Aziz went to the Stork, to get drunk and talk with Madame Janeau.
Khatima found me naked, on the roof, pouring water on my head. My chest was flat. Smooth. My chest was like it was before I was sixteen, without breasts. They’ll get bigger after you get married. Lalla Zahra has breasts the size of small milk skins. She’s the one who said, to comfort me: “They’ll get bigger after you get married.” She said she was like me before. But like who and before what? Lalla Zahra doesn’t know the shape of marriage. She doesn’t even know if getting married has a shape. When we went down to Lalla Zahra’s room, and the girl from Dukkala came in with the white dress she got married in seven years earlier, before her husband fled to Italy, Lalla Zahra took two thick caftans out of her old closet. Everyone got together in the courtyard of the house to let out loud trilling as they saw the white dress. The henna took a long time. We had all the time we needed, while Aziz was at the bar. We weren’t following what was happening outside the room. We heard the noise of the neighbor women and the crying of their children and we imagined the courtyard was full. Zubayda, the Shilha girl, came in with dough on her hands up to her elbows. Lifting her hands up so we’d imagine the sweets she’ll make for the guests.
Lalla Zahra said: “Here’s the wedding dress but where’s the mule?”
“Why do we need a mule, Lalla Zahra?”
“The bride leaves her father’s house on a mule. That’s the custom.”
Then things got more complicated. We hadn’t finished discussing the subject of the mule when the Shilha said that in her region, the bride doesn’t leave her father’s house. “She disappears first into one of the neighborhood women’s houses. We go looking for her to bring her back to her house. So she remembers she has a father and a mother. So she remembers she has a house with its door open to her so she can go back if things aren’t going as well as could be. Afterward, the groom comes to take her to his house on a second mule. Both have their own mules.”
I imagine that, no matter what, two mules are better than one. But I don’t say this to anyone. I don’t say to them, for example, that Aziz has a Simca 1000. I don’t say anything. I see in my mind Aziz riding his mule and I laugh. He hits his mule and screams at it to fly as I run behind him and grab him. Then my turn comes and I let my mule move ahead of his. I run and he rides behind me, and this time he doesn’t catch me. I am laughing during all this because I remember the day we were in the electric cars.
Khatima, as she was brushing my hair, said, “Don’t get upset. These things don’t concern us because we don’t have a mother or father. Or a house for us to return to if things don’t go as planned.”
And besides, Aziz has a Simca 1000. I said: “A Simca 1000 is better than a mule.”
Lalla Zahra said: “This is your house.”
The Shilha had said, “Before this, we had to take her to another house and from there we’d bring her here.”
“On the mule?”
“Of course on the mule.”
“And the groom?”
It’s not his turn yet. His will come later. He’s getting drunk now at the Stork. And parents have no place at all in this story.
Lalla Zahra turned to me: “What sort of wedding do you want?” She didn’t wait for my opinion.
My opinion is that Aziz has a Simca 1000 and not a mule. My opinion is this whole circus should end so we can go together back to his house. With the mule or without. We won’t leave it. Khatima asked me about his house. I said, “It’s in the forest.” We laughed. Yes, in the forest, far from the Stork, far from the miserable hotel, facing the Azrou woods. Far from all the miserable rooms in the miserable hotel Khatima hates. The girls helped me put on the two thick caftans. At four in the afternoon, the scent of the chickens in saffron filled every corner of the house and passed through all the rooms. And the scent of the sweets. The scent of wood, henna, incense, and rosewater. All the scents giving an impression of a joyous event knocking on Lalla Zahra’s door. At four o’clock the preparations were finished. But where was Aziz? The band, the two jurists, the chicken the jurists would eat, and the sweets Zubayda the Shilha made for us with the sweat of her hands were all there. The two mules and their owner were waiting at the door. We were all waiting for Aziz. Lalla Zahra started getting drunk early. Alcohol, instead of getting her drunk like other people, makes her more awake. When the head of the band took out his violin to chase away the annoyance of waiting, she chided him with her hand on the strings: “What’re you doing, one-eyed? Your fingers are eating you up? Can’t the blind man wait until the groom gets here?” I told Khatima, “I’m hot.” She didn’t listen. She too was thinking about Aziz. About Aziz’s house, which was at the edge of the forest. Finally she’ll leave the hotel room. The room of lice, as she calls it. She spends the night with a candle burning at her head to scare off the lice, which nest in the holes of the room.
Aziz didn’t come until midnight. The jurists had fallen asleep. The band had left. The owner of the two mules decided not to take his fee and the fee for his two mules. When Lalla Zahra handed him a green paper bill, he asked her why. I didn’t do any work. He pulled his mules and went back to his mountain. Unlike the head of the band, who didn’t play a single note, but nonetheless wouldn’t budge until he got all his money. The two jurists fell asleep without dinner. As for Aziz, he was getting drunk and waiting for us to get ready.
At ten in the evening, he was still at the bar. When we sent Zubayda, after ten, he’d disappeared. Abdesalam told her the police van took him and Joujou down to the station. Zubayda told us what happened. She herself didn’t see it but Abdesalam said Aziz got into a fight with Joujou. And he may have broken his nose. This time, they couldn’t do anything since the police van was at the door of the bar. Lalla Zahra threw her djellaba on and ran to the police station. She knew the commissioner personally since he got drunk with her girls every Monday night. When she didn’t find him at the police station, she went to his house.
Everyone came to the wedding. In the same police van that took them to the station a few hours earlier. Aziz, the commissioner, and Joujou, with a big bandage dividing his face in half. And the police van driver in his uniform. They came into Lalla Zahra’s house, one after the other, late at night. They were laughing. The commissioner was very disappointed when he found the band and the musicians had already left. He was thinking about going after them to bring them back to finish the wedding but the scent of the chicken with saffron was overwhelming. We don’t know if it was the sudden turmoil or the smell of the chicken that roused the jurists. Aziz took out the two rings. He put one on my finger and I put the other on his. We become man and wife from that moment, in a way I hadn’t expected. Lalla Zahra let out a drunken trill of joy. She recited the Fatiha with us drunk. So did the commissioner. And Joujou. And the police van driver.
I tell myself we became man and wife before this moment. When I walked next to him with my hand in his to his room overlooking the forest. When I slept with him and saw two drops of blood on the white sheets the next morning.
4—Wednesday, 16 August
The day of the hawk, a crazy day from start to finish.
Everyone walked with us through the alleys that night, cheering in celebration, and left us at the front door. Except for Aziz’s sister Khadija, who wasn’t at the wedding so she could welcome us. That’s her way. Aziz said his sister can’t stand crowds. She gets a nosebleed as soon as her body warms up. Aziz said as soon as a man touches her or stands in front of her, her nose bleeds.
A truly strange day. Everything in it was strange. You think this day will be exceptional before it comes. And all of a sudden, it really is but in a way you didn’t expect at all. It was strange from the moment we got there, when Aziz introduced me to his sister who I hadn’t heard of before. This is my sister, Khadija. She wasn’t at the house before. Aziz said he brought her from the countryside to stay with us. He said she was living with his mother’s uncle and that she didn’t get married si
nce she’s afraid of men. It was a strange day, too, because Aziz refused to take off his uniform. At Lalla Zahra’s house, he refused to put on the white djellaba and the yellow slippers we got for him. He spent the day at the Stork, wearing his uniform, forgetting about the wedding and everyone there. As if he had another wedding on his mind, one that had to do with him, not us. He spent the night not wanting to take it off. Going into the bedroom and coming out immediately. Dragging his feet in the corners of the house, going back and forth like a clock pendulum. Maybe he was, like it, counting the seconds. Tick tock, tick tock. But I was happy nonetheless. Because of everything that happened. Which I hadn’t expected.
Then I heard him say: “I’ve got to go. I’ve got to get back to the base.”
His mind settled anxiously on this refrain. The groom forgot he was a groom. Khadija slept as soon as she opened the windows since her nose bled because of the heat. Aziz spent the night pacing through the whole house, only thinking about going back to the base. I’ve got to get back. He didn’t lie down on the bed as people do on a night like this. He said he was afraid of falling asleep. He didn’t want to sleep because he had to get back to the airbase. I forgot I was a bride. Despite the ring and the white dress and the scent of henna. I didn’t sleep. Not because of the strong heat that descends on Azrou every summer, not because of the state Aziz was in. But because I set my feet in this house in the way Khatima was dreaming of. She was sleeping, relaxed, at Lalla Zahra’s. She’d leave tomorrow to join me.
I saw the house for the first time from this perspective. Affected by Aziz’s raving. Affected by his staggering steps, pacing around it in every direction, and repeating: “I’ve got to go. I’ve got to get back.” I wondered what he wanted to do at the airbase while he was on vacation. What did he want to do at the airbase at three in the morning? My ideas didn’t leave their spot. Like Aziz’s idea about the airbase. Then he finally sat down and his eyes wandered far away. I thought, maybe he’s forgotten. This intoxication, exhaustion, and pacing around, maybe he’ll calm down and go to sleep. There was a bitterness in his face. A grimace resembling loss. No, he didn’t sleep. He only stopped to begin this refrain again. He came back, saying he’d go there.
“I’m going to the base.”
It didn’t look like his mind and the rest of his body realized what was coming out of his mouth. He stayed frozen in his spot. Like someone dreaming.
“I’m going to the base.”
Maybe he said it with his eyes only. Then he started looking around him. He pulled out his bag and started emptying it out. What was he looking for? What was going on in his head? Did he forget the base and remember other things? No. Aziz was looking for his gloves. Pilot gloves—he wanted to fly right away. At dawn we were both tired. We hadn’t slept. Instead of sleeping, we kept looking for his gloves. Pilots don’t fly without gloves.
“Where are my gloves?”
Aziz won’t fly without his gloves, even if the plane was waiting for him at the door. I wish he wouldn’t fly. With the gloves or without. I want to sit like any person who just got married and who’s on vacation, who’s happy on their wedding night, without going to the airbase. Not going anywhere. He asked me to look for them in his bag. His bag was empty and its contents were scattered on the ground, because of the number of times he’d searched through it. Instead of listening to what I said, he came back yelling.
“Look in the bag.”
His voice came from behind my back. His gloves weren’t in the bag. I turned to him. He was watching my movements with his red eyes, the eyes of someone who didn’t sleep, the eyes of someone losing his self-control, possessed by demons, watching the bag and expecting honestly that the gloves would suddenly appear. We then went up to the roof, knowing we wouldn’t find them on the roof. After another half hour, we went out to see if they were hanging on the clothesline at the door of the house. We knew they weren’t on the clothesline.
The groom forgot he was a groom. The first signs of dawn began to spread above us. I thought maybe he won’t leave Azrou because he didn’t find the gloves. I was wrong. He kept looking while I went into the bedroom to cry a little. I remembered Khatima who stayed at Lalla Zahra’s house. She told me: “This is your night. I’ll join you tomorrow.” Lalla Zahra cried because of all the whiskey she downed. The girls cried because we’d be saying goodbye to them and saying goodbye to their life, which we didn’t choose. But the next day came, and it wasn’t like what my sister had imagined. What’ll I say to her when she comes today and finds Aziz went back to his base? What’ll I say to her at the door?
With the first rays of the sun, he grabbed his bag and opened it. The woods looked over us. Our house looked over the Azrou woods. The view of the woods and the rays sneaking through the tree branches evoked a much-needed calmness in my soul. Aziz was calm too. For a few seconds, we went back to a warmth we’d forgotten. The car was parked next to the sidewalk. He took my face in his palms and said his plane was waiting for him. The colonel was counting on him and on his plane. Do you know what he said next?
“Today’s our day.”
Because that was what his leader, the colonel, said. “We’ll fly high above,” he had told him. He asked him to be at his position first thing in the morning.
“Is it reasonable to leave him waiting? He’s thinking about us all,” said Aziz.
Because, he added with his hand on my cheek, I was a good omen for him. He told me that that afternoon, when I was listening to the sound of a plane above my head, he’d be the one passing by. Then, when I raised my eyes, he’d wave to me, even if I didn’t see him. I’d sense his hand waving even if I didn’t see it. I’d recognize his voice even if I didn’t hear him say: “Good morning, Zina.” But I didn’t understand why he wanted to go back to the base when he was on vacation. He was satisfied with just moving his head as he went to his car parked in front of him. It was ready, as if it too was in the know. Before disappearing in his Simca 1000, he said, “Lend me one kiss.” I ran to him and threw myself on him and kissed him. Then he said, “I’ll return it to you in the evening.”
He returned my kiss when he came back, twenty-six years later.
It was indeed a new day and everything in it was strange. I don’t know how long I dozed. When I left the room, Khadija had disappeared. No trace of her, not in the kitchen or in her room. I found her on the roof, bent over two turtles, feeding them. Next to the turtles were six round eggs and a small one under a small wooden covering between empty flowerpots. She turned to me and said, smiling, “They’ll hatch in two weeks.” I watched her in the light of the rising sun: A woman without a specific age. She might have been forty or fifty. Her skin was dark, with cracks and wrinkles dug into it. Her teeth had fallen out. She might even be sixty. But Aziz said she was thirty-two. Unmarried. Her life had always been harsh. She lived in the mountains with their aunt when their father brought another woman to their house. She’s the one who kicked them out. Then they were sent to one of their relatives when their mother died after marrying another man. From time to time, Khadija looked up at the sky. As if she too was waiting for the plane to appear. A burning sun rose above us, but no trace of a plane. She motioned for me to listen. I didn’t hear the sound of a plane.
“It’s the hawk,” she said.
I tried to listen again but I didn’t hear it. I didn’t see the hawk.
“Its voice is sharp and stinging, unbearable to listen to,” she said.
Just as the thought of the hawk eating her two turtles was unbearable. I stared at the sky for a long time but neither the plane nor the hawk appeared.
I heard some knocks on the ground-floor door. I also noticed the commotion. Singing and banging on a tambourine. The girls came by foot from Lalla Zahra’s house, led by a band of musicians and a cart with breakfast on top. Almonds, walnuts, dates, and milk. Bare sugar cones. They asked about Aziz. His absence didn’t rouse their curiosity. They danced and sang. They didn’t stop until late in the afternoon
. Khatima said this is the custom. I didn’t know any custom without Aziz. But Aziz wasn’t there. He was flying. I waited for him to appear with all my heart as Khadija waited for the hawk to appear. She bent her neck up but she didn’t hear anything because of all this commotion. Other women came from the mountain and sang and beat their tambourines and danced. Khadija got up quickly and went back to the stairs leading to the roof. I did the same, thinking she’d heard the sound of the plane. Khatima didn’t know anything about the story of the plane or the strange story of the hawk that devours turtles. We spent the day like this, with Khadija constantly jumping up and rushing up the stairs. I joined her on the roof. When she said she heard the hawk, I listened, I opened my ears, and I listened to hear the plane and to see Aziz waving at me. Then we went back together to the ground floor. Without the stinging sound of a hawk or the drone of an airplane like the blowing of a horn, as Aziz said.
After the women left, Khatima thought she’d do some work on the house for a bit until Aziz came back. Khatima washed her hair before spending an hour rubbing it with oil and cloves. Khadija cleaned the breakfast plates and then began shaking out the rugs and the pillows, taking them to the roof to air out. I didn’t want to follow her to see if the plane had appeared in the Azrou sky. I acted like a woman who had just gotten married. I revived my happiness getting to know the house. My new house where I’d settle down with Aziz, Khadija, and Khatima. The house with the trees outside. A full forest in front of the house. I looked out from the window, waiting for the plane to appear. Instead I saw the forest. It was as if I was looking out seeking solace, seeking protection from the pain of wondering what Aziz wanted to do at the airbase while he was on vacation. The plane didn’t appear. Khadija kept going back and forth between the roof and the courtyard whenever she thought she heard the sound of the hawk. As for me, I didn’t go out to the roof again, content with listening to the call of the horn inside my heart.
Other women knocked on the door before the evening. Without musicians. Without a cart carrying sugar cones. They too came from the mountain. They asked about Aziz. They said the pilots at the airbase attacked the king’s plane in the air as it was coming back from a trip. They sat with us for half an hour. Then they wondered, was Aziz with them? Then they fell silent for another half hour and went back to where they came from. I kept looking up at the roof, waiting to hear the sound of the plane. I wondered what Aziz was doing. Why wasn’t he coming back?
A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me Page 10