A Riffians Tune

by Joseph M Labaki

  ‘I am from Kebdana,’ I replied.

  ‘What did you do there?’ he asked.

  A ripple of panic struck. I can’t tell him I was a shepherd! I thought. What will he think of me? I stumbled about for an answer.

  ‘Have you forgotten already?’ the professor commented with a cold smile. Silence ensued, and he patiently waited for an answer.

  ‘I was a shepherd,’ I whispered.

  The surprise showed in his face, but to my relief he then changed the subject. ‘How is your maths?’ He handed me what looked like an endless list of division and multiplication problems. ‘Take your time; you have thirty minutes,’ he said without a trace of irony.

  While I was struggling with solutions, he chatted to his neighbouring professor at the table a few metres away. As his loud voice reverberated around the room with news of his son, it was a struggle for me not to be distracted.

  ‘My son is in Paris,’ he said. ‘Last year he was in Polytechnic College, the most prestigious and famous college in France! He passed his exams, but now he has changed his mind and is doing medicine instead.’ It was difficult for me not to feel jealous of this boy I had never met.

  ‘Thirty minutes are up!’ shouted the professor, becoming aware of my presence again. He broke off from his discourse, snatched my paper and peered down at me. Nodding and leaving, I had no idea what impression I had left behind.

  Not having a second to gather my feelings or talk to anyone in the crowd, I heard a loud voice piercing the air. ‘Ninety-two to desk thirteen!’ It was a call from the second doorkeeper on behalf of Professor Farid. He motioned toward the door and went back to squat on his stool.

  I knocked and stepped in. The room was beautiful; sunlight beamed through the huge windows which stretched to the ceiling elevated high above and bathed the entire room in a warm, golden glow. I wish I were allowed to bring my blanket and sleep here in the middle of this room, I thought to myself.

  Professor Farid, lips stuck out, looked annoyed and gave the impression he did not appreciate his precious time being wasted. He had been reading a local gossip rag before I sat down and interrupted his reading. In complete contrast to Professor Allal, Professor Farid was dressed all in white: white shirt, white kashaba and white jellabah. Even his babouches were white! He would have looked like a snowball were it not for his head, which was swathed in a pink turban, a colour my mother had said was reserved for virginal girls. Professor Farid didn’t scrutinise me as Professor Allal had; he barely lifted up his head to look at me.

  ‘Sit down!’ he told me in a harsh voice, but before my bottom could touch the seat, he handed me three pages of questions. The next half hour would be a blur forever in my memory.

  It was lunchtime. Moussa, Samir and I were all supposed to meet at noon so we could go back to our room and, on our way, buy two round loaves of bread for lunch. Demented by Professor Farid and preoccupied with my next exam scheduled for two o’clock, I forgot to wait for them. By the time I realised my mistake, it was too late; I couldn’t go back, have enough time for lunch and be at the exam hall before two o’clock. I prepared myself for Samir’s and Moussa’s wrath. I’ll try to explain the behaviour of Professor Farid, and that might calm them, I thought.

  Ashamed, I entered the funduq and blinked as my eyes adjusted to the darkness from the bright midday sunshine outside.

  ‘How was it?’ Samir shouted down from the first floor.

  ‘Is Moussa here?’ I shouted back.

  ‘Yes, he’s here.’

  Thank goodness I didn’t wait for them, I thought indignantly. As no one had bought bread, we had to content ourselves with what was left: unsweetened tea and unbuttered, stale bread.

  I was very slow in chewing the bread and didn’t want anyone to notice. I had developed a severe ulcer on my tongue, cracked and excruciatingly painful. Chewing was slow and laborious, and eating any spicy food was impossible. However, we were all short of bread and time.

  We hurried to the exam hall in a panic and arrived early. Samir was taking pleasure in both worrying and exciting Moussa. I was half listening to their conversation when a booming voice cut through my thoughts; ‘Ninety-two, room four, desk eleven!’

  Professor Maliki was behind his desk and looked up earnestly at me as I entered. Unlike Professor Allal and Professor Farid, he looked young and rough, like a wild country horseman. He was a Sharia Law professor. With his hand outstretched, he indicated the chair.

  I took the seat and waited for questions. ‘Pick a question from the pot.’ He slid a large pot filled with folded bits of paper across the desk. With trepidation, I reached forward, picked one, and stared at the scratches on the paper. ‘Can’t you read?’ he snapped impatiently.

  ‘No, sir,’ I answered.

  Snatching the paper out of my hand, he read, ‘Do grandchildren have a share of their grandfather’s estate if their father dies before their grandfather?’

  ‘No,’ I said. I couldn’t have hoped for a better question than this! ‘My uncle Hamid was killed in the Spanish Civil War, and died just a few days before my grandfather. He left eight sons and one daughter, and they were excluded from their grandfather’s estate. For this reason, they had no land and, consequently, were destitute.’

  ‘What do you think about that?’ asked Professor Maliki.

  ‘That is the law, sir. Maybe it needs to be changed.’

  He raised his eyebrows and glared at me. ‘Change the law!’ he shrieked.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  He smiled crookedly. Then with a frown, he grabbed the pot and asked me to pick a second question. He read it aloud. ‘If a wealthy man dies and has one son and one daughter, how would you apportion his estate?’

  ‘I would divide it into thirds. The son would get two-thirds and the daughter would get one-third.’

  ‘Is this the law?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  He kept silent for a while as if something really bothered him, then presented the pot again, and asked me to pick another piece of folded paper. I stretched my arm, put my hand in the middle of the pot and my fingers fiddled with folded scraps of paper trying to find the easiest question.

  ‘As you know, every Muslim has to tithe to the poor and the needy. What is the amount?’ he asked.

  ‘Ten per cent, sir.’

  ‘Are the tithe and tax the same?’

  ‘Yes and no, sir.’

  ‘“Yes and no” is not an answer. Who is the collecting agent for taxes?’

  ‘The government, sir.’

  ‘What would happen if someone refused to pay the tax?’

  ‘He would be put in prison, sir.’

  ‘Who is the collecting agent for the tithe?’

  ‘It is not the government, sir. It is self-policed.’

  ‘What would happen if someone didn’t pay the tithe?’

  ‘He would go to hell.’

  Professor Maliki exploded in laughter and other professors in the same room looked at him. Stepping out of room four, I bumped into Samir searching for room three. ‘To your right,’ I shouted.

  By the end of the afternoon, my die was cast. I paced up and down, wondering what to do next. As I waited for Samir and Moussa, Samir came out first with a red face like an overripe tomato about to burst. ‘Bastard!’ he mumbled, his usual confidence and cynicism evaporated.

  All finished and on our way to the funduq around six o’clock in the evening, we couldn’t pass Moul Idrees shrine. The whole town seemed to have come out to enjoy a bizarre, erotic jostling. Men and women crowded the very narrow streets and went around endlessly, forward and backward. Women pretended to be pushed backwards, and men forwards so that women pushed their breasts out and men brushed against them. There was no age limit or moral boundary to this exercise.

  Though having achieved nothing yet, we decided to surprise Kamil with a feast that night. We bought three-quarters of a kilo of camel mince mixed with onion, garlic and coriander.

  To alleviate my anxiety,
I asked Samir and Moussa over dinner, ‘Would you like to escape the funduq’s stench and go outside the city tomorrow?’

  ‘Good idea,’ Moussa piped in.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ grunted Samir, lips tightly zipped like a deaf mute.

  That night, I didn’t sleep a wink. What am I going to do if I am rejected? my mind simmered. In vain, I tried to convince myself not to worry for at least three days while waiting for the results.

  Dawn stole the night. I felt motivated to get up, happy to hear life in the street, eager to leave the funduq, the narrow streets and not feel confined by the derelict, crumbling room. Unfortunately, when Moussa and I stepped outside the town, through Bab Guissa, we discovered that we could not play football there. It was sloping; the ground, uninviting and barren, was rocky and uneven with some aged olive trees here and there. A dotted shantytown didn’t compare with Makran and Tassamat, where fresh air filled the lungs and wildlife inspired the mind.

  ‘We should have gone to Bab Ftouh,’ I said.

  ‘Let’s play the flute,’ suggested Moussa.

  Happily, we sat on soft soil under an olive tree. I tried to show Moussa how to place and move his fingers, how to blow, but his fingers were as stiff as steel and his whistling produced only a bizarre, windy sound.

  Shaking and drying the flute, I was a few metres away from Moussa when a sharp yell pierced my ears. A tramp had crept up behind us and thrown a sharp stone, missile-like, which grazed Moussa’s head.

  I had no idea where he had come from, and had heard no footsteps. He certainly lodged within the area and had a hole within the shantytown one kilometre away. Maybe he had been hiding, sleeping behind or underneath one of the olive trees near where we sat.

  Moussa’s head was oozing blood from over his ear, and we were shocked and alarmed. We rushed toward the tramp to hit him as he raced toward us. We heard him mumbling, but couldn’t make any sense of it. Very tall and wrapped in two or three coats, he looked huge. His legs were wrapped thickly with pieces of different-coloured cloth. His face was bearded as though he had never shaved; he had a big moustache shooting out like the horns of a wild bull, but dirty and greasy. Grubby and hairy, he looked faceless. Looking at this spectre, I pulled Moussa back. As the tramp swept the hair from his face, it suddenly looked familiar.

  ‘This is my cousin, Ahmed!’ I exclaimed under my breath.

  Full of doubt and fearful of getting closer to him, I shouted, ‘Are you Ahmed, son of Ben Kedar?’ Moussa, armed with a heavy load of stones, was on the other side of me, and at the ready.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Are you Jusef?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  Ahmed fell on the ground and cried like a saint. Moussa kept asking questions that I couldn’t answer.

  Ahmed got up, wiped his tears and asked me if his own father was still alive, what his brothers were doing and if his blonde sister had gotten married. In the middle of our conversation, he suddenly turned his back on me, picked up several bags, headed to the shantytown and disappeared in front of our eyes.

  ‘What happened to your cousin?’ Moussa asked.

  ‘He came to Fez as a student, just like you and me.’

  ‘And what then?’

  ‘He failed his exams and couldn’t face his family, who had looked upon him as a star and their future messiah to deliver them from poverty. He deserted them and has succumbed to his own engineered madness.’

  ‘Are you going to be like your cousin if you fail your exams?’ Moussa asked me with a laugh, wiping his bleeding brow.

  Returning to the room, I happened on the landlord and the caretaker patrolling the front of the funduq. ‘Mr Lazar, a ginger-haired man, has a message from your father!’ shouted the caretaker.

  ‘The man is expecting you!’ added the landlord.

  ‘Where?’ I asked.

  ‘Bab Ftouh,’ he replied.

  To meet this mysterious man, I would have to go to Bab Ftouh coach station very early the following morning. Awkward time! I thought. Examination results were expected that morning, but I couldn’t ignore my father’s call.

  During dinner, we talked politics and its effect on us. Kamil wished he could be a journalist and expose corruption. ‘Russia,’ he said, ‘is a gigantic animal, but the United States is a gigantic monster.’

  ‘There is worse,’ I told him. ‘The worst is where I am, an abyss with no end or light.’ Sadly, this was to be our last supper together as four.

  In the light of dawn, before the caretaker had opened the main door, I was up and away. The streets were empty and quiet but for the howling, hungry feral cats creating a strange, eerie atmosphere. The more I hurried, the longer the streets stretched before me. Exhausted, I reached the station well before seven o’clock. There was no Mr Lazar. The first coach to the north was leaving at eleven-thirty; waiting until then wouldn’t allow me to join Samir and Moussa to hear our exam fate.

  I had never met Mr Lazar, and I wondered if it would be easy to recognise this rare bird – ‘Lazar’ meant ‘redhead’. Before eleven-thirty, a redheaded man appeared. ‘Are you Mr Lazar?’ I asked politely.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied with a hoarse voice and long chin. A strange smell came out of his mouth each time he spoke.

  ‘You have a message from my father, I understand.’

  ‘I carry many messages. Who is your father?’

  ‘Sarir,’ I said.

  ‘The blind one?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, in one eye.’

  He sat down on the ground, put his case on his lap, unlatched it, yanked a ten-dirham note out and handed it to me.

  It was around midday when I left the coach station. Returning to the room, I met Samir, accompanied by Moussa and Kamil, emerging from the funduq. He had two cases in his hands. Samir’s and Moussa’s faces looked as if they were going to be slaughtered.

  ‘What happened, Samir?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing very serious. Moussa and I didn’t get in. I have decided to leave now.’

  Moussa added, ‘I am leaving tomorrow.’

  Kamil kept sombre and quiet. I didn’t ask them about my own results, and I couldn’t continue to the school and leave them, so we all accompanied Samir to Bab Ftouh to take the coach home. The next coach was going east, to Oujda, where I had first met them all.

  Samir was resolute in action, but wounded in heart. We all waited for him until he took his seat beside the window on the coach. We watched the coach slowly move east, and Samir waved only twice before he hid his face in the crook of his arm. Samir’s departure numbed me. The silence was heavy and total on our way back to the funduq. Moussa would have to sort himself out, and I had still to discover my fate. Whatever decision Moussa might make, he would have to discuss it with his brother, Kamil.

  Inside our room, Moussa regained his power of speech. ‘I’m going to buy a passport,’ he said, ‘and go to Germany. I am a hafiz. I thought I knew something. Obviously, I know nothing – that’s my sin. If I had been aware, I wouldn’t have come here.’

  One of the basic rights of a child is schooling, yet this has been denied to us, I thought to myself.

  Moussa’s moaning threw me into deep despair. As a hafiz, I felt his pain, except mine went deeper. Shepherding and all my years in the mosque have stolen the best of my youth, I thought with regret.

  The fact that Moussa and Samir had decided to go made me reluctant to rush and discover my lot. Yet I had to. Kamil offered his company; so did Moussa, surprisingly. My knees buckled when we reached the school. I could hardly breathe when I got close to the wall and stretched my neck to read the list very high up. My eyes watered and my heart changed its beat when I saw on the pass list, ‘Jusef – Primary final, Division I’. Mesmerised, I turned toward Moussa, who kept patting me on the back, and we spontaneously exchanged brotherly hugs.

  Moussa kept rereading the list, hoping to spot his name. Meanwhile, Kamil wouldn’t stop nagging at us to go home. Just before six o’clock, staff rushed out of their of
fices, as if they had been chased by a troll.

  At six o’clock, the two school caretakers switched off every decorative chandelier in the building and chased us out. The building turned dark and spooky. The tall buildings lining the narrow streets and the scarcity of streetlights added darkness to the sunset.

  In the last few days, Moussa had become addicted to taking part in the erotic jostling near Moul Idrees shrine. Now he had lost his appetite for it, so we all hurried straight to the funduq, only stopping to buy one loaf and a half of bread. We had usually bought two, but now Samir had gone. We took our dinner earlier than usual, and the evening was full of talk and sorrow.

  ‘I’m going to buy a passport,’ Moussa repeated incessantly.

  ‘To buy a passport, you need a mountain of money’ I said.

  ‘Some people sell their houses for it,’ Kamil butted in.

  ‘When you go to Germany, I would like to visit you. May I stay with you a few days?’ I asked.

  Moussa and I kept chatting for hours. Kamil didn’t think our topics worth hearing any more. He tried to stay awake, but fell into a deep sleep like a coma.

  Moussa’s coach was to leave at five-thirty in the morning. We left early, at three o’clock, went through many twisted, narrow, dark streets, and felt a chill at every corner. We looked suspicious, but then, so did everybody else we met. Moussa’s coach was on time. We had thought we were on the same path, but how naïve we had been.

  10

  At dawn on my first day of school, I woke up full of anticipation and wonder. Now that Moussa and Samir’s hopes had been crushed, I headed alone to the school, which also happened to be a mosque. Bozaid, an Algerian student, had arrived before me. I looked at him and compared myself with him. He was tall and thin and his nervous character was apparent in his obvious uneasiness with himself. Whoever had cut his hair had made a mess of it. His voice, manner and outspokenness complemented his rough appearance.

  ‘Where did you come from?’ I asked him.

  ‘Algeria,’ he answered.

  ‘Why did you come so far?’ I asked.

  ‘Do you want us all to perish, to die? My brothers have all joined the Liberation Army fighting French colonialism. I wanted to join them, but my father wanted to spare one of us. It happened to be me, the youngest.’ His statement momentarily shocked me into silence.