11
Aziz
1:30 a.m.
1
IN ONE OF MY MOMENTS that falls on the thin border between clarity and oblivion. I haven’t left the world I belong to, haven’t yet plunged into the world of dreams. I am close. I know I’m laid out. That I am conscious. That I haven’t fallen. But my body feels as though it has traveled to another realm. It’s as I left it after its last palpitations, barely remembering me, because it no longer knows me. A miracle. I was sure I’d fall tonight. But it didn’t happen. It’ll never come like this. My certainty about an imminent departure had been shaken, but I now was sure. I dreamed I fell from on top of the basin and that Hinda came in and brought me back to my cement bed. She sat licking my hand and my face to bring life back to me. A strange dream.
A strong convulsion like an electric current flows through all of my limbs. The current became a strong shake, as happens in the moments right before the death of a ram on Eid al-Adha. The body twitches violently. The chest rises and falls in a terrifying movement, naked, the ribs appearing like sticks as they start to shake too. I feel my Adam’s apple move up and down. It swells up until it becomes the size of a pomegranate. I lift my hands to feel it. My hand moves slowly but doesn’t get there. Even though the stiff fingers have relaxed. After a third attempt, I raise my hand and bring it close to my face. My hand moves on its own until it reaches my mouth. It searches for the opening of my mouth hiding in the middle of my hair. It finds it. The same reaction afflicts my mouth. It opens and then closes like the mouth of a fish in its death struggle. What’s hit my body? This constriction hasn’t happened to me before. I put my finger in my mouth and begin feeling around. It’s as if I’m looking for an exit for life to sneak out of. In a violent motion, I throw up everything in my body. A warm yellow liquid with a disgusting smell gushes out in successive bursts and covers my eyes, nose, and chest. This is death.
And what is death in the end? Let’s think about it in cold blood, if blood can be cold at moments like this. I see a light rising with the last closing of my eyes. A nighttime light. The reverberation of all the beautiful sounds I heard in my life turn toward me. I don’t know where they’re leading me. As I roll, rising between stars shining around me. That rising and falling has become one. Not before or after. An endless sky as I fly like a bird lighting up itself with itself forever and ever. Maybe one time I knew the other dead people that passed through the casbah, by their diseases and illnesses. They were missing the limbs they left in the casbah courtyard. Maybe we crossed through bogs and extremely wet lands. After a march of six hundred thousand years, we know we’re running after the man who killed us. That we were all waiting in this great haze for the time when we take our revenge. They say the final moments in the life of man endear death to him. Let them bring it close to him in a calm and meekness that make him see himself as a child playing in the courtyard of his house. They also say that in the final moments, the taste of your mother’s milk returns to your mouth. A relaxation hits you and you see your body as if it were sliding in pleasure, stretching out on land declining smoothly.
2
My cousin Driss and I were digging the hole at the waterwheel to bury the bird. From there, I could see the house and the fig tree looking over us from the courtyard. From its top, you could see the whole world if you wanted because it was big and tall. Driss was the one who dug the hole. He’s the one who said: “Let’s bury it here, near the waterwheel, so it doesn’t get thirsty.” He also said the land always stays wet near the waterwheel. After a week of life, the bird died with its wings open as if it had died flying. It came from distant lands to die here in our hands. I grabbed the bird by its wings and its beak hung down. I turned to Driss. The bird was light in my hand. Driss looked at the house. There were women at the door. Standing and sitting. I could see them when Driss didn’t block them with his tall frame—he’s the oldest of us by two years. His nose is long like my father’s nose. I counted the feathers of the wing in my hand. Seven gray feathers shaking without wind. It might still be alive. Driss took the bird and tossed it into the hole. I was hoping it would stay in my hand longer so I could feel its wing shaking between my fingers. The bird was face down as if it wanted to hide from us because of its death. We piled dirt on it with our feet. My feet were bare. Driss was wearing shoes my uncle bought him at the souk. The bird disappeared under the dirt and the feathers of its wings stayed upright. Driss hit the ground with his shoe and stamped it until the feathers disappeared. I was jumping on the waterwheel, and my hand seemed emptier than before. Driss took out his trap. He wanted to catch another bird. I told him I wouldn’t hunt another bird after today. Birds were created to fly and we catch them so they don’t fly. The bird disappeared under the ground. The feel of its feathers was still in my hand. And under Driss’s shoes.
When I turned toward the house, he pulled me by the hand and said: “It’s better we go to the fig hedge.”
There were birds of many colors there. I didn’t want to go to the fig hedge and I didn’t want to hunt another bird even if it was colored. Driss said: “The house is full of guests. It’s better we go to the hedge.”
He moved the trap in the air. What are guests doing at the door? I stepped toward the house where the guests who Driss talked about were. My sister Khadija was waving at us as if she was warning me about something. Driss ran to grab my hand. “It’s better we go to the hedge. We’ll find at least one bird.” There was a small lump in my throat. Sad for the bird that had died for no reason. Birds always die for no reason. I told Driss I wasn’t sad for the bird so he’d let go of my hand. Driss pulled me toward the hedge. Khadija joined us and said: “We’re going back to our father’s.”
I didn’t understand why we were going back to him. She yelled: “I’ll run away tonight so I don’t have to go back to his house.”
Driss hit the air with his shoe to scare her. And Driss chased her away and she fled from him as I ran behind her and asked her: “Why are we going back to our father?” She yelled: “I’ll run away tonight so I don’t go back to him.”
Driss hit the air with his shoe to scare her. My father won’t buy me shoes since he doesn’t live with us. He went to live with another woman in Chaouen. My mother told us, me and Khadija, to go to him. We went to him in Chaouen. But the new wife he lives with told us to go back to our mother. My uncle told my mother: “They’re like my son, Driss.” We stayed with him. I didn’t understand why she wanted us to go back to live with him again. With his wife who doesn’t like us. I went back to the small grave where the bird was sleeping and where Driss’s shoe had been a little while ago. I put a stone on it so I could recognize it. I saw the bird was still alive under the dirt. It was singing even though the dirt filled its beak. Driss pulled me by my hand. It’s better we go to the fig hedge, like Khadija said. But she didn’t say anything.
Driss chided her and she yelled: “We’ll run away, Aziz and me, tonight, before our mother leaves us.”
Driss chided her and I said: “Who’ll leave us?”
“Our mother. Tonight. She’ll go to her new husband’s house.”
Khadija believes we’ll be happy without our father and without our mother and without our uncle and without his son, Driss. Driss hit her on her head. She ran away from him toward the house and Driss said: “She’s lying.” He grabbed my hand again. We’ll find another bird. Prettier than the one that died. With a white tail and a red chest. He put his hand in my pocket and took out the piece of bread I was feeding the bird before it died and he said: “We’ll put the bread in the trap under the fig tree so the bird eats it. When we catch it, we’ll have in the cage a new bird you can feed.”
I looked up at the house again and at the women circling around it. I left my hand in Driss’s hand. We headed to the fig hedge together.
3
We spent months at our father’s in Chaouen, Khadija and me, before his wife kicked us out. Friday afternoon, we went to the barracks where he wo
rks. The barracks door was locked. We heard music inside and we said our father was training the brass band. Then we heard them outside the barracks and we realized the band was wandering the outskirts of the city, heading toward the mountain. Khadija and I were waiting for them. We looked at them from behind the trees. Then we heard them going up the mountain. We went up the mountain, running to get ahead of them. We know the road to the mountain like the band knows it, and like our father, who’s leading them with the white ram. Always white and fat. The band with our father walking behind the ram. They circled where the ram circled. On invisible trails between thick trees. They stopped when the ram stopped to relax. Under the gushing waterfall. Then they went up to the mountaintop to play their music. I don’t like the woman who lives with my father. Sometimes I don’t like my father because he left our mother. Sometimes I like him because he wears a white uniform and leads the brass band. Khadija knows the route the band takes. Every Friday afternoon, she’d say to me: “Why don’t we go to the waterfall that the band passes?” And she’d take my hand because she’s older than me. My father waved his brass rod and the fat white ram was in front with no one leading it.
When he was living with us and our mother, the light got turned on in the house. But I didn’t understand the connection between the light and him being home. When our father was home, we had light. When he was late, there wasn’t any. My sister said it was because of the suit he was wearing. White like the ones French officers wear. They let us leave the light on in our house but forbade us to wander around because our father led their brass band. Unlike the neighbors’ house. Unlike the other houses that didn’t have a father leading a brass band with a big white ram in front. Sometimes the darkness of the night would pass inside and outside the house. It covered our house and the neighbors’ house. It spread its wings on everything around it. My mother said: “If your father was home, we wouldn’t be in the dark.” Waiting for him to come, we sit in the dark. Then she said, “Here are the French passing by again,” and I heard the soldiers’ shoes as they hit the ground outside. Behind the door. I heard it even if they were not passing by. To myself, I said: Will my father come if I turn on the light? I didn’t turn it on. Even though the soldiers weren’t walking in the dark alley now. He crossed it three times since the sun set sun. Light wouldn’t come on in the neighbors’ house. Nor in our house. My father would come to turn it on. I took advantage of the opportunity to ask what would happen if I turned it on. My mother said the soldiers were coming and they’d break the door onto our heads. If our father was here? Then no one would break in his door since he wears a uniform like theirs. Sometimes we didn’t turn on the light even though our father was home because it was daytime. If it was night, we’d turn it on despite the passing of the soldiers, my mother said. No one would break our door with the butt of his rifle. He came during the day, sat for an hour, and then went back to his ram. We didn’t turn on the light to see him as he left. As we didn’t turn it on to see him coming. He sat for an hour without us turning on the light for a single minute to see if the soldiers would break down the doors or not. If they smashed the door onto our heads or not. There was no way to know because it was daytime. He lit it this time because mother was sleeping in her room. I then got close to the door and listened for the sound outside. Did I hear the noise of the soldiers’ shoes or the noise of my father coming back? Khadija was sleeping, not seeing the light from the depths of her thick sleep. I listened and heard a lot of rustling. That was my sister tossing and turning under the sheets. I heard the rustling and I expected her to say something. She didn’t say anything. The sheets returned to their silence. They were sleeping too. The feet then got close and I didn’t know if they were the soldiers’ or my father’s. Thick, monotonous, regulated, they kept getting closer in the night. Maybe all of them together. I imagined the ends of their rifles were raised, while my father was standing in front of the door to stop them from breaking it down.
4
I leave Driss setting up the trap behind the hedge and I sneak to the house, fleeing, and I climb the fig tree so I don’t have to go to my father’s in Chaouen. In the courtyard of the house, they come in and ask where I’ve gone and leave again. “Where’d Aziz go?” From the fig-tree branches, I can see them in the courtyard of the house, on the ground floor, coming in and leaving, wondering: “Where’d that devil go?” When they’ve had enough of looking, Khadija looks up to the tree to see me hanging at the top. I pick an unripe fig. She doesn’t say she saw me and starts gesturing but I don’t understand her. Or I understand this: We’ll flee to the woods to live with the monkeys. Maybe we’ll find birds that love to live with us without needing to fly and to flee as we get close to them.
My mother leaves the room and sits by the tree. Her shirt’s new. The scent of the man whose house she’s going to emanates from her. All our neighbors circle around her. Women I don’t know. Two men wearing thick djellabas, not sweating in them despite the summer. There’s a lot of henna on our mother’s hands and feet. I can smell its fragrance from here. She thinks I don’t see or smell her henna. My uncle comes outside and I hear him say to my mother: “He doesn’t have to know.” But I know. My uncle says: “He doesn’t have to know because he’s still young.” But I’ve grown up more than my uncle thinks. I’m about six. In two years, I’ll be Khadija’s age and maybe bigger than her. I know my mother will leave us to go live with another man. The smell of the other man wafts from her and his flavor reaches my perch on top of the fig tree. She’ll leave us just as my father did. This time, she wants me to hear her say she wants to settle down on something firm. Under the fig tree, my uncle shakes himself. What’s this firm thing? She ironed his shirts and socks while he trimmed his mustache and jumped from one woman to the next. What’s this firm thing? “She can’t,” says my uncle. “This creature can’t keep her man because she spends her day sleeping. She doesn’t do anything that makes her man stay home.” I hear my mother say she’s been getting up before dawn to iron his shirts and socks. My father now lives with the other woman. Now she irons his shirts and socks too, while he trims his mustache in front of the mirror and his mind’s with the ram waiting for him at the barracks.
I get ready to spend the afternoon in the tree branches because I don’t want to go to the woods with Khadija to live with the monkeys. I don’t want to go back to our father’s. I’ll spend the next day and more in the branches. There isn’t fruit in them to eat if I get hungry. They’re still the size of the peanuts we picked from my uncle’s hood when he came back from work covered with dust from the road that enslaves him and the other workers. When he comes back in the evening, he says: “We worked hard today. We opened up half a kilometer in the mountain.” Instead of listening to him, we throw ourselves on his djellaba hood.
Our neighbor tells her: “Take him to his father. Him and his sister. He has to take care of them.” Another neighbor says the same thing. My uncle says they’re like my son Driss. I imagine my uncle loves us more than my father. My mother says she doesn’t want to bother anyone. I imagine my mother doesn’t love us either. The neighbor women say: “The two kids have grown up. They’ve got to have a father.” I imagine he’s now in the barracks training the brass band. Or washing the ram with soap. I imagine him on the forest road, his brass rod in his hand, directing the band. My uncle comes back to the courtyard, wondering: “Where’d that devil go?” I remember I love my uncle. Because he always comes to the house with a handful of peanuts. Driss and I dig our hands into his pocket to take some and run away to the corner of the room like cats to eat them one by one. Sometimes we don’t find them in his pockets. We exchange glances and wonder: Where are the peanuts? And we find them in the hood of his djellaba. When my uncle finishes work on the road, he buys peanuts in the souk and hides them in his hood for us to find. The smell of the road always wafts from my uncle. His scent’s there in the house, even when he’s gone. When his work is near the village, Driss and I go to see the bulldozers
and diggers with their long iron arms. One like a giant locust. Another like a scarab. My uncle and the other workers are extending the road that’ll go to the capital.
We ask my uncle every night: “Has the road made it to the capital?”
And my uncle says happily: “Soon, soon.”
We see the road creep toward the capital little by little. The workers sit to drink tea in black mugs, talking about the road that’s passed and the other that’ll pass under their thin forearms. There are rags on their heads so the sun doesn’t burn them. Then one day, the road passes in front of the house and the workers stay with us for a few weeks. They sleep under the big machines that look like locusts. During the day, they work with empty bags for cement or the rags we’d seen before on their heads. Under the wall of the house, they bend iron and make from it high walls that become long when they extend them on the columns, then they become a road we’ll take to the other side of the river. My uncle says this is a bridge. We start to say we’ll pass on the bridge. When we go to it, we find the workers eating lunch under it. We say the bridge was fixed also for workers to have lunch under it. The butcher Si Moussa comes and, in its shadow, he slaughters the goat he’ll sell in the market. We say the bridge was repaired so that Si Moussa could slaughter his goat under it. He hangs it under the bridge so its blood flows. Sometimes two goats, because the workers also buy the meat from Si Moussa. My uncle sees the road extending and says it’ll reach the capital soon, and he’s happy because he said that. We’re happy too because there’s a city, and it’s the capital, with the road going there.
A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me Page 12