A sharp knock on the door was heard, followed by a voice. ‘Jusef! Is Ali back?’ shouted the landlady.
‘Yes,’ I replied. I was anxious to go back to my books. Ali threw his tinny, tiny transistor radio around his neck and swayed with the music like a drunk.
The disc jockey reminded his listeners to reduce the volume of the music, as students might be nearby, struggling with their exams. He gave the date, place and the exam subjects, orals and written. A quiet anxiety seeped through my skin.
Kadija heard the announcement and wanted me to know. She knew I lived far away, but not exactly where. She rushed to Najib’s home nearby and insisted Faissal inform me right away. As she left, Faissal told me later, Najib scowled and mumbled, ‘She has a crush on him, doesn’t she?’
24
On the twenty-fourth of May, I awakened struggling to breathe. Inhaling was hard and painful; it felt as if my lungs were tethered to the floor and had lost the power to expand. At first, I thought I was lying in a bad position. I stood up and walked around the garage, but it made absolutely no difference. A day passed, and the pain tightened its anchor.
‘You look like an old man,’ said Ali, watching me bent over, trying to dampen the agony.
In unbearable pain, I went to the hospital a few miles away; arriving early in the morning, the queue seemed more than a mile long, with men, women and children of all ages shouting and fighting. A policeman was shoving patients into line with his baton. A tall tent was set up for women. In pain, they were careless about how they undressed or who might be watching them.
Obsessed with sheltering the women’s tent from men’s eyes, the policeman, baton at the ready, shouted at the men, ‘Don’t look at the tent!’
He came and shoved me out of the queue and said, ‘Don’t gaze at the tent! Turn your head! You are dying and still you are twisting that giraffe’s neck to watch women!’
I felt furious. ‘You are here to keep order, not to police men’s eyes!’ I told him and went back to the queue. He moved away.
To treat the thick crowd of patients, there was just one French woman doctor and one male Moroccan nurse. I didn’t like the look of the doctor, and didn’t expect too much from her either. She was thin as a plucked chicken with skin to match, wore pyjama-like clothes and flip-flops on her feet that made her unable to move. She looked sluggish and lazy. In this endless queue, I had no chance of seeing the doctor, but was lucky to see the nurse, who took my temperature. The gate of the hospital closed like an iron curtain, and many were turned away.
Leaving the hospital, I was glad to find Abdu sitting outside waiting for me, but he looked deeply depressed. He immediately noticed my restricted breathing.
‘Was it your lungs that brought you here?’ he asked me.
‘Correct,’ I answered.
‘You might have tuberculosis,’ said Abdu.
‘I’m worried. Time is crucial, and I have very little money left,’ I said. ‘I’ll need all I have to spend on doctors and drugs, so I might write to Rabbia to lend me some money. I hate that, but if it’s the only way to stay alive, I’ll have to do it.’
‘One day, you will not recognise me or talk to me. You might even try to avoid me,’ Abdu then told me.
‘Are you going to fail your exams?’ I asked, thinking of what had happened to my cousin, Ahmed.
‘No. I’ve been told that I have a venereal disease. Madness might crown my life.’
‘Some madness is desirable. It allows you to laugh at yourself and enjoy people different from you,’ I said, not believing him. Abdu didn’t laugh at my joke, became visibly upset and his fingers twitched. Trying to cheer him, I had failed.
‘What type of drugs has the nurse given you?’ asked Abdu.
‘None,’ I answered.
‘What are you reading?’ Abdu enquired.
‘Physics, maths, biology. When I am bored, Simone de Beauvoir. Unfortunately, my French is not good enough yet,’ I said.
I left Abdu and went to the private clinic of Dr Salah in Batha, the most affluent part of town. The waiting room was cluttered with men and women, veiled and unveiled. The air was stuffy with mouths and noses exhaling carbon dioxide, and the atmosphere was spooky. A middle-aged woman screamed with pain, her hand resting on the bottom of her tummy, her back bowed forward, but her screams didn’t bother the doctor. A little girl, about eleven, was roaming the room. Her left arm was swollen and grey, with a deep gaping cut.
‘What’s wrong with your arm?’ I asked her.
‘My brother attacked me with a knife,’ she sobbed.
‘My son is a monster,’ added her mother, overhearing. ‘Because of him, his father left me.’
‘You should starve him,’ bellowed the woman sitting beside me.
‘How could I?’ asked his mother. ‘He rules the house with a kitchen knife in his hand.’
‘Is he really your son?’ another curious woman asked.
‘Yes, he came from the pit of my womb,’ she said.
‘You bore a brute!’ an old woman who looked a thousand years old quietly said. ‘Hang him from the ceiling by his ears!’ she counselled with a wicked laugh.
The mother looked hurt. A middle-aged woman leaned over and whispered into her ear, ‘Forgive her,’ she said. ‘She is my mother.’
‘The older they get, the more wicked they grow!’ cried the old woman.
Dr Salah opened the door, called the girl, and her mother followed. His thunderous pronouncement was heard. ‘This girl needs a tetanus shot!’
A woman stood up, bobbed through the room and glued her ears to the doctor’s door. ‘You’re a busy-body!’ a small, thin woman shouted at her.
‘Mind your own business or I’ll sit on you!’ the woman retorted. The mother came out, her eyes weepy and her hands firmly holding a prescription.
With a gruff voice, the nurse called me, ‘Jusef!’
Sitting in his leather and mahogany chair facing the door, Dr Salah observed his patients from the moment their feet slipped over the threshold. I had heard that by the time they reached his desk and sat in the low, intimidating chair across from him, he had already made a primary diagnosis and opinion. I sat down full of hope, but his telediagnosis had failed.
‘You should be in school, young lad,’ he said. ‘You have been skiving, are now in trouble, and need a medical certificate to cover up!’
‘I am not skiving, but barred from school,’ I answered.
I coughed, and the doctor realised this was not a skiving case. Though he had a small x-ray cabinet, he disliked using it in case it affected him. I stood in the tight-fitting box and he began reading. The diagnosis was quick, sharp and bad.
‘You have diseased lungs,’ he said. ‘I suppose you don’t want to go to the hospital, as no one does, but if you wish to go, I will write a letter for you. Whether they would take you in a month or a year, I can only guess.’
‘Private treatment?’ I asked.
‘Yes, but it is costly, lengthy and ineffective.’ He slung the prescription across the desk and said. ‘Come back in two weeks. You are significantly underweight and malnourished. Eat more, especially grapes.’
Armed with the presciption I rushed to the pharmacy nearby, five minutes before it closed. ‘Is that all for you?’ the pharmacist asked me, reading the prescription with a magnifying glass.
‘Yes,’ I answered.
The pharmacist nodded, pulled the drugs out and threw them chaotically on the counter. Looking at the growing stack, I became terrified. Paying the rent and buying food was all I could cope with. I paid for the drugs and was left with nothing to live on.
Back in the garage, I found a letter from Kadija lying on my blanket. She had come with Faissal and Najib. The exam method had changed, and they had come to inform me. Cut off from the world, I hadn’t heard of the change. Ali’s radio played rattling music most of the time, so I rarely heard the news.
I felt sad to have missed Kadija’s visit, although both garage an
d the street were an embarrassment. I slowly picked up the letter. ‘If I pass my exams, I will fight to get a scholarship to study law at Paris University. Would you like to come with me?’ she wrote.
The letter shook me. I was ill and on the brink of destitution. I toyed with the letter. Reality. It would be easier to ride a rhino in this garage than untangle the web woven around Kadija by her parents, I thought. She is beautiful, sweet and intelligent. I dwelled on the dream until I fell asleep.
A violent pounding vibrated the entire garage. The landlady heard the thundering knock and hurried to catch the hooligan. I scurried, a kitchen knife in my hand, thinking I was being attacked by a thug. It was Abdu. Focusing on his face, I couldn’t fathom what the last few days had done to him.
He looked aged, his forehead ridged in grooves, and his unshaven beard faded with heavy, thick dust. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked with surprise.
‘Why?’ he replied. Inside the garage, he refused to sit down. Out of the blue, he burst into tears.
This is not the Abdu I know.
‘I want to be a martyr,’ he told me.
‘A Martyr? Martyr!’ I shouted.
‘Yes! Yes, boy!’ he responded.
The word ‘martyr’ disturbed me. I made some distorted, uncomfortable faces and subjected him to some burning looks that pierced deeply into his skull. ‘Is there any cause worth more than your life?’ I asked him.
‘The life I would like isn’t the one I am living. Why not at least die the way I wish?’
‘Martyrs come to a terrible death,’ I said, clenching my teeth.
‘Pain is not intrinsic to martyrdom, but to death itself, whether you are a king or queen, prince or princess, young or old, rich or poor. The only way man can overcome the pain of death is by death itself. I prefer my body to be pierced by bullets rather than capitulate to a swarm of flies, a pool of worms, bacteria and germs,’ explained Abdu.
‘Why don’t you unload your heart in a book?’ I asked.
‘In a book, stupid boy! Intelligent in class and living in a filthy garage!’ he told me. ‘God wanted to explain his bothers with man in one book, he couldn’t, and he ended by writing many books! He neither resolved his problem with man nor finished his books! My heart is full and heavier than any book could ever express.’
* * *
TWO AND A HALF WEEKS passed, and despite suffering badly, I didn’t return to be re-examined. The doctor’s fees were high and the cost of medicine prohibitive. I had finished all my drugs, and yet my breathing was still restricted. I looked like a vampire escaped from the graveyard. Desperately short of money, I began composing a letter to Rabbia that took me hours to finish.
Dear Rabbia,
I know that you have always wished to build a house in Sabbab. I am happy and willing to sell you my share for any money that you could send to me. If my share is added to yours, you will be the major landowner and the rest is between you and the other sisters to swap.
According to the medical tests, my lungs are diseased, and I need more treatment. I have started, but as I am out of money, am unable to continue. Because thugs have closed the school, I am no longer boarded there, but hiding from them in a garage. If my proposal is agreeable, use Uncle Mimoun and Mrs Malani as witnesses.
Jusef
Rabbia received my letter, but as she was illiterate, she needed the local hafiz to read it to her. That brought about a sad occasion for her, face-to-face with the hafiz. For her, hafizs were certified idiots. They tried to dwarf heaven, wrote and sold talismans for the wealthy and poor, healthy and ill. They scribbled talismans for headaches, migraines and diarrhoea, but also to cure impotence, irrespective of age, barrenness and other conditions. The local hafiz made no secret of his suspicion that she was a shrewd witch and thought it was a pity the days of burning them had passed.
I imagined Rabbia going back home, sitting on a solid stone, turning her head against the grilling sun and her mind going wild. Building a house in Sabbab, such a beautiful field in the middle of a vast valley between two mountains and bordering a dried river only a few kilometres from the public fountain, had been the ultimate dream for all my sisters. I thought her husband would be livid if he were to miss an opportunity to own Sabbab.
Rabbia’s husband loved to bring trashy bingo gossip, made up by physically crippled old men, to the dinner table. Single women bore the brunt of it. ‘That night was special,’ she later told me. ‘At the start of dinner, I gently pulled the letter out of my sash. I looked at it, wished I could read it and my husband hear it. Instead, he asked what the talisman was for. I had already decided not to mention Sabbab, the beloved piece of land. “Dr Salah has diagnosed Jusef with a lung disease,” I told him, “and he has written to me seeking help.”
‘“Help! What type?” My husband asked me. “Financial,” I told him. “Why doesn’t he sell Sabbab,” he asked. “That’s exactly what he has offered,” I told him.
‘I asked him to go with me to Fez. “I would never put my foot in Fez, Sodom and Gomorrah!” he said. I didn’t dare travel south to Fez on my own. I feared getting lost and making myself the butt of jokes. I bombarded my husband for days, but he dropped his ears like a donkey.’
* * *
WHILE I WAS WAITING for Rabbia to reply, my pain didn’t get any better. I struggled to draw a breath. ‘I’m going to see Dr Salah tomorrow,’ I said to Ali, who was counting his earnings.
‘And pay with what? You haven’t received any money yet,’ he said.
‘Credit,’ I answered.
‘Your illness is going to your head,’ he said with a subdued laugh.
I walked from my room to the doctor’s clinic the following morning and felt as though I had crossed the entire desert. As usual, Dr Salah’s clinic was full.
I went to the receptionist and whispered in her ear, ‘May I pay the doctor by credit?’
‘I’ve never heard of such a thing!’ she said. ‘Go and ask your parents for money.’
‘I’m from the north, from Rif,’ I answered.
‘So what?’ she replied. She sashayed away and entered the doctor’s room without knocking, in spite of the red light flashing above his door.
‘Someone wants to see you on credit,’ I heard her say to the doctor while he was taking a patient’s blood pressure.
‘Bring him in next!’ he shouted loudly.
When I entered, he looked me up and down. ‘Do you feel any better since I saw you last?’ he asked me.
‘No.’
‘You need a hospital; my clinic is small and inadequate. We doctors prescribe painkillers, people go home, feel better and claim miracles. Apart from antibiotics, thanks to a Scot, ninety-five per cent of our pharmaceutical drugs are not even worth the bin they are thrown in.’
With a new antibiotic prescription in hand, I left to spend my last penny. The chemist refused to give me drugs on credit. I could only buy one-third of what the doctor had prescribed.
* * *
ALI REALISED I HAD run out of money and stopped sharing food with me. I dreamed about food; I smelled food on Ali’s clothes and knew he was eating out. I thought this was his revenge against me for making him lose his room.
For six days, I lived on water. Already weak, I got physically weaker, but was mentally intact. I thought of several solutions. If I lied and pretended to have converted to Catholicism, I would have the right to ask for food from the Catholic Church. I toyed with the idea more than once. I went to the Church, but my ego and principles wouldn’t let me go in. I also thought of going home to plead with Mrs Malani to lend me some money.
I never believed Rabbia would ignore my letter. I figured the offer was too good to miss. I also figured Mrs Malani might be away, and I was right.
Rabbia told me later, ‘When I saw Mrs Malani’s house under billowing smoke, I knew she was back. My husband scooted off to the bingo club, so I went to see her. As usual, Mrs Malani had some stories to tell, but I spoke first. “Jusef wrote to me,” I
told her, “and he’s never done that before.”
‘She asked if it was good news. “No, he’s ill and has run out of money,” I told her.
‘She asked me how ill you were. I told her your doctor had diagnosed you with a lung problem, and it must be serious because you offered to relinquish Sabbab for some money. I told her I had asked my husband to go to Fez with me, but he had refused.
‘Mrs Malani told me she would go with me right then, and if my husband didn’t let me go, she would go on her own the following day. I was surprised. Not yet unpacked from her long trip, she began packing and I left to do the same.
‘My husband was shocked when he found my clothes, bag and shoes already packed. He knew Mrs Malani had a hand in it. Being a member of the bingo club, he had learned, like others, how to trick his wife. To frighten me, he said, “Going to Fez even for a man is dangerous, and you are a woman, aren’t you? You don’t have either a jellabah or a veil. Let me buy you a veil before you go.”
‘To stem the gossip, Mrs Malani and I left before any bingo player or kif smoker woke up; the trip was hidden and secret. The journey was, however, rocky and peppered with stops and checkpoints. We were neither short of patience, nor money, nor wisdom. Sleazy old men buzzed around us like flies that could find no place to land and feed.
‘It was late afternoon when we were dropped in Fez. “To a good hotel, please,” Mrs Malani asked the driver of a small French taxi. And do you know what? The driver tried to exhibit his charm, then he turned into a spy. We met him with a barricade of silence, and from the language we spoke, he understood we were provincial, from Rif, and that we could be treacherous.
‘We checked into the hotel and neither of us spoke French or looked citified. We were an enigma to all. Via the hotel receptionist, we ordered a taxi late in the evening. A small, shabby taxi arrived, but the driver hadn’t a clue how to get to you, in spite of the long address you had written.
‘“I will get directions at the taxi station,” he told us, but when we got there, no one knew more than he did, so he ploughed on, bit by bit, by stopping and asking, until we reached the right street.
A Riffians Tune Page 30