A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me

by Youssef Fadel

  Darkness envelops everything in the courtyard so my attacks on them are useless. But I am determined to drive them off. At the same time, I think about him and try to dig around his head to open a small hole to let him breathe before his soul departs. I smell the scent of life under the soil. I dig. But there are more and more rats around me. I attack them from one side and they flee to the other. They stop for a little until I think they’ve fled, and then I hear them scratching in the darkness. The growing sound of their paws. The smell of fresh meat stirs them. How many are there? All the casbah rats have come out tonight. The name of the feast awaiting them is Aziz. I hit the ground and the air around me and I bark with all my might and I dig. I dig again, despite the lime burning my eyes and the rats, whose sharp sounds I hear around me like the meowing of blind cats. I dig. And they dig. I smell life diminishing under the soil. I dig. I dig. I see my strength double before their increasing attacks against me this time and I feel their fangs gnawing at my feet. Sharp stings. I bend backward and find the shovel. I lean against a nearby palm tree and catch my breath. Everything’s dark. I don’t see what the rats are doing, though I can feel them jumping around me feverishly and can hear persistent movement. My miserable mind pictures it like a continuously fading roar underneath me, and I imagine the rat fangs are doing their job and there won’t be anything left of the man by the break of dawn. I can’t do anything. My misery’s growing and injustice is getting the better of me as I see the night extend and stretch as if it’s helping them carry out their disgusting mission.

  Then, suddenly, it starts to rain. Thick rain, like stones. It might be hail, coming down at just the right time. A shudder of joy flows through my entire body as I hear the sound of the rain and I wonder if the repulsive animals have retreated under the downpour. I don’t hear them anymore. What happened to the man buried alive? I approach and they retreat at the same time. Do they think water, even if in this storm, is enough to bother them? No, even the flood wouldn’t stop them from their extraordinary feast. I don’t care if the sky pours its anger on us, as long as it stops the rats from attacking. Suddenly, the light from the room illuminates part of the courtyard and the two guards appear, making loud sounds that precede them in the night. Baba Ali, with Benghazi following him. They are fighting. One of the blessings of the rain has been to make the two men appear at this critical moment. This time the rats flee. They disappear completely. Benghazi only comes back after a long while and the light of the room stays on. I think, yes, the rain didn’t force the rats to retreat but it forced the guards to come out. It’s the same thing. When Benghazi comes back alone, he is laughing or cursing or something, I don’t know what. I don’t care because I’ve made a lot of progress. I work with increasing abandonment, I need to finish before the light disappears and the rats attack again. When I grab his hand and start pulling, the day has begun to break. Aziz is light. He doesn’t weigh as much as two chickens. I see his eyes sparkle in the light of the rising dawn. I’m delighted. My enthusiasm increased. This time I don’t care about the rats, which are pulling on his other side. I attack them and pounce on one of them with all the strength in my fangs, until its stomach explodes. Aziz is smiling and his eyes are sparkling at the first sign of day. And I, with my eyes, encourage him to keep up his optimism. Then he closes his eyes as if to relax.

  14

  Zina

  Dawn the Next Day

  1

  I DON’T REMEMBER CROSSING A river or a bridge. I wake to the hum of the engine, which has become noisy and constricted as if it’s turning in empty space. My mind screams and burns and the earlier anxiety is starting to vanish, as if I’m seeing it through a long tunnel. I look at my watch. Outside, night begins to withdraw and day spreads sparse light around the bus as if it’s sneaking in through unseen cracks. The birth of a new day always causes joy. That’s what I think when I open my eyes. The woman next to me is fast asleep. Her head isn’t rising or falling or nodding to the right or left like other passengers when they give in to the strength of sleep. Her head is leaning on top of the chair and it seems like she’s awake, but with eyes shut and resting. The road we’re moving on is narrow and rising because we’re traveling through high mountains, a thick, dark mass, surrounding us from every direction. Veils of thin fog at their peaks increase the magic of their mysteriousness. The harsh coldness of dawn enters the window and pierces my bones. I try to close the window. I see the bus moving on the edge of a bottomless abyss. My heart is rising up in my throat. I move back. I look in front of me and the bus seems like it’s suspended or rising in the air. I don’t look at the chasm below but it doesn’t disappear from my sight. At each turn, my chest contracts as I imagine the bus turning, flipping over and rolling down, and then a boulder or a tree stops it and we remain suspended in the air. I then imagine it falling into the bottom of the river, with passengers strewn about from the windows. I plunge into the river, not knowing if it’s really there at the bottom, and I come out safe, waiting for the woman to emerge from the water too. I look in every direction, but don’t see her.

  I imagine myself dead, calm and peaceful.

  The driver’s face is expressionless. His eyes are focused on the road. As if he’s herding a tame animal and they’ve known each other for a long time. One hand’s on the steering wheel while the other’s on the shift stick, moving it forward and backward. The engine changes the sharpness of its noise with each motion as if it’s following the orders of its master. We turn and the bus starts moving more quickly, even though the curves of the road don’t disappear at first. After that, we move onto a flat road in the middle of a forest with trees like umbrellas, with tall trunks and dense leaves. The driver takes out a box of snuff and tips some powder onto the back of the hand holding the steering wheel. He puts the box away and takes a deep sniff, wipes his nose, and goes back to concentrating on the road. At the end of this forest, an iron barrier coming out of the ground like bent nails stops us. There is a patrol of police and soldiers with dogs. There are trucks and jeeps transporting them to the edges of the forest at the side of the road.

  The driver leans to the right and stops the engine. The woman wakes up and turns toward me, smiling. When she’s in a bus or in a car, she tells me, she always wakes up when the engine stops. Birds in nearby trees chirp with a high-pitched song. In the morning, their singing is denser. The zeal of some of them becomes more intense before they set off to look for food. I think about the progress I’ve made and what’s left. Another day with me far from Azrou, near an undefined place. A casbah in a village or in a forest or a desert? All I know is I’ll recognize it as soon as I see it. I have this hunch I saw it many times in my dreams and my eyes won’t mislead me. I don’t know how much time I’ll spend looking for it. For the first time, I ask myself how I’ll get back to Azrou. Can I get back the same day? And if not? I see myself knocking on a door, at times big and at times small. Sometimes someone looks out and sometimes it stays shut. And then? I’ll see when it happens.

  The driver looks out the window and talks to two people from the patrol. One of them takes the box of snuff, laughing. The cop pours a line from it and then gives it back to the driver. They exchange a few words and then he gets up and leaves the bus. After a bit, a cop, a soldier, and another person wearing civilian clothes get on the bus. They stand at the front and look at us for a long time, one after the other. The man in civilian clothes passes between the rows of seats and asks this passenger or that about where he’s going and asks for his ID. He backtracks, focusing on every face with the same harshness, then joins the others and leaves. The bus remains parked in its spot under the tree. The driver’s still gone. When he finally gets back on, he says three prisoners have escaped from the prison and that the army, with the help of locals, has been chasing them for two days in the mountains. He lights a cigarette and sits in his seat.

  The bus isn’t moving but there’s a lot of commotion on the road. Soldiers cross and disappear between the trees. Oth
ers shout back and forth. Dogs bark after all the yelling. The ones standing near the trucks are exchanging words in a loud voice. What can I do besides imagine the prisoners escaping, with Aziz among them? At each bark, I imagine the fangs of the vicious dogs tearing into his flesh and the flesh of those escaping with him. Not surprisingly, I remember the dream I had. After some passengers have descended and mixed with the soldiers and the police, we leave the bus too, the woman and me. The first rays of the morning sun break through the branches, angled streaks throw interlacing speckles of light on the damp grass. We go to a small clearing. Through the branches, we can see intermittent movement on the road. A bird flaps its wings above us, making a sudden movement in the middle of the silent forest. The woman asks me if I am thinking about Aziz and I move my head, not knowing what I’m indicating. We speak awhile without me knowing if I preferred him to have fled or be crouching in a cell waiting. What will the prisoner wait for except to escape or not? She then says: “Does he deserve all this effort?” Silence. Does he deserve it? I’m not really thinking about her question. I blame myself because I forgot him the past four years. If not for the man who appeared last night at the bar. Then I excuse myself, because I kept running, looking for him for fourteen years. I say to myself: I take refuge in God from Evil Satan.

  I hear the driver’s voice, so we go back toward the bus. He says maybe we’ll be delayed and maybe we won’t be able to keep going. I don’t know why the woman knits her brows and seems miserable when she hears this. Some of the passengers protest and others suggest helping the soldiers catch the prisoners. Most of them jump on the soldier’s truck, shouting “There is no God but God” and “Allahu Akbar,” but the officer tells them to get down and they return to the ground without hiding their enthusiasm. A strange silence reigns. Like an anxiety hiding behind the trees. We go back to the clearing. The women spread out around us collecting herbs. One near us yells that she found some mushrooms. Others join her and they talk for a long time about poisonous and nonpoisonous mushrooms and decide the best thing is to collect wild wormwood, because it’s a medicine for the stomach and the intestines and eases digestion and urination. I have forgotten the woman’s question. Now I imagine the passengers bringing him back, bound, with bloodied hands and feet. I see Aziz as in my dream, fleeing from vicious dogs chasing after him. Sometimes their fangs almost sink into his thigh and sometimes he disappears into the top of a tree or plunges into a river so the dogs lose his scent.

  To my surprise, the woman says she isn’t happy with her life: “I’m not happy about anything in it.” She got married twice and brought into the world eleven kids without wanting to. She was tormented by her first husband and her second husband was tormented by her. He put up with her submissively and bore her flare-ups willingly. Is there a third way? Do you know what my desire is now? To remain as I was at twenty. Without a man. Then, as she looks at the far-off mountains, she asks: “How would life be out there? The same as our life or different?” I think it’s different. A hut with a tree shading it and near it a spring of water flowing forever. I would prefer to live there and to give birth to a single girl with the first person who passed by my hut and then to forget him. A moment of silence passes. But there is no opportunity for this, no second chance. Does the sea get another chance, to change its scope or its islands? Or does the forest get to change its place? A little while ago, when the driver announced the trip might be cancelled, she said she felt a great resignation and strange bliss. As if someone was pushing her forward and, at the same time, warning her and restricting her. However the course of our life may be, we’ll always remain slaves. Another long period of silence.

  She asks me afterward if I know where she’s going. I shake my head.

  “Back to him,” she says.

  “Who?”

  “My first husband.”

  “Who . . . ?”

  “Yes.”

  She straightens her back against a tree behind her and lowers her eyes as she starts playing with the grass with her feet. Her eyes are bathed in tears. Beautiful, even with her tears. Her beauty still follows her, even after forty. I imagine she’ll stay beautiful, I imagine her beauty will follow her to the grave. I go over to her and put my head on her chest. She calms down and I calm down with her. We stay in this position for a while. Calmly, I look at a butterfly that has settled near her foot. Her foot has stopped playing with the grass. As if it recognizes the life nearby and has stopped playing in order not to crush it. The butterfly flies up and lands on the back of my hand, which is resting on her chest. A small butterfly with fine rings of yellow, red, and blue. The butterfly doesn’t know it’s carrying elegant and brilliant decorations. It’s not concerned with the woman or me. All this engraving and beauty is threatened by obliteration as soon as its heedless feet move.

  I hear the horn of the bus. Its engine is turned on. The driver yelling that we’re continuing the trip. I see the passengers hurrying back to the bus as if they’re afraid it’ll leave without them. We go back to our places too. The bus sets off after the driver says goodbye from his window to some of the men on the patrol and wishes them a good day.

  2

  At seventeen, I passed near the barracks. A few hours ago, I was in Azrou and now I’ve made it all the way here. Far from Azrou now. No one with me. Khatima didn’t come with me. I have only a foggy idea of where I’ll find Aziz. After his disappearance, I cried. Even though I’d thought there were no more tears in my eyes. Khatima kept telling me to forget it. The neighbors were saying the same thing. Two days after his disappearance, Khatima and I went around to all the administrations, establishments, and ministries. From the central prison to the Ministry of Justice. No one we asked knew anything about the person we were looking for. Aziz? There’s no one with that name. Khatima started saying she didn’t trust men who talked this way. They repeated the same words the prison guard said the first time. There’s no one with that name. There were many ministries and even more offices but we didn’t find anyone in this office or that to tell us something different. We only said we were looking for a pilot named Aziz. The Ministry of the Interior first said: “What does the Ministry of the Interior have to do with the disappearance of a pilot who works in the army? Why don’t you turn your feet toward the Ministry of Justice?”

  We spent more days like this. From ministry to ministry. Rabat is a small city but it seems big, like a rumor that keeps spreading. You don’t even know where to begin. At the Ministry of Justice: “You knocked on the wrong door. You want the Military Ministry of Justice.”

  “Where’s that?”

  No one knew. Like that, from office to office. From administration to administration. Until we wore out the soil we walked on. We went back to Azrou. And Khatima told me to forget about it.

  But I didn’t forget. I went out to the airbase. And here I am in Kénitra. A mysterious city. Like a village for summer vacation without vacationers. I didn’t imagine I’d get here so quickly. The bus was moving slowly. Sometimes it almost stopped. I was thinking: I won’t ever reach this Kénitra that I don’t know. But I made it. Quicker than I’d imagined, and without my sister.

  My inquiries to find Aziz started with his unit. From that road leading to the airbase. Passersby were looking at me, not knowing I just came from another city. I didn’t have any trace indicating that. They look at my swollen stomach but they didn’t know. Maybe the swelling wasn’t obvious enough and I didn’t say anything. But Aziz was growing inside me calmly. I sat on a stone to relax from the exhaustion of walking. I’d walked from the station to here, and I still hadn’t arrived. At the station, they didn’t know anything about Aziz but they stared for a long time at my belly. The airbase had been surrounded by soldiers since the coup, as people would tell me, whether I asked or not. They knew everything about the airbase and about the coup but they didn’t know anything about Aziz. What did I have to do with the coup? I was looking for Aziz who works at the airbase. Someone told me: “Follow this r
oad but you’ll find the base surrounded.”

  I came from the station all the way here on foot. Always along the same road until the river. Then you follow the river to the airbase. Its zigzags, which Aziz and I saw not far from the airbase. Once. My hand in his. Happy because we were near the river. Far from the base.

  How much time had passed? Three or four months? Khatima didn’t want me to travel without her. She didn’t want me to move around without her because I was weighed down with the life in my belly. She told me to forget it. She didn’t want me to move. But Aziz hadn’t appeared. I waited for him. After our attempts to look for him at the offices and administrations. Then after our miserable waiting at the house. Two months we spent waiting. I’d just turned seventeen. Day after day. Week after week. All of it. Day by day. Hour by hour. Time passed faster than I’d imagined. And there I was sitting on a stone, alone, between the station and the base that would look over me after a little. A woman selling snails handed me a plastic bottle of water while I was sitting on the stone. I thanked her. She insisted I drink because she guessed my stomach was full. So I drank. I was happy with her water, scented with wild thyme and orange. The woman was happy as she saw me drink and water the life in my belly. She smiled at the child I was carrying with her many wrinkles, moving her old head. I told her: “His name is Aziz.” We smiled together.