A Riffians Tune

by Joseph M Labaki

  ‘If only it were mine!’ I answered.

  ‘Never mind!’ said Mr Amakran, who was well versed in foreign currency.

  Looking at me, he hit a thick stack of French francs with his middle finger. ‘Avoid this currency,’ he said. Lifting the index finger of his left hand, he pointed to a pile of German notes. ‘This bird,’ he said, ‘never stops soaring,’ and he ran back and forth, flapping his arms like birds’ wings.

  Mr Amakran thought I should know the currency traders as well as the tricks of the trade. ‘Did you ever hear of Mr Marosh?’ he asked me.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘when I was a child. He was cruel, a killer.’

  ‘Then I don’t need to bore you,’ he replied. ‘However, black market currency trading is full of Maroshes. If Newton discovered gravity, Marosh perfected cruelty. There is only one law in currency trading: make big money – and fast!’

  From the outset, I had thought Mr Amakran was a holy man, but now I thought he had no soul. A gigantic grandfather clock chimed one and ended the talk and trading. The bookkeeper emerged from his cage while Uncle Mimoun and I rushed to the hotel with only enough time left for a quick lunch.

  ‘I am starving,’ said Mimount when she saw us, ‘but I had awful nausea this morning. Maybe I should just fast,’ she added.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Uncle Mimoun, who was lying on the bed and seemed to have already had a short snooze.

  On our way out, Mimount laid her hand on my shoulder. She needed support. Inside the restaurant, she was the only woman, and Uncle Mimoun tried to hide her. Conscious of the lack of other women, he sat Mimount facing the wall. She had never seen city beggars. When she turned to see where she was, as if she had just awakened from a deep coma, two male beggars standing outside the door of the restaurant caught her eye.

  ‘I can’t swallow any more,’ she said.

  Uncle Mimoun looked at her and smiled. ‘You’ve seen nothing yet,’ he said.

  ‘Has it to be like that?’ she asked.

  ‘Nador has always been like that,’ I told her, ‘but Fez is worse. It’s time to move,’ I reminded Uncle Mimoun.

  He stood up, turned his shoulder and threw a scarf over his wife’s head and around her neck. He moved first, and she dawdled behind him like a leashed dog. Mimount’s consultation was not expected to last more than an hour. Doctors were very frugal with their time. Uncle Mimoun and I echoed the meeting time to each other: four o’clock at the taxi station.

  I stepped into the bakery next to the doctor’s surgery. Two loaves would please Amina and save me the bother of baking for today, I thought. Moving toward the market, I succumbed to the bargain offered by the grapes vendor, who was harassed and chased by the police wherever he went, as he could have been unlicensed or a tax dodger.

  An eternity passed waiting for Uncle Mimoun to show up. Not conscious of how many grapes I had popped into my mouth, I finished the bag. Six o’clock struck, business died and spooks crept out to hunt. In the dark street, standing alone, I waited. And waited.

  Uncle Mimoun and his wife appeared, but I couldn’t fathom why both were beside themselves with fury. ‘Those two are mad!’ the taxi driver told me.

  ‘They’ve just come out of the doctor’s surgery,’ I explained.

  ‘They should never have gone to see that quack doctor,’ he said. In his late twenties, he was excited to be commissioned for a long journey.

  ‘What a beautiful Mercedes you drive,’ I complimented him. Painted royal navy, freshly polished, the taxi had a diplomatic flair. As the driver was conscious of the value and the importance of his car, he made his way carefully, but as we left the paved road, we found the dirt road blocked by stone after stone, impassable. The driver and I tried to move them when suddenly, a pack of boys and girls stormed us from every direction. They dented the car, and we engaged in a stone fight, in which Uncle Mimoun joined. It was a disgraceful battle, but the boys and girls enjoyed it. Somehow, I enjoyed it as well.

  At home at dinnertime, Amina pulled gossip from the past. ‘Mother used to call me a mindless chicken! Am I really?’ she asked me.

  ‘Yes,’ I teased her, not unravelling her motive.

  ‘Then find a husband for me!’ she replied.

  Seriously, I started looking for a husband for her. I went to Mr Kalid, who had no daughters, only sons. I suggested Amina as a wife for one of them. While waiting for his reply, I was horrified to discover that Amina had not been honest with me. She had already been fornicating with our cousin, Moha, temporarily on holiday from Germany. Before she knew it, she was pregnant, and tying her up with her lover proved to be difficult. Thick clothes could not hide a speedily growing baby indefinitely and local gossip hurt. Amina asked me to find an abortionist, but I refused.

  * * *

  ON THE TWENTY-FIRST OF July, before the sun rose, I was standing at the front door of Mr Amakran’s large store. Arriving on his own, without his brother, Mr Amakran didn’t look at me, speak to me or greet me. He looked locked into a private world of his own and gave me the impression he didn’t want to see me. Is the offer still on the table? I wondered, worried.

  ‘Good morning to you, Mr Amakran,’ I said, moving closer to him, intending to shake his hand and jolt his memory.

  ‘Morning,’ replied Mr Amakran, with a slow, heavy voice.

  Neither my physical presence nor my voice jostled Mr Amakran’s memory, despite Uncle Mimoun’s express request that I be recognised. ‘Uncle Mimoun sends you his greeting,’ I said, after a few seconds of loss. In fact, I lied. I hadn’t seen Uncle Mimoun since the day Mimount had visited the doctor. As if a new sun had arisen or a dark curtain raised, Mr Amakran smiled and every muscle in his face and chin rippled.

  ‘Is your Uncle Mimoun in the town?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Pity,’ he replied with a sigh. Mr Amakran could not forget his faithful comrade, Uncle Mimoun. As teenagers, just to be fed, they had fought together in the Spanish Civil War and often reminisced about hunting for Spanish girls.

  I couldn’t believe the heavy bundles of keys Mr Amakran carried on his belt, making him look like a prison warden. Mr Amakran picked the right key and unlocked his massive store. Once inside, I heard a gentle voice. ‘Tea and doughnuts, Uncle Amakran?’ It was a boy from the café nearby who came every morning to serve him like a king, but with no official crown.

  Before the tea and doughnuts were delivered, Mr Amakran’s brother arrived, weaving through the aisles, inspecting the stock and jumping on the telephone whenever it rang. With a full plate of doughnuts and a glass of tea each, Mr Amakran, his brother and I sat around the same table as we had with Uncle Mimoun. The tea quenched my thirst and the honey-sweetened doughnuts revived my brain. I would have loved to have more. From the breakfast table, Mr Amakran and I moved to a far smaller table, under which Mr Amakran kept his cash. Notes of different currency were tied in bundles, and with just a small piece of paper indicating the exact amount.

  ‘I have counted each bundle six times, and my brother has counted eleven times. No one has ever said that I shorted him,’ he said to me. Mr Amakran’s extreme precision impressed me. In one single gesture, Mr Amakran handed me a quarter of a million Moroccan francs. I signed no paper. Mr Amakran knew I had to go quickly, so I split the bundles into two breast pockets, left and right, which made me ripe prey for a pickpocket.

  I left Mr Amakran and joined a column of men, women and children, young and old, all heading to the town of Melilla, some in their private cars and others either by taxi or coach. It looked like an exodus, but Nador never emptied. A non-stop flood of people kept pouring in as well as out. To a tourist, the town looked like chaos; a war with no guns and peace with no tranquility.

  In a coach full of people, there was just enough oxygen to survive, and most passengers were women, but, unlike those of Fez, they were unveiled, robust and strong. Very soon, I realised that everybody was carrying a basket. A teenage girl sitting beside me asked, ‘Whe
re is your basket?’

  ‘I don’t need one,’ I answered.

  Puzzled, the girl smiled. A basket was used as a disguise, but also the means for an officer, Moroccan or Spanish, to close his eyes and pocket a few hundred pesetas.

  Different from most, with no basket in hand, I became worried I might be searched. My mouth felt dry and my eyes itchy. At the border, the queue was long, slow and degrading, and the officers chose whom to pick and search. Carrying no basket, I was quickly ushered along. People didn’t matter; what they carried did.

  Once beyond the Moroccan frontier and past the Spanish border guards, I remembered how a few years ago, my sister Sanaa had used me to visit Awisha, the Jewish witch, to fix her marital problem. It wasn’t kind of my sister to send me here, I now realised. Melilla was, and is, a risky and dangerous place.

  The city centre faced the sea, though a tall row of palm trees stood between it and the gleaming Mediterranean beyond. The main boulevard running through the centre of the town split it in two, where shops of all kinds stood facing each other across the wide, busy street. The fortunes of the street ran from north to south in relation to how close premises were to the top end where, closest to the sea, chic cafés and exclusive banks thrived. At the bottom end, things were different, as beyond the end of the street lay a vast sprawling slum where Awisha lived and practised. Nothing had changed since the last time I was here.

  Travellers leaving Africa, like those arriving from Europe, all passed through the city centre, from where the ship connecting the continents could be seen. There was no better place for a currency trader to sit than in the luxurious terraced cafés that lined the broad boulevard.

  I hadn’t fully appreciated the challenge; it was more than I had bargained for, and I was overwhelmed. I stepped into one of the chic and luxurious cafés and immediately felt sick. It stank of stale beer and too much alcohol. Half a dozen men, talking loudly, were loitering around the bar. They were all focused on one waitress, and she looked very happy to flirt with all of them, and all at once.

  I stepped outside and sat on the terrace facing the sea and palm trees where the air made me feel much better. The terrace was almost full, and everyone was clapping, calling the waiter, who was running to cope with very demanding clients. The waiter pounced on me. ‘Qua-quearas, señor?’ he asked.

  ‘Espresso,’ I replied. The coffee was too strong and bitter, despite the amount of sugar I poured into it. I couldn’t drink it. Nevertheless, I kept sipping, watching and wondering.

  At last I was in the right place with the right money, yet didn’t know what to do next. At the very end of the terrace, a stocky, burly, middle-aged man was sitting, drinking a beer and smoking a cigar. In front of him, on his white table, were piled many tall stacks of bank notes of different kinds to advertise his business. Not far away, facing him, stood a gigantic bank. Travellers could either step into the bank or exchange currency with him. He was far busier than the bank across the road. Travellers were a shrewd kettle of fish; they wanted the most for their money. The best way to achieve that was to boycott the fat cats, the banks.

  The trader was extremely relaxed, either counting his money or just watching people pass by. Whenever patrolling policemen passed by his table, he called them by name. They answered with a nod.

  Half an hour later, a man joined him, and a swap followed. The stocky man left; a younger man took his seat, but the money remained on the table. The changeover puzzled me.

  Just across the boulevard, two thin-looking men promenaded in front of Banco de España and whispered, ‘Sarf! Sarf! (Exchange! Exchange!)’ The street was full of colliding passengers, but there were no obvious buyers or sellers. The clock’s hands indicated three forty-five; I felt glued to the chair, and my head was simmering. Amina was expecting me, and I first had to take the bus to the border, then catch the coach to Nador, and from there to Moulay-Rachid. From there, it was two hours’ walk for a strong man or solid donkey.

  It was time for me to go home, and I had achieved nothing except to spend some of Mr Amakran’s money and drag my Uncle Mimoun into debt. As I stood up to catch the bus, I decided to saunter up the boulevard in Awisha’s direction – one boulevard, but different people, like black and white. It swelled with fatty women in black mourning clothes and many young people parading aimlessly on the street. As I stood peering through the window of one chic shop, I heard a whisper. ‘Girls waiting …’ A few steps farther along, I heard, ‘Exchange! German marks, dollars, French francs!’ On this boulevard, you can buy and sell anything, I thought to myself, if you know how.

  Relieved to hear the word ‘exchange’, I made my first gaffe. I stopped and asked, ‘What’s the rate for Deutschmarks today?’

  ‘Are you buying or selling?’ asked the trader, a man in his thirties, whose eyes were dancing as he talked.

  ‘I am buying,’ I said.

  ‘How much do you want?’

  ‘One hundred marks,’ I replied.

  The man’s eyes changed immediately. They looked possessed. He invited me to come with him and discuss the rate. I realised I had stepped into dangerous territory and backed off slowly at first, then turned to run. ‘Much better rate! Much better rate!’ the man shouted behind me. Hurriedly, I vanished into the thick crowd.

  Arriving home late, I couldn’t disguise the effect of the day on me, and Amina couldn’t misread my face: dry, tired and wrinkled before my time. She wanted me to tell her how the day had passed, but all I wanted was a chunk of bread and to fall asleep.

  ‘You are hiding something,’ she told me. But she herself was hiding something more serious.

  Three days passed, and I seemed to have lost my courage, to have fallen into the old, boring form of life, taking care of the dogs and donkey. But Uncle Mimoun, my loan guarantor, was watching. Mr Amakran would snatch his land if the loan weren’t paid in time and in full, and this would be a problem for Uncle Mimoun, not only of land, but also of honour.

  ‘Has Jusef given up after just one rough day? He must have already spent some of Mr Amakran’s money. Wouldn’t it be preferable to minimise our losses and hand back Mr Amakran’s money?’ he asked Mimount. It didn’t feel good to hear that from her when she told me later.

  On Saturday evening, while sitting outside, chewing local barley porridge under the moonlight, I told Amina, ‘I am leaving tomorrow at four in the morning …’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ she said, before I even finished the full sentence.

  ‘I am going to Melilla to meet the agarabo-na-Melilt (the ship of Melilla.)’

  Amina had never seen a ship. For her, it might have been as small as a frog or as high as a mountain. She had never been near the sea; just the words ‘ship’ and ‘sea’ filled her mind with wonder and gave her a thrill. She was unaware of the real peril. I would be carrying a quarter million Moroccan francs, travelling practically all day and night, changing coaches and crossing two merciless borders: Moroccan and Spanish. This had to be kept secret from all my other sisters and their husbands.

  I was at the Melilla port two hours before the ship reached African soil. Still miles from land, the huge ship’s deck was packed with people. Though still far away, some peered intensively to identify their friends. On the shore hundreds of people, young and old, some well-dressed and others like tramps, buzzed around, going nowhere. They had all come either to receive their relatives or to give a royal reception to the ship. For many, it was just a nice place to be and watch. The juggernaut manoeuvred into port.

  Unfamiliar with the port and a novice in the currency trade, I moved closer to the gangplank and observed the passengers disembarking. Many appeared happy, but some, with puckered lips and shrivelled faces, appeared to wish the ship would make a U-turn instead of anchoring. They threw their scornful glances on everyone and in every direction. A few had come to be reunited with their families, or to get married, but others to resolve family disputes or divorce their unfaithful wives … it was with these people I had t
o do business: the rich.

  A passenger carrying heavy suitcases, but unable to move and unwilling to trust the porter, burst into a tantrum of rage in front of me. A man quietened him by a few softly spoken words, ‘Do you know where you are now? … in Africa … wait, the worst is still to come,’ he added with a smirk. The outraged man kept pulling his cases and grumbling to himself. He was expecting to be met with trumpets and saxophones, but there was nothing of the kind.

  ‘Exchange!’ I whispered in his ear. He elbowed me in the ribs. I whispered again, ‘Exchange!’ He ignored me. His anger carried him away. I had aimed for a target and missed.

  No black market currency trader could afford to miss the arrival of the agarabo-na-Melilt, yet I did. The only man I recognised was the multi-millionaire standing by, alone, and travellers vied to shake his hand and go. I marvelled at this nonverbal protocol. I couldn’t compete with the multi-millionaire or with those whose voices, like thunder, tore the sky. ‘Sarf! Sarf!’ they shouted.

  As I had failed either to buy or to sell, I was beginning to understand how tough the game was. From the shore, I moved to the taxi and bus station, which wasn’t too far away, but it was like a bottleneck. Travellers heading to Morocco or other parts of Africa all started here, but few had the right currency for a taxi or a bus, let alone the right change. I shouted, ‘Exchange! Exchange!’ Even here, I failed as I wasn’t alone. I moved and stood at the front of the bank door.

  ‘Better than a bank! Better than a bank!’ I shouted, trying to make my mark. A white man with grey hair and carrying two heavy bags stopped in front of me and, without much bargaining, sold me five hundred Deutschmarks. This was my first break, a coup. The spot where I should stand is in front of the bank, I told myself. The bank manager called the police to move me, but they didn’t beat me as I had feared. Fifteen minutes later, I returned to the same spot. Standing there, I bought two hundred Dutch Guilders, but at a higher price than what official banks offered, and even higher than what my competitors proposed. The other traders were furious, and I created dangerous enemies.