A Riffians Tune

by Joseph M Labaki

  She was always smart. Even while searching for herbs, she was dressed beautifully. The wind played freely with her long, dark, curly hair. I saw her crush the leaves between her fingers to test the aroma before pulling a herb or picking a leaf. Shape, size, colour and smell were indicative for her. Whenever I saw her in the valley or on the peak of the mountain, I felt the land had a mother’s soul.

  At home, whatever energy was left after shepherding I spent with Rabbia, experimenting in sorcery. My father had a mountain of notes: very old, crumbling, hand-written texts with illustrations and a few words I could decipher which could only be handled with utmost care, and printed books teaching supernatural science. Making a young groom impotent, restoring the virginity of a widow, and finding hidden treasure and lost parents or children were the most common subjects. I believed I could succeed in sorcery and charge a high price, freeing myself from shepherding so that I could go to school.

  I tried to perform a spell to summon demons. Upon their arrival, I believed I must not look at them or talk directly to them, for if I did, I would be struck mad, deaf, blind or dead by their lightning power. I imagined they were stick-thin, wore black clothes, and I believed they were sexually immoral, unrestrained, lacked leadership, jumped around and leapfrogged over each other. I’d heard they hated to be summoned or given orders, as they were constantly busy. They hated the sorcerer as they didn’t like to obey, but the spell forced them to do so. They were, by definition, saboteurs. To distract me, they might pretend to fight among themselves and throw plumes of fire upon each other. I hid behind my father’s trunk and watched and watched, but saw nothing and concluded they were present, but invisible.

  Rabbia’s ambition was to charm, to look the most beautiful, sweet and attractive of all the girls. When I returned from shepherding, tired and hungry, she jumped on me. ‘Are you ready?’ To please her, and also to get her off my back, I scribbled the Beauty spell on a large dried leaf with the lizard’s blood she had provided. Rabbia crumbled it and dropped small pinches wherever there was a gathering of young women. We believed the spell would make every other girl look like a toad, and Rabbia stunningly beautiful, sweet and the centre of attention.

  Tired and exhausted one day, I found Rabbia ecstatically happy, for she had been at a wedding and had felt confident, beautiful and pursued. A woman had asked her if she would like to marry her son. This was the first offer Rabbia had ever received. She had a crush on a young man who didn’t like her. She pestered me to write a spell. After hours of digging in my father’s trunk, I found one that would work. Being a miser, Rabbia didn’t want to pay. She only agreed when I reminded her that the fee was part and parcel of the spell.

  I wrote the spell with a quill and the blood of a hen on a piece of dried cat skin that Rabbia had handed to me. Rabbia hung the talisman on a branch of a tall tree facing the main door of the man’s house for seven days to rattle in the wind. We anticipated that a special group of demons and spirits would inject love into his heart and steer his eye and emotion toward Rabbia.

  After seven days of the talisman’s flapping in the wind, Rabbia brought it down, carried it carefully and buried it in a path where the man would walk over it. If he did, his eyes would be blind to any other girl. Rabbia kept spying on the path to see if he would walk over it.

  As she achieved no result, she got at me. ‘You are no sorcerer! All your time in the mosque was a waste! I want my money back!’ And she was right.

  * * *

  MY SHEPHERDING CAME ABRUPTLY to a halt one pleasant spring night. I fell ill. I had no idea where I was, how much I had slept or if I needed water or food. My mother tried to wake me up in the morning and couldn’t; I was unresponsive. Shouting loudly at me made no difference. Angry, she tried to sit me up and couldn’t – I doubled over. My eyes were red, my ears were swollen, and so was my neck. Touching my fiery forehead, my mother gasped, ‘Fire!’ As I was useless, she let me sleep.

  I developed diarrhoea and vomiting. I tried to stand up and couldn’t, so my younger sister, Amina, helped me go outside to relieve myself. Severe headaches, delirium and constant pain followed.

  An elaborately carved talisman encircling my head and Mrs Malani’s concoctions were my only hope. She dripped elixirs gently onto my unresponsive lips. Anxious waiting followed before the heartbreaking revelation that the mixture hadn’t worked; it was clear I was on the brink of death, holding onto life by shallow, rattling gasps.

  I heard Mrs Malani say, ‘Where there is breath, there is hope.’

  Fever, nightmares and thirst continued for weeks. Neighbours with whom I had never spoken poured in. One day I opened my eyes and found my brother-in-law Mustafa, Sanaa’s husband, beside me. He lived far, far away, and I couldn’t understand the reason for his visit. As my illness had made me weaker and weaker, everybody thought it was just a matter of days before I would die. To my surprise and horror, I awakened to find Mr Tabari, my second cousin who lived across the riverbed, taking measurements for my coffin.

  ‘He’s small and thin. The grave will be child-size,’ I heard Mr Tabari mutter.

  ‘How many metres of cloth will we need to wrap him?’ asked my father.

  ‘Four should be enough,’ answered Mr Tabari.

  I overheard them talking about my burial. I struggled to open my eyes and saw both my mother and Mrs Malani crying. I did not panic – I was too ill to care, and could not imagine myself under the ground; I did not think of hell or heaven even after the grave was dug, the cloth bought, and all that was keeping everyone whispering was that I was still breathing. I kept them waiting.

  Even with no medical help, no doctor nor medicine, my body began to recover. Out of bed, colours looked strange and mixed. My memory troubled me for a time, and some words I had known were forgotten. Just as I felt disconnected from my goats, cattle and sheep, I lost faith in the family values and culture.

  6

  It was a rainy winter with no dry days. I longed for August, but it was far away. Creeks were flooded, but all water was lost to the sea. Soon, the spring came with great fanfare. Makran, Tassamat and the hills were cloaked with grass, yellow, red and purple flowers. Then, like a glorious cavalier, summer arrived in a hurry. To herald its coming, to allow for expenses and quieten my sisters – to buy clothes and allow them to go to weddings – my father decided to sell the black bull that I had worked very hard to fatten. As he was too frail, he asked two of his sons-in-law to take it to the biggest livestock market at Nador to sell. They happily agreed and requested I go with them to take care of the bull.

  We started the journey at midnight, under the moonlight. During the trip, my two brothers-in-law rode together on a mule, followed by the bull, and me on foot, a stick in my hand, behind the bull. As if it knew its tragic destiny, the bull resisted from the start. My task was to keep it walking straight and fast to keep up with the mule.

  All the way, my brothers-in-law spoke about nothing but prostitutes. They talked about the best sexual positions,each one boasted about the number of women he had slept with, and each claimed to have seduced and slept with more than the other. My presence didn’t deter them.

  On the outskirts of Nador, we came to a shallow creek, and the bull refused to cross. At first, I thought I could force him to cross, but the more I whipped him, the more nervous and stubborn he became. Changing tactic, I crossed first and tried to pull him by the cord around his horns. As I pulled, the bull suddenly snorted, jerked his head and yanked me into the middle of the muddy creek. The water was not deep, but it was black, thick and dirty. My clothes got wet and completely covered with mud. I kept yelling for help, but my brothers-in-law were busy discussing where to find whores.

  A man on horseback passed by, heading towards Nador, and shouted, ‘Struggling, boy?’

  ‘Yes!’ I replied, unashamedly. Like a cowboy, the man on horseback drove the bull across the creek while I pulled on the cord.

  ‘Are you all alone here?’ he asked.

 
‘No, I am not.’

  When I caught up with my brothers-in-law, they realised I had been left behind. ‘What an ugly sight!’ exclaimed Salwa’s husband.

  ‘You should have waited for me! Can’t I ride, and one of you walk behind the bull?’ I asked.

  ‘Look at your clothes! You’ll dirty the saddle,’ replied Salwa’s husband.

  ‘The mud will dry,’ I replied.

  ‘Let it dry first,’ he answered.

  Before my clothes could dry and the mud fall off, we were in the town. We reached the market just before it closed at four-thirty. The bull was tired and looked dull, but was quickly sold to a Spanish dealer. ‘Couldn’t we have asked for a little more?’ I asked.

  Salwa’s husband shrugged, ‘Don’t be greedy.’

  The moment the bull’s rope was handed over, we scurried to a hotel. My brothers-in-law washed their faces and combed their hair before rushing to a local restaurant. I stayed the entire night alone in the room; they later boasted they had spent the whole night going from one hotel to another, from one street to another hiring prostitutes and whistling at every woman they passed. It had been a big night for them, thanks to the sale of the bull, but I felt a real sense of betrayal. But then, I didn’t know how the night had been for my sisters.

  That summer, I met a man in the village who told me about a school in Fez called Kairaouine Educational Complex, established in the year 859, which was a primary and secondary school as well as a university. The more I learned about this school, the more desperately I wanted to go. I became excited, anxious, nervous and impatient, but had no idea how to get there. From sheep to school, there was no bridge. I talked about it and became a laughing stock.

  I heard the school was huge, dark and cold in the winter, and the town was big, like piled chicken coops, with a river running through it. I also heard there was an entrance examination.

  In a hurry, with a few coins in my pocket, I rushed to Zaio to find a bookshop, but there wasn’t one. Moving up and down in the street, peering through a glass window, I saw an old man with a beard twice the size of his head, squinting and trying painfully to read a book. Inside his shop, I expected to see books lining the walls. What I found was a basket of bananas, potatoes and eggs.

  ‘Do you know where I could buy one or two books for beginners?’ I asked the old man.

  He looked puzzled and lost in thought. ‘Ah! Ah! I know what you want. I have two at home, but they are very, very old. I will sell them to you if you wish,’ he replied. He closed his shop, went home and brought the books.

  I bought both. One explained Arabic grammar and the other dealt with religious matters and the liturgy. They were yellowish in colour, over-sized, and had explanatory notes in the margins. They were too big and awkward to hold while reading, let alone understand, so the most comfortable way to thumb through them was to lie on my stomach, a position in which I could not stay very long. Candlelight rarely illuminated the entire page.

  Neither book was of any real use to me. Trying to understand a grammar book of a language – Arabic – which I did not speak, did not know, had only heard, was like playing blind bingo.

  I thought my father could help me. ‘What does that mean?’ I asked. Sadly, I realised that his pretence – ‘I am learned’ – was an empty façade and self-deluding.

  ‘I’m going to school!’ I told my mother early one morning.

  ‘Mad!’ she said. ‘Enough is enough.’ She huffed out of the room.

  My mother loved her sheep, her goats, and the hill on which we lived. Her only desire was to keep her family around her and the hill actively alive with goats, sheep, and cows moving back and forth.

  I had no relatives in Fez for help. I didn’t speak the language, Darija, that was spoken there. I spoke Tarifit. To survive in Fez, I needed a place to stay. To find accommodation, I needed someone to share the expense. The more I thought about it, the more frightened and nervous I became. Even if I managed to get there, I didn’t know if I would be accepted. Fortunately, the bull had been sold, and I knew my father still had some money left, but not very much.

  When I repeated my wish to be educated and requested some money, my father exploded with a roar, went berserk, stood up and shouted in my face, ‘Will you be educated if I give you one thousand francs?’

  ‘Father, education is time-consuming,’ I told him.

  He kicked me, and I stormed out of the room.

  Late August was unusually misty, foggy and enjoyably refreshing. Still wondering what to do, I tried to get some money from my five brothers-in-law. My wish to go to school was mocked and described as folly. It was particularly hurtful and humiliating when their comments reached me through my sisters. I had no choice but to go back to my father and mother to plead again. I was determined not to spend any more time lost in the valley tending sheep and goats, and I was also determined not to become a member of the mind-numbing bingo club. I used every argument I could think of. I had done my shepherding and looked twice my age – wrinkled and dried by the wind and sun. I had already lived rough and tough; I didn’t sleep on a bed or mattress covered with cotton sheets, but directly on the floor, wherever I could find space. Cockroaches, scorpions, and spiders didn’t frighten me; I had observed them moving, mating and fighting with each other.

  As a despised shepherd, I had learned how to live alone, my flute mirroring my soul. I had learned not to expect gifts or look for miracles and had accepted that my views of the world were simply those of a shepherd. The echo of the valley and the endless sky said something about God, but I could never quite say what, and I thought it was much better that way.

  I not only needed my parents’ help, I needed a companion. I tried to sell the idea of school at Fez to my half-cousin Abdossamad who was twice my age, twice my size, whom I had helped during my Koranic days. Like a singer who could only sing with a group, he could only remember when reciting with me. Amazed and puzzled, my cousin’s mouth opened and his lips trembled. ‘I am engaged,’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ I said. ‘To whom?’

  ‘My cousin, Boshra.’

  Boshra was a little girl, not yet ten years old. Confused by my suggestion about school, he suddenly started to describe how beautiful she was.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better for you to wait until she is grown up to see what she will be like?’ I asked. ‘Her beauty might change,’ I added, thinking of my sisters.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘My mother advised me to grab the opportunity. The engagement itself was expensive: a big crowd was invited and many chickens and eggs were needed to feed them all.’

  That week, I went to the village, Arkmane, and shopped in Sidi Moha’s. The shop was built in a Spanish style with double doors, and very large. Sidi Moha was an old man: tall, pale, bald and always smiling. The shop was basic. He sold sugar, olive oil, salt and matches. I bought sugar and olive oil as my mother had instructed me.

  ‘What else have you to do in the village today?’ Sidi Moha asked me. ‘Why are you looking so anxious?’ he added.

  ‘I am hoping to find company to go to Fez,’ I told him.

  To my surprise and delight, he mentioned Sidi Hadj Bahbout. Bahbout was a known figure in the village, rich and a person of influence. He had a big shop, twice the size of Sidi Moha’s. He had many children, both boys and girls, and wanted to give some education to his favourite son, Maroine, who was good-looking, articulate, and the most intelligent.

  Wasting no time, I stepped into Sidi Hadj Bahbout’s shop and came upon two men who looked alike, big and well-fed. The only difference between them was one looked younger than the other.

  ‘May I speak to Sidi Hadj Bahbout?’ I asked.

  ‘He is not here!’ shouted the tall one.

  In fact, Sidi Hadj Bahbout was sitting far back in the shop, drinking tea with some men. ‘If Sidi Hadj Bahbout is here, I would like to speak with him,’ I shouted loudly.

  Hearing me, he stepped forward. His long black-and-white beard imp
ressed me. He was wearing white clothes and a brown turban. As I inched closer to him and shook his hand, everybody stopped talking to watch, as though I were about to commit a murder. I knew I had to be quick and precise and said, ‘Sidi Hadj, my name is Jusef. Sidi Moha told me that your son, Maroine, wants to go to Fez. I am going if he wants to go with me.’

  He shook my hand again, firmly this time, and all the other men clambered to follow suit. He asked me to take a seat in an old chair that could have fallen apart at any time and ordered three pots of tea from the coffee shop next door. It is a good start, I thought to myself, but I was afraid that he might ask some details, such as how I was going to finance the trip and the schooling, but he didn’t. He asked me to come back next week, and his son, Maroine, would be with him.

  It was getting late in the afternoon, the sun was setting and the temperature was falling. It had been an extremely hot day and it was past time to go home. It had taken five hours of walking to get to Arkmane from home, crossing several valleys and mountains, and it would take more than five hours to reach home, as I was tired and hungry.

  Along the way, I passed two important shrines where men and women went to spend days and nights seeking help. Sidi Yahia was a shrine for those who had sight trouble. People sat inside the shrine, close to the grave of Sidi Yahia, and shouted for help. They dug the soil from the tomb and sprinkled it around their necks and chests.

  The Sidi Mimoun shrine was famous as it was believed to be the more potent. People, rich and poor, came from all regions, towns and villages to be exorcised of their demons. The shrine was situated in a beautiful place on a river in a valley full of trees. One could almost be deafened by the carols of different birds.

  Possessed men and women were taken there, chained to the trees and left to shout and cry for days. On the way home, I did not want to go past the Sidi Mimoun shrine, but it was late and there was no alternative. As I came near, I heard a lot of confused yelling, making my heart sink and palpitate, but I still had to pass the shrine. For a moment, there was complete silence. I thought what I had heard was just normal visitors, but as I approached the shrine, which was on my left, and looked into a wide, open courtyard, I saw two men and one woman chained to the trees. They were far apart, but facing each other. As I slowed and watched, they realised that I was passing. They all jumped and shouted, but were chained by both legs.