A Riffians Tune

by Joseph M Labaki

  ‘Son of bitch! Son of bitch! Come and make love!’ the woman shouted at me. ‘You will like it! Try it!’

  The two men screamed at her, ‘Shut up, you slut! Shut up!’

  As I hurried away, they turned to insult each other … and the shrine itself.

  Late, I arrived home tired, but with high hopes. Falling asleep almost immediately, I felt the night was very short. Rabbia awakened me in the morning to do the shepherding as Amina was pretending to be ill. ‘Yes,’ I said, but then went back to sleep.

  As there was no sign of my moving, Rabbia came and shook me again. ‘Get up! It’s getting hot, and soon no one will be able to move.’

  Disoriented, I got up and threw a few handfuls of water on my face. This helped a bit. Only half awake, I picked up a small stick and whistled to let the cows, sheep and goats know that we were moving. Whistling and whirling the stick in the air was enough to get the attention of all the animals except the donkey. For all the other animals, the stick worked like a magic wand, but the donkey had to feel it. It was turning into an unhappy day. I usually didn’t take the donkey with me to the mountains, but that day it was not needed for any work at the house, so I took it to graze with the rest of the animals.

  The morning was sunny and warm. High on the mountain, I felt the fresh breeze permeate every cell of my body as though I had been born at that precise moment. Every animal was happy and busy grazing on whatever it could find. The goats were jumping and running everywhere, but the donkey was always standing still. It was midday, the sun was just above my head, and I felt I could reach it if I stretched out my hand. It was time for the animals to quench their thirst. I whistled and signalled the move toward the trough.

  The goats and sheep understood the whistle, the time and their need. They raced to the trough, and the goats were ahead. The cows and donkey plodded behind. While the bull was drinking, the donkey arrived and crowded beside it. To my horror, the bull whipped his head to one side and gored the donkey with all its strength, piercing its neck and shoulder with its long, strong, sharp horn. In the blink of an eye, blood spurted from the wound. I ran to see what had happened, and found the shoulder of the donkey split in two. While the donkey was bleeding to death, the bull went back to drinking dirty water full of dead flies and mosquitoes as if nothing had happened. I had no choice but to drive the animals home. The donkey was practically unable to move. I found it crying, tears trickling down its face.

  When I arrived home, everybody was shocked; they blamed and criticised me for the bull’s aggression. The house was full of opinions and theories. I checked constantly on the donkey, and the deep wound was oozing steadily. It shivered each time I touched its shoulder. Desperate, I went to see Mrs Malani and explained what had happened. Swiftly, she reassured me the donkey would be all right, grabbed a bottle of water and came with me.

  The donkey was under the tree, and I took her directly to it. I hoped she would give a prognosis, be it good or bad, but she said nothing. She examined the wound, pressed her finger against the shoulder to see how painful it was, and cleaned it. She gave a good shake to her bottle and sprinkled the liquid all over the wound, then gave me the bottle, and instructed me to sprinkle the liquid over the wound every three hours.

  I followed her instruction religiously, hoping and strongly believing the wound would heal and the donkey would recover. Several days passed and there was no change. Then its neck started to swell, followed by the shoulder. Tiny, white worms swarmed all over the wound, and the donkey was not able to stand.

  I walked to the village of Zaio where there was a veterinary nurse with very basic skills. I explained the situation to the nurse, and he seemed to understand me.

  ‘I need to see the donkey,’ he said.

  ‘The donkey is lying down and can’t move,’ I responded.

  ‘If you hire a taxi for me, I will go with you,’ the nurse said.

  ‘Hiring a taxi is beyond my reach,’ I answered.

  He shrugged, turned around and walked away. Deeply disappointed, I ran back home to think what else I could do. Before reaching home, very close to the valley where I had killed the snake, I heard commotion and shouting. As I hurried to see, I found farmers and shepherds (very young girls and boys, no older than ten) stoning the donkey to death. By the time I got close to the donkey, it was dead.

  I looked at it and chased the shepherds away. Numb, I walked home and thought, people of all ages, all kinds, boys and girls, can be just as cruel as death itself.

  * * *

  MY MIND STILL SIMMERING, pondering the fate of our donkey, I went to see Sidi Hadj Bahbout and his son, Maroine. Though I left before light, I was not the first to arrive in the village; the butchers were first. A cacophony of bargaining activity was going on among them, but quickly the noise died down and the butchers bought all the animals they needed, healthy or ill. The animals were slaughtered, butchered and sold on the spot – the blood, hot and alive, was left to dry. The animals’ heads were piled on top of each other, and shoppers bargained on heads, bowels, brains, hooves and skins. On my way to Sidi Hadj Bahbout’s shop, I found a small boy about five years old, crying, tied to a hook and left alone in the middle of the road to fry under the sun. The boy was crippled – probably suffering from polio. The belief was that someone with miraculous healing power might spot the boy, have mercy on him and heal him. ‘First, crippled by nature, second, tortured by his parents – poor boy,’ I murmured to myself.

  With mixed hope and fear, I stepped into Sidi Hadj Bahbout’s shop and asked his elder son, ‘Are Sidi Hadj Bahbout and Maroine here?’

  I knew little about Maroine other than he was about twenty years old and married. ‘Come to the back of the shop and wait for them,’ Maroine’s brother said. This was unexpected hospitality.

  Time passed and there was no sign of them. I could not sit still and wait, so I left the shop and went to the café at the end of the street. Sidi Hadj Bahbout was there, surrounded by a group of men, talking, laughing, drinking tea and smoking all sorts of tobacco. He called me to join the crowd. ‘This is Maroine, my son,’ he said. Maroine did not move. He sat indifferently on his chair next to his father. The crowd left, and just the three of us remained. We changed tables and Sidi Hadj ordered fresh tea. Moving tables gave me a chance to observe Maroine.

  He was tall, very thin, his eyes covered by a fringe of hair and he wore jeans (known as ‘American trousers’). His father was wearing the same clothes as last time, a brown and pink turban, white jellabah and salham (cloak) and, contrastingly, smart brown loafers. While talking, his hands were waving constantly in every direction, and he was continually struggling to roll up his sleeves. Listening and watching him, I was busy trying to find out what kind of boy Maroine was. Could we share a room? Suddenly, Maroine thrust his hand into his pocket and brought out a pack of cigarettes. I couldn’t read, and Maroine told me they were called Camels. ‘They are much better than Bastos,’ he said. He generously offered me a cigarette with his left hand and in his right hand, he held a lighter.

  ‘No, thank you. I don’t eat cigarettes,’ I said.

  Maroine insisted. His father smiled, looked at me first, then at Maroine. ‘Maroine,’ he said, ‘Jusef has never smoked. If he had, he would say, “I don’t smoke”, not, “I don’t eat”.’ They both chuckled; I turned red and started to sweat. Kindly, Sidi Hadj Bahbout began talking about Fez and the trip.

  Sidi Hadj knew nothing about the journey as he had never ventured south. Nevertheless, he warned, ‘Once you’re in Fez, be constantly on your guard. Everybody cons everybody.’

  The meeting was brief, but the essential achieved. Maroine was going. ‘We’ll meet at the start of September and set off the following week,’ Maroine and I echoed to each other and shook hands.

  On the fifth of September, I went to see Sidi Hadj Bahbout and his son, Maroine, to confirm the departure. I met them in their shop and was anxious about what we might face – accommodation, registration, the journ
ey, and possibly a test. Since I had no idea what the test might contain, my ambition went beyond my ability, and I didn’t speak Arabic, French or Spanish. Neither Sidi Hadj nor his son Maroine wanted to discuss anything concrete, but they confirmed the departure for the tenth of September.

  Ecstatic, I went home. The moment I set foot in the house, I was assigned a task: water, water, water. ‘Couldn’t my brother-in-law get water?’ I asked in a whining voice, as he, my sister and their family had been living with us for over a month.

  My mother ran toward me and shouted, ‘Don’t disgrace me!’

  I had no choice but to ride our young, new, untrained donkey five kilometres, adding to the day’s already long journey. As I went to the spring, I felt the days were still expanding and the nights contracting. On my way, I marvelled at the night sky. Millions of stars were crystal clear, and sometimes I saw a shooting star. I wondered what all that was about. However, it didn’t take long for me to come back to where I was: not in the sky, but on earth, not on the bright moon, but in the dark valley on my way to the spring just one week left before I was due to leave home. Nearing the house I heard the family feasting, voices like waves filling the air.

  In the courtyard of the house, I joined the family sitting on homemade rugs, admiring the moon and the stars, with two lights lit nearby. My mother was busy going in and out, cooking and keeping her cauldron alive, as the fire kept dying and her eyes watered with gentle smoke. ‘Jusef!’ she called me in. ‘Because you insist on going to Fez, we will give you some money,’ she said, hoping my madness would fade.

  ‘Where did the money come from?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ she replied, paused, and looked down thoughtfully. But then she added, ‘The bull.’ Thrilled, I divided the money into piles and hid each part in different quarters of my clothing, and the largest part went into a tiny pocket in my trousers below my abdomen; I stitched it in.

  ‘Could I have a blanket?’ I asked her.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied. With the money sewn in my pockets and the blanket, I felt confident about the move from north to south to seek my education.

  On the tenth of September, I was about eleven years old when I asked my father to accompany me to Arkmane to meet Sidi Hadj Bahbout and his son, Maroine, so he could see for himself that I knew what I was doing and where I was going. It was from there that Maroine and I were supposed to start the journey. I had packed the blanket into a duffel bag and my few items into a small case. The donkey was just strong enough to carry the bag, the case and my father.

  Temperamental, the donkey tried to reject the load. He wriggled, his head down. My father was unwell, and I was constantly anxious he might fall, so I walked behind him as we wended our way to Kariat Arkmane.

  * * *

  KARIAT ARKMANE WAS A small village on an inlet of the Mediterranean Sea and had only three small streets forming part of a square. The main building was a police station, and there was neither a school nor a hospital, just a prison. Once a week, like a volcano, the village erupted, then died. One could buy and sell potatoes, tomatoes, barley, grains, bird traps, mousetraps, perfume and women’s make-up side by side in the open air. Herbal doctors sold all sorts of weeds and magical elixirs. The few cafés were crowded by men, but never a woman. It was in those cafés that men loved to gossip, share ignorance, talk politics and arrange marriages. Magicians often came to the village and entertained the mixed crowd. Snake charmers came to show their power over their snakes. With their flutes, they demonstrated how a big and dangerous snake could be seduced, tamed and pacified. The village was meaningful to my father and grandfather. It was here, many years ago, that my grandfather had been tortured by Spanish police for leading a guerrilla rebellion, and an order had been issued to arrest my father.

  On that hot Wednesday, like all other Wednesdays, the village was entirely besieged by thousands of donkeys – all tied up with no trees to protect them from the almighty heat and the power of the sun. Donkeys brayed everywhere, and as soon as some stopped, others took over. Hungry and thirsty, they lost their bold and blind sexual aggression. They could only express themselves by stomping the soil with their heads wilted. There was no water or food – the whole village was without water. Café owners had to go miles to fetch it and store it in a barrel for months, if not years.

  My father and I arrived at Kariat Arkmane in the early morning and, like other shoppers, tied our donkey against a few heavy stones, anchoring it like a ship at sea. There were only two coaches a day from Arkmane to Nador: one in the morning and the other in the late afternoon.

  Reaching the building and before entering Sidi Hadj Bahbout’s shop, I said, ‘Father, you can pick up my correspondence from this shop. Kariat Arkmane, Number 17.’

  My father lifted his head, looked above the door for the number, and squinted. I realised he needed glasses. ‘Good,’ he breathed a legato sigh with scepticism playing on his face. I entered the shop with my father behind me. Immediately, I smelled a rat; there was neither welcome nor smile from Sidi Hadj Bahbout. Maroine was sitting far back in the shop, smoking a cigarette and playing dominos with his friends. I went straightaway to Sidi Hadj Bahbout.

  ‘This is my father,’ I said, proudly, but he did not look at me.

  He pulled his beard up in the air and grumbled, ‘Maroine is not going.’

  ‘Not going?’ I bellowed with anger and shock. A sudden vertigo chilled me. One could count the hairs in his beard, but not his lies, I thought to myself.

  ‘This is not a man’s word!’ shouted my father loudly, facing Sidi Hadj Bahbout.

  Chin up, Sidi Hadj Bahbout kept combing his beard with his fingers. Horrified that my father’s short temper might erupt into a fight, I grabbed his hand and said, ‘Let’s have a pot of tea.’

  There was a café just next door with tables scattered outside and people shouting to each other, enjoying the tea and the sea breeze. There was just one little table free, with one single chair. My father took the seat, and I went inside to grab another chair for myself. Returning, I found him angry, talking to himself, shaking his head and gesticulating. I wouldn’t have gone near him if he were not my father. Furious, he tried to persuade me to return home, but I knew a second chance wouldn’t come.

  While my father was talking, I listened. ‘It’s because of anomie like Sidi Hadj Bahbout’s that we are oppressed,’ he said. ‘We are taxed shamefully,’ he added, ‘on our donkeys, pomegranates and prickly pears. In return, they built a prison for us. Look!’ he said, indicating the prison, which was only a few hundred metres away. A long, narrow cement building, it looked like a chicken coop and was very low in height, with no visible windows and only a few breathing holes, as though peppered by machine gun fire. Prisoners weren’t able to stand up. God only knew who went there and came out straight.

  ‘Other boys are going as well,’ I said.

  ‘Where are they?’ he asked.

  ‘Nador,’ I answered. I could tell by looking at my father’s face that he knew I was lying.

  Time always passed slowly in the village; it was measured not by hours, minutes and seconds, but by sunrise and sunset. Waiting for the afternoon coach, I felt time frozen, but like a sclerosis, very painful.

  7

  An old red Spanish coach was stationed in the street, and many people, including children, were moving around it like a shrine. Every minute that passed made me more nervous. My father accompanied me to the coach and boarded it with me to look for a seat. None were free. They were all marked with stones and sticks: ‘Reserved’. Every traveller tried to reserve a seat for himself, his friend and a spare. The coach looked like a graveyard. The driver and his assistant, both raging, marched on and threw out every stone and stick.

  ‘Seats free!’ they shouted from inside the coach. I went to the very back, the cheaper seats. My father stood behind me until I sat. I kissed my father’s hand, not knowing it was an adieu. If I had known, I would have kissed it twice.

  A few seco
nds later, a snake charmer boarded and was refused a seat by the other passengers. He carried his snake, rattling and making hissing noises, in a narrow, long white bag. Provoking a ruckus on the coach, he was, at first, quite arrogant. ‘Big men!’ he shouted, ‘Are you afraid of my snake? Ha! Ha!’ He soon realised the strength of feeling and objection. He changed his tune, became humble, and pleaded to have a seat in the coach. ‘My snake is harmless,’ he said.

  Immediately, a passenger jumped and shouted, ‘Liar! Liar! Not long ago, you were telling the crowd in the village square how poisonous your snake was!’

  The driver and his assistant, fists raised, ordered the snake charmer to sit at the very back. The crowd parted, and he sauntered to the back and sat beside me. I didn’t feel comfortable. Now and again, the snake became agitated with the excessive heat of the coach, and the man tapped its head. Passengers kept turning their heads to check that the snake charmer and his snake were still at the back. Some of them were so afraid that they didn’t put their feet on the floor for fear the snake would escape and crawl up their legs. To alleviate my fear and anxiety, I asked its owner, ‘What’s the attraction of carrying the snake?’

  ‘The snake is my asset and livelihood,’ he said.

  ‘But poisonous,’ I said.

  After a moment, he smiled. ‘I took its fangs out,’ he said. ‘It can’t bite. But you never know,’ he added, ‘they might grow back again.’