10
Hinda
1 a.m.
1
I NEVER UNDERSTOOD THOSE SMALL carts that follow us all over the city, for no reason. Small overfull carts led by innocent horses that don’t understand the crime they’re committing. They take us group by group to put us to death behind the town slaughterhouses. Once I would have suffered this calamity if I hadn’t heard a dog on the street corner warn me, yelling: “Run away, sister, run away before the Moroccans grab you.” If we’d been in Asia, I would have understood the situation. Some of the Asians like our meat. But no, these just kill us and burn us. God only knows why. It seems aggression runs deep in their blood. And their ignorance cannot be surpassed. They don’t differentiate between kinds of dogs. They say dog, and that’s it. I laugh to myself but I hear them talking about us with this naïveté. What do they know about dogs or non-dogs? They kick us about only because they say God kicked us out of the garden.
There isn’t a special continent for dogs I can go to. I’m condemned to live among them. But instead of close contact with human beings, like a lot of dogs, I try to limit my relations with them as much as possible. I prefer to watch them from a distance. I don’t understand, for example, why people don’t stop talking, even for a moment. I like, for example, to walk behind this person or that, scrutinizing his movements and gait and listening to his unending lies. I like spying on people. I’m twelve, which is old for a dog. My hearing’s still sharp, even if my gait has slowed somewhat and my eyesight’s diminished.
2
I circle the room, with only the idea of fleeing from it on my mind. Confused, but with only one desire. The smell of whiskey, a disgusting smell, emanating from the commander. It’s also emanating from the girl with him. I move away from the commander and get close to the door. I sit down, as if my desire was only to get away from the scent and not to leave the room. I steal a look at him. He’s busy with the girl, not paying attention to what’s going on in the head of a dog like me. What’s going on in my head is that Aziz needs me. This time I go to the door and hear the crash of the commander, so I come back submissively with my tail between my legs as if his scream terrified me and I collapse in a heap in my corner, not far from the door. The girl with him is sitting under the air conditioner, instead of sleeping with the commander, as girls do when they come to him. She gets up, goes to the window, and pulls aside the curtain, asking about the casbah. Is it empty and who lives in it? The commander puts her back in her place and clinks his glass with hers. She laughs and they change the subject. He didn’t notice me.
I always think about Aziz and about the Rifi who died before him. The previous deaths didn’t trouble me as much as the Rifi’s. I was in the courtyard watching a swarm of emigrating birds when all of a sudden the Rifi came out naked as the day his mother bore him, laughing loudly and running around the courtyard like he was having fun. Then the two guards appeared, chasing after him waving shovels. They followed him as he ran in front of them and avoided their shovels and their laughing. The Rifi stumbled and was about to fall down in the same happy mood. When Benghazi’s shovel came down on his head, it dropped him to the ground and blood flowed from his head. They then showered him with blows and insults until he stopped moving. Since this incident, my sleep hasn’t been the same. I started dreaming of him every night.
I get up again, expecting to hear behind me the crash of the loathsome commander. Instead of going to the door, I backtrack to the window, rub myself against the curtain, then get near the table and hit the bottle with my foot. The bottle smashes and the alcohol flows from it onto the rug. The commander stands looking at me in disbelief. The drunk girl under the air conditioner yells: “Oh no, oh no, oh no!” I then realize he’s getting ready to kick me out of the room. I’m lucky. Before the commander’s foot hits my rear, I get past the door.
I sit in front of the hole that swallowed up the Rifi a few days ago. I smell his corpse. It’s still fresh. I know the dead arrange their broken remains when they go down into the grave. But that’s no excuse for the way he died. I sit listening to the words of the dead and I watch the door leading to the wing. I see it’s open. I see the dark corridor without seeing the room where Aziz is crouching. It’s always locked. I have to think of a way to get in. I think about helping him so I don’t dream of him like I dream of the Rifi. I haven’t slept well since the Rifi died a few days ago. As soon as I close my eyes, I see him carrying his crushed bones and a piece of his flesh in his hands, waving them at me. All this I see when I’m awake. Eyes closed but completely awake. When I sleep, I dream of rats, lots of rats, chasing him, an army of vicious rats, hungry, their fangs bigger than them and sparkling in the dark, running behind the Rifi, carrying shovels, letting out sounds like hyenas. As he flees with pieces of his flesh and his bones falling behind him, unable to stop to pick them up.
I push the door, trying to open it. I smell every crack in it. I kick at it. Maybe it’ll give. I manage in the end to get through the opening under the door. Aziz is laid out on the ground, not moving. His eyes are closed. I can’t tell if he’s dead or still alive. He might have fallen from the slab before dying. I go over to him. There’s no life in him. His hand and toe are tied together with a string. Human beings have a lot of customs I don’t understand. I put my head near his nose. Only at that moment can I tell his breath is rising and falling. The thread of life is weak but still holding him. Life is still pulsating in his body, even if in this faded shape. This is joyous. Tears well up in my eyes from so much joy.
I’d crawled inside the room in one movement. No. Before I get completely in, struggling through the narrow opening, the stench repelled me, sending me back to the corridor. It hit me in the face like a whip. A stench stronger than the stench of corpses in the trash. I tried to go in twice before I could take the stench. As for the man laid out on the wet, black, filthy ground, I could barely make him out because of how dark it was. A pile of rags tossed on patches of water. But I was happy since my hopes weren’t dashed. He wasn’t like the Rifi at all. First, the Rifi died and this one hasn’t died yet. This one’s face is long and dark while the Rifi didn’t have a face at all because of how disfigured it was by the shovels. This man’s cheeks are very sunken. The face of a man in a struggle with death. With a small bent body, but not bearing death like the Rifi. Aziz is shrunken, but only from the lack of light, right? I’m happy when a small shudder passes through his body. With great difficulty, I drag him back on top of the slab. He doesn’t make any effort to help me. My efforts don’t seem to have brought consciousness back to him. Then I start breathing on his hands and feet. And every dried-out part of him. Afterward, I spread myself out on top of him and embrace his body with my teats hanging down, then I bring my nose near his face and start blowing on him. I close my eyes and concentrate all my efforts on this sensation. Calmly, I send him some of the heat emanating from my body. I am agitated nonetheless, anxious, so I open my eyes from time to time to see the results of my efforts. To see if he’s opened his eyes, to see if there’s heat spreading in his limbs. Nothing’s changed. The man’s as still as I found him when I came in: stiff, frozen, near death, far from life, despite his breathing still going up and down unevenly. I don’t despair. I wrap him up in the cover and spread myself on top of him again. After a little, I notice some change in the man. A drop of sweat glistens above his brow. This is enough to let me know life has regained its cycle. After a lot of sweat has flowed from him, he opens his eyes, then closes them and sleeps.
3
My first five years I spent at Mahjoub’s, the tailor, in Khemissett. I don’t remember how I got there. I was young. When the tailor, his wife, and three kids settled down on the outskirts of the city, in a house with a big barn, a dirt courtyard, and three clay rooms, they decided they needed a dog to guard the house. Because of their ignorance, they thought I’d spend the night barking. The tailor’s wife was everything, inside and outside the house. She spent her time waging war again
st her three kids or against the neighbors. Sometimes, without justification, she turned on me, tossing at me anything she could get her hands on, a broom or a shoe, yelling she didn’t want a dog that ate and didn’t bark. I didn’t do anything to respond to her aggression. What could I do except wait for the chance to leave the tailor’s house?
They say Mahjoub is the best djellaba tailor in the area. I don’t know about this kind of outerwear. I can’t judge if this is true, or if it’s farfetched. He worked all the time, day and night, as if to avoid the wickedness of his wife. She didn’t see the tailor or hear his voice, as if he were a shadow. He spent all his time in the tailor shop. At home, he’d sit in the corner, with the day’s work finished, or cutting cloth for the next day. On Wednesdays, he went to the souk and I’d spend the day watching him, as he sat under a mending tent with his djellabas around him, pretending he was selling like everyone else in the souk. But he was waiting for his second wife. A woman he saw secretly for some reason, I don’t know why. At those times I barely knew him, as if another man took his place, talking and telling her jokes as they laughed together. He bought her sugar donuts and tea in the morning and meat tagine for lunch, and she wouldn’t leave without him giving her a gold bracelet or earrings. After noon, instead of heading home, he’d spend time moving from alley to alley, looking behind him. He’d sit down finally in one of the houses in a narrow, dark bottom alley and wouldn’t come out until late at night. When he went back home, he’d be quiet again. He’d keep to himself in his corner, cutting cloth for the next day in silence. Everyone in the house would think he’d stayed late at the mosque.
I don’t know why it seemed to me I’d be in a better situation somewhere else. Instead of living with the tailor’s evil wife. Her three kids were unemployed, eating from the livelihood of the tailor. The youngest of them, who was thirty, smoked hashish from morning until late at night. Something I liked about him was when hashish smoke got him dizzy and he put a leash around my neck and pulled me behind him in the street, strutting.
One day, the tailor’s wife fell unconscious in the middle of the house. She shook for a while on the ground because her neighbor told her what her husband was doing on Wednesdays. I went near her with good intentions, leaned over her face, and covered her with my breath, trying to return her warmth to her. But it seemed she was so wicked that the breath of all the dogs on the earth together would be useless. When she opened her eyes and saw me nestled against her, she let out a terrifying scream as if all the evil possessing her had broken out. What do you want, sister? Benevolence isn’t any use with these people. Malice dominates their nature. Instead of throwing herself on her husband who didn’t move a muscle or even blink when he saw her fall, he stayed in his corner, cutting cloth, instead of digging her fingernails into his face, she turned on me and the stick in her hand would have blinded me if I hadn’t jumped out of the way. I spent the night out of the house, of course, thinking about where I should go. Should I change neighborhoods or change cities? I began a new life and forgot the tailor and his evil wife.
4
The worst thing that can happen to a dog like me who has spent her whole life in a house with a roof and door is to find herself suddenly outside. Alone in the open country without being ready for it. When day broke, I’d gone far from the city and deep into the countryside. Exhaustion hit me quickly. For the first time in my life, I was full of regret because I’d never exercised. Or, at the very least, spent time wandering the alleys as dogs do instead of sitting in the tailor’s house without work. While I was moving, deep in thought, I saw two dogs standing in front of one of the farms. As soon as their eyes fell on me, they began moving their tails. One of them peed on a car wheel and I didn’t understand why. I got near them and they started jumping around me, their way of welcoming me. They said they were going to hunt and if I wanted to join them, I only had go up to the crate on the car parked in front of the farm before the owner of the house and his French friend left. After a bit, I was hidden between them in the pen. Two men came out from the farm at the same moment, in what looked like speckled military clothes. As if they were going to war. One of them locked the box without noticing me. The car itself looked like a military vehicle. After a bit, the car was moving quickly between the mountains. I’d never been on a hunting trip in my life. For the first time, I saw this strange thing. The two men lay in wait for birds, shooting at them. The two dogs rushed from here to there, and then one of them would bring back a dead bird bleeding in his mouth. The other followed him with sad eyes because he hadn’t found a bird, alive or dead, to put in his mouth. I asked the two about their work, and they listened to me with one ear. As for the other ear, it was listening for the shot that would come from time to time. As soon as they heard the shot, they ran off with their tongues dancing in bliss. I was baffled, standing there thinking about it. It went on like that for hours. I told myself life with the tailor and his evil wife and doped-up kid was a thousand times better than this, which was like the life of lunatics. The two disappeared for a long time. After a while, I didn’t hear a sound or panting anymore. From time to time, a shot came, but it was very far away. The shots then disappeared, and when the day was almost over, I was lost in the woods, not knowing east from west. Nonetheless, I came to a decision. I decided not to go back with the two of them. That’s why I didn’t make any effort to keep up with them as I saw them move away. I noticed I was hungry. I rarely complain about that. Since yesterday, I hadn’t tasted any food. I remembered the tailor. What was he doing now? Was he still sitting alone in his corner, cutting cloth while his evil wife chewed her anger?
A night I won’t ever forget. I won’t talk about the wolf who spent the night howling and who would have snatched me if I hadn’t thrown myself in a river that pulled me far away. The night and not the road. I haven’t had an experience like this. Moving forward without knowing if you’ll fall into a bluff or a hole that’ll swallow you up. Late at night, I heard barking and I realized I was near the city, and then its lights appeared before me. I thought, it’s not important that I go back to the same place. I was happy, as if I regretted my former life at the tailor’s house. Even if I thought the best thing that could happen to me would be to find a well-mannered dog to have a good time with. No, I didn’t return to the tailor’s city. It was another city. I peed on a tree, then on other trees as I moved forward on the wide road.
This city was big. The buildings were tall and the streets were wide and lit. I sat relaxing and enjoyed watching the cars passing by quickly. Not far from me was one of the bars with the scent of rotisserie chicken wafting from its door, stirring up my appetite and reminding me of my hunger. In Khemissett, I’d sit in front of the bars since drunks toss you bones and pieces of bread dipped in sauce and sometimes whole pieces of meat. I went near the door and looked inside. The bar was immersed in dark smoke and there was a lot of noise. And music. Among the customers, I saw a man who seemed eccentric. He was getting drunk alone. There was a lot of food and drink on his table. He was the one who drew my attention first. The man seemed uncomfortable sitting there. He had on black sunglasses despite the night and the darkness of the bar. He turned all around, taking money out of his pocket, counting it, and then putting it back, biting his lips, wiping sweat from his forehead. Some of the customers were casting sidelong glances at him and winking. As if they knew in advance what he was going to do, and found the thought entertaining. Suddenly, he jumped up from his chair and took off running to the door. His speed, much faster than most sixty-year-olds, startled me. The guard chased after him, then the waiter and other customers. They brought him back, chiding him and pushing him in front of them like a criminal. As he was moving in front of them submissively, his eyes, with the glasses off, appeared shut. He was moving his lips, mumbling incomprehensible words. I don’t know if he was laughing or crying. I’m not sure. Some of them were laughing as they pulled him by the sides of his coat. The old man stood in front of the bar door, swearin
g he didn’t have any money. But the waiter pushed him roughly inside, saying, “Aren’t you ashamed of lying, grandpa?” Then I saw him standing at the bar with the same group that had been berating him a little earlier (he’d put his sunglasses back on), taking out a wad of cash from his inside pocket, spreading it in front of the bartender on the wooden counter, and saying while turning in every direction: “A round on me!” On his lips was what seemed like a smile of contentment, as he was looking at them all rejoicing and clapping wildly. He then turned to me. I didn’t know what went on in his head when his eyes fell on me. He lifted his sunglasses and fixed his eyes on me. I was sure some idea was going around in his mind at that moment. He took a piece of meat and tossed it to me. Any other time, I’d hesitate and sniff it suspiciously but, in my miserable state, I devoured it without paying attention to the alarm that normally rings in my head in these kinds of situations.
After a bit, the man stood in front of the door, staring at me. As if he was wondering if I was going to follow him or not. He put his hand on my head and patted my neck. I lifted my eyes to him but without being dejected and with great caution. The expressions on his face would have made you laugh. His features were drawn. His eyes were narrow and his lipless mouth resembled a carelessly drawn line. He took a few steps away from the bar and I followed him. His body was frail and his gait was heavy. The opposite of what he was like when he was fleeing. He was walking now as if hitting the ground aimlessly. There was that strange and disgusting expression on his mouth, something you might have thought was a smile at first. I would spend the next seven years with this man, who they called the commander, and I’d often see him go into the same bar and jump out running like he did that night, with the customers bringing him back, pushing him in front of them and chiding him without me understanding why. Until now, I still wonder if I was forced to follow him.
A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me Page 11