A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me

by Youssef Fadel

  The café is surrounded by glass. Wherever you turn, you see the airbase. The airport, then the storehouses, in one direction. It might rain even though we’ve made it through winter. The pilots’ houses are in the other direction. Then the offices and the commissary. Aziz says he’ll live in one of these houses soon, before he finishes his second year, since the colonel appreciates him. He says it looking in the same direction, in front of him, always in front of him, where the plane landed a moment ago. He turns to me and runs out. I see him now near the plane. He likes the sound of its engine. I don’t like the noise because it splits my ears open, but Aziz likes it. He approaches it, until his face touches its face and he smells the scent of its metal. He talks with the pilot. The two disappear together into the storehouse. I wait for him to beam. Aziz. In his beautiful blue uniform. The pilots in the café come and go, laughing. Their voices are loud. His voice would have been loud if he was in the café like them. But he disappeared into the storehouse. He’ll appear after a little. When Aziz emerges laughing, my heart will quiver.

  For the third time, a plane lands and he leaves the café to stay near it and to talk with its pilot, and the two disappear together into the storehouse. Behind the glass façade, a bird lands. If there hadn’t been glass, it would have landed on my heart. He tells me good morning and flies away. There on the ground, behind the façade, a big olive-colored plane appears under the ashen sky, the sky of the airbase. Big, awesome, and severe, like a big bird. That’s how Aziz likes it. He hovers around it now, having left the storehouse. He looks at me. He’s happy too because he’s going to fly. Because I’ll see him flying. For the third time, he hovers around the plane. Then he jumps into it and disappears. The engine churns, making the roar Aziz likes. The plane moves away, gets smaller little by little, until it becomes the size of a pomegranate, then vanishes from sight.

  Khatima tells me to talk to him about marriage. I tell her I can’t. I can only stay sitting next to him. I look where he looks. I see what he sees. When he’s with me, my blood loses its balance. I’m incapable of talking, incapable of thinking. I’m incapable of standing when he’s sitting, or of sitting when he’s standing. Since the first day I saw him at the Stork. When he took my hand, led me to the bar, and asked me “What are we doing now?” and I told him, “Let’s play.” Since that moment, we’ve been playing. We don’t deny ourselves any game, whatever it is. But Khatima tells me: “Marriage is marriage, you wretch.” She wants to save me, she says. So I don’t get lost, like she did. But I’m lost with Aziz. Because I’m weak before him. Whatever I do, I’ll be lost.

  We didn’t go back to Joujou’s house, after what happened at the Stork. After Aziz broke his jaw and the corner of the table smashed what was left of his head, we went to a hotel. A miserable room in a miserable hotel like before. For two full months Khatima’s been asking: Is this a life? The lice will eat us up in less than a week if we stay in this filthy room. As if she’s afraid our miserable life will keep going like this, she tells me: “Talk to him about marriage, you rascal.” She’s changed too. She’s started crying a lot. When she doesn’t cry, she thinks about our new life. Far from Joujou and pimping. Far from the miserable room. A life we haven’t seized yet. That’s why she’s exaggerating everything. As if she doesn’t believe she might rid herself one day of her life of prostitution. As if this ghost from our past and present will threaten us forever. Not an hour passes without me hearing her voice: “Talk to him about marriage tomorrow.” Khatima can’t understand what I want. What I want is to stay with him. With marriage or without.

  When he’s finished flying, he comes back to the café, aglow. As if he’s been in the hammam. Does flying produce this much change? He sits so close he’s touching me this time, as he rubs his hands. The pilots look at us. They smile. They sip glasses of beer and smile. They seem happy. They seem carefree, in their spiffy uniforms. I’m happy because Aziz is like them, carefree, as he sits next to me. They’re stealing glances at us. In the street, passersby look at us too, at me and Aziz. Under pouring rain sometimes, and other times when there’s no rain. The girls stop on the boulevard, under the jacaranda trees, as Aziz holds my hand. They look at us, first at his carefully pressed blue uniform with its gold buttons, then at me, and wonder who’s this young girl walking next to the pilot. And I walk next to him and feel my small hand sweating in his. I get embarrassed and pull it away. I wait for his hand to return, searching for mine. I say I don’t want more than this light tremor running through my entire body as I see my hand waiting for his. Khatima herself imagines other things and when I come back home one Sunday morning, she asks me: “Did you talk to him about marriage?” No, I’ve got another idea in my head. I won’t tell her. I won’t tell anyone.

  On that day, at that moment, when he hit Joujou in the face, I wasn’t expecting anything. The idea wasn’t there. It didn’t enter my mind, the change that would happen in me. I couldn’t have imagined it. If I saw myself at that moment, I wouldn’t have recognized it. Even when he asked me at the bar: “Where are we going now?” the idea wasn’t there. The idea made its way to me little by little. Like a stream of water under the sand. Some days later, he came wearing his tracksuit like before. He said: “There’s a big show at the edge of the city, with games, animals, and music.”

  He asked me: “Do you want to go with me to the circus?”

  I told him: “I’ll go with you to the circus.”

  Before entering my mind, his image rooted itself in my heart. Suddenly, taking me by surprise, it entered, attached itself, and wouldn’t leave. At the show, we rode big rockers spinning around in the air. Strapped into metal chairs, we flew. With every turn, my heart shook, and I couldn’t tell if it was from terror or delight. My heart left my chest, and I didn’t know when it would come back after being jolted like this. I yelled without hearing myself, because of the wind. Aziz didn’t hear me. I threw my head on his chest. He calmed me as he told me something I couldn’t hear and I felt calm because I was near his chest.

  We then rode small electric cars. Each of us in our own car so we ran into each other and we felt the crash in our hearts. He took me by surprise and I took him by surprise. We laughed. He hit me hard and I hit him gently. I was embarrassed because I hit him. He then got used to it and I tried to avoid him, but he’s stronger than me, whether in his tracksuit or his military uniform. Despite the pallor of his cheeks, he’s strong. Despite the sadness in his eyes, he loves laughing. Khatima told me he looks like Abdel-Halim Hafez. I’ve loved Abdel-Halim Hafez since that moment because Aziz looks like him. I went to the market and bought “Why Do You Blame Me?” so I can sing it everywhere I go. At the hammam. On the street when I’m walking alone. On the street when I’m walking with Aziz. In bed when I’m sleeping or awake thinking of him. In the car sitting next to him. In the electric bumper car as I try to avoid him crashing into me. Happy, I sing “Why Do You Blame Me?” as I flee from him, and feel the blow behind me, chasing me before it comes. It threatens me, mocking my pretend fear, my heart shaking because Aziz is the one who runs behind me and hits me with his electric car. Baf. And I laugh as I sing to myself and wait for the crash. Baf.

  Khatima’s afraid for me since I’m young. I tell her I’m grown up, even at sixteen. Khatima tells me: “You’ll grow up when you marry Aziz.” Her mind won’t calm down and she repeats her refrain to me. Talk to him about marriage, you rascal. I don’t tell her anything this time. To myself only, I say I can’t. I’ve got another idea. It made its way to me bit by bit. I’ll tell him about it. Not now. Later. In my own way. What I’m thinking about, my idea, is for him to take my arm as he always does, lead me to the bedroom, and do with me what a man does with a woman. I think about this day and night. The idea keeps me from sleeping at night and its fever inhabits my body during the day. In the end, I told him while we were in his car on the forest road between Azrou and Fez, as the evening breeze was playing with my mind, the scent of the cedar trees and woods was all around me
, and the song “Why Do You Blame Me?” was in my head. In my own way I told him, as we were going back to his house on the outskirts of Azrou, across the same evening road. “I want to tell you something,” I whispered to him. My face went red from embarrassment and I lowered my eyes. Does he understand from the redness of my face what I want to say? I count the times we took the same road toward his house. It’s the fourth time and I was planning to tell him. I don’t know if words came out of my mouth or not. This time I believed I said it. Then, as we got near his house, I think I told him again. I hinted to him. I told him with my eyes. With my mind. With the blushing of my face. He kept staring at the road, but he understood the words I wanted him to hear. I think he understood what I was thinking and what I wanted to tell him.

  I won’t pay attention to what my sister says, just as I haven’t paid much attention to it before. I fell in love with Aziz from the first moment at the Stork, when I saw him in the bar in his tracksuit.

  His house is leaning on the woods. If you reach your arm from the window, you can touch the tree branches. That’s what I was thinking about as I was clinging to him in the car. Then, as we moved toward the house, I was counting the steps to myself, thinking: Now he’ll take me, to his room. A delicious tremor was running through my body. I was ready. I didn’t see a reason to say anything else to him. Everything comes at the right time.

  When we leave the airbase that day, we don’t head straight for Azrou. We go to the port, in Mehdia. We leave the base with him happy because I saw him fly. I don’t care whether he flew or not. As he talks about his plane and about the way it moved, I think he’ll forget the plane but he doesn’t. As in all the days God put him next to me, he’s sitting with me but his mind is still on the plane. I didn’t ask him to fly. But he insists. He wishes I could see him all the time flying in the sky. He says it in the café and on the road. And in the port as we buy fish. (And later in his room as he lies down next to me on the bed.) How do I explain to him I love him without the plane? I watch the boats unload their crates on the side on the river wharf as Aziz buys fish. The boat masts are erect like a forest, yearning for travel, and seagulls land on them as if they were trees in the forest. Aziz comes near me. He tells me: “At the airbase we have everything. We don’t need to leave if we don’t want to.” He’s quiet and then says: “At the base we have everything except fish.” I say maybe he loves the airbase more than me. When he gets a house at the base like the other pilots, he won’t have to leave anymore. Everything’s there. Except fish. I might leave to buy him fish while he’s flying in the sky in his plane. Aziz goes back to the seller, laughing. The seagulls are playing at the tops of the boats as they move the crates full of fish. Cats follow the sorry fish falling from the crates as the river water swallows them before they hit dry land. I don’t like fish. Except for the sardines my father used to get from the market.

  In the kitchen, I make the fish Aziz will eat. I hear his footsteps in the hallway. I smell his scent before he approaches. Is he coming close? Yes, he comes near me and I feel him behind me playing with my hair. I remember I haven’t told him yet. My blood rises to my face as I feel his erection on my backside. And I forget, when he touches me . . . as if heat warms my cheeks. As if a ball blocks my breath. Then I feel the breath cut up into four notes, like music. Then I feel liquid moistening me from below and I bring my thighs together in embarrassment. I say this won’t happen when he does with me that thing a man does with a woman. I’ll become normal, a normal woman, a woman who doesn’t sweat and who doesn’t get wet when he approaches me. A woman, with marriage or without. In the kitchen, I don’t tell him because his standing behind me has dazed me. Everything comes in good time. I think too about the blood. Will a lot come out of me? In our village, I saw a farmer dragging a female dog to toss her into a deep pit because another dog raped her. Blood didn’t come out but the farmer was swearing there was a lot of blood. Other farmers were following him, carrying rocks to stone the female dog. I won’t tell Khatima anything. Khatima isn’t thinking about the same thing. Khatima was only telling me to talk to him about marriage before it’s too late. It’s too late, sister. I’m thinking about the same thing but without engagement or marriage. Marriage, but without ceremonies. Without ceremonies or a marriage document or people getting sad. What dwells in me is like a fever. We move to his room, my hand in his, and neither of us says anything. Maybe he’s thinking about my words, which I don’t say. His words pass from his hand to mine. That’s enough, he doesn’t say them either. We’re heading to the bedroom and the bed and what’ll happen on it because of the fever controlling us both. He doesn’t say anything. But he understands. Men know these things. Especially ones like Aziz. Even though his mind is busy with the plane. Soon we’ll fly together.

  3—Tuesday, 15 August 1972

  My sister Khatima says Lalla Zahra’s house is a good place for the wedding. So the neighborhood women can really see what’s going on. And because it’s a big house. At five in the morning, we were at the door of the house waiting for him, me and a girl from the house whose name is Shama. We expected him to come yesterday but he didn’t. We were expecting him to appear this morning, as we’d expected last night. We waited all night. Many women were looking out from the windows and through the doors. They were trilling and singing with a drum and horn. We looked out again after five minutes. Then after another five minutes. We went on like that until the first rays of sun hit the walls of the house. Lalla Zahra said, “It’s seven in the morning,” and we began cleaning the house from top to bottom.

  Lalla Zahra is in the courtyard of the house, sitting on her old sheepskin, smoking her first cigarette and getting drunk, saying, “Let’s go girls, get going.” She’s ready to begin an exceptional day. Lalla Zahra still keeps control of the house and the same enthusiasm. She’s puffed herself up a bit but she’s still who she is. We’re moving buckets around from corner to corner. The water makes us laugh. Throwing it cold on our feet and legs makes us laugh. It makes us laugh as it wets the bottoms of our skirts. We, I mean Khatima and me. I also mean Zubayda, the Shilha, Aisha from Dukkala, and Shama from Abda. Only Lalla Zahra doesn’t do anything. She gets drunk, not getting her hands dirty, and giving orders. We get the impression she’s everywhere. After two hours, the house has been scrubbed inside and out. The women are standing in the middle of Aqba Street, turning toward the house with its cleaned walls, windows, and door, wondering if Lalla Zahra is going on the hajj. Has she repented?

  The girls say: “Oh no! Lalla Zahra hasn’t recovered yet from the drunkenness of last year.”

  “And these banners?”

  “Zina’s getting married.”

  “You’re all welcome at Lalla Zahra’s house.”

  In the early morning, we cleaned the house with water and bleach from top to bottom. Even the fig tree in the courtyard, we cleaned it too. We climbed its trellises to get a piece of fruit that had ripened a few days earlier. A black fig sweeter than sugar. The scent of the fig leaves stayed on our clothes the entire day. Then the whitewash man came and painted the walls with white lime. We hung a loudspeaker next to the banners above the door so everyone on Aqba Street could hear Rouicha and Magni’s strong mountain voices. Their voices will cut through the alley and reach the whole neighborhood. Lalla Zahra started crying early. She was happy. She’d never seen her house as a wedding venue before. She paid for the band and rented the two jurist adjuncts, who were writing the contract.

  The girls were joking around: “How many weddings have happened in this house, Lalla Zahra?” It’s the first. The only one in the series of dry years. That’s why she doesn’t want it to pass like a funeral. She bought the chicken the guests will eat. Thirty chickens and ten kilos of veal. Almonds, prunes, and fruits of the season. Then she turned to us and said: “Shama and the girl from Dukkala will take care of plucking the chicken. Zubayda the Shilha will take care of the sweets. Khatima will take care of Zina.” And I, from that moment, I wasn’t sixteen
anymore. I grew up. Between two sentences. I heard Lalla Zahra talking about the jurists, the band, and the guests, and I grew up. Aziz doesn’t know anything about the banners or the loudspeaker, the band or the sweets. Aziz appeared at eleven in the morning. As if our preparations didn’t have anything to do with him. We’d been at the house since five in the morning, going in and out. Each time we said: “Here, he’s about to come.” But nothing suggested our preparations would speed him up.

  He showed up at eleven in the morning, when we’d all but lost hope. Women looked out of the windows, but not as many I’d seen at night when I was dreaming of the wedding and banners and musicians. At the sight of the black Mercedes Khatima let out a long high trill. There were three men in it. The driver stayed behind the wheel. Aziz got out in his pilot’s uniform with its medals, splendor, and brass pearls sparkling under the sun at eleven in the morning. The other man was in a uniform even more splendid. Aziz said: “This is my colonel, the head of the airbase. He came in the flesh and blood to greet you.” The man was patting him on the shoulder and smiling. He didn’t stay long. He greeted Lalla Zahra, drank a cup of tea with her, and left. Aziz then got up, kissed me on both cheeks, and went to the bar. “I’ll come back later, in an hour or less,” he said, “when you’re ready, when everything’s ready.”