A Riffians Tune

by Joseph M Labaki

  ‘Largo! Largo! One kilo of plums,’ called someone who knew his nickname.

  ‘Mr Ishram! Mr Ishram! One kilo and a half of peppers!’ shouted another.

  ‘I heard you! I will be with you!’ Largo said when he wasn’t able to cope with the barking clients.

  True to his word, Largo sold the best grapes in the village Arkmane, but at a price. Sadly, Uncle Mimoun had not given me enough money for the purchase. Not wanting to hurt his pride or let him down, I bought the grapes on credit. Having spent every penny on presents for his daughter’s wedding, Uncle Mimoun had starved himself of cash, and burdened himself with all sorts of debt.

  Haloma got married, went to a new home, but took away her father’s pride and wealth, and sank him into debt. Unfortunately, I found myself lumbered with Uncle Mimoun’s bill. Rabbia and Mrs Malani were livid that I had been stupid and sucked into Uncle Mimoun’s wedding extravaganza.

  * * *

  THE SUMMER DAYS, JUST like the winter nights, wore slowly, and gave rise to anxiety or boredom. Haloma’s marriage failed; all my efforts to fill the empty barrels had been in vain. The time came to discover whether I had failed or passed my exams and where life would next be taking me. With the Sabbab’s money, I travelled to Fez. My heart pounded the moment I reached the entrance to the school, the barricade and the two massive French doors. It was quiet and hot with no cars or pedestrians passing, no thugs to be feared; it was peace from heaven. The doors were wide open and the janitor was bustling from his office to the bathroom, cooling himself by flushing water on his face and bare feet. As I sneaked in, he grabbed me, but soon recognised me.

  ‘You passed!’ he shouted.

  I rushed to the board to see for myself. On the corner, a white page with black ink, the same as all the rest but somehow more important, carried the following heading: ‘BAC Passes’, and not more than a dozen names were listed. I saw my name and kept reading.

  ‘Are you obsessed by that page?’ the janitor shouted at me.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘You defied the odds,’ he replied.

  Leaving the school behind for good, I took the pedestrian path crossing the cemetery where I had seen and heard people making love and went down into the bowels of the town. Before reaching the centre, I stopped at the Catholic library and picked up a letter, an acceptance from a Belgian university to study medicine. Blind with joy, I ran to see Kadija.

  Her mother answered and peeped around the door. Knowing who I was, she said, ‘Kadija is in Casablanca.’ On my way to the coach station, I came upon Kadija coming out of the Turkish bath. Both surprised and ecstatically happy to find one another, we moved to a corner where we hid, we talked, we shyly embraced. We both knew that what we wanted couldn’t be. She was forbidden from taking me home, and I wasn’t in any better position to take her with me.

  She went with me to the station where the coach already had its diesel engine revving, ready to go. Leaving her there, watching her through the coach window, I wanted nothing but to bask in her presence, but cried inwardly knowing I never would again.

  I had applied and hoped for a grant to allow me to go to university in Belgium. While at home, bored and waiting, an intimidating, official letter arrived, written on green paper. ‘No grant awarded,’ it said. Devastated, I thought of pleading. I made the long, expensive journey to the grant office in Rabat and hoped to be helped by someone.

  The chairman was a Frenchman and refused to see me. ‘I am busy,’ he told his secretary. ‘He should go home and read the letter,’ I overheard, as if I didn’t know the content!

  ‘I won’t move from here until I see the chairman,’ I told the secretary.

  I sat outside the office, keeping vigil, for the entire week, but I was ignored. The chairman relented and called me in just before six o’clock on the seventh day. His secretary opened the door to the inner office and motioned me to enter. The chairman stood behind a massive desk covered with rich brown leather. He struck me as being too tall compared with the locals, and so well-dressed with a paisley tie that few natives could compete with him. I remained standing.

  ‘Are there any academic reasons for my grant application to be refused?’ I asked him.

  ‘Not that I am aware of,’ he answered.

  ‘Any other reason?’ I queried.

  ‘No,’ he answered.

  ‘Is it the luck of the draw, then?’

  ‘No,’ he responded.

  ‘And yet my application is refused?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. It’s in the letter,’ he responded. ‘Take my advice. Apply to be a teacher.’

  I told him, ‘I am a native Moroccan, come from far away to seek a native grant … from a Frenchman! Nepotism is thriving, but I am not going to be crushed!’ I paused for his reaction. Getting none, I nodded my head and left.

  His secretary ushered me out.

  Back home, every day I looked for a job, even the most menial (except shepherding), but there were none. I was forced to face the danger of going back to black market currency trading, but anxiety gripped me. Can I really go back to Melilla, trade as I did, and stay alive? I wondered. All trades takes place either in Café Morina or nearby. Mr Marjosi is a dangerous man. I was stupid to challenge him and lucky to get away with my life. I don’t have money to start with. Uncle Mimoun is no longer solvent, and Mr Amakran knows it. Would he still trust my ability to make money, now that Uncle Mimoun is no longer my backer?

  I was stuck, and the only stepping stone was currency trading. Melilla was a hub for men and women looking for money and one-night stands. Spanish women, married and unmarried, sailed from the mainland to make some money and taste the difference. Local girls did much the same. A booming illegal trade, from sophisticated perfume to socks, forced smugglers to carry guns that they were only too willing to use on whoever dared challenge them.

  Without anyone knowing, I ventured to Melilla, but with no money to trade except a few hundred pesetas. There was no safe place to go except Café Morina, despite the threat of Mr Marjosi.

  When I arrived, the street was busy, and the café was full, but there were no traders offering currency exchange. Something has changed, I observed. With two hands, I grabbed a heavy chair and sat across from a middle-aged man, chicly dressed, well-groomed, with sunglasses covering two-thirds of his face, making him look like a Mafioso. He was sipping a demitasse of espresso. Glancing at him sideways, not wanting to stare, I wondered if he was Mr Timsamani.

  I ordered a coffee, and the moment I opened my mouth, Mr Timsamani recognised my voice and looked at me. ‘I never thought you would dare set foot in this café again. Mr Marjosi still describes how wicked you were,’ he said. ‘What has brought you here?’ he asked me. ‘Not the trade, I hope!’

  ‘Exactly that!’ I confirmed.

  ‘Things have changed,’ he said. ‘The bankers have caught up with the small traders and are buying Deutschmarks, French francs, sterling and dollars at competitive rates. They have silenced the boys.’

  ‘I had hoped to work with you,’ I told him.

  ‘Sorry. Impossible. I have changed trades. I live and sleep in my yacht, under no nation’s jurisdiction in international waters,’ he explained, nodding.

  ‘Has Mr Marjosi changed as well?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course. A Spanish doctor put him on some medication that blew him up just like a Spanish toro. Now he’s belligerent and dangerous, always looking to gore something or someone. In the absence of people, he gores the walls and doors,’ laughed Mr Timsamani.

  Mr Marjosi suddenly emerged from inside the café, saw me and rushed back inside, picked up the telephone and made several calls. I felt a chill when I saw him and, listening to him, heard Spanish words pouring out of his mouth like water bursting out of a pipe, but I could make no sense of them. Mr Marjosi emerged again with two trays, one with coffee and the other with beer, and walked with a wobble, his enormous tummy bulging from his trousers.

  Ten minutes later, two men in the
ir late twenties arrived. They hurried inside and came out immediately to grab two chairs. Instinctively, I knew they were on to me and planned to corner me when leaving. I kept talking to Mr Timsamani. I am not going to leave until a taxi passes by, I thought to myself. That didn’t happen, and Mr Timsamani left. The two men, guzzling beer, grabbed Mr Timsamani’s chair, and pulled another one to my other side to sandwich me.

  ‘You’re not local, are you?’ asked one.

  ‘No,’ I answered.

  ‘We are local. We could show you the town,’ one offered.

  ‘No, thank you. What’s your job?’ I asked.

  ‘We’re doing our job now!’ They laughed and winked at each other. ‘And what’s yours?’

  ‘Last summer, I was a currency trader, and now I sell passports,’ I answered.

  ‘Has the man you were speaking with bought a passport from you?’ asked one.

  ‘Yes, I am in the process of providing him with three,’ I said.

  ‘Amazing! Could you get passports for us?’ asked the other.

  ‘Yes, if you pay.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Three thousand pesetas.’

  ‘How long will it take?’

  ‘One week, but I need your name, address, and a picture,’ I answered.

  ‘It took my cousin five years,’ said one, watching his friend bite his lip.

  ‘What’s the time?’ said the older-looking one, looking at his watch.

  ‘One o’clock.’

  ‘Is the photographer in the park?’ asked the older-looking one.

  ‘Yes, he’s always there, like a magician poking his head under a black cloak. We could get one now,’ said the clever one.

  ‘Do you really think he will procure a passport for us?’ I overheard the smaller one ask.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ answered the other. ‘He’s a friend of Mr Timsamani. Mr Timsamani doesn’t chat to just anyone.’ They rushed away, bickering, to the park. I knew the photographer was there and it would take him forty-five minutes to deliver two photos.

  By that time, I was in the second coach, heading to Nador. I will only go back to Melilla to take a boat to Europe. Life stops, good perishes, but evil always survives. There are people who don’t trade themselves, but they won’t let you trade. There are others who don’t study, but they won’t let you study … and so it goes, I concluded.

  Not knowing what to expect, I headed straight to Mr Amakran’s shop in the late afternoon to seek a loan. I found he had changed. He had shaved his long beard, thrown his hat away and grown grey hair. Facing him, I bowed; probably he thought I was one of the beggars who invaded his shop daily.

  Full of himself, he didn’t spend more than one and a half minutes with me. Knowing Uncle Mimoun was bankrupt, he asked me for security, which I didn’t have, so he declined the loan.

  I felt my dream begin to crumble; I left the shop, my head down like a sheep’s. I headed to the coach station, destination Arkmane.

  On that quiet moonlit night, on a dirt road, with no sounds of any kind, I struggled to get home. It was about eleven at night when I knocked on Rabbia’s door. She had visitors: Mrs Malani, Uncle Mimoun and Mimount. For fresh air and to escape the heat of the sitting room, they sat outside in the courtyard. I heard them talking well before reaching the door.

  ‘It’s my brother!’ said Rabbia when she opened the door.

  ‘This late?’ asked Mrs Malani in surprise.

  I joined Uncle Mimoun. Talking to him, I heard Mimount crying in the living room.

  ‘Monster! Monster!’ she shouted.

  ‘Who is this monster?’ I asked Uncle Mimoun.

  ‘My new son-in-law,’ he answered.

  I crossed over to speak to Mimount. ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked her.

  ‘The groom is a monster! The marriage was arranged with his full agreement. Now he’s seen my youngest daughter, and he’s accused me of tricking him and giving him the ugliest daughter. The bounty of gifts he received from us was just a cover-up, he claims. He demanded I go to the mosque to swear in the presence of the mullah that I hadn’t swapped daughters. Still unhappy, he now wants to exchange his wife for my other daughter!’ explained Mimount. ‘Haloma is despised and unwanted.’

  Feeling sorry for Mimount, I took her to the courtyard to join the others. To change the subject, Mrs Malani asked me, ‘How was your day?’

  ‘Mr Amakran has refused to give me a loan,’ I answered. ‘He needs collateral.’

  ‘You could use my jewellery, my bracelets, Jusef,’ offered Mrs Malani.

  ‘I will give you mine as well,’ said Mimount.

  I had thought of using my mother’s bracelets, but they had disappeared from the house. I suspected one of my sisters had stolen them, but didn’t know which one.

  I went home excited and full of hope, wondering when Mrs Malani and Mimount would entrust me with their jewellery. A few days passed and I didn’t hear a word. I occupied myself by chopping an old, dried tree, a substantial source of energy for cooking.

  Deeply anxious, I visited Uncle Mimoun. When Mimount heard my voice, she came, wearing her bracelet on her arm. She gently pried it off and handed it to me. I held the bracelet carefully, surprised at how heavy it was, and marvelled at its intricate artistry.

  Excited, I rushed to see Mrs Malani. She was having elevenses outside in her orchard. I saw her rushing to meet me when I called. Watching her hurrying toward me, I wondered why she lived alone. She met me with a smile and teased, ‘Have you just gotten up?’

  ‘I’ve come from Uncle Mimoun’s house,’ I said.

  She insisted that I have a cup of tea with her. ‘What do you want to do next?’ she asked me. ‘Is marriage in your mind?’

  ‘I’m happy that I’ve gotten my baccalaureate. It was a real struggle – the strikers almost killed me. I’ve been offered a place to do medicine in one of the best universities in Europe, but I have no grant and no money.’

  She went in the house and came back with a pouch in her hand. She untied it slowly and gently eased two bracelets out. They were in perfect condition, as shiny as gold ever could be. ‘I hope these bracelets will make a difference. You are the bravest boy I’ve ever known,’ she said, with a quiver in her voice. ‘May the Lord help you.’ With that, she stood up and hurried away.

  I left Mrs Malani, Mr Amakran in my mind. He will not give me a loan if the jewellery is defective or chipped, and even if it is perfect, he will only loan half the value. I’m sure he lends on the basis the borrower will default, then he can sell the jewellery at its full value, I thought to myself.

  The following day, I took the dilapidated, archaic coach from Arkmane village to Nador. I arrived, nervous, my mind full of scenarios, the worst being Mr Amakran would just say no! The shop was open when I arrived. Mr Amakran was inside his office, dozing in an armchair in the corner, a wooden table in front of him.

  ‘Good morning to you, Mr Amakran,’ I said with a cheerful confidence I didn’t feel.

  Mr Amakran looked surprised to see me. I watched his gaze drop from my face to the pouch in my hand and he said, ‘Is that hashish on its way to Malaga, crossing the sea?’

  If it were, I wouldn’t need you. I would be rich, I told myself.

  ‘Take that seat beside me,’ he said.

  I sat down and moved the chair closer to the table, a few inches away from Mr Amakran’s beard. I displayed three beautiful, shiny bracelets on the table like a sacrifice on the altar for him to examine and admire, valuate, or reject.

  ‘Are they for sale?’ he asked me.

  ‘No, they belong to Uncle Mimoun’s wife and Mrs Malani,’ I answered.

  ‘Who is Mrs Malani?’ he asked. ‘I recall a Captain Malani killed in a sea battle nearly eighteen years ago. He was a captain in the National Liberation Army, supplying its members with arms.’

  ‘I have no idea,’ I said.

  ‘Obviously, they have faith in you and your project. I will hold the bracelets and give you a loan,�
� he told me.

  I couldn’t believe my luck. I asked if there were any papers to sign.

  ‘No need,’ said Mr Amakran. He stood up, moved out of his armchair, turned around and opened a closet with two doors. The closet was full of jewellery, bracelets, necklaces, rings and watches.

  Watching him take the bracelets away, I felt sad, but kept quiet. Back in his armchair, Mr Amakran wanted to know about his old friend, Uncle Mimoun, whom he hadn’t seen for a while. ‘He’s all right, but he refused to let Mr Mahria exchange one of his daughters for another,’ I told him.

  ‘A curse from hell!’ exclaimed Mr Amakran.

  Surprisingly, he invited me and his brother to have lunch with him in a restaurant a few yards away from his shop. The restaurant was packed, and the menu was simple but attractive. Mr Amakran didn’t open his mouth or move his eyes away from his dish. His brother didn’t seem to be interested in anything; not uttering a word, he just laid his head back against his chair. He was tired, I assumed.

  A waiter came, the bill in his hand, and carelessly tossed it in front of Mr Amakran, nearly skimming his nose. ‘Take this bill away! Have I asked for it? Have I finished? More tea! And clean the table!’ bellowed Mr Amakran. The rude waiter hadn’t known Mr Amakran was the owner of the restaurant.

  * * *

  AS I FELT BARRED from Melilla, I rented a café on a monthly basis from an old retired man, Mr Bouaza, in Arkmane. During the day, I served tea and coffee, but at night, beer and wine. Gamblers from the whole region came to the beach to bet, bring their lovers and feel free. Nights were lucrative, but fraught with danger from hashish traders, gamblers and prostitutes, some of them armed.

  One night, danger became a near-disaster. A group of Moroccans and one Frenchman spent the night gambling. The Frenchman won consistently. As the Moroccan loser realised how much he had lost, a group plotted to hit the Frenchman and retake the winnings. Hearing the plotting, I whispered to the Frenchman to run. Very proud of himself, he yanked a gun out of his pocket, but soon came to his senses. He jumped out of the café and into his car.

  To liven things up, a group of men brought a woman singer and young girls of different ages, colours and sizes. The heat and the sand outside made the beach a comfortable place to lie around. The singer sang the entire night, and everyone called her Fatoma. Each time she got tired and stopped, someone would shout, ‘Lalla Fatoma, zid! (More!) Zid!’ She would revive, enjoying the attention and the fuss.