Читать книгу A Tunisian Tale - Hassouna Mosbahi - Страница 5

THE SON

Now my soul has calmed, and its volcanoes have quieted down. Those conflagrations that for many years used to eat away at my body have been extinguished and nothing remains of them but clumps of ash. Here I am now, as cold as the dead. This cell is as narrow as a tomb, and just as cold. Everything on the inside and on the outside suggests I’ve already crossed over that bridge to the other world, the unknown world that everyone fears even though we all know we’re going to wind up there sooner or later. Before they ever threw me in jail and slammed the thick iron door shut behind me, I had seen myself dead, even as my heart still pounded and my senses were as heightened as those of a cat burglar. I can safely say that the frowning men who will be entrusted with my execution at dawn, those whose cold stares have been with them since they first fell out of their mother’s bellies, won’t get the satisfaction they’ve become accustomed to receiving upon executing their duty, because all they’re going to find in this cold narrow cell is a cold corpse, nothing more and nothing less. In that moment they’ll be as deflated as those who go out hunting and come back empty-handed, but that won’t prevent them from carrying out the dirty work they willingly signed up for. Maybe they think that hanging miserable creatures like me assures a place for them in heaven. As for me, I’m interested in neither heaven nor hell.

Since I will have already departed this life some time before, my heart won’t beat with panic upon hearing their heavy footsteps on the cement corridor at dawn, and I won’t shiver as those silent, mute, and frowning men lead me to the gallows. I won’t shed a single tear for the world I leave behind at twenty-four years of age. I won’t beg them for mercy or compassion. No, my lips will be sealed, my eyes vacant, and my body as stiff as a board, no longer concerned with things like how to skin the ewe after its slaughter.

THE MOTHER

I speak from beyond the grave. Can you believe this, O living people? Your response doesn’t matter much to me because I can’t hear it anyway, but let me assure you that just a short while ago the merciful angel whispered to inform me that I can address you from the furthest reaches of eternal darkness. What a treat for you, and for me, too! I had always believed that speaking to you would become impossible once I departed your world and turned into a clump of ash. So listen up, and I’ll tell you my story from start to finish. I’ll regale you with all of its details. They may please you at times, horrify you at others, and might even make you feel sympathy for me and take pity upon me, or else become repulsed and then recoil in disgust. Anything’s possible. But rest assured that I’ll always be honest with you, and I won’t neglect to mention a single detail, no matter how pretty or ugly it may seem, because I know all too well that you are just as curious as the people of M Slum, where I lived ever since leaving my faraway village at the age of nineteen, up until that simmering summer day when flames consumed my body. In the real world, the people of M Slum—from the toddler who has just managed to take his first steps, all the way up to the old man kneeling at the doorstep of his goddamned house waiting for Azrael to take him away—used to spy on me night and day, through the keyholes of their doors, from their windows, rooftops, and balconies. They used to keep tabs on me. They would dispatch unemployed and broke young men—and there were a lot of them in the neighborhood—to gather information about me, to find out who was going in and out of my house. Most of the men were also out of work, and they’d spend hours on end in those filthy cafés, smoking and playing cards, gossiping about me even more than they ever talked about soccer matches or about Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan. They’d embellish upon what were primarily invented and fraudulent stories they’d heard before with still other stories that were ripped from the fabric of their imagination, which would become more and more fanciful whenever the matter concerned me in particular. Women would do the very same thing, spraying gasoline on the fire until their sharp tongues had transformed me into a terrible ogress who not only spread evil and vice and corruption throughout M Slum but throughout the capital as well, all around the country even. Most of the inhabitants were migrants from the mountains and the distant deserts who had fled famines and plagues. In spring and summer M Slum teems with gnats and all kinds of stinging insects like scorpions; in the fall it buzzes with relentless flies; and in winter it gets covered with mud and clay. The youths and men and women in that miserable slum would get creative in setting up traps to make me fall down, but I’d manage to find a way out somehow, in what always seemed like a miracle.

None of this should be too strange or surprising. Those people had suckled on wickedness and vileness and depravity along with their mother’s milk, and their spirits would only be at peace once they had succeeded in causing so-and-so to fall into one of their repeatedly set traps, once they had successfully sowed evil here or there. The men constantly insulted me, seeking revenge because I had always despised them, loathed their filthiness, and recoiled from their vile ugliness. Whenever they tried to lure me in or get close to me I would stop them with violence and severity. Many of them would treat me kindly in secret, though, sending me romantic love letters; some would confess to me whenever I walked by how their hearts would nearly stop beating when I was around. But as soon as they got home or sat down in one of those miserable little cafés where they were always hanging out, they’d start flaying me, tearing at my flesh, and they wouldn’t quit until their tongues wore out and turned to stone inside their putrid mouths. As for the women, they intentionally tried to hurt me and tarnish my reputation out of sheer jealousy, making up stories about how bad I smelled because not a single one of them could compete with my beautiful body, my splendid appearance, my honeyed voice, my wide pitch-black eyes or my irresistible femininity, all of which was confirmed to me by everyone who had ever loved me or cared about me.

But I’d better just forget all about them, if only for a little while, and get back to telling you about my life, which is more important, in all its sweetness and bitterness, ups and downs, joy and tears as well as its straight paths, as straight as a ruler, and others crooked and zigzagging like the paths goats follow up in the craggy mountains.

My life began in the village of A, which was surrounded by almond and olive groves, was ringed with cactus, and was famous all over the country not only for its premium olive oil and its delicious prickly pears, but also for its pickpockets. That’s right, its infamous pickpockets who are scattered throughout the country, especially in the capital and the large coastal cities that attract a lot of foreign tourists. They are considered specialists in matters of petty crime within the security apparatus and many others say they have a soft touch that is unparalleled by the pickpockets from any other region. Sons inherit this skill from their fathers. I knew some of them when I was a little girl, and there were even more of them around back then because the poverty was so much worse than it is today. I remember one of them was called Ammar “the Blind.” He wasn’t literally blind but suffered from some sort of an eye condition. This malady worked to his advantage, though, because everyone would assume he was incapable of discerning what was hidden in their pockets or what they were holding in their hands and, therefore, they would more easily fall into his trap. Ammar the Blind used to wear a long gray shirt that reached all the way down to his ankles, no matter what season it was, and would place on his egg-shaped head a skullcap that had lost all its color from being worn so much. He wouldn’t keep whatever he had done to his victims to himself, transforming it all instead into entertaining and stirring stories that could make those who listened to them laugh so hard their stomachs would ache. As for him, he never laughed; he would only go so far as to let a sly smile be drawn across his lips. One story he used to tell has remained in my memory until this very moment, about how he once trailed after a dim-witted peasant of the Ouled Ayyar from the market in our village all the way to Siliana in order to snatch the wad of cash he had concealed in his inner coat pocket. Ammar the Blind would narrate the details in his languid voice: “It was a bitter cold winter’s day, so cold that the people were shivering despite the qashabiyas and the heavy, hooded cloaks they had wrapped around themselves, when I noticed this short man with a big head and puffy cheeks stuffing a wad of cash into his inner coat pocket. The job seemed too tough for me at first because of the thick qashabiya he was wearing, but the stupidity and idiocy in his eyes encouraged me to go for it, in spite of the dangers and the difficulties. After devouring a hot fatira with two eggs on top the man hopped aboard the bus heading for Maktar, and I did the same but couldn’t find a seat right next to him. When we arrived in Maktar he ducked into a crowded restaurant and ordered two kilos of grilled meat and a serving of liver, polishing it all off in short order even as my stomach growled. The extreme cold was making my already bad mood even worse and I considered just leaving the man in peace and heading back. But just then I told myself, Have patience, Ammar the Blind, and you’ll get what you deserve in the end, for God is always with those who are patient. After licking his lips for a long time, savoring the fat that was left all over them, he paid his bill and headed back to the station and jumped on a bus bound for Siliana. This time, luck was on my side and I found a seat beside him. I was so close that my right knee grazed his left. En route I lied to him, of course, telling him I was a lamb merchant from Sidi Bouzid and that I was on my way to Siliana for the first time in my life to visit a relative who worked there as a police officer. Then I started telling him funny stories that lightened up his dreariness that seemed to be inborn. When we pulled into Siliana, the chaotic crowdedness helped me to snatch the wad of cash from the depths of his coat pocket just as we stepped off the bus, while he stared dumbfounded at all the people’s faces, as if he had just clambered out of a shadowy cave. In order to avoid suspicion and any checkpoints, I returned to the village on foot, following the riverbeds and the craggiest roads. I spent half of that wad of cash on a cow for my mother—may God grant her long life—and some other things she needed; with the other half, I bought myself a better winter than I think I’ll ever have for the rest of my life!” And when the people asked him, “But Ammar, how did you manage to get your hand inside the inner coat pocket of the Ayyari if he was wrapped up in a heavy qashabiya?” Ammar the Blind would calmly reply, “That’s a secret trick of the trade. Then again, maybe my sweet voice had him convinced I was a guardian angel who would never bring him any harm!”

I can also remember how my mother—may God have mercy upon her—used to love the stories and adventures of Ammar the Blind. She would invite him over to our house whenever she had the chance. We spent happy times with him because he could always transform everything connected to the world of pickpocketing and thievery into delightful stories that were good for the soul. Until one time, Ammar the Blind himself walked into a trap. That was in Kairouan, in front of the Great Mosque. His mark this time was an elderly German tourist who started screaming and hollering as soon as she felt his hand slip inside her handbag. People immediately rushed to her aid. And that’s how Ammar the Blind got carted off to jail with blood gushing from his mouth, as curses rained down upon him from every direction: “Shame on you! Shame on you! You’ve disgraced us in front of foreigners!” As the people angrily denounced him, he hung his head in shame. After he got out of jail, his hair quickly turned white, his teeth fell out one after another, his eyes became narrow slits, his gait got all confused, he lost so much weight that he appeared to be nothing but skin and bones, he quit telling his stories and tall tales, and he stopped leaving his house except when it was absolutely necessary. He remained like that until he was found dead in his bed. That was almost a year before I left the village.

THE SON

When the judge handed down his guilty verdict after long and difficult deliberations, I breathed a sigh of relief because that was just what I had been hoping for with all my heart. There was nothing left in the world that could attract me or delight my soul. I whispered to myself, “Welcome, O beautiful death!”

All eyes were fixed on me, the eyes of those who had decided my fate and those who happened to be present in the courtroom. Many people had come for one obvious reason, as my lawyer informed me, namely, that my case had riveted people all over the country. From the rich who live in fancy villas to the poor who are unable to put dinner on the table two nights in a row; from the educated women who make speeches in Parliament and who teach at universities to those who are illiterate and who stammer when reciting the Fatiha. The lawyer would bring me magazines and newspapers and I’d follow the details of my case as if it were the issue of Palestine or Iraq.

Some even chose my story as a headline for their front page. Headline! That was a new vocabulary word for me, but that affable lawyer with cheeks as rosy red as a young lady who is thrilled to be single was constantly repeating it. Over time I came to understand what it meant thanks to my own personal effort, without having to ask him or anyone else for help. I say “anyone else” because in prison there are always other lawyers just like him who I could ask, as well as professors, doctors, engineers, CEOs, and former political notables. Obviously they had all broken the law and committed crimes; perhaps they’d even committed murder or embezzled from the state coffers or the institutions where they worked; perhaps they’d done other embarrassing things. They wouldn’t have been in prison along with me and thousands of others otherwise. Still, they all seemed nice enough, well behaved and well mannered. Perhaps even those who were always glowering, frowning, or who rarely spoke also deserved such complimentary descriptions. None of them ever scowled directly in my face or insulted me personally with an unkind word or looked at me spitefully even though I knew for certain that they were completely familiar with my case because they were all addicted to reading newspapers and magazines. Some of those noteworthy prisoners would occasionally utter pearls of wisdom, telling me, for example, how all mothers give birth to free men who therefore must live as free men. I wouldn’t comment, but just nod my head in agreement lest I get mixed up in a conversation that would reveal my ignorance about matters of wisdom. There was a skinny young man who was about thirty years old, with a small head and whose bones just about poked through his skin. Whenever I went to clean his cell he would try and talk to me about injustices that took place all over the country, about this and about that. But he stopped doing that in the end, possibly because he became convinced there was no point in carrying on a conversation about such things with a young man like me, who had severed all his connections with the real world and who was no longer concerned with whatever good or evil it contained. By doing so he brought some relief to both of us. There was another man of about fifty who kept his beard carefully trimmed at all times, as if it were his own private garden that was hidden from sight, and who insisted on wearing long white robes even on the coldest days of winter. On one occasion he whispered to me, “Heaven is beneath the feet of mothers!” Of course, I knew that this was a barb directed straight at me, but I didn’t respond to him in the slightest. I would have liked to tell him that what he said was beautiful and sound but that reality isn’t so. In our country mothers are like cheap racks where everything gets hung. People wipe their hands all over their mother as if she were a scrap of paper in a public toilet. She’s cursed and insulted all the time. A child bickering with one of his peers starts cursing the other one’s mother early on. He shamelessly uses her any way he wants, this little pipsqueak who still pisses his pants and wets the bed, who still relies on his mother to tie his own shoelaces. Anyone who wants to confirm that what I’m saying is true needs only to stand outside our primary and secondary schools for a few minutes when people are coming and going, and I swear to God Almighty you’ll hear things that will make you wish you never had a mother. The taxi driver who retired from public service five years ago sticks his ugly bald head out the window during the glorious month of Ramadan and insults the mother of the old man driving an SUV who wraps his head in a towel spotted with filth and grime. In a rage, the old man hurriedly curses the taxi driver’s mother until the listener believes that she might just be—even if she’s dead or very, very old—hanging out in that place of ill repute near Nahj Zarqoun that I don’t want to mention by name because everybody knows it, including the people of Bin Qardan, al-Ala, Bourj al-Khadra, Beni Kheddache, Sajanan, and Talabat. Anyone who walks the streets of the capital or other cities listening to people of all ages and backgrounds as they curse and insult one another and get into fistfights or butt heads with each other will have no choice but to conclude that mothers are the root of all evil, responsible for all the sins and mistakes committed from the highest echelons down to the popular classes, that all mothers are like this or like that. Even someone who can only read sign language would understand. Our high school first-year Arabic teacher—a short, jolly-faced native of the Jerid region with a light heart, a sharp tongue, and small cunning eyes like those of a fox waiting for the opportunity to attack the henhouse when the family isn’t looking—used to enjoy reminding us almost every day how the Jerid had produced great men, legal scholars, judges, lawyers, writers, and poets. It’s enough that the region produced Abu al-Qasim al-Shabi. Then he would close his beady little eyes and begin to recite his famous poem: “If, one day, the people desire to live, then fate must respond.”

Ahh, that time seems so distant now . . .

The newspapers were interested in my case from the very beginning right up until the bitter end, so it wasn’t odd for the courtroom to be filled with such a crowd, teeming with women and men who were fired up and eager to know what destiny had in store for me after having appalled millions of people by what my hands had perpetrated on a hot summer day out in that ravine, where I didn’t hear anything but the chirping of cicadas. I think it was natural for all their stares to fall upon me as the verdict was read out, searching for the expressions that would appear on my face, which might reveal what sort of emotions and excitements and feelings were coursing through me. But this huge mass of men and women must have felt great disappointment because they couldn’t possibly have seen anything in my features resembling remorse or fear. Instead I may have even cracked a crooked smile upon hearing the verdict just so that they would know how absolutely satisfied I was with the outcome. They stared back at me, as astonished as clowns. Meanwhile that smug, plump, older woman in a black dress who had attended every court session as if the matter concerned her personally began to grumble angrily to herself as something washed over her long, pale face, the face of a decrepit old nag, something indicating her readiness to pounce on me and teach me one final lesson before I drifted away into the eternal darkness. Could it be that the verdict handed down against me wasn’t enough to satisfy her thirst for revenge? Maybe I had defied all of this woman’s expectations, maybe she had been waiting for me to burst out crying from remorse over what I had done, so that she could go home at peace in order to instruct her children and her grandchildren about how the young man who had committed that heinous crime they read all about in the magazines and newspapers had broken down in the end, had cried in agony in front of the judges and the lawyers and the packed audience in the courtroom when he finally understood that what he had done was an act of the wicked Devil and not the act of someone who believes there is one true God and that loving one’s mother is one of His commandments.

The court reporter was also outraged and started making me nervous with his fiery glances, as if he wanted to yell at me that the verdict handed down in my case was too lenient, and how if he had been in the judge’s shoes he would have immediately started a fire right there inside the courtroom and thrown me into the inferno. The truth of the matter is that this misshapen, ashen-faced, middle-aged man with worm-eaten teeth had despised me from the very first session, and I hated him with equal measure. He seemed to be one of those people who pretend to be chaste, truthful in speech, sincere in action, and noble in their dealings with others, but who turn out, in fact, to be savage beasts that would tear the teeth out of a barking dog. My affable lawyer was blessed with the friendliness of a spinster who still hopes to get married in spite of the fact that she is over forty years old and lives in a country where the most recent official census has confirmed there are more women than men. He whispered something to me I couldn’t totally comprehend, something about a presidential pardon. But I didn’t respond. I wanted to be taken away to the prison cell as soon as possible. That’s all I really wanted!

THE MOTHER

It’s better if I start with my mother. My mother—may God have mercy upon her—who used to tell me I was born in a hard year, one that was destabilized by upheavals and painful events. The earth was parched, the water wells had run dry, and the olive and almond trees were all shriveled up. Famine had begun to threaten the country. Despite the sacks of flour the state provided for the needy, many people would go to sleep hungry. My mother also used to tell me how in the hotter-than-average summer of the year I was born, military vehicles showed up and motored around like crazy in our village and neighboring regions in order to haul young men off to Bizerte to fight in the war that had broken out against the French. Bashir, my maternal Aunt Warda’s eldest son, was one of them. According to my mother, Aunt Warda, and a number of other relatives, everybody adored him for his good manners, his kind heart, and his pleasing appearance. He had only just mustered up the courage to ask a young woman he was in love with for her hand in marriage when they carted him away to Bizerte. One day after he arrived there he was killed by a bullet to his head and buried there along with many others. Our family mourned him for a long time, and Aunt Warda nearly lost her mind from the tragedy. My mother used to claim that the leaders and anyone with connections to the state in our village were overjoyed because we had offered up a martyr to the Battle of Bizerte and God would now grace the village with rain and abundant good fortune and the satisfaction of important people in the capital. The other misfortune that befell us that year was the death of my uncle Omar, my mother’s younger brother, in a car accident in Sousse. He had gone there looking for work. But crossing the street downtown at sunset a truck ran him over and killed him instantly. When I got older, my mother told me how she remained in mourning out of grief over his death until I was a year old. From time to time, with a grave face that preserved her classic beauty until the last day of her life, and as dark shadows of profound sadness continued to haunt her soul, she would tell me, “My daughter, you were born in a barren, black year. I pray to God, glory and praises be upon Him, that He won’t bring it upon us ever again or upon any part of the Muslim umma!”

As for my father—may God also have mercy upon him—he didn’t have much of a presence in the house compared to my mother, who was so ubiquitous that nothing could ever be done without her approval and consent. I can’t remember my father ever doing anything large or small without consulting her first. He was her blindly obedient disciple who never dared to oppose her or disagree with her, even when she was wrong. He would remain perfectly content as long as she was pleased with him, and he would flit away in joy with so much as a smile from her. When she got angry or her features took on a glowering expression and her eyes got all red, he’d slink away and wouldn’t come back home until he was certain her bad mood had passed. Aunt Warda started taking a keen interest in me that aroused the jealousy of my three sisters. She told me that the beauty God had bestowed on my mother had caused a lot of problems for her when she was younger. From the age of fourteen the men in our village as well as in neighboring villages started hovering around her like relentless flies. Every one of them wanted her for his bride and was prepared to offer the best they had in order to win her, but she wasn’t interested in any of them. Not a single one ever received a kind word or a glance or a smile from her. In fact, during that time when there were so many suitors asking for her hand, my mother fell in love with a young man who was famous for his wealth and charm and his talent for hunting and horseback riding, but she concealed her love from her family and didn’t speak of it to anyone except for Aunt Warda. Just as she was on the verge of revealing everything in order to silence the tongues that had begun to spin rumors all around her, an early autumn flash flood following torrential rains in the Maraq al-Layl Valley swept her beloved away. Aunt Warda says that her sister Zeina (that’s my mother’s name) didn’t shed a single tear, but drowned instead in a sorrow as black as tar, cut herself off from people, and stared at those who interrupted her solitude as though she were on the brink of madness. From time to time, she would be seen wandering around aimlessly in the fields or the almond and olive groves, eyes adrift, hair disheveled, her face all pale. Over the course of many months nobody in the family dared to get near her or speak to her about anything.

Then one mellow evening, as the world was swimming in a splendid light, my mother duped my grandmother, calmly informing her that she wanted to get married to Salih, Hania’s son. My grandmother was shocked; that is to say, she was mortified by the thought that her daughter, who had only rarely spoken to her for many months, had now started raving like someone on the verge of losing her grip on reality. And she was right to feel that way, at least, according to Aunt Warda. At that point, Salih, Hania’s son, hadn’t even asked for her hand yet. Rather, it’s certain that he had never even thought of such a thing in the first place. As far as that poor, skinny, very shy and introverted young man was concerned, my mother was like the morning star—it was enough for him to contemplate her beauty from afar, knowing full well that getting any closer to her would be impossible. Besides, he was the sole breadwinner for his aging mother, who would begin to wheeze loudly after taking just a few steps because of her weak heart. On top of all that, Salih didn’t possess any distinguishing features that would ever make a young woman who was as beautiful as my mother desire to marry him in the first place.

Uncertain of what to do, my grandmother left her daughter and hurried off in a panic to see my grandfather and apprise him of the strange proposal she had just heard. It didn’t take long before my grandfather, who was well known for being quick-tempered, had gone out of his gourd, and the sparks shooting from his eyes made him seem capable of bringing the house down upon its foundation. Once she sensed that he had started to calm down, my grandmother returned home to see her daughter, hoping to hear something from her that might indicate that what she had said before was just a joke. Just a joke and nothing more. But my mother, in the same calm tone of voice, affirmed that she would refuse to marry anyone but Salih, Hania’s son. Or else. “Or else what?” my grandmother furiously demanded from her. “Or else I’ll do something terrible, something the people will never forget!” my mother yelled, her beautiful white face shining with clear defiance. As soon as word of this got out it preoccupied the people of the village for a long time. Some said that Zeina might have been bewitched by a cunning old woman who wanted to take revenge on her because of her beauty. Others spread the rumor that she must have been doing it just to have a laugh at everyone after those long months spent in silence and isolation. Then there were those who whispered here and there how she must have been cursed after refusing to marry the best men the village had to offer, and that God was going to exact a terrible revenge from her if she did marry Salih, Hania’s son, because he wouldn’t be able to satisfy her in bed or provide her with the comfortable life that every young lady of her beauty and household talents would expect. Salih vanished all of a sudden and some wicked tongues spread rumors about how he had fled from the terror of what he had heard, but some people who came back from Kairouan claimed to have seen him strolling through the markets that very morning, and in the afternoon somebody surprised him just as he was raising his arms in prayer at the shrine of Sidi al-Suhbi. So when he reappeared in the village decked out in a fancy qamariya robe, wearing a shashiya cap on his head and strutting around in black shoes that glinted in the sunlight, my maternal uncle Mukhtar decided to talk to him, with the intention of convincing his sister that her stubbornness was unhelpful and that her choice was unacceptable even for those involved. After listening to him for a long time, Salih smiled a childish grin, spread apart his hands and said, as the scents of Kairouan wafted off of him, “What’s so strange about all of this, Si Mukhtar? I’ve loved Zeina ever since we were children, and she loves me as far as I can tell. So I think our marriage will be a blessing from God!”

Aunt Warda says that my mother’s marriage to Salih, Hania’s son, was truly that, because God blessed the people that year with a bountiful harvest of olives and almonds that kept the specter of poverty at bay. Therefore it wasn’t strange for the wedding to last a full seven days and seven nights. And Ali, Khayra’s son, who I had only ever known as an aging, worn-out, and somber old man, was at the peak of his fame and glory at the time. No wedding could be a success without him. Aunt Warda told me that at her sister Zeina’s wedding he sang the sweetest and most beautiful songs, which not only delighted the men, women, and children, but also the horses and the trees and the silverware, even the foothills and Mount Tirzah. After being silent for a little while, Aunt Warda added, “Your mother may have made the right choice, because experience shows that marriage for love doesn’t last. It leaves its participants with nothing but sorrow and pain. But rational marriage is usually successful and propitious, and blessed for those who choose it.”

THE SON

The cops barged in on me while I was fast asleep in a Hammamat hotel that I can’t remember the name of right now because I had shown up there drunk late at night and only just barely found my way to the room booked for me. By nine a.m., I was in custody in the capital. But first they had a taxi driver take us to the arches on the road to Zaghouan.

After staring at me for a long time the driver looked at the policemen circled around me one after another, and with absolute confidence in himself and in his memory, he nodded his head repeatedly as proof that I was the one they were looking for. Then he turned his face away with the pride of someone who has succeeded in the task he had been assigned. Maybe they thought I was going to try every trick in the book and every means possible to deny the charge they meant to lay on me, because they started getting all puffed up like furious devils that would smash my face in if I tried any funny stuff instead of answering their questions. But with utter composure and calm I told them, “Please excuse me, gentlemen, there’s no need for you to beat me up or smash my face in because I’m fully prepared to answer any question you care to ask me, of whatever sort. What’s more, in order to avoid wasting time and energy and getting on people’s nerves, I’m ready to dictate my confession to you in full, without any detours or evasions. That’s right, I’ll do that for you, respected sirs, so just calm down and hear me out.” They were astonished and continued to stare at me with doubt and suspicion, convinced I was setting some sort of a trap they hadn’t caught on to yet. In order to assure them that I was quite serious about what I had said, I actually started to narrate everything that had happened with the utmost precision.

The truth is that from the moment the fire broke out in the ravine I intended to give myself up to the first police patrol I saw as I made my way back to the capital on foot, but I put it off and went home instead, as if I simply had to see it in whatever condition it was after finally carrying out what I had been planning for many months. As soon as I got home I took a cold shower that invigorated me and gave me back some of the mental clarity that had evaporated during that infernal afternoon. Afterward I began searching here and there for something, I wasn’t sure what exactly, when all of a sudden I found more than 2,500 dinars in my large closet. In that moment I told myself it would be such a shame for me to enter the gloom of prison and then go on to face the gallows without ever getting my hands on some of the things I had always dreamed of. I immediately took a taxi to Bab al-Bahr, where I had only ever been when I was broke or just about. After the cab dropped me in front of the Municipal Theatre I headed toward a store in the Palmarium where I bought two robes, two high quality summer shirts, and a nice pair of shoes. Then I got my hair cut in the latest style on Carthage Street. From a perfume shop in Colisée I bought some expensive cologne that the attractive saleswoman who looked like a model assured me had been specially designed for young men my age. Putting all of that into a leather satchel I had also bought in a shop in Colisée, I headed toward Muncef Bey Station to hire a private car that would take me to Sousse. By six p.m. I was strutting around on the beach at Bu Jaafar like a prince, with a jasmine flower over my left ear, my eyes on the pretty girls as I searched for one who could make me forget all about the pitch-black shadows of that awful day, which was like nothing I had ever experienced in my life before. It was clear to me from the start that my southern friend Aziz had been right when he told me how the girls in Sousse during the summertime are like worms wriggling through the earth after the autumn rains. Whichever way you turned, one might wound you with her deadly charms. With this one it’s her black or bluish-black or blue eyes, with that one it’s her short boyish hair, with another it’s her prominent chest that nearly pops right out of her see-through shirt, with a fourth it’s her pleasantly sexy gasp, with a fifth it’s her ass that lights a fire inside your body until you feel as though you’re burning up, with a sixth it’s her belly button that appears to be drawn clearly at the top of her pants, and with another it’s her way of walking to the beat of the song, “Bend over, little deer, bend over.” Another one tells you with every move she makes how badly she hungers for your thing, to the point that you get so horny and bursting with passion that you’re unable to stand still. Every color, O generous woman, give me what you got . . . ahh . . . ahhh . . . aaaaaaah. O night, O eye. I raced like a madman from one to the next, smiling at all of them, treating them gently with sweet words I had learned mostly from movies and TV. My hunt didn’t last long, though, because I was with her when the clock struck eight. My God, my God. What a blessing—she was just my type. Her name was Zumurda. She was from Kairouan and came to Sousse every season because it’s her favorite city. It’s true that she had been to Hammamat and Nabeul and Manastir and the capital and many other places but Sousse was her favorite. Zumurda said she was a secretary but I knew she was lying. Something unmistakable about her marked her as one of those women whose only job in the summertime is to cruise for men on the beach at Bu Jaafar or at one of the big hotels. Whatever. The important thing was for me to spend one unforgettable night with her, and to hell with her after that! Besides, I had lied to her, too. I told her I was an engineering student from a wealthy family in Carthage. If I had been honest and told her that I was from that dirt-poor village in the woods of Kairouan at the western foot of Mount Tirzah she would have run away from me in a panic as soon as possible. Ahh. Lying is always useful in this country. People say that lying is some kind of monstrous act and that liars are going straight to hell without any mercy or pity, but everybody in this country lies, making an art form of it in a way that is unlike any other people in the world that I am aware of.

After strolling along the beach at Bu Jaafar together for half an hour I invited Zumurda to a restaurant. We ate delicious fish and I drank three beers. Afterward we hopped in a taxi that took us to a hotel disco she knew. We danced for more than two hours, then we went for a walk on the beach that was nearly empty because it was so late. Just then, we plunged into torrid kisses, but fearing that we might get caught in the act by some “night demons” we agreed I would get a room for her and one for me back at the same hotel where we had gone dancing. And that’s what actually happened, although I must confess that up until that night I hadn’t been entirely confident in my manhood. Previous experiences had left me feeling disgraced and ashamed of myself. For example, this one time, my friend Aziz, who has a bigger heart than any of my other friends (who you can count on one hand), came into a bit of money and invited me to spend the weekend with him in Hammamat. We booked a room in a nondescript hotel near the entrance to the city. After dinner we went out to a nightclub, started drinking beer and flirting with girls. Without trying very hard we caught two olive-skinned young ladies who looked so much alike they could have been twins. After a short walk down by the beach each one of us went off with his new friend. My new girlfriend was named Naima, I think. It was a warm fall night, the stars were twinkling in the sky and there was nobody else around. At least that’s how we imagined things were. As soon as her soft little hand touched my body it stood up all engorged. She was mesmerized and stroked it a little with her hand, then whispered as her body yielded and grew more and more pliant, “Stick it in, quickly, please. Stick it in. I can’t wait any longer!” Upon hearing her whisper those words I felt as if someone had poured cold water all over me when I wasn’t looking. And just like that the fire that had been scorching my body was extinguished, and it went limp and shrank down to the size of a fava bean! She tried to grow it back to its former state, with kisses at first, then with caresses and dirty talk, but it stayed like that, unaffected by what she was doing or saying. She cast me a contemptuous glare I haven’t forgotten until this very moment and then hurriedly stormed off in the direction of the nightclub. I ran after her but she shouted in my face, “Don’t come near me before making sure you’re a real man!” I was hurt by what she said and I went back to the hotel scatterbrained and disoriented only to fall into a deep sleep punctuated by terrifying nightmares. The next day I discovered that the one I think is named Naima told Aziz everything that had happened and he avoided looking at me for several days.

I had bitter experiences with other girls and the scenario was always so similar that some of my friends started to whisper among themselves that I might be impotent. The very idea sent me into a panic. However, what gave me some comfort was the fact that whenever I was alone in bed, thinking about that girl sipping a cool drink in the Belvedere Garden or about another one who kept smiling at me on the Metro from Bab al-Asl Station to Republic Square, or about that other one I followed through the crowd at the al-Qarana market, I’d come in absolute pleasure, doing it five or even six times without getting bored or stopping to eat. I have as many fantasies about being with famous actresses as I have hairs on my head. Egyptians, Lebanese, Turks, French, Italians, Americans—they all come obediently into my cold bed at night, where they ignite a roaring fire that doesn’t die down until the white line of dawn becomes discernible from the blackness of night. I undress them in my imagination and then have my way with them. My favorite is that French-Algerian woman. I get especially turned on whenever she cries, and I long to be there beside her, to comfort her and dry her tears. Or that blonde American with short hair and a perfect ass who plays the role of the young wife cheating on her rich older husband with an unkempt young man who doesn’t even have enough money to pay for dinner—she’s my heart’s delight. I can’t get that scene out of my mind in which we screw on the dinner table late at night while the duped husband loudly snores away. Even Princess Diana, may God bless her and install her in the paradises of His heavens, couldn’t escape me. I did it with her a number of times before she died in that tragic accident in the Paris tunnel. But whenever I found myself face to face with a real girl my fire would always go out and “he” would betray me, leaving me there to wade through the remains of my disappointment and inadequacy, so it was only natural for me to go to bed with Zumurda that night with my fingers crossed. I managed to do it with her once, a second, and a third time. How long could I keep this up? She screamed and hollered as I pounded and pounded and pounded away until I imagined that all of Sousse could hear her, and what I was doing to her. We went on and on like that. Before drifting off to sleep we did it once more standing up, our faces turned toward the sea, which looked purple and green in the breaking dawn.

We woke up at eleven. In the shower I thought about how a talented hunter wouldn’t be satisfied with just one catch. So I lied to Zumurda and told her my father was leaving the next morning for Rome and that I had to get back to Carthage right away. Then I gave her twenty dinars and set off for Manastir. By the end of that evening I had caught this Dutch cow who was more than ten years older than me, though seeing her ass jiggle with every step she took made me overlook the difference in age between us. Maybe because that Dutch heifer was so happy to wind up with an olive-skinned young man like me, who was younger than her to boot, she spoiled me rotten that night. She invited me to dinner at a fancy restaurant, where we had two glasses of red wine, and then she went on to drink two glasses of cognac by herself. Afterward she booked me a room in the same hotel where she was staying. I learned new positions from her on that crazy night, which made me more confident in my own masculinity. I left Manastir armed with that new knowledge and headed to Hammamat, where I arrived at noon. I dropped my suitcase off in a small hotel and then went down to the beach. I went swimming for more than two hours and strolled along the shore until I approached South Hammamat. Then I went back to the hotel. I took a shower and fell asleep until seven. I had some very bad grilled lamb for dinner and then headed out to that same nightclub where I had gone with my friend Aziz, praying to God that I would run into that woman I think is named Naima so I could show her what those who come from rough villages do to girls who complain about their manhood. God didn’t hear my prayer so I got annoyed. Trying to get rid of that feeling I started chugging beers, my eyes on the door. At exactly eleven o’clock, the one I think is named Naima came in with her friend who looks just like her. At that moment, my anxiety disappeared and the flame of desire was sparked in my body once again.

At first the two of them avoided me, they ignored my presence, but I soon persuaded them to join me. It was easy once the two of them noticed how I was throwing money around. As we walked down onto the dance floor, her chest pressed against mine and her lips touched my cheek. I whispered to the one I think is named Naima that I was going to let her taste something she’d never had before. At that moment she pulled in closer to me and started stroking it with her warm hand until I couldn’t take it any more and we slipped into the garden to do it for the first time standing up. Then we finished up in the hotel where I was staying. I didn’t leave her until she had squealed twice with pleasure. Was it because of the monstrous act I had committed that my friend regained his vitality and no longer betrayed me like he used to do in the past?

I woke up around noon and found a letter from the one I think is named Naima informing me that she’d be waiting for me at the nightclub around the same time as the night before. But I didn’t want her anymore. So after ten I started cruising around from one nightclub to the next. In each one I drank a beer or two. I finally went back to the hotel at nine the next morning, flying somewhere between heaven and earth, with dreams and thoughts flickering in my head like the stars above. When I opened my eyes those towering bodies filled my tiny room and their eyes communicated their readiness to bash my head in if I showed the slightest sign of obstinacy or resistance.

THE MOTHER

Now I’m neither dust nor a clump of ash. I’m that little girl they named Najma, which means star, possibly because I was born in the middle of the summer, at that moment when night is just starting to divide from day and when the morning star shines with its marvelous light that has enticed travelers through empty desolate lands. From the very beginning they used to say I was the spitting image of my mother. So my grandmother would sigh deeply from time to time and then whisper, as if talking to herself, “I hope to God she doesn’t turn out as stubborn and sharp-tongued as her mother!” But God didn’t heed her prayer, and I turned out even more stubborn and sharp-tongued than her. While the other girls my age and even those who were a bit older than me liked to play and spend time together at each other’s homes or out in sandy riverbeds, I always preferred being around and playing with boys. I usually beat them at their own games. While most people were taking their afternoon naps that put them out of commission, when nothing can be heard but the chirping of cicadas, I’d sneak away with them unnoticed, out into the almond or fig groves. On both moonlit and shadowy nights I’d stay up late with them playing hide-and-seek, which I liked better than all the other games because it allowed me to touch a boy’s supple warm body and to feel those places that would make me yearn for him to put his thing—that thus far only my hand had grazed—into my lap, to give me a kiss and perhaps to do other things to me that weren’t even clear yet in my mind. In early fall, when the heat eases up and the weather gets nicer, I used to go with the village children on that long arduous journey up to Mount Tirzah, which stood out there to the east, tall and bare. I’d climb up with them to the highest peak in order to see the view, enchanted by the plains of Hajeb El Ayoun, al-Hawarib, and al-Shabika, and the green spaces along the banks of the Maraq al-Layl Valley. On clear autumn days we hoped to be able to catch a glimpse of the minarets of the Kairouan Great Mosque or anything that might convince us that the City of God wasn’t very far away from us, that we were right near the gates of the city that had been built by the companions of the Prophet amid the salt marshes in the arid desert. Our elders all used to say that making pilgrimage there is comparable to completing the hajj to Mecca. Then we’d turn toward the north and see Mount Ousselat staring right back at us, also tall and bare. Along its base the Ousselati plains looked red because the tilling and planting season had just begun. Our imaginations would carry us even further away as we imagined the capital, which might have been just beyond that faint line where sky clings to earth, from where travelers in our family used to return all bewildered in their movements and their speech, as absent-minded as if they had just received a swift kick to the head. Mount Kasra was to the west, and the village that could be seen on its peak looked like a giant egg. To its left the forests of Fajj al-Akhal extend out as black as the tar that is found there. At that moment unease seeped into our hearts and an icy chill spread through our bodies as we remembered the horror stories our elders would tell us about bandits and people whose throats got slit from ear to ear, about others whose possessions and animals were stolen from them, whose clothes were torn right off their bodies and who were left naked in the darkness of the cold desolate night as famished wolves howled nearby. Between Fajj al-Akhal and our village are the Masyute foothills, which looked as red as a big scalped head. The elders say it was a volcano in ancient times. Beyond all of that are Maktar and al-Kef and then Algeria. According to our family lore, the Gharaba tribe arrived on the backs of their black mules, their eyes all red from exertion and exhaustion, with dust hanging off their black or gray beards after an arduous journey across arid deserts and craggy mountains. They came making oaths to God and His Prophet and the holy saints, singing songs and religious hymns to the beat of the bendir drum. They had come to prove that their magic and spell casting were capable of making barren women fertile, of marrying off the most unmarriageable girls, of exorcising devils and jinns, of restoring youthfulness to those who had lost it and of opening the gate of sustenance for those with bad luck or whom the eye of God had forsaken. My grandfather was among the few who were convinced that they were nothing but swindlers and charlatans who secretly brought with them evil deeds that affront morals and religion, so he would stubbornly drive them away every time they tried to come near our house. To the south were Mount Maghilla and the Sbeitla plains, where gunshots could be heard over ululations, where dark-skinned men marched to their deaths in the bare mountains or on the edges of the desert, silent, composed, intent on revenge because blood can only be avenged by more blood.

In the winter I used to crawl underneath warm blankets with boys and my body would cling to theirs as we listened to the wondrous tales our elders told around the fire, tales that quickly whisked us off to sleep, accompanied by the heroes from those stories about men, jinns and demons, ghouls and birds, and one-of-a-kind creatures that could speak every language, cunning and deceptive, always setting traps and often prevailing over humans. I continued doing that until my breasts had developed. From that point on, my grandmother started prodding my mother to keep a closer watch on me, from the moment I woke up in the morning until I returned to bed at night, so that I wouldn’t cause any scandals that my family would have to suffer the consequences up until Judgment Day, as she used to say.

My favorite day in our village was Thursday, the day of the weekly market, when hordes of people from every province would descend upon us. From the moment the rooster started crowing, announcing the approach of daybreak, until just before the sun appeared, noise and shouting increased as the people’s voices got all jumbled together and grew louder and louder, until I was unable to make out what they were saying. As soon as I left the house I’d find our village overflowing not only with men, women, and children, but also with donkeys, mules, camels, cows, lambs, ewes, goats, chickens, rabbits, and piles of eggs; cars and trucks slowly forced their way through the dense crowds, buses honked after every ten meters, and tractors kicked up clouds of dust that made it hard to breathe; Bedouins with scorched faces and red eyes stared all around with suspicion and caution, elderly men crept along at a snail’s pace, children joked around and hollered, water-sellers hurried past with black water skins on their backs shouting, “Cool off, thirsty ones, cool off”; barefoot and half-naked mendicants moaned and writhed and begged as unbearable humiliation ran across their faces. Women from Jerir and Amsha walked around brazenly, raising their voices without any shame or embarrassment, unaffected by all those men around them. My grandmother would pinch me or the woman next to her and whisper, aghast, “Look at how they mix with men, without any shame or modesty. May God protect us and keep us from evil and misfortune!” A man like a burnt column quivering from the intensity of his hunger stood in front of a stand that sold savory pastries, as saliva oozed from his thick filthy beard. My grandmother said that Muhammad al-Bouhali lost his mind after losing a large sum of money gambling one night and was forced to sell his small olive orchard—the last thing he owned. He stumbled around in rags, laughing sometimes, at other times cursing the heavens and the earth and the day when women started dragging men around by their ears all pathetic and humiliated. As I took in all of these sights, I wanted to inscribe everything I was hearing and seeing in my memory. There was a tall, skinny black man wearing flowing pants with his head wrapped in a white turban who smiled at me once and revealed large gleaming-white teeth. I recoiled from him in panic and clung to my grandmother who I was with in the vegetable market. But he continued to smile at me, even made a gesture to convey what a pretty and well-behaved girl I was, and I immediately buried my face in my grandmother’s purple robe. When I opened my eyes he had vanished. Sometime later I would discover that he was none other than Abdel Hafiz, who the people of the village and all the surrounding areas used to adore for his dancing skills and his superior ability to enliven weddings and parties. I would even develop a crush on him, becoming just another one of those girls enthralled by his dancing and his singing. When he died of a heart attack, I was in the capital and I made sure to attend his funeral, where I cried warm tears.

I was ten years old when I visited Kairouan for the first time, accompanying my grandmother who was leading an annual pilgrimage to the shrine of Sidi al-Suhbi. We stayed there for one day and one night. After we returned, I spent weeks and weeks walking around, eating, talking, and sleeping as the marvelous sights I had seen in the City of God passed through my mind one after another.

THE SON

I forgot to mention that while I was sipping my coffee at Hammamat Bay late in the afternoon on the day before I was arrested I heard an old man telling a young man about a torched corpse found by a shepherd out in a ravine not far from the Arches of Zaghouan. The old man, as red-faced as a European and wearing a swish white robe, commented, “Something like that, Rafiq my boy, is unmistakable proof that people are turning into wild beasts. No morals. No religion. Nothing of the sort anymore. Just robbing and looting and thievery and trickery. Corruption’s getting worse from one day to the next. Scandalous crimes like this one in the papers every day means there’s no longer any place in this difficult time for people with a shred of common decency!” The fair-skinned young man, dressed in jeans, a white shirt and light-weight black shoes, and with black Ray-Ban sunglasses covering his eyes, replied with a smile on his lips, “Listen, my dear uncle. Shocking crimes don’t just happen here, but in every country on earth. I don’t think it has anything to do with the existence of common decency or lack thereof. One day I read a news story about an Arab woman who killed her husband and then ate his heart raw out of revenge after he betrayed her with her younger cousin. Now, let’s forget all about this matter, why don’t you join me this evening for a flamenco concert at the International Theater.”

“Thank you very much,” the old man replied, and then added, “That would be nice. I love flamenco and everything from Spain. I’ve been there five times you know, and I still have fond memories of the place and its people, especially the people of al-Andalus!” And so the old man and the young man quickly forgot all about the torched corpse and became wrapped up in a stimulating conversation about flamenco and malouf, then about the tourist season and the exorbitant prices, especially in restaurants and hotels, and about the Algerians and Libyans who overrun the city. The truth of the matter is that I wasn’t at all interested in their conversation about the smoldering corpse, as if the matter didn’t concern me at all. As if the crime I had committed on a day in which the whole world— its people and spirits, devils and angels, animals and insects, everything in it, whether moving or still—boiled like a kettle from the searing heat was the work of another human being, someone who hadn’t been identified yet, not only to everyone else but to me as well. This wasn’t strange. Ever since the act I had been planning for so long had finally been accomplished, I became another creature altogether. A creature completely disconnected from who I was before. A creature that desires to fly high up in the sky like all the happy free birds, to dance until morning and eat his fill of fresh meat that had been forbidden to him for many years, to give water to his feeble, thirsting little friend that had sufficed with whatever affection and tender strokes his own hand would lavish upon him during the solitude of bitter cold nights, and then to just get so drunk that sea would become dry land and dry land would become sea, that trees would turn into giraffes, elephants, wild cows, and other strange animals like those I used to see in the Belvedere Garden.

By that afternoon, I had mustered up the strength to head down to Djerba to spend a few days and nights with those blonde German women who flock there in huge numbers, according to local rumor, because the men in their home country are so cold. Everyone who has ever tasted their honey affirms how truly phenomenal they are in bed, from the front and from the rear until the rooster’s crow. From there I’ll go on to walk through the oases of Tozeur and Nefta and Douz before heading deeper into the desert. I’ll cross the border with smugglers until I arrive in the land of the Touareg, and I’ll wear a black veil and a blue caftan like they do, ride on a white camel and drift aimlessly through the desert that stretches out endlessly in all directions, from Niger to Sudan, through Algeria, Libya, and Chad. As time passes the sun will tan my skin, and I’ll become one of them, forgetting all about the creature I once was, and the people of my country will forget all about me too, to the point that there will no longer be a single trace of me left in their memory, or perhaps I might get transformed on their tongues into a thrilling story that amuses them at their late-night soirees and get-togethers. That’s right, that’s what I was thinking about. From time to time I’d also think about an American film I had watched a year before my crime and which might have been a factor that drove me to do it. The hero of the film is an unemployed young man who is always wearing jeans and a denim jacket and who spends his time aimlessly wandering around a small, deserted, almost lonesome town. Then he falls in love with this blonde girl who is also strange looking and eccentric. One day he goes to see her father, a painter, to ask his permission to marry her, but the father flies into a rage and threatens to call the police if he doesn’t get out of his house at once. With utter calm and self-confidence, the young man tells him, “If you do that, I’ll kill you!” Unaffected, the painter hurries over to the telephone to follow through on his threat. At that moment, the young man pulls a gun out of his jacket pocket and shoots him dead. The girl feels no sorrow and doesn’t get upset. Instead she follows the young man out into the forest and they live together in the wild for several weeks. One day the police nab her but the young man manages to kill them all. Then he goes on the lam with his girlfriend, running from place to place, from town to town, as the police, armed to the teeth, pursue them day and night. He killed anyone who got in his way, anyone who doubted him, whether it was a small child or an old man, even someone who was disabled or sick. He’d do it without pity and without mercy. The heroine watched him in silence, not once showing the slightest opposition to the awful things he’s done. Now I must admit that I was so attracted to that young man that I started wishing to be like him, always moving forward, blowing the head off of anyone who got in my way. I’d continue on like that that until I reached the end of the earth, down at the bottom of the Dark Continent.

That’s what I was thinking about as the summer night descended, soft and warm, and the sea shimmered with the colors of the sky at sunset—blood red and magenta, honey-yellow and dark gray, purple and blackish-blue. The crowds became more and more active. Blonde tourist girls walked around half-naked as olive-skinned young men ran after them with their eyes aglow from the intensity of their hunger for sex and pleasure. All of Hammamat quaked feverishly, perfumed with the aromas of jasmine, waiting for the night and the unrestrained delights and pleasures it would offer to those who desired them.

THE MOTHER

I was older, and our village was changing at an astonishing speed. Girls began going to school as if it were the most natural thing to do and nobody tried to stop them. Even those who were known for their extreme conservatism and for their staunch refusal to let women out of the house lowered their heads and remained submissively silent in the face of all the new things that suddenly intruded into their lives. Radio infiltrated most houses, putting an end to the long chatting soirees that were filled with stories and tales told by elders. As a result, all of those cities that once waved at us as if from the ends of the earth drew nearer, and by way of those broadcast programs we were able to hear people from there talk about their concerns and their joys, about the songs they loved, and about the hopes and dreams they wished would come true, which made us feel that they were no longer as far away from us or as different from us as they had once seemed. And thanks to the radio, too, the world around us grew in a tremendous expansion, and we were astonished to discover that there were many countries in the world, with names and capitals and kings and presidents that were hard for us to pronounce. By and by, as those hideous wooden shops were abandoned by their owners to fill up with filth, they started to disappear and clean stores with white walls and blue doors sprang up in their place. Powerful state officials began visiting our village so they could lecture the people for a long time about something they called “mutual aid,” promising us a better life and a sunny future in which poverty and hunger and ignorance would disappear, in which the fortunes of the rich and poor would be leveled out. Perhaps because they felt that their time had passed and that there was no turning back and that the world to which they once belonged had begun to fall apart, wilting before their very eyes, the elderly seemed like they were hurrying to pass away before their fated time, as their faces had grown more wrinkled and more sorrowful with their frightened stares and their aversion to talking or even moving. Only my grandfather managed to retain some of his old dignity and that nimbleness he had been known for since he was a young man. He would continue to raise his voice, loud and defiant, cursing anyone who would refuse his orders or advice, and anyone who didn’t behave properly or who strayed from the straight path, as if he wanted to verify his existence in a world that no longer noticed him. As for my grandmother, she watched these new developments with a kind of childlike curiosity, and unlike other people of her age she struggled to keep up and adapt. She’d listen to the radio a lot even when she couldn’t understand what was being said. One time everybody had a long hard laugh when she asked, “But how can all those people who are always talking and singing and making speeches live inside the same little box?”

Although I was a lazy student who was hopeless in most subjects, especially math and spelling, I loved school from the very beginning. I loved it because it afforded me the opportunity to be freer than I was before and allowed me to hang out with boys all day long, to play the games we all wanted to play. Usually we’d do that when we got home from school at the end of the afternoon. During that time we’d forget everything around us, and continue playing and running around together through the dusty alleyways, singing and laughing loudly until we were stopped by the night. When I came home late, my grandmother punished me and my mother scolded me on more than one occasion, but I wasn’t bothered by that, and I kept on playing and hanging out with the boys while the other girls would hurry home as soon as classes let out.

As I said, I used to love being around boys, yearning for them to listen to me, to do my bidding, to take into account whatever I said and recommended, just like al-Jazya al-Hilaliya with her tribesmen. My grandmother never got tired of telling the story of al-Jazya al-Hilaliya and I used to dream of being like her when I grew up. Men would ferociously fight one another just to win me while I sat cross-legged in the tent with my female servants, and my coal-black hair cascaded down to my waist as my heart thumped with love for the victorious warrior who deserved to have me as his reward.

I was the favorite of all the boys, those who were my age and even those who were older than me. My hanging out with them tempted them, as did my participation with them in everything they did in private and in public. For the most part I showed great talent in the games that mattered to them. That strengthened my influence and power among them. It was clear that every one of them wanted me to be for him and him alone. And out of jealousy, fierce battles would break out between this one or that one from time to time. But as soon as I intervened it would die out as quickly as it had been sparked, except I rarely did that because it used to appease my arrogance and my vanity to see them brawling over me and because of me, before they had even reached legal age, while I was still a little girl playing in the sand, one who hadn’t even sprouted breasts yet.

But that night, I cried in anguish, and remained in pain and agony for days and nights on end because I had been forbidden from hanging out with the kids and attending the first screening of a movie in our village. I remember how we were coming back from school late in the afternoon when we saw a big olive-colored car advancing toward our village, and from it a loud voice could be heard announcing an evening screening that would begin at eight p.m. At that moment the kids got all excited and agitated, and something like a fever gripped the world all around us, to the point that I imagined that our village and all the farmyards around it had started to sway out of celebration for the happy event that was unlike anything the people had ever experienced before. In order to make sure that we would be on time, we ran home. I wolfed down my dinner, and ran for the door hurrying to get out as fast as I could, but my grandmother set up an obstacle in front of me. Brandishing a thick cane in my face, her face an angry expression like darkness in winter, she shouted at me, “And just where do you think you’re going, you little bitch?”

I was confused and unable to respond. My grandmother brandished the thick stick in my face again and shouted, “Come on, out with it, or else I’ll whip your hide with this stick!” “I want to go and see the movie!” I replied, nearly choking from the intensity of panic that gripped me because of the thick stick dangling in front of my face.

Without commenting, my grandmother shoved me back inside the house and called out to my mother, “Your daughter wants to go out and see a movie with boys tonight. We’ll become a scandal on the tongues of those who do such things and those who don’t!”

Anger consumed my mother and she slapped with me a strong blow that caused me to stagger backward as tears burned my eyes and cheeks. Suddenly, I found myself locked in a dark room and I broke down crying for a long time, even as the boys outside called everyone out into the village square. Afterward silence spread and I couldn’t hear anything but the sound of dogs barking from time to time.

Sleep eluded me like a skittish bird. I opened the small window and stared up at the sky studded with stars until the entire village trembled with the commotion of people leaving at the end of the film. After nearly an hour, I slept the sleep of the deprived and the wretched of the earth.

THE SON

Contrary to what you might expect, I wasn’t sad and didn’t despair when I was arrested and thrown in jail. That might be attributed to the fact that for three straight days I had been satisfying some of my previously restrained and repressed desires. People in my country say that it’s better for a person to live as a rooster for just one day than to be a chicken for an entire year. I was a virile rooster for three straight days, so now I can face the gallows at ease and at peace, without the slightest regret or sadness for the world I leave behind, with all its joys and sorrows, and without any remorse for the sins I have committed, quite the opposite of the two men who are with me on the cellblock who sob all the time because they received the same punishment. I know both of them very well because I shared the cells with them for many months.

The first one is named Ali, but his nickname is “Kaboura”—Knobby, probably because he’s so stout and short. Despite his small size, though, he is respected for his exceptional ability to deceive and betray, in combat as well as in his daily interactions with other people. He is as sly as a fox and can never be trusted. Those who know him will say that he can defeat an opponent even when the latter is physically stronger. During the months I spent in jail with him, he would always boast about how he became friends with the actor Ali Chwerreb when he was young and how he saw him more than once quarrelling with police officers in Bab al-Khadra and Bab Suwayqa and Halfaouine and elsewhere. And because Ali Chwerreb had become one of his favorite actors, alongside the most famous Western movie stars like Lee Van Cleef, Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood, and others, he would sometimes stay up very late at night, hidden out of his father’s sight, just to catch a glimpse of Ali falling-down drunk, bumping into the wall on his right only to slam into the wall on his left in that narrow alleyway leading to the dilapidated house where he used to live with his elderly mother. He feared her the way he feared God and would obey her, therefore, with blind allegiance and without ever refusing a single demand. She was the only person who could tell him to shut up and make do so at once, the only person who could get him to obey the policemen’s orders when their disputes were at their sharpest. Kaboura likes to give his lies free rein and claim that Sidi Ali (by which he meant Ali Chwerreb) used to reserve special affection for him, above all the other neighborhood kids, and would sometimes send him out to buy cigarettes and then once he had returned with them would stuff an entire week’s pay in his pocket. He even once put his hand on his head and said, “I’m sure you’re the only one who can take my place in the neighborhood!” Kaboura swears with the most gullible conviction that “Sidi Ali” had said exactly that to him just one week before his death. One of his peers challenged him about it one evening after a long drinking session and Kaboura punched him once, knocking him to the ground where his head hit the pavement so hard that he died on the spot. At this point, Kaboura’s eyes were bathed in tears as he said in a quavering voice that he was among those who accompanied Sidi Ali to his final resting place. The state-run press confirmed that more than one-third of the inhabitants of the capital were there, describing him as if he were a genuine national hero. I would laugh in secret whenever I heard talk like that out of the mouth of someone like Kaboura, because Ali Chwerreb, as several stories I heard about him both inside and outside of prison confirmed, was one of the most hardened, unscrupulous criminals. Up until that fatal whack on the pavement, Kaboura had never been good at anything in his gap-filled life except using his fists and drinking until he passed out. Nevertheless, many people in and out of the capital began talking about him as if he were in fact a genuine national hero who participated in building the new republic. It was clear from the scars and scratches that split open his pallid and malevolent face that Kaboura was what people call a “prison rat.” Maybe he was like that ever since he came of age. He always likes to talk about the big-time criminals he came to know in his life, and with whom he had shared cells in the “European Tower” jail and the municipal prison in the capital, with great respect and esteem, placing above them a halo of glory, as if they were rebels who resisted French colonialism. He was very interested in the crimes committed by others, large or small, devoting lots of time to discussing them, stopping at their precise details, in the end handing down his own judicial opinions on their perpetrators in an attempt to make certain that his continuous frequenting of courtrooms and prisons had acquired for him some kind of unassailable expertise in the field of law. As for the crime that had finally brought him to death row, Kaboura wouldn’t talk to anybody about it, that is, he wouldn’t even mention it in passing. I learned about its details and circumstances from the others, and they used to do that out of his sight, avoiding his wrath. They say that Kaboura was close friends with another neighborhood kid who used to be a lot like him—stealing, beating people up, and mugging, strutting around Bab al-Bahr with a knife in his belt. But all of a sudden, that boy repented to God, and started to implement the recommendations of his mother, the Hajjeh, and started behaving respectably, beginning to earn a living from the sweat of his brow. With his hard-earned money, he built a house in one of those new neighborhoods connected to the Metro. He married a young lady from a wealthy family and they had two daughters and a son. Despite the fact that he had cut his connections with all his old wicked friends, he stayed in touch with Kaboura for some unfathomable reason. He used to invite him over to his house not only on harvests and holidays, but every other day and night as well, and together they stayed up late into the night. During times of hardship and difficulty, this friend didn’t fail to help Kaboura or hesitate in doing so. When Kaboura went to jail, he would send a large gift basket along with his divorced sister. And with a decent amount of money, he would chip in for the cost of a defense lawyer, calling on his old friend to repent and reform himself. In spite of all that, Kaboura, who had suckled evil with his mother’s milk, forgot about all of his friend’s virtues and committed the monstrous deed that brought him to death row. One summer night, Kaboura wanted to stay up late with his friend, so he headed over to his house but he didn’t find him there because his friend had gone away, his wife told him, to his hometown of Beja, to take care of something. On his way home, after polishing off two bottles of Koudia red wine in the Bab al-Khadra bar, Kaboura ran into his friend’s son playing in the street, hugged him and kissed him as he always did, and then took his hand and told him, “Come walk around with your uncle Kaboura in Bab Suwayqa, where he’ll buy you a cold drink and then take you home in a taxi.” The ten-year-old little boy agreed because Kaboura had been like an uncle to him, but the devil had spat his venom in Kaboura’s soul, so he didn’t want to back down from what he had planned to do ever since his lips touched the little boy’s cheek. Instead of taking him to Bab Suwayqa, he led the little boy to a deserted shadowy place and, after gagging his mouth, raped him repeatedly. In the end, he strangled him to death, then dumped his body out in the open and went home and slept as though nothing had happened. The next morning, a municipal worker stumbled across the small boy’s corpse and everyone rushed over to take a look, as the poor father wailed in horror. As for the mother, she passed out from the terror of shock and was immediately taken to the al-Rabita Hospital. That very same day, the security forces began their searches and investigations. It didn’t take long. They gathered information from neighborhood children who saw the murdered boy on the night of the incident walking with a man whose description fit that of Kaboura. When the poor father learned that it was his old friend, whom he had treated with nothing but charity, who had tortured his child, he lost his mind and, barking like a dog, was taken to Manouba, where he spent half a year and came out afterward as though he had been stripped of his reason and his memory. When the judge handed down his ruling in the case, Kaboura fell apart, lost his swagger, his self-inflation, and his braggadocio to become a pathetic creature in the blink of an eye, sobbing almost all the time, not because he had murdered his friend’s son in cold blood, but because he wasn’t going to get out of jail this time around, to strut in front of the neighborhood children boasting how he was the rightful successor to Ali Chwerreb, and to show up at the Mezoued parties and dance until dawn to the beat of songs by Hedi Habbouba and Salah el Farzit, or to wander around the old and new neighborhoods in the capital with a knife in his belt, making a living off his girlfriend Houriya, whom he used to pimp out back in the good old days.