by Laila Lalami
13
THE TEST
IT WAS JULY. In other parts of Casablanca, jacaranda trees were shedding their purple blossoms, yielding a soft, sweet smell, but here in Hay An Najat, houseflies thrived, growing bigger and bolder. They grazed on piles of trash, competing with sheep and cows for tea grounds, vegetable peels, and empty containers of yogurt. Mosquitoes appeared, and flying ants, and gray moths, and gnats. Meanwhile, men still sold fish at the market, women still worked in the textile factories, and children still stood at street corners.
Youssef’s mother wanted him to return to college in the fall, but he knew it was a waste of time. He had missed classes for most of the previous year, and he hadn’t sat for his final exams. “You can repeat the year,” she said, chewing on her lower lip. “That’s fine. What matters is to stick with it until you get your degree.” He tried to imagine what it would be like to return to campus, with new classmates but the same curriculum. It was already painful enough to know that he had made a terrible mistake by dropping out, but going back to school meant being reminded of that mistake every day. He could not bring himself to do it.
Two days later, she came up with a new idea. “Why don’t you start over with a different major?” she said. He tilted his head, unsure what to say. What difference would it make if he switched to history, French, or anthropology? His father’s friends called universities “jobless factories” for a good reason. Faced with his silence, her suggestion quickly became a plea: “Maybe you could take the schoolteacher’s exam?” Youssef did not have the heart to remind her that Rachid’s brother had done precisely that, but had been idle since graduation; the Ministry of Education had yet to place him in a school.
At dinner, she persisted. “You could try another college,” she said. But Youssef had come to believe that degrees did not matter. Smarter people than he, people with engineering or medical degrees, could not find jobs. They sat in the same cafés as the dropouts and the illiterates. Except for Maati, everyone Youssef knew, every single one of his friends—Amin, Simo, Mounir, Rachid—was jobless. When he pointed this out to her, she gave him one of her wistful looks.
One day she suggested that he sit for the police academy exam at the Royal Institute of Police in Kénitra. After the terrorist attacks of May 16, she said, the government had invested massive amounts of money in security. “This is your chance,” she explained. “So many police jobs are opening up that there’s no need for connections, just a willingness to work.” One of her co-workers’ sons had taken the exam and was now an officer in Aïn Diab. If Youssef passed the exam, he, too, would have a state job, which meant a salary, health benefits, and a pension.
He tried to imagine himself in the police academy. Here, in the neighborhood, everyone hated the police—men who never showed up when they were most needed, but were always around when they were least wanted. It would never have occurred to Youssef to apply for a job with them, and his mother knew that. But if what she said was true, then why not? It would be better than sitting at home, watching her worry herself to death about his life. She was as frail as ever. Crow’s-feet had deepened around her eyes, and he had noticed what he feared was a nascent hunchback, the result of all those evenings spent on her embroidery. Still, there was dignity in the way she carried herself, a refusal to be bent to the will of others. She had pulled off an incredible act all her life, and she had almost succeeded. In spite of all his disagreements with her, he could not help admiring her. “All right,” he said. “I’ll take the exam.”
“May God bring you success,” she said. She rolled up her shirtsleeves to start preparing their meal. He wanted to ask her why she had never married, but the usual sense of propriety stopped him. He had never heard anyone discuss the topic of a mother’s romantic life, and even if he could, he would not find the right words in his vocabulary to speak of such things. Mothers were mothers: they cared for children, sacrificed for them, worried about them. It was in the order of things, as old as the world itself. Yet the way he had treated his mother was not in the order of things. He had met her love with denial, and her pleas with contempt. He had gone searching for a father instead. A crushing feeling of guilt descended upon him. He promised himself he would not let her down any longer.
“We’re running low on water,” he said, getting up.
His mother lifted the lid off the jar and looked. “No, we still have some.”
“It’s all right. I’ll go get some now.”
Because it had been some time since he had taken a test, Youssef read each of the questions on the police exam several times before writing an answer. Compounding his hesitation was his knowledge of the basic unfairness in the exercise; many people paid a bribe to guarantee a passing grade. Whenever he came across an unusual phrase, or an unexpected premise, or even a typographical error, he worried that it was a trick, designed to fail the maximum number of applicants. Still, by the time the proctor stood up to collect the papers, Youssef felt surprisingly poised. The exceptional care he had put into his responses somehow filled him with hope. He would pass. He would start over.
Walking down the peeling halls of the Kénitra institute, he saw framed photographs of the interior minister and of high-ranking officers, men whose vulturine features radiated authority. However odd the idea had seemed when his mother suggested it, a career in law enforcement started to make sense. The uniform would give him a stake in the world. Instead of getting nervous whenever a policeman looked at him at a traffic light, Youssef would salute and go about his business. In any case, it was time he tried out some of his mother’s suggestions, since he had been so incapable of making his way in life on his own.
Afterward, he took the train back from Kénitra to Casablanca, and then a packed grand-taxi that careened down Boulevard Zerktouni at dangerous speed. Turning away from the sweaty popcorn vendor sitting next to him, he looked out of the passenger-side window. Young people dressed in sharp suits stood outside the Twin Center, smoking cigarettes; a teenage boy lowered the window of his Range Rover, slipping a bill to the policeman who had stopped him at a red light; a middle-aged woman spoke on her mobile phone while her driver stuffed shopping bags into the trunk of her car.
Why? This was the question that tortured him unrelentingly. Why had his father taken him in, told him he was the son he had always wanted, only to throw him out? Over and over, Youssef played back scenes of their time together, trying to understand where he had gone wrong, and each time he came up with nothing. He had trusted his father so much that he had forsaken everyone and everything for him, but now he had no friends, no degree, no job. Resentment and shame mixed afresh in his heart, so that by the time the grand-taxi dropped him off, he yearned once again for his bed, for sleep.
The stench of burning garbage made it hard to repress the tears, and he let himself go. Someone grabbed him roughly by the elbow. Youssef jumped as if he had been bitten by one of the malevolent dogs that roamed the neighborhood in packs. It was Amin. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“What do you care?” Youssef said, wiping his eyes with the back of his sleeve.
“You’re crying.”
“It’s just the smoke. That’s all.”
Amin put his arm around Youssef’s shoulders, the gesture taking Youssef by surprise. “Look,” Amin said, “about that night at the café. I don’t know what happened. I was angry.” It was unlike Amin to apologize for anything. “You have to understand,” he went on, “you disappeared. And you stopped returning my calls. You have to admit, you did me wrong, my brother.”
“It’s true, I did,” Youssef said. With this acknowledgment off his chest, he felt he could finally take an unlabored breath. Amin looked at him with what seemed like compassion—or at least what Youssef desperately wanted to believe was compassion—in his eyes.
“You want a cigarette?” Amin asked, pulling one from behind his ear. He lit it and then handed it to Youssef. “So where were you coming from?”
“The police acade
my in Kénitra,” Youssef said, taking the cigarette. “I took the exam.”
“Aw? You’re not at university anymore?”
“I stopped going.”
An old man carrying a burlap bag on his head walked hurriedly past them, followed by a group of children arguing about something.
“I flunked, too. By two points—two miserable little points.”
Youssef’s eyes widened. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Amin said, pulling on his cigarette and exhaling through his nostrils. “I don’t know what I was doing in college, anyway.”
“You’re not going back?”
“What for? It’s not going to make a difference.”
They had come to an intersection, and instinctively Youssef stopped. Amin stood for a moment with his hands hanging by his side, then leaned against the wall. “When do you find out about the exam?”
“A couple of weeks, I think,” Youssef said. He did not mention that he felt good about his chances, for fear that he might bring the evil eye upon himself.
“When you get a job with the police,” Amin said, “tell them to start patrolling around here. We could use some cleaning up.” He laughed, and although Youssef joined him, he was not sure if his friend was laughing with him or at him. “You want to go play a game of chess at the Oasis?”
“What happened to your friends?”
“Hamid and Mustapha? They’re in school right now. They’re just kids. So you want to come?”
“Not now. I need to check my e-mail. But I can meet you tomorrow, insha’llah,” Youssef said. “If you like.”
“All right. But get ready to lose the game, my friend. I’ve had a lot of practice while you were gone.”
Youssef went to meet Amin at the Oasis immediately after Friday prayers. He took a long time to decide on each one of his moves, in part because he had not played chess in a long time, and in part because Amin had sounded so confident of his victory. Surely, even if Youssef could not win this match, he could win the next, or the one after that. Not even Amin was infallible at this game. Hatim came in, carrying his usual load of newspapers and magazines. He took a quick look at the board as he passed them. “Careful with your king,” he said, patting Youssef on the shoulder. Good point, Youssef thought, and moved a pawn to protect his piece.
Hatim sat down at a table nearby. A moment later, he leaped to his feet. “This is unbelievable!” he shrieked.
Youssef and Amin looked up with alarm from their game. Hatim had gone pale; a thick vein throbbed on his forehead.
“What’s wrong?”
“Look at this,” Hatim said, holding up Casablanca Magazine. On the cover was a slightly out-of-focus picture of Hatim in an elegant blue suit, shaking hands with a man Youssef did not recognize. The two smiled widely, as if they had just concluded an agreement. Under the photo, a caption in big red letters read, THE PARTY’S MONEY.
“You’re on the cover?” Amin said, standing up to take the magazine from him. “That’s great!”
“You’re famous!” Youssef added. For some reason he could not explain to himself, he felt envious.
“No, no, no,” Hatim said impatiently. “This is another one of Benaboud’s attacks.”
When he heard the name, Youssef stood up to read the article over Amin’s shoulder.
A slogan like “Through God, by God, with God” may sound catchy, but it doesn’t pay the bills. And there are many: health services, a community center, even a summer camp for children. How does the Party fund its social programs? An exclusive investigation by Farid Benaboud.
PYRAMID SCHEME
Like any self-respecting grassroots organization, the Party relies on member donations. But rather than wait for members to reach into their pockets, the Party does it for them. Each member has to contribute 3 percent of his monthly salary via direct deposit, a sum that is increased to 10 percent in the months of Eid. With this money, the Party has already set up its headquarters at the site of an abandoned warehouse. The Party encourages its members to recruit people into the organization. If a mutahazzib—a Partisan—has brought in three new Partisans, he no longer has to pay a monthly contribution. This expanding base of activists provides the Party with a respectable amount of resources for daily expenses. Still, it can’t cover big projects.
FOREIGN DONORS
This is where foreign donors (typically from Saudi Arabia) come in. They contribute Qur’ans and religious books, which the Party resells in its establishments or through individual retailers, pocketing the profits. A Qur’an received for free and resold at 20 dirhams can net the Party as much as 18 dirhams. New Partisans, especially, are encouraged to contribute to the coffers of the Party by helping to sell religious materials. The Party receives occasional cash donations as well. For instance, the summer camp in Tétouan last year was entirely paid for by a wealthy Saudi friend.
FRIENDS IN LOW PLACES
However distasteful the Party’s methods may seem, they are legal. But Hatim Lahlou also has friends among the Tangier and Tétouan drug barons. The Party has recruited heavily in the two cities. A security source who spoke on condition of anonymity told me that the Party counts among its followers Ahmed Achiri (alias Ad Dib), one of the most notorious drug lords the state has ever had to contend with.
WHO IS HATIM LAHLOU?
Unknown just three years ago, the 35-year-old Hatim Lahlou has quickly garnered a following in the slums of Casablanca. Born in Rabat and educated in private schools and later at Lycée Descartes, Lahlou studied engineering in France before starting a doctoral degree at NYU. Then, at age 28, he left New York abruptly and traveled to Egypt, where he studied for four years.
Before Youssef could finish the rest of the article, Hatim took the magazine away and leafed through its pages again. “Benaboud does a cover story about me,” he said, “and he doesn’t even bother to talk to me. So of course this article is full of fabrications. He says our Qur’ans are from Saudi Arabia, as if it were a crime to receive donations of the holy book. He says I studied at the Lycée Descartes in Rabat, when in fact I studied at a public school right here, in one of the poorest parts of Casablanca. He repeats the rumor that I fixed up this building using cement stolen from the houses of Moroccans working abroad. This is an outright lie; I bought it at the cement factory. All these lies!”
Youssef remembered the gentle, polite man who had come to Nabil Amrani’s apartment, invoking principles and asking for support, and he had trouble reconciling the impression he had of the accomplished journalist with the sloppy reporter Hatim complained about now. “Why don’t you write him a letter?” he suggested.
“That man is on a mission to destroy me,” Hatim said.
“But he has a Letters to the Editor section in the magazine. It’s for cases like this—”
Amin interrupted. “He won’t publish it.”
“Or how about if you write your own counterarticle,” Youssef offered, “in At Tariq?”
“Look at this,” Hatim said. He seemed locked in a conversation with himself, hardly hearing those around him. “Here is an ad for vodka, right underneath an article on Hajj. Look at the photos with this article on Agadir—all these women in bikinis. And this—now, this you won’t believe: an interview with the filmmaker Mehdi Mimouni, who talks about being homosexual as if he were talking about something normal. Benaboud has no shame.” Hatim dropped the magazine on the table. “He calls himself a Muslim. But he is not a Muslim. He is nothing.”
He collected his papers and went upstairs to his office. Youssef and Amin returned to their game, but Youssef let his finger hover over his knight, unsure whether to move it. How odd it was, he thought, to read an article and hear directly from the person about whom it was written. It was the kind of piece that would get a lot of attention. People would lend the magazine to their friends; journalists at competing publications would try to write similar articles. Youssef could not imagine that Benaboud would print lies. After all, some of t
he claims he made came from the police themselves. Still, Hatim was right: Benaboud should have spoken to him first. And the line about the Party’s headquarters being in an abandoned warehouse—it proved that Benaboud had never set foot in Hay An Najat. Hatim was right to be angry.
The following Monday, Youssef rose with the sound of the muezzin and crept out of the bedroom. The dawn prayer was his favorite because the chant was pure, uninterrupted by the honking of motorcycles or the ringing of school bells or the cries of children. The alley was quiet, and if he stepped outside now, he could almost forget the ugliness that was still hidden under a cloak of darkness. He washed up in the water closet and got dressed. Today he would deliver new job applications, written in his best Arabic penmanship, asking the human resources manager of this administration or that ministry to consider him for a state job. Each letter invariably closed with respectful salutations and was signed, sincerely, by Youssef El Mekki.
His mother was already making breakfast by the time he was ready to go. She served the bread and tea directly on the cane mat—the small, round table that was used for the main meals was still propped on its side against the wall. Her blue jellaba was folded next to her purse, ready to go. “Where are you going today?” she asked.
“Two ministries in Rabat, Foreign Affairs and the Interior. Then I’ll get back on the train to Casablanca and drop off another application at the National Office of Fisheries.”