There, far from Azrou, on the outskirts of Meknès, a farm was being built. It wasn’t far if I compared it to the six years I’d spent looking for this officer, the only man they said could find a solution for my problem because he was from the king’s family and was charged with everything related to the royal palaces. I’d reach him in any case, if reaching him would lead me to some kind of result. Except for occasional moments of weakness that overwhelmed me, the fire of looking for Aziz and the certainty of finding him didn’t leave me for a single day. The fire simmered down and flared up according to the seasons. According to the great deceptions and weak hopes each season brought. And the sweat? I stopped counting the days my bed was covered in sweat. Especially in the spring when a fundamental change happened to my body. I felt this in the disorder of my cells as I lay in bed. When Khatima saw the changes happening to me, she said: “It’s true you need a man.” The fortuneteller said the man refuses to return to his house on his own for one reason or another. In this case, all the woman can do is look for another man. True, your husband will not stay there in the depths of darkness until there’s no ending. But in any case, what if he doesn’t appear? I’m not saying Aziz will stay in his darkness all these years. One day, he’ll leave for the light. Your husband is no exception. He’s a human being and he loves the light like all human beings in the world. But if he refuses to appear? I agree with my sister and the fortuneteller. Light attracts all living beings that don’t like the darkness.
I reached the farm early so I didn’t miss my chance to meet the general. People worked here and there and I walked among them. For half an hour or more. A lot of workers. A whole army of farmers were planting trees and flowers. I stood on the side of their path. I didn’t know if they were workers, farmers, or soldiers. Maybe a mixture. Why did they seem mostly the same? Maybe because of the blackness of their necks and arms as they stayed outside, bent over under the sun. I sat to take a break. I was thinking about the general and his wife after this distance I’d covered. After the recent information I’d collected. I felt my energy waning. The workers around me, close to me, were bent over, fixated on their plants, turning them over with their hands a number of times before they moved them to the ground very gently. An entire garden flowed in their imaginations as they bent over the ground. I stood up again. I asked them the way so I didn’t go in the wrong direction and I headed where they told me. They didn’t mention the general by name. When I asked one of them if the general had arrived, he responded arrogantly that he had been working in the farm of his “master” since dawn and had no time to waste to know if his “master” has arrived. Then his neighbor butted in, talking about the farm and the number of its rooms, which were more than a hundred. And about the dining hall that would be built above the pool of rare fish. The other added that when guests came, they’d savor their banquet as they watched fish from all the continents swim under their feet. He hadn’t seen these strange things yet but they were working night and day before they moved to another piece of land to build another farm for another general. They spoke enthusiastically in order to appear like the ones in charge of this whole creation.
I haven’t been doing any work for a long time. My sister’s the one who works. Madame Janeau can’t do without her now. While my sister’s standing behind the bar, I sit at home planning the coming trip. And then I find myself sitting near the workshop, carrying optimistic ideas. As if our nightmare would end soon. Aziz’s and mine. At any moment, I expected the general to appear before his house. The one I saw was his wife. She didn’t look old because of the softness of her skin or maybe because of an air of sadness spreading from her eyes. Syllables came to her lips but they were broken because she was a foreigner. She listened to my complaints in the entryway that was wide like a stadium, with much commotion and noise because of the ironsmiths, carpenters, and men putting ornate plaster on the ceilings. She went back inside after my words ended without me knowing if she’d gotten anything from my complaint.
She wasn’t gone long. Because the general appeared behind her yelling excitedly. The workers stopped their work so he didn’t waste a single syllable he was saying, the general I’d spent long years searching for. I heard him now, yelling in his wife’s face: why had she received me at her house? Looking at the woman’s bent back, I saw she was crying. Did she want to destroy his house? Were we accustomed to receiving these kinds of people? What happened to his wife that she forgot herself and subjected herself, their life, and the lives of their children to danger? Did his wife not know my husband was going to kill the king if God hadn’t been kind to him and to us? She cried. I froze in my spot. I became a piece of ice. As he threatened me and said he knew how to deal with the likes of me . . . He then turned to the workers. Why did they stop working? The noise returned as it was, screaming, violent, piercing the surface of my ears.
I went back, dragging my feet among the workers and farmers who weren’t paying attention to my disasters. For a number of days, I’d wondered what would happen when I finally faced the general. I wasn’t sleeping at night and I was spending the days turning the matter over and over. I imagined all the possible endings except for this, as it always happens. I then said to myself: I just have to forget this episode. I know I’ll get past the state of temporary frustration because I’m thinking about Aziz. I’m sure I’ll wind up finding him, as the fortuneteller said. I had to cling to all the paths I’d taken until now and forget about the one that led to this man’s farm.
As I moved away from the farm, I heard kids at the bottom of the river yelling out: “Aziz . . . Aziz.” It filled me with surprise and then it made me happy. The name rang in my ears at a time when I needed him. The child whose name was Aziz disappeared behind the tree trunks. He asked me to be quiet, putting his index finger to his lips. That made me laugh. He might have been twelve or thirteen. The other kids kept yelling at the bottom of the river: “Aziz . . . Aziz.” They found him easily and pushed him in front of them. Where were they going? These devils didn’t say where they disappeared to, so the torrent might have swept them away or a tree branch dealt one of them a heavy blow. Maybe they had a meeting with some girls in the woods. Who knows with these little devils? Maybe they were going to the river to bathe. Was there a river in this area? I’d find it if it existed. But I was severely exhausted. My head was heavy as if it wanted to abandon me so it could get rid of its burden.
Khatima handed me a small piece of cheese, saying: “The one who needs to be gotten rid of is Aziz.”
3
Then Khatima said, as she looked through the window, “Look.”
But I didn’t see. Then she said: “There, under the grapevine. On the other side of the street.”
Then I saw him. He was standing where she said. On the other side of the street, not far from the soldiers’ houses. Yellow walls with brick roofs rising over them above which storks built their nests. Old dilapidated houses from the days of the French. Families spent their lives between these walls in hidden peacefulness. You almost didn’t know they were there except for the washing spread out under their windows or in front of their doors. It’s the fourth day, she said. She saw him under the grapevine when we left for work. Why didn’t I see him too? My sister also saw him when we came back. Late, since we now worked together at Stork Bar. She said: “He’s following us all the way to the bar.”
He didn’t leave his spot until we left the bar. Except for this, he didn’t go anywhere. She didn’t know when he ate or drank. She didn’t know if he had things to do, like everyone else.
I too started seeing him every morning. It continued for days. I noticed afterward the times he was there weren’t fixed, as Khatima said. He left at different times, and it was impossible to discern a fixed schedule or a set plan. He might sit until noon and then disappear for the rest of the day. He might come at a later time, at sunset for example. He might not come for an entire day, or two. He might spend the day standing, watching the bar door. I told my sis
ter he might have news about Aziz. My sister said: “The man’s sending information about your movements in reports he gives to his bosses.”
What was he writing about? There’s nothing in my life someone could write about except me looking for Aziz. What good would these reports be? The goal’s to sow fear in your soul. There isn’t any other goal. It’s possible I felt fear in the initial days or the first year following Aziz’s disappearance, but mainly I felt anger. So I went down from the house and crossed the street, heading to the tree where he was standing. When he saw me cross the road, he took a step back, confused, then when he realized I was heading toward him, he moved away, shaking, as if I was going to arrest him. He stopped when I stopped. When I got under the tree, he disappeared behind the residence block of soldiers’ families. Maybe he went into one of their houses. I said he might be a relative of one of the soldiers’ families. A number of times, I saw him talking to one of them. He might be an uncle of this girl or that. A number of times I saw him playing with their children. There was the young girl who brought him food. She too didn’t have a set time when she came. A girl who wasn’t yet eight, with a neglected appearance and shabby. I didn’t see her go in or out of any their houses or come out but she wasn’t very different from the girls of the block. It wasn’t very different in the following weeks. When I was going to work, I’d take short strolls around the block of soldiers’ residences or in the nearby neighborhoods. I’d turn to see him behind me, washing off the walls. Then when I was coming back home afterward. And when I stole a glance, I usually saw him coming back under the vine. I wouldn’t have noticed this vine if it wasn’t for him there under it. I hadn’t noticed it before. As if it had sprouted up with him. Its leaves appeared and turned green with him still hanging around, its branches that were bare white before they took on a dark green color and wrapped the man in their shade. It might disappear with him. I then became interested in the storks. I noticed them moving around. They were above the entrances of the military houses, raising their young. It wasn’t yet time for them to migrate. Where do they go when they leave the brick roofs? Only God knows. I noticed he always wore the same clothes, not changing them with the change of the seasons, the same gray pants and jacket.
These short strolls of mine, under the fig trees spread out along the main road of the city, lasted for years. A few steps separating us. The situation would seem strange at first before you got used to it. I stopped and so he stopped. I moved on so he followed behind me. He no longer made any effort to hide the fact he was following me. There were ten meters between us, sometimes less, as if he wanted to confide some secret to me. Then he’d backtrack, in a moment of hesitation, as if he’d changed his mind. The most overwhelming thing in all this was the state of knowing someone was behind you. As if you were walking in the street naked and everyone was watching you. Or something like that. In the morning, I’d open my eyes and remember the man waiting for me outside under the grapevines. As if I’d exchanged one waiting for another. Like two lovers. Two lovers of a unique kind. They cross the streets and roads, going under the mulberry trees, moving from this neighborhood to that, stopping in this place or that, thinking about the oppressive presence of each of them. A delicate thread only the two of them see binds them.
I was outside a lot. I took many aimless strolls. Only with a goal to feel him walking behind me. With a goal to feel something had come to bind me with Aziz. I felt his presence whenever the man was walking behind me. As if I got close to my goal. Khatima asked me whether I’d set my mind on a new husband. She wanted it to be like that. So she could stop worrying about me and say I’d become an ordinary woman. I told her yes, with a nod, pointing at the same time to the man standing under the grapevines.
4
The appearance of our father troubled me, surprised me, and disturbed my mind, so much that we forgot about the man standing under the vines. Father said he had worked very hard to find us. We didn’t recognize him at first. When we realized who he was, Khatima asked him why he was looking for us. He said hunger and repeated years of drought drove him out. Our mother died and his second wife and her children went back to their family after he couldn’t provide for them. So this was what had become of our father. He’d become shorter, his head small and bald, and his eyebrows white and thick. His misery didn’t touch us at all. We left him at the house like we would any transient. We didn’t respond to him when he asked where we were going every morning. The day he found out where we worked, he came asking Madame Janeau to give him our pay because he was our father and he had the right to oversee us and oversee our work. When Madame Janeau and Abdesalam kicked him out of the bar, he told us it was his duty to forbid his daughters from working at bars, even if by force or the intervention of the authorities.
Since we told Khadija this, she and our father became inseparable. They ate together and went up to the roof together and talked about turtles together. He bought her another turtle and built them a wooden cover so the hawk wouldn’t see them. Together they came to wait for the eggs they’d lay. He bought a television, which they’d watch in the evening when the roof got dark and they couldn’t keep watch for the hawk anymore. Khatima and I came home one evening and found the two having dinner and watching television. Khadija wore new white clothes. Our father said he bought her a dress from the souk for their wedding.
From that day, they started planning to kick us out of the house.
I was in the covered market checking out a piece of cloth when all of a sudden I saw them together. Father was with him, the man from under the vines who’d been writing reports about me, and the two were checking out pieces of cloth in the neighboring stall. They didn’t seem to care about me. As if chance had brought us together. I then found them together in the evening, sitting and drinking tea at home. This time, I saw the man up close. So close that I could see every detail of his face. He was nearly forty, his clothes neglected, gray pants and jacket, tall, thin, and looking like the many drunks I saw every day at Stork Bar. His face was blue, his pupils black as if he was swimming in murky water. His hands trembling. Old age had settled on him though he can’t have been older than forty. They became three, then, forming a circle around the table, eating sweets Khadija had made, drinking tea Khadija had prepared, and planning to file a complaint against us because the house was her brother’s and we had no right to it.
Luckily that was when Madame Janeau chose to die, so we moved to her house.
5
We heard the king pass by our house. Helicopters were flying above our heads and the army and rapid-intervention troops were coming and going along the main road, sweeping it and painting the trees while we, Khatima and I, were looking over the road from the mountain above, wondering what the army was doing on an arid road with animals constantly being herded on its sides and only a few trucks passing on it from time to time. The villagers were wondering what was happening on the main road. This happened a long time ago. I was ten. The next day, we heard the king had come through, on the main road, under our house. We also heard that our neighbor, who was twenty, threw himself on his car and handed him a letter. We then heard that when the king looked at his letter, our neighbor, Mohamed, went to Rabat and got a position in one of the ministries. For a while, Khatima and I kept imagining him wandering every morning around the streets of a city lit up with different lights before going to work. Everyone in the city worked in the ministries. They walked the streets before going to work in their clean clothes. They went back to drink evening coffee on their balconies. I’ve never seen the king in my life. I thought about him when I remembered Mohamed’s story. And here I am, waiting for him, as Mohamed waited for him twenty years ago, but without streets with lots of lights or people drinking coffee on balconies.
In another city and behind another tree, in an empty street, I wait for the king to come by. Without a letter. My letter is in my head. I memorized it well. I read it and I practiced reciting it so it became like water flowing easily
in my mind. I’m hidden between the street and the barrier of plants. My heart beating, pounding. My entire body shaking. As if it is independent from me and from my mind. Just imagining myself standing in front of the king makes my blood freeze. In order to encourage it to regain its balance, I remind it what happened to Mohamed. From herding goats to an employee in the government. He might have become a director or general secretary. When you go to Rabat, it’s to become an important man. Everyone’s important in that city. I say this to calm my mind as I wait for the royal motorcade to appear. Then I tell myself that I’m not looking for a position. I’m looking for Aziz. You don’t have anything to lose anymore after all these years. I tell myself: You’re still hoping. It’s not for me but for Aziz. Do you remember him? He was a pilot and he was with you. He disappeared fifteen years ago. The day after the night we got married. Yes, for fifteen whole years I haven’t seen him. I might have been late in coming, but no matter. These are the words I think about from time to time, and they make me feel disturbed and troubled. My husband disappeared fifteen years ago somewhere and I only want to know where he is. That’s what I’ll say. I practiced my role for a long time. I didn’t ask Khatima’s opinion when I was first contemplating how to reach him. I brushed my hair and put it in braids that hang down on my chest, and I wore a short dress so I’d look like an innocent girl who’d stir up the compassion of anyone who saw me. What’ll the guards do when they see a girl who looks fifteen cross the road to kiss the king’s hand? I practiced some movements too.
A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me Page 21