A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me

by Youssef Fadel

  I’m thinking about my wife, Zina. Time passed without my mind stopping for a single moment, repeating what I couldn’t tell her during our short time together. This morning I began looking for a piece of paper to write to her that I haven’t been as well as could be for a while. All of a sudden, I find a ring instead of paper. All of a sudden, I see her image. Unclear because of all the time that’s passed. But it’s her. As I knew her at a time that disappeared long ago. The optimism that had dwindled returned. Did the man buried in the wall have a wife and was this her ring? Was her name Zina too? Did he used to put the ring on his heart so he wouldn’t forget as I forgot? I forgot how to think about complicated matters. But now I understand all that I’ll gain after this discovery. It appears to me with a mysterious clarity and I realize for the first time I’m on the verge of relief. For the first time too, as I turn the ring over in my hand, I realize that, after the many years I’ve spent here, year after year, pulse after pulse, I’ll leave this place alive. I don’t know when or how. I’ll recognize this too in due time. Just as I recognized the nail and the hat. And just as I recognized the butterfly that wasn’t a butterfly.

  It’s hard to remember Zina’s address. More than that, it’s hard to know why it’s important. Some letters and numbers. Why is it so important? I didn’t care about it before and I didn’t see why it was necessary. It’s as if I were looking for the way to our house, not recognizing it or the neighborhood or the city. The more I try to stop myself from thinking about it, the more I find myself occupied with it. Attracted to it. The more I’m preoccupied with it, the farther away it seems to be. As if it’s playing with me. Is this the time for entertainment? It’s as if, at this point, everything depends on finding it. Two numbers and some letters: A matter of life or death. I didn’t know remembering some numbers and letters would be so hard. A cold sweat wets my forehead. I don’t know why I let myself be pulled into this frivolous and exhausting search.

  My attacks have become frequent and usually begin with a cold sweat covering my face and limbs, little by little. I won’t get anything from my search. But who said I won’t get anything? And how do you want me to leave this place without an address?

  A feeling like sleepiness, heavy in my eyes, pressing on my forehead, like the effects of a drug. I put the piece of cloth on my knees. I won’t relax unless I see in it the address of our house. I can’t return to it unless I find it. All the effort I expended this morning stops at this. I’m in front of a final impediment that I’ve got to get through. I try to find a letter or a number or a picture of the house that brought us together among the ashes of faded memories. If I can only discover the first letter. The address starts to spin itself through the spider’s web of nightmares, pulling itself out from among my memories. But it’s little more than a fine thread, barely visible in the middle of the web. I can sometimes almost grab it. Letter or number? I see it getting longer. Longer. As I pull. I tug on the thread but it doesn’t move a hair’s breadth. Then it moves with a dizzying quickness, and all of a sudden the end of a letter appears in front of me. Or is it a number split open and not the beginning of an address? Or a letter taking the shape of a number, or a number that looks like a letter?

  The letters finally come together. As if they’re playing, they gather and start to roll down like balls, one after the other. Different numbers and letters, some of them with others in funny shapes, falling onto my head. They tumble down very quickly into the basin and then onto the dug-up ground. It’s as if they’ve opened up a waterfall on top of me, and now they swim in pools of mud. Then the letter emits a sound that’s sometimes like a roar, sometimes like barking, and sometimes like the meow of a hungry cat. As if I was on the verge of another one of my deadly crises. Does all this happen outside my head? There’s no way to be sure. No, it gives that impression, so when the sickness strikes it is more deadly. I don’t move a single step forward as the illness threatens me. My thigh keeps swelling up. The threat of pain arrives, stronger than before. Little by little, the speed decreases and the roar lightens and the waterfall becomes a river flowing gently, with letters and numbers spread out on the ring of the man buried in the wall. They spread out on the basin. My clothes are wet, as if I’d plunged them into a pool of water.

  When the cook appears behind the door crack, I lift my finger with the ring on it as I imagine his eye wondering what’s sparkling at the end of my hand. The eye disappears when I turn. I think it must have backtracked to see me better and figure out what it has to do. I hear its hesitation. Will it come in or not? I wave the ring on the end of my finger and the eye appears in the crack again. Then the door rattles violently. A long silence follows. The cook’s voice is delicate, sharp. A feminine voice. Is he really a cook?

  “What do you have there?”

  “A gold ring.”

  Silence longer than the first, as if to think about the meaning of the words. He repeats them to himself: “A ring . . . a gold ring?” I think he’s still listening to the sound of the words inside himself. Then his sharp voice comes again: “Where’d you get it?”

  “You want it? Take it.”

  “Me take it? Why?”

  “I don’t have anything to do with it.”

  Why did I raise the ring before him and why did I tell him to take it? It seemed to me it was what anyone who found a ring that wasn’t his should do. The ring disappears into his hands for a while, until I tell him I was lucky. I imagine him putting the ring on his wife’s finger first thing tomorrow.

  Then the ring comes back in his hands like a hot piece of iron. Silence comes back with it, different, rough, as if he’s turned pale from extreme anger and the coarseness of fear.

  “No, I won’t take it.”

  “Why?”

  “My uncle will kill me if he sees it on me.”

  “He’s not going to see it.”

  “You want to get me in trouble?”

  He tosses the ring onto the basin and retreats, fleeing toward the door. No, my silent pleas don’t convince him. Maybe he thinks he’ll have to do something for me in exchange for the gold. He pushes the door violently and his steps cross the corridor heavily, nervously, frustrated, and hopeless too.

  7

  Khatima

  11:30 p.m.

  1

  I AM SITTING BEHIND THE bar in the same position Zina left me in before she took off. I watch Abdesalam collect the chairs in the corner and put them on top of each other or on top of the tables. Abdesalam’s hearing has become weak and he’s gotten old to the point where he scrapes the ground as he drags his sandals over the tiles. I don’t remember when he started doing that. The bar’s empty now. I’m waiting for the man to come back. Zina doesn’t know that the man in the djellaba spoke with me before going to her. I told him I’m not stupid enough to give him two thousand dirhams for a piece of information we’ve been trying to get for eighteen years. He told me he didn’t have any intention of taking money. His appearance didn’t inspire trust or confidence. I asked him why he would put his life in danger for some people he doesn’t know. I opened a bottle and put it in front of him. Then I whispered to him, “Go to her and tell her.”

  I can’t leave the bar unattended and go looking for someone who disappeared eighteen years ago or more. He left the open bottle and went to Zina at the other end of the bar.

  And that’s all there was to it. I’m almost forty and I say thank God I’ve made it to the other side with the least amount of damage. Daily bread comes to everyone effortlessly, but if they don’t grab it, it goes to someone else. I can say too without shame that Abdesalam’s the one who opened my mind to this. He told me: “This is your chance.” Madame Janeau became old and needed a woman to take care of her. She hated her kids and grandkids because they visited her every six months to see if she was dead or not. They stayed at her house to fight over the inheritance. When she protested, they insulted her and left her swimming in her filth. So I took care of her for the last five years of her l
ife. I wondered every day if the old woman understood why I added this trouble to my life. I was making her food and taking her out for short strolls in the woods when she was strong enough to walk. Then, when she couldn’t get up, I washed her and scrubbed her body as if she was a spoiled little girl, as I thought to myself: when will she make her decision? I’d block my nose and try not to show my disgust. I swear to God I thought I was going to vomit on her once from the putrid stench coming up from her. But it was my chance, as Abdesalam said. And chances don’t come along every day. In front of her, I tried to seem happy, like I was just knitting socks or boiling eggs. But inside, I’d say: when will this torture end? Time passed. Her French family disappeared. They were in France and from there, they kept watch and waited. We’d hear their voices on the phone every four or five months. Did the old lady die? No, not yet. I was also watching and waiting.

  What happened to the beautiful Madame Janeau who used to welcome her customers with laughter in her eyes and a red rose in her hair? She’d become a bag of bones. Her hair fell out, a disease struck her dreamy eyes, and her skin became wrinkled and hung down from every side. She was close to the end of the road, but nothing indicated my destiny would change. I kept up my work because it was my chance and I didn’t want to regret ignoring her for a single day. So one morning, Madame Janeau asked me to dress her in the beautiful clothes she used to wear in the days of her bygone youth. A long white dress with lace and a blue shawl and a fan. She combed her hair herself and put on deep red lipstick. She sat listening to the songs of Georges Brassens, as if she’d recovered her vigor. At ten o’clock, the French notary came and wrote out her final will. She died a week later. Fate had knocked on my door at the right time. Not a moment too soon. Everyone is born with his or her chance. But most of the time a person doesn’t recognize it or it doesn’t recognize the person. That’s all there is to it. Would I have recognized it if Abdesalam hadn’t been there, dragging his feet in the bar, taking pleasure in his annoying chirping for forty years? As if his single role in life was to open my mind. Other than that, I don’t see what his role has been.

  Not a day passes without me thinking about the road my sister Zina and I have crossed to get here. Alone, without anyone’s help. My only concern now is the bar. My entire life is focused on it. How I run it. How I avoid problems with the drunks and the soldiers. How I limit the capriciousness of the commissioners who want to take it over with this pretext or that. I’ve gotten it out of a lot of traps and I’m ready to fight any battle I can to keep it.

  Abdesalam finishes stacking the chairs and tables. He sits on a chair near the door and takes out a box of snuff. He makes a line of powder on the back of his hand. He inhales deeply twice. He wipes his nose on a dirty cloth. Together we look at the night outside. The movement of the passersby has stopped. The man in the striped djellaba appears at the door and I remember Zina. He comes up to the counter. Abdesalam leaves his chair and I send him to the kitchen. The man says, as if continuing a dialogue we’d begun, that he met Aziz three years ago when they were together at the same casbah. Aziz gave him a letter as he saw him collecting his things, thinking he was leaving the prison. They only transferred him and his group to another prison in Skoura. The letter stayed with him. He then takes out from under his djellaba a medium-sized envelope and says he and two other prisoners escaped from jail tonight and he has the letters of some of his other fellow inmates. He asks me to send them to their families. I ask him if he needs food. No, he doesn’t. I ask him if he needs money. He says he really does. I give him what I can from the day’s take and he leaves. I go out behind him but the night swallows him up. I sit in front of the bar looking at the darkness extending into the distance, then at my shadow cast by the light from inside. I hear the kitchen door open behind me. Then Abdesalam’s soles. I hear the broom as it passes over the bar floor to collect the cigarette butts, crumbs of food, snot, spit, and obscene words the drunks left behind. After a little, Abdesalam will sweep all that outside. Yes, Zina and I have come a long way since the first day we arrived in Azrou. More than twenty years ago.

  2—Aqba Street, Wednesday, 3 April 1972

  Azrou nights don’t resemble other nights. The scents of the cedar trees, the sprouts of wormwood, and the wild mint, coming from the surrounding mountains and from Ifrane and Ras El Ma. They penetrate even the lowest parts of the houses. You can almost see them entering, then playing in the courtyards of the houses. Especially at this time of year. Stork Bar is the name of the place I’m sitting in. It’s a well-known bar. The only bar in all of Azrou. From it, I look out over the night. Leaning on the counter with my eyes outside the bar. My eyes following the secrets of night that descended a while ago. They don’t see the big boulder at the city’s entrance, put there as if to welcome those coming and wave goodbye to those leaving. My eyes imagine the boulder and the Meknès road in the other direction, rising toward the forest, on Aqba Street, where Zina and I live, between the boulder and the road. It’s not a neighborhood, but a steep street, rising sharply, toward the sky, as if it’ll fall back on you as you climb it. It’s the most famous street in Azrou.

  I don’t like the summer and I don’t like the spring in Azrou. The spring came weeks ago. The night descends from the forest with all its spring scents. There are still lights on. Spread out, in a few windows and behind some doors. Songs play behind the window blinds. Three women sit at the entrance of their house, smoking Casa Sports cigarettes and talking about what happened with the day’s customers. Three drunk soldiers head up to the top of the hill and come back. They smell the scent of another woman. Of more prey. The game animals have returned to their lairs. And life on Aqba Street has been calm for a while. There’s a girl at the door of her house chewing tobacco. She’s waiting, looking for another customer. Three soldiers pass by without seeing her because she disappeared behind the door when she heard the sound of enemy shoes. The brisk evening business disappeared a while ago. The women of Aqba Street rely on their disturbed dreams.

  I think about all this as I lean on the surface of the bar, waiting for Joujou to end negotiations with one of the café customers. A last client. He’s a teacher. He appears in the bar at the beginning of every month. When he gets his salary, he comes to the bar to drink two beers. Always two. This is the first time he’s asked for more than two beers. Because he’s talking with Joujou and he’s looking at me. Madame Janeau, the owner of the bar, is sitting behind the cash register counting the day’s take. Her husband died about two years ago. He used to love hunting wild boar in the Ifrane woods. One of them took him by surprise on a hunting trip and killed him, so around her neck hangs his picture, which is all that’s left of him. Abdesalam finished his work in the hall fifteen minutes ago. He’s sitting now in front of the door to snort a bit of snuff. The bar is almost empty. Two last drunks lick the bottoms of their glasses so they don’t have to leave. There are two soldiers too. Still wanting a last glass. The soldiers are sitting on the right side of the bar and on the other side is Joujou, going back and forth with the teacher as he passes his hand through his hair. Joujou passes his hand through his hair whenever he’s negotiating with a client. So they respect him, he says. His hand reaches out to his hair spontaneously because it gnaws at him when he negotiates—this is what I say. His hair is always combed back. His hand’s job is to keep his hair combed back, so he resembles the pimp he really is. That’s everything. I haven’t finished the day’s work. I’m not like Abdesalam, who swept the bar, washed the glasses, took out his box of snuff, and sat at the door waiting for Madame Janeau to finish counting her money. The night still waits for me, in all its length. Only God knows how I’ll make it to the end. I’m not as well as could be. I’m prematurely aged. I’m not even twenty and I’m finished. There’s another life after twenty but I won’t get there, I can’t see it. As I can’t see the boulder, because of the night. Or I can’t see it clearly. It’s as if I’ve reached the point where I see with only one eye. Joujou’s nego
tiating with the teacher. Can you know in advance how your night will end with someone like him? Or with someone else? There’s no way to know. Or you’ll know when it’s too late. I look at him and I see he’s not wearing a military uniform. There’s nothing to say he’s a soldier hiding in the clothes of a teacher, not showing his military colors or his fangs until he’s sure he’s inside the house. That’s what I tell myself to stay calm. I wait for Joujou to finish negotiations. He’s been negotiating for half an hour. Joujou doesn’t like spending the night without work. Even if it’s with a repeat customer, recoiling, not knowing what he wants, like this teacher.

  Joujou says the sweet money comes at night, especially when the customer’s a civilian.

  Madame Janeau gets down from her high chair. She moves her thighs to get the blood flowing in them. Her face has lost the freshness of the morning but the rose in her hair hasn’t faded. She wishes Abdesalam and me a good night and leaves for her house above the bar. Abdesalam gets up and brings down the first shade: “Everyone, let’s go, we’re done.” He heads over to the light switch.

  “Give us another beer,” one of the soldiers says.

  “You know the rules, brother Laarbi.”

  “Last one, Abdesalam.”

  Abdesalam doesn’t pay attention to his reply. He turns out the lights and begins to bring down the second blind. He leaves an opening of half a meter.

  3

  Yes, I’m Khatima and I like laughing when I’m having a bad time. I’m nineteen. Zina and I have been living with Joujou for two years, waiting for God to grant us relief. Zina’s fifteen. I don’t like life here with Joujou the pimp. I don’t know how life would be somewhere else. I don’t have the slightest idea. It might be better somewhere else. I always say: Life will be better somewhere else. In Casablanca, for example. Casa is the only city I know. I haven’t ever gone there. But when my aunt Taja visits us, she tells us about Casa. Zina and I imagine it. We can almost see it. I like it. I imagine Zina will like it too. Aunt Taja tells us it’s a city where you can still take advantage of people’s naïveté. We imagine a lot of things, but haven’t tried living there to know for sure. What’s important is that life here is hell, but I thank God. I’ve been putting money away for a while so I can send Zina to Casa. She’s got to take care of herself far from Azrou. I don’t want her to stay here. In hell. She’ll escape with her skin, I say.