Zina’s everything I have in this world. We disowned our father. We fled from him. We don’t like our father, and I’ll explain why. Our mother, when she noticed she’d started to get old, suggested to him that he get married again. And she’s the one who got him engaged. She’s the one who set up his second marriage, so he wouldn’t leave her. But on the wedding day, he left her. On his wedding day, she went into the kitchen and stayed there. She went into the kitchen and toiled there until she died. I was afraid he’d abandon us. But I didn’t leave the house because of my father’s marriage. No. Let him marry even twenty women. I left because of Zina. Zina’s the dearest thing in my life. Dearer to me than my father and my mother, who gave birth to me.
I don’t want her to follow my path. I’ll wait another year or so. I’ll wait until she’s seventeen and I’ll send her to Casa to live with Aunt Taja. That’s better for her. Maybe we’ll go together. It’ll be better for us. I don’t know what she might do in Casa. Learn a trade. Or meet a nice guy. What’s important is that she doesn’t follow the same path I took. And fall into the same trap. I was fourteen when Zina and I fled. What can a fourteen-year-old girl who’s never left her village do? One who’s dragging a ten-year-old girl behind her? I die of laughter when I go over the story in my head and imagine the scene. A ten-year-old jumping ahead of me and singing as if she’s going to the wedding of one of the neighbors. It wasn’t the first time I’d thought about fleeing. But I never thought I’d take my sister with me. Where would I take her? Whatever life was like in our village, it’d be better in the labyrinth of the city. I myself didn’t know exactly where I was going.
Our father was the reason. I’ve never seen a creature like him in my life. Nice to everyone, except us. Me, Zina, and my brother Mohamed, who was in the mountains with his three goats from dawn until dusk. And my mother, when she was alive. Nothing we did pleased him. We gathered wood, kneaded bread, fetched water, and prepared food, but he wasn’t impressed by any of it. Nothing satisfied him. When we finished all the housework, which would last until late afternoon, he’d send us to collect wood for the neighbors. Yes, for the neighbors. He’d say he was doing a good deed with this, but he wasn’t the one who was miserable. Or whose hands and feet were made bloody. The neighbors invoked him in their prayers. They’d say: “Si Salih, Mr. Virtuous, is a virtuous man.” There isn’t anyone who can match his good deeds. May God preserve his house, they’d say. Zina and I would come back from the forest, our clothes torn, our forearms bloodied, with thorns stuck all over our clothes and skin, stabbing us like sharp spurs with every step. And they’d say: “Si Salih is a virtuous man.”
It didn’t stop there. At night, at three in the morning, we’d hear him calling out from the other room, from deep in the darkness of his room: “Khatima, you closed the door?”
“Yes, Father, I closed it.”
Then, fifteen minutes later: “Khatima, you gave the donkeys something to drink?”
“Yes, Father, I gave them something to drink.”
It’s like that until dawn. You’d think he doesn’t sleep. Or that he’s determined not to sleep so he can disturb us for the little time we have to relax before beginning the toils of another day. But regardless, they say Si Salih is a virtuous man. There’s no one like him when it comes to good deeds.
One night, we got together the little we had and we left.
4
That night, when we entered the room, the teacher began taking off his clothes. I asked him about a condom. I said, “You got a condom, nice guy?”
He said, “I don’t.”
“I’m not sleeping with you without a condom.”
I handed him one. He said he doesn’t use them and tossed it away without looking at it. I asked him why he doesn’t use them. “It’s the same,” I said.
“It’s not the same. I tried it before. I didn’t feel anything.”
What’re you going to feel? Am I your wife or girlfriend? I’m just a whore. But I’m not crazy enough to sleep with you without a condom. I told him, “If you don’t use the rubber, I’m not going to sleep with you, nice guy, even if you give me your whole paycheck.”
“Why?”
“It’s like that. I’m not a cat. I don’t have sex without a condom.”
When I realized he was insisting, I lied to him. I told him I was menstruating. I took the condom, tossed it on the bed, and told him, “It’s better for you to use this.”
Lying is the key to getting through to this kind of person. I lied to him so God would show him the way and he’d use the condom. But he kept quiet, holding on to his twisted idea. I said it to him nicely. I didn’t address him as if he were a goat herder or a sausage seller. I talked to him like an English teacher.
When I saw he was putting on his shirt, I asked what he was doing. I told him I was only joking with him. I don’t have my period or anything. I was thinking about Joujou. What would he say if he sees him leaving a few minutes after going into the room? He was sitting at the reception, getting drunk, playing cards with Zina, and counting the cash he’d get after the teacher leaves. I tell myself Joujou’s going to break my face. I shouldn’t have joked with the teacher.
“What’re you doing, teacher?”
“I’m getting dressed. I’m leaving.”
“And Joujou? What’ll I tell him, teacher? Joujou’s waiting for his take from your pay.”
As if he hadn’t heard what I said, he opened the door and left.
Joujou didn’t say anything when I came back. He was still playing cards with Zina. He was drunk. He opened his mouth and closed it immediately. He remembered his dentures as he looked up at me. As if there was a connection between the disappointment of my night and his dentures, which he’d put in a dish of water. Joujou doesn’t like talking without his dentures. Even if he’s drunk. Joujou didn’t say anything at that point. He kept playing.
5
I got up that morning not doing well, feeling dizzy. My knees were weak. My body was shaking. But I made breakfast for him and sat down in front of him. Joujou was wearing jeans and a red shirt, his hair shone as if he’d already started work. Joujou loves red. Maybe it’s the color of pimps. He loves to brush his hair back. He loves to grease it with Brilliantine.
His name is Jilali but on the street, at the bar, and at the market, everyone calls him Joujou. He’s always been a pimp. From the day I saw him at Lalla Zahra’s house. The first house Zina and I stayed at. She’s a good woman. Fat, old, and kind, her hair white and red from all the henna she puts in it. She has a wart on her nose the size of a chickpea. But she has a repulsive side to her. She loves whiskey. And she loves Joujou. I spent about three years in her house before meeting him. One night they came home drunk. Drunk, embracing each other, and singing. Joujou, as now, was wearing the same jeans and red shirt. He was propping her up so she didn’t fall. He moved away from her and she fell in the middle of the house like a bale of chaff. Joujou’s been to prison twice because of hashish. He’s thin, with a long nose and a deep scar dividing his cheek in two. He’s evil and malicious. Everyone stays away from his kind, even the police. Lalla Zahra said proudly: “Once, they brought a van full of cops but they couldn’t arrest him. Not because he’s strong. But because he vanishes into thin air. They couldn’t grab him.” Maybe that’s why the old lady fell in love with him. And for the additional and understandable reasons that he warms up her bed at night and protects her during the day. She bought him a gold chain and a gold ring and a bottle of Brilliantine. When she’s drunk, she tells him he should be careful with the bottle since it’s expensive. But Joujou empties it in one week.
One night she bought two roosters. She slaughtered one of them and told him: “Come eat, my love.” Joujou went up to the plate and kicked it so hard the breast of the rooster stuck to the ceiling. He spewed insults at her. He vomited onto her all the malice and hatred he’d collected in his heart while living with her. The old lady started laughing. Joujou insulted her while she laughe
d. Her eyes were shut and the two gold teeth in her mouth glimmered. She became uglier. She raised her hands at him and in her laughing, perverse manner told him: “Come to me, my love, embrace me.”
I saw him hit her a bunch of times. I saw her face bloodied. Red spit running from her mouth as she laughed, telling him: “Come here, my love, hit me, kill me, but embrace me afterward.” She’d turn to me, wiping the blood away, and say, “Joujou loves me.”
One day Joujou asked me: “What’re you doing with Lalla Zahra? She’s exploiting you.”
Zina and I had been at Lalla Zahra’s house long enough for me to know the time had come to try somewhere else. I was thinking seriously about moving from her house to the house of a widow whose husband had died in the Indochina War. From the beginning, I understood Joujou’s intentions. A pimp’s always a pimp. I thought, Joujou exploiting me is better than Lalla Zahra exploiting me on the pretext that she opened the door of her house to me the day I came to Azrou without knowing anyone. And besides, Joujou’s a man. He’ll give me my livelihood. He won’t eat me up. He’s not going to leave me without a penny like that pimp Lalla Zahra. But on one condition: My sister stays with me. And playing around with her is forbidden. Got it? At that time, Zina went to a school to learn to type. But the school, instead of typing, was teaching girls how to whore. I thought it’s better she stays home so I can send her later to Aunt Taja’s. Or we’ll go together.
It was a Friday the day we left Lalla Zahra’s house. We got our bags together at night and waited for the sun to come up. As if the old lady had guessed something was being done in secret, she spent the whole night drinking whiskey. The old lady loved drinking Black & White whiskey. There was a picture of two dogs on the bottle. She always thought they were two cats. Whenever one of her customers came to see her, she hit them with the same question: “Did you bring the whiskey with the two cats?” As we were about to leave, she stood in front of the door. Her fat body blocked it completely. Her body was the size of the door. Joujou didn’t say a word. He went up to her and punched her in the face so hard I heard her teeth break. We went out the door and left her looking for her teeth. We heard her saying to him she’d be waiting for him at dinnertime since she’d be slaughtering the second rooster. She was laughing, but without teeth this time.
6
So I make him his breakfast and sit down in front of him. He’s silent. Maybe he’s waiting for me to throw myself on his hand and kiss it. Maybe he’s thinking I’d sit between his knees crying. He looks at me, always expecting something from me. His malice is fixed on me. I’m not expecting anything good. He brushes his hair again, oils it a second time, puts his dentures in his empty mouth, and then sits eating breakfast. He’s waiting for me to say something he likes. What’ll I say? I don’t have anything to say. At this moment, in the state I’m in, there isn’t anything to help me say something, even if I wanted to. The spinning in my head hasn’t gone down. The trembling has spread to other parts of my body. I look at him and think: What am I doing with this pimp? Without the scar on his face, Joujou would look like a nice guy. The scar seems deeper than yesterday and this increases my hatred for him. My hatred for all pimps. As if Satan has kept digging it with an ax.
Not a word leaves his mouth, neither good nor bad. He lights a cigarette and starts playing with the pack of matches between his fingers. He doesn’t reach for the cup of coffee I made for him. The stupidity of the situation hits me at this moment. What am I doing with this pimp? I’ve been in his house for two years with nothing to show for it. What did I expect? Maybe staying at Lalla Zahra’s house would have been better. He looks like he’s planning something, and hiding it by playing with a pack of matches. People are all the same. They’re the same wherever they are. Nothing’s changed since they appeared on the face of the earth. Why would he be different? Everyone’s the same: my father, Lalla Zahra, Joujou. I’m not afraid of Joujou. Why would I be afraid of him or anyone else? Should I be afraid of him just because his scar is more threatening than it was yesterday? I’m ready for anything.
I’ve saved some money. Enough for Zina and me, as long as we’re careful. For Casablanca or any other city. I’m not desperate, I’m always optimistic. I expect good things for me and my sister. I saved enough for this year, at least. At the end of it, we’ll go together to Casablanca. My hand on hers, instead of me setting her loose alone in a big city like that. This might be the chance I’ve been waiting for. Maybe the time has come for us to change our fate. To go for what we want. Or in any direction that gets us away from Joujou. From Lalla Zahra. And Azrou. Whatever that direction might be. The important thing is that something changes in our life.
How many times did I stop myself from thinking about how I’ll die young because of all the diseases I got from the soldiers? How did an idea like this come to me? I’m not afraid of death. I welcome it. I’m thinking about the fate of Zina after me. I’ll welcome death when I’ve put Zina in a safer place. At Aunt Taja’s, for example. I’m not doing well. Since I woke up, my head’s been on fire. The fever isn’t going away. It seems to me, from another perspective, that the time has come to expect good things. I don’t know what I’m waiting for or what I expect.
Zina is sleeping in her room. When she wakes up, she comes out of the room stretching and yawning. Light, happy, careless. On her skin is the scent of a calm night. She crosses the room in a thin shirt and goes into the kitchen. Joujou’s wandering eyes follow her. He doesn’t utter a word. He takes a sip from his cup, slams it down on the table, and leaves. I don’t pay attention to that moment. I don’t think about the meaning of his look.
7
Normally the bar is empty at this time of the afternoon, with only a few horse bettors and Aziz, who works at the airbase. The moment I step inside, I see Joujou playing pinball. The English teacher is sitting in the same place as yesterday. Aziz is leaning on the bar and drinking beer. Joujou avoids looking at me. He acts like he’s busy with his hair. He’s passing his hand through it and looking all around, but not at me. The teacher looks up at me then looks down as if ashamed. I say hello to Aziz, pull over a crooked stool, and sit down next to him. Aziz works at the airbase. In Kénitra. He flies airplanes. He loves to sit at the bar and talk with Madame Janeau. I don’t care about what they’re saying because they always talk in French. Aziz never moves from his seat until he leaves the bar. While there, he talks with Madame Janeau.
My head hurts. The veins have been beating at the base of my head since I woke up. The noise of the pinball machine increases my headache. Joujou brings his fist down on the machine’s glass surface as if he’s bringing it down on my scattered head. As if he’s compensating for the words he didn’t direct at my face this morning. Then, chewing tobacco, he leans over to the teacher and whispers something in his ear. He hits the pinball machine glass again, so hard you’d have thought it would smash into pieces. Madame Janeau doesn’t say a thing. She’s busy listening to Aziz. And Abdesalam is filling the horse-betting sheets. What’s the pimp saying to the teacher? There’s no way to know, even though I’m concentrating on it. I don’t like the sight of the pimp this morning.
“What’s wrong with this guy?” asks Abdesalam when he finally notices the pinball machine glass will be smashed if he doesn’t stop. What’s wrong with this guy? Then Madame Janeau asks me too.
I tell her: “I don’t know, Madame.”
Abdesalam gets up, saying: “I don’t like this guy.”
“Me neither,” I say.
I haven’t liked him since he slammed his cup of coffee onto the table and left agitated. I look at him and I say there’s nothing to like in this pimp this morning. Then I see him move away from the pinball machine and sit at the teacher’s table. This pimp’s devising something, I think. Even Abdesalam noticed the change. That’s why he kept asking what was going on. Madame Janeau too. I replied: “I don’t know, Madame. I swear I don’t know what the pimp’s looking for this morning.”
As for Aziz, he
turns to me and shakes his head apologetically, smiling. When I look back at the teacher’s table, Joujou has disappeared. No trace of him in the whole bar. Not at the counter or the pinball machine. Aziz points at the door and says, “Your pimp’s left, take it easy.” But I can’t. I won’t take it easy just because Aziz said to.
Aziz works at the military base, as I said. For forty-eight hours at a time. After each shift, he drives his car, a Simca 1000, without stopping, all the way to Stork Bar. Forty-eight hours he works and forty-eight hours he gets drunk. That’s the program. But he’s quiet, mysterious. Silent all the time. When he isn’t talking to Madame Janeau, he’s silent. As if he’s afraid of mixing with people. He looks like Abdel-Halim Hafez. He has signs of sadness on his face. The same signs that mark the face of Abdel-Halim. When you stare at him for a long time, you’re sure this isn’t the right place for him. You ask, what’s this young guy doing here? You don’t know why you ask yourself this question, especially when he comes in the pilot’s uniform. A blue uniform with glimmering brass buttons. Although usually he comes in a tracksuit and sneakers, as today. How old is he? Not older than twenty-eight. Sometimes I sit watching him and I wonder what life a woman could have with him. No matter what, it wouldn’t be like the hell we live in with this pimp.
A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me Page 6