thinks he can come and go as he pleases, like he owns the place, like he’s better than us.”
Youssef turned around and stared Amin down. The others—Simo, Mounir, Rachid, and his brother—looked up, and they all got up to say hello. While they were still exchanging salaams, Amin approached. “What are you doing here?”
“What do you care?” Youssef replied.
“This is our café. You have no business here.”
“What’s going on, my brother?” Simo asked.
“This is a public space,” Youssef said. “I can sit here if I want.”
Amin grabbed Youssef’s table and shook it from right to left, knocking down the glasses. “Get out,” he said. At the sound of the glass breaking, Hatim folded his paper and sat up in his chair. Youssef’s other friends looked confused by the argument.
“Look what you’ve done,” Youssef said, his voice trembling. He pushed the shards of glass away from the edge of the table so they would not fall on the floor, where they might injure someone.
“Get out,” Amin said between his teeth. In his eyes was a determination Youssef had never seen; he looked like a stranger.
Suddenly, Youssef had the horrible feeling that his co
ming here had been a bad idea. But now that he had provoked the confrontation, he could not walk away from it. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Amin shoved him; Youssef shoved back. Their friends restrained them, but Amin managed to break free and grab Youssef by the collar. Finally, Maati broke through the crowd. “What’s going on here?” He held Amin back. “Leave him alone.”
“Tell him to get out.”
“He’s not going anywhere.”
Amin lunged at Youssef, but Maati grabbed him by the waist and easily pushed him back. “If you can’t control yourself, I’ll have to take you out. Why don’t you just go back to your seat?”
“Son of a whore,” Amin said. The insult was not meant for Maati.
Hatim stood up. “Calm down, Amin. There’s no use for that kind of language.”
“Hadak lehmar,” Amin screamed, “he doesn’t belong here. Tell him, Hatim, tell him.”
Hatim spoke in a steady voice. “I told you there’s no use for that kind of language. Either go back to your table, or leave. We don’t want any trouble here.”
Amin stormed off, followed by his two friends. Youssef took a deep breath of relief, grateful to both Maati and Hatim for having defended him. With a snap of his fingers, Hatim signaled to the waiter to come clean up the mess, and Youssef, still shaking with anger, took his seat at the table. Hatim put a hand on his shoulder. “How have you been? We haven’t seen you here in a while.”
There was something in Hatim’s voice that made it difficult to lie to him, but Youssef had no choice. “I was just staying with my mother’s cousin.”
“I heard you had a job,” Hatim said. “In a hotel?”
Hatim never left this building, it seemed, and yet he, too, had heard the story of the job in Marrakech.
“I did. But I lost my job, so I’m back.”
“Meskiin. Did they tell you why they fired you?”
“No.”
“And you didn’t do anything, did you?”
“No,” Youssef said indignantly. He looked up at Hatim now, ready to defend his record, ready to share the madness of what had happened, but Hatim didn’t appear to be interested in the details. “I can’t tell you how many cases like this I hear about every day,” he said. “The injustice in this country boggles the mind. If people only knew what was happening around them—but they don’t. This country is like a car going down a ravine, and everyone’s asleep in the backseat.” Youssef nodded, his pain having found a home in Hatim’s words.