A Riffians Tune

by Joseph M Labaki

  During the day, life in the café was normal. Baghdad came in often, to order a pot of tea, and talk to Mr Bouaza and me. Charismatic and generous, Baghdad pulled in other people. I served them tea, and they told their life stories crowded around little tables.

  On the twenty-first of August, after he had sold his goods and the market had thinned to a few men, Baghdad, looking very tired, came into the café. In a torpor, he nearly fell asleep on an uncomfortable wooden chair. Twenty minutes later, Mr Ishram popped in with Mr Ali. Their rough voices woke Baghdad. Mr Ishram ordered two pots of tea, which I served with fresh mint.

  ‘It’s my birthday today,’ announced Mr Ishram in a shrill voice, holding his head high.

  ‘How old are you?’ asked Baghdad, who never missed making a joke, knowing that Mr Ishram had no birth certificate.

  ‘Nineteen!’ he replied, chuckling.

  Mr Ali said nothing but enjoyed Mr Ishram’s fantasy. ‘I was born on the sea. It’s now been nineteen years since our ship capsized. Captain Malani, the brave captain, died and so did the other six men. I was the only survivor,’ said Mr Ishram.

  ‘Do you know Mrs Malani?’ I asked, suddenly interested.

  ‘I know of her, but not personally; but Captain Malani lived near the Tassamat and Makran mountains. When he died, he left behind his wife and a boy a few weeks old.’ Mr Ishram’s description of the gun battle on the Mediterranean Sea sounded to me like a cowboy film. The difference was that seven men actually died, and their bodies were never recovered.

  ‘Do you regret that adventure?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t regret joining that noble team, headed by such a heroic captain, but I lament the absence of recognition,’ he said.

  On my way home, my memory retrieved every word that Mr Ishram had uttered. Mrs Malani has been a widow as long as I remember. The captain must have been her husband, but what happened to her son? I wondered. Do I dare ask her?

  I had not forgotten the document I had found in my mother’s trunk, though my subconscious was reticent to delve further into the story. The document, without mentioning Mrs Malani by name, had described the gun battle on the Mediterranean Sea with the captain and six of his men losing their lives. Though I couldn’t shake off my resistance to find out the truth, I couldn’t account for it either.

  My night-time business prospered. The seekers and gamblers came to meet and take revenge on life and moved from the café to the beach nearby. They feared neither man nor God. They rid themselves of all codes, be they social or religious, overflowed with youth and never resorted to the hopeless witches and wizards. Each time the sun set, they tipped their hats in full respect and believed it might never rise again. Every time the sun rose, they sang and danced.

  Mr Ali, a Tarzan lookalike, was addicted to the nightlife of the café and owned a massive yacht. The Mediterranean Sea was, for him, just a creek. He sailed along the Spanish coast and knew every nightclub around Marbella. He and Mr Ishram had grown up in the same village. They had sniffed the same air and the same dust had filled their nostrils, but they had ended up in different worlds – Mr Ishram, a broken man and defeated idealist, but Mr Ali, a joy-seeker and sailor of yachts. Despite their entwined paths and final score, they respected each other.

  Mr Ali always bought his groceries from Mr Ishram. As close friends, nothing could disconnect them. Nothing cheered shopkeepers like Mr Ali’s entrance. Butchers bowed to him and called him by name. He bought in large quantities and paid cash. Three-quarters of a lamb was never enough for him; a few lambs’ heads, livers and bowels were always added to his basket.

  Whenever he popped into my café, he had Mr Ishram by his side. They both loved Moroccan tea. They drank and talked, which enraptured Mr Bouaza, who heard every word and understood none. They never tried to include him, which was perhaps his fault. They thought he was stubborn like a dark donkey; his below-average height and broad shoulders made it an obvious comparison.

  When Baghdad was present, the café became heated and the talk rousing. Baghdad threw provocative and sometimes nonsensical arguments into the conversation, and Mr Ali couldn’t resist contradicting and challenging him. ‘I know the world! You don’t!’ Ali would boast, to zip Baghdad’s mouth.

  ‘You know Malaga, Marbella and Algeciras!’ Baghdad retorted. ‘What about China? You live on the sea! You just emerge to breathe in some oxygen!’ he added, jeeringly. ‘Have you given up on Belgium?’ Baghdad called to me.

  ‘If I had, I wouldn’t be here!’ I answered.

  ‘What is stopping you?’ Mr Ali butted in.

  ‘Money!’ I answered.

  ‘I will give you a discount on my yacht to Malaga,’ he offered.

  ‘How much?’ I asked.

  ‘Half price!’ he answered.

  I paid him immediately. Desperate to cross the sea, reach Belgium and study medicine, I paid to be dropped in Malaga one month later, on the twenty-sixth of December, 1967. I had made enough money to redeem Mrs Malani’s and Mimount’s bracelets.

  * * *

  TALKING TO A CLIENT and watching through the window, I saw Mr Ali and Mr Ishram side by side, hand in hand, fingers interwoven, heading toward the café. ‘Mr Ali and Mr Ishram are coming,’ I blurted to Mr Bouaza who was sitting on a low chair. Smartening himself, pulling his jacket around him, he stood up and leaned lightly on the chair.

  Stepping inside, Mr Ali immediately ordered two pots of tea. In the middle of tea, Baghdad arrived, complaining of the sea air drying his skin. ‘Turtles shouldn’t worry about their skin!’ joked Mr Ali.

  Direct and indiscreet, Mr Ali told me, ‘I’ve cancelled your seat to Malaga. I couldn’t go against the wish of your mother.’

  I pretended not to hear Mr Ali and moved to serve another client. Mr Ishram, his jaw dropping, looking serious, tense, wanted to speak, but his lips failed him. His look lent credibility to Mr Ali’s words.

  Loudly, Mr Ali said, ‘My boy! Your mother spoke first to Mr Ishram, then to me.’

  ‘She came to see me three times and spoke to Mr Ali twice,’ Mr Ishram told me.

  ‘Who are you talking about?’ I shrugged, not willing to understand.

  ‘Mrs Malani!’ replied Mr Ishram. ‘Your mother knows Mr Ali’s activities; some of them are dodgy, I must confess, but don’t get me wrong, he is a great fellow. Your father, like him, was a hero of the sea. He died for us all. Hell is not fire, evil is not just black against white. I saw your father wounded, blood pouring out of him, but still fighting. The tide of the sea took him away. I was the only survivor, by the grace of God.’

  Mr Ali, not knowing what else to say, stood up to leave. I grabbed his arm, faced him closely, and said, ‘Have I paid you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied.

  ‘I will wait for you on the twenty-sixth of December at nine o’clock at the Melilla harbour,’ I replied, my jaw set.

  Mr Ali left, and Mr Ishram followed suit. They each went in a different direction.

  ‘Do you know this woman?’ Mr Bouaza asked me.

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Can your father be Captain Malani?’

  ‘This story is new to me, and disturbing,’ I answered and sat down. The document in my mother’s trunk kept flashing in my head.

  Back home, before the darkness settled, Baghdad had told Rabbia and Uncle Mimoun that my father and mother were Captain and Mrs Malani. Full of doubt himself, not everybody believed him. The thin boundaries between reality and fiction in Baghdad’s life and mind didn’t stop Rabbia from saying, ‘Could my mother and Mrs Malani have kept this deceit all these years?’

  ‘Baghdad is a devil mouth!’ said Uncle Mimoun. ‘From a dirty village, he brought us this gossip. Because of who he is, God deprived him of offspring. God knows evil comes from evil, and decided enough of it!’

  Mimount, not knowing upon whom to pour her love or hatred, whom to be against or for, asked Uncle Mimoun, ‘Was there a secret pact between those two women, both highly respectable? Can such a thing o
f that magnitude happen in our small quarter, from pregnancy to birth, through infancy? Unbelievable!’

  Rabbia waited impatiently, deep into the night, for me to come home so she could learn more, but I didn’t go home. She didn’t know that I frequently spent the night in Nador to avoid the long trip and the loneliness of the empty house.

  That night in Nador wasn’t peaceful for me, and I didn’t expect a happy day either. I entered Mr Amakran’s warehouse in the early morning, peered up and down the aisles, but couldn’t see him. Yet he was there, facing the shelves and surveying a row of newly arrived boxes. He was wearing jeans tucked into his boots and a short, brown leather jacket made especially for him. He looked completely foreign and totally ridiculous. This was his way of giving a clear, strong signal that he was tough and cowboy-minded.

  ‘I didn’t recognise you, Mr Amakran,’ I said, colliding face-to-face with him.

  ‘‘Now you have,’ he replied with a fake smile. Away from his clients and brother, in his private corner, business started.

  ‘I am here to redeem the bracelets,’ I said.

  ‘Are you?’ he replied, eyes twinkling.

  ‘Yes,’ I confirmed.

  ‘I never thought you would make that much money, and so quickly,’ he said. A long pause followed.

  Mr Amakran flew the coop like a chicken and went straight to his private stash, where he kept his treasure trove. He picked up the bracelets and tossed them on the table. ‘You’ve redeemed your bracelets. What is next?’ he asked me.

  ‘A long, difficult journey is ahead,’ I answered. ‘With Mr Ali on his yacht, I hope to reach Belgium soon.’

  ‘I know him. He’s a great fellow, immortal and invincible. He is a master of tricks. He tricks the Spanish police and keeps them running like rabid dogs. He provokes them; they block him just as the American hero Kennedy encircled Castro. Inch by inch they reach him, then they find him sleeping, nothing on board except an empty tin of sardines. Other times, he provokes them to test his speed. They race behind him, and if they catch him, the yacht is empty. But, sometimes, his boat is full, and only he knows of what and when. Maybe full of ha..ha..ha…’

  I left Mr Amakran and Nador behind and rushed to serve my night-time clients. Carrying three bracelets in a pouch worried me. What if I lose them or someone snatches them? My mind kept processing and producing different scenarios. On the coach to Arkmane, I began to count the number of times I had been in this coach. I couldn’t remember; there had been so many. I felt safe only when I entered the café and was sure no one was watching me. I hid the bracelets, boiled the water in the urn and later a taxi stopped abruptly at the front door. Happy to see some clients, I turned the volume up on the radio.

  Two men and two beefy girls emerged from the taxi. They stepped in and took the largest table by the window. I was expecting them to order wine, but they asked for Coca-Cola. I didn’t make very much money on them. When they left, no more clients came.

  Normally, I would have gone home, but I couldn’t face Mrs Malani, watching her, talking to her, and wondering whether she was my mother. I tried to dismiss what I had heard, but the document, the presence of Mr Ishram and the unsolicited intervention of Mrs Malani herself left me deeply disturbed, disoriented and disappointed. I thought of avoiding her forever, but I had her two bracelets like two stones in my pack. I spent that night in the café with only a blanket between me and the floor.

  I tidied the café in the morning, straightened the chairs, mopped the floor, cleaned the window and swept the entrance. Once home, I planned a day of resting and avoiding everybody, but at midday Rabbia came to see me.

  ‘Here you are!’ she shouted, with no charm or greeting. ‘Mrs Malani should have either unveiled herself a long time ago or taken her pledge to the grave. I wish my mother had been honest!’ she burst out. ‘It is certainly stupid for you to cross the sea with Mr Ali, but does Mrs Malani need to go that far to prevent you from going with him?’ she asked me in anger and frustration.

  Restless and shaken, I went to Mrs Malani to hand her the bracelets. It was late, but not dark yet. Outside her house in the front yard, picking more sticks to put on the fire, she saw me leave the main path and walk up her long, narrow walkway. She stood for a while and came to meet me. Her face looked red and unusually agitated. She kept walking until she came face to face with me.

  ‘Guess what I have here?’ I asked, waving the pouch.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said.

  ‘Your bracelets! I pried them out of a crocodile’s mouth!’

  ‘Would you accept them if I were to give them to you?’

  ‘What would I do with them?’ I answered without thinking.

  ‘Give them to your wife as a gift from me.’

  ‘I might not get married.’

  ‘I hope you will get married. I think you will.’

  ‘I am going abroad.’

  ‘I know you’re going away.’ She melted into tears and the conversation died. With a low voice, hardly audible, she said, ‘You are my son. I want you to have these bracelets.’

  She put her arms around me and embraced me for the first time. Dumbstruck, I reached to hug and comfort her. I felt instinctively that I had always been her son and she had always been my mother. I found myself hugging and comforting the most loving and caring woman I had ever known, and she is my mother! But I couldn’t expect to be treated like a baby, for it was too late and I was too old. I pulled back to have a fresh, new look at her, different from all the other times I had seen her. We parted, she to her house and I to my home. I left home this afternoon, motherless, just to drop off two bracelets, but now I am going home with my mother alive. Unable to handle my emotions, joy and sorrow, I was too preoccupied to open the café for the night trade.

  I slept in the next morning, stayed home, and went to see Rabbia as the sun set. I walked in the moonlight and hoped to talk to her, hoping her anger might have subsided, but she wasn’t at home, though it was late. I found her husband pacing outside the house, waiting for her; he looked angry and worried.

  I felt sorry for Rabbia’s husband. I had gone there for a change and a talk with Rabbia, but not finding her, I shuffled back home.

  That night, I pulled out Sarir’s diary and put it beside my envelope-thin pillow for Mrs Malani to see the following morning. I wondered if she had ever been aware of his journal.

  Sarir had broken the pact. My mother had handed me to him and his wife Sabah, and the pledge had been that the light would never shine upon the truth.

  My purchasing the seat in Mr Ali’s yacht to cross the Mediterranean Sea had severed my mother’s nerves, and she had broken the pledge herself, but many years later. Maybe she did it because Sarir and Sabah were both dead.

  I tried to sleep that night, but my eyelids refused to close. Excited and nervous, my mind went wild. Pictures of my mother moving up and down between Makran and Tassamat mountains picking herbs, looking at them in the sunlight, kneeling on her knees to smell their essence without disturbing them, cluttered my mind.

  The sun’s rays through the big window flooded over me and ended my sleepless night. I jumped up like a child on Christmas morning. I waited until mid-morning to pop in on my mother, the notebook in my hand.

  It was a clear, sunny morning, but the sun’s heat and the cold wind blowing from the east were in equal measure. Working through their collusion, I felt fresh and energised. Passing the enormous fig tree, I wondered if it still held some of its late-ripening figs. Approaching my mother’s house, I found the front door closed, and it looked still and lifeless. Closer to the main door and listening with both ears, I heard the dog inside barking in distress. The door was not only closed, but locked with the traditional bolt, a deep hole in the wall and a long, thick stick inserted into it to stop the door from being pushed in from the outside.

  Inserting a stick and my finger through the space between the door and the wall, inching the bolt from the right to the left, I managed to dislodge it, d
ropping it with a sharp bang to the floor. The door opened, and the dog barked again. It was docile despite the noise it was making, so I inched into the courtyard. I called, ‘Mrs Malani! Mrs Malani!’ repeatedly, but got no answer. The bedroom and kitchen doors were open wide.

  Stepping into the kitchen, to my horror, I found Mrs Malani lying in a foetal position against the wall. I could discern no visible movement, but her right leg was immensely swollen and covered with blood. I put my hand on her sweaty forehead and immense heat emanated.

  Heart heaving, I shouted ‘What’s happened?!’

  There was no answer, but her eyelids fluttered slightly. Uncle Mimoun jumped into my mind and I ran straight to him. He was outside his house, sleeves up, a hoe in his hands, digging and loosening the soil around the base of the olive tree.

  ‘Mrs Malani … Dying!’ I shouted, unable to make intelligible sentences.

  Seeing every cell in my body trembling, Uncle Mimoun could have been in no doubt that something horrible had happened. We raced side by side to Mrs Malani’s house. Uncle Mimoun was surprisingly fit. Behind us was Mimount, just as fast and just as fit as we were.

  We arrived all together and poured into Mrs Malani’s kitchen where she was lying. ‘What have you done to deserve that?’ shouted Mimount, tears pouring down.

  Mrs Malani was just the same as I had found her, but sweating heavily from every part of her body. Mimount grabbed a ball of wool from Mrs Malani’s bedroom, soaked it in water, and squeezed it into her mouth. A sign of hope, she blinked.

  ‘To the hospital! To the hospital!’ I shouted to Uncle Mimoun.

  ‘Right!’ he retorted. I unshackled Mrs Malani’s donkey. We tried to get her on the donkey and failed. A big yell was heard from Mrs Malani’s bedroom.