Читать книгу Ben Barka Lane - Mahmoud Saeed - Страница 6

chapter 2

At the beginning of my vacation I woke up and realized I’d be spending it alone. All my friends had left town. I felt lazy, emptiness filling my spirit, and I was overcome by a sense of loss.

For three months in a row I would be isolated, without plans, and I knew I would lie awake most of the night, a stranger traveling over a broad sea without any companion or goal.

I could have gone to Al-Arish, to Tangiers, to Spain with al-Qadiri.

To Germany, with Si Rajih.

To northern Spain and France, picking apples and dancing on Sundays until morning, with al-Habashi.

To Tetuan with al-Khitabi, to Marrakesh with alMizwari…

But I did not go. When they were talking and planning I would hear them only half-consciously, as if they were planning projects for the far distant future. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, I awoke to find myself alone in the apartment, whose beauty was no longer enough to keep me contented.

European tourists thronged into the city, as Mediterranean Europe bordered on Mohammediya, and I was enveloped by feelings of pain, and longing, and loneliness… longing for something unknown… creating delusions that made me believe I needed a real shock in order to achieve peace and stability.

The city had spit out all my acquaintances from teaching, and brought in other types, women and men from the shining white world, jabbering in dozens of languages, walking in the streets without officers or chains, smoking pipes, barefoot and nearly naked, adorning the yellow sands with their shining bodies, eating as they walked, each man embracing a woman, kissing her, dancing with her on the edge of the sea…

And I was a black mole on the shining face of Mohammediya, a slender stem without branches or roots or leaves, a true stranger, dreaming of happiness and love in unknown lands.

That morning at the beginning of July, I dragged myself to the shop of Si l-Habib. Somehow I had not expected my vacation to begin today like everyone else’s. Summer had begun to stretch out, shedding harsh rays of sunshine on the buildings. Walking in the sun was tiring, the glare tormenting to the eyes as it ref racted on the marble and glass of the shops.

It was ten o’clock when I stopped in front of the shop. Si l-Wakil was on the other side of the street in the companionable morning shade. A small European boy of about five and his shadow beside him were bouncing a small ball and chasing after it, and al-Wakil, despite his sixty years, began teasing him, blocking his way and dodging him. Si l-Wakil nearly tripped, righted himself, but his tarboush fell to the ground. He picked it up in one graceful move, his flowing white hair shining, and I could not help laughing, as did the butcher, al-Wakil, and Si Ibrahim. Al-Shalah called across the street: “Very cool,” and the butcher applauded.

This simple laugh prepared me to find more fun inside the shop, even if it came in the form of surprises—a first step toward the heights I had perceived but forgotten in the bitterness of solitude.

The sun was beaming through the window, lighting one section while the rest was in deep shadow. Si l-Habib was sitting in the shaded half, ghostly in the deep shadow. In the dim light, I approached to take my accustomed place to the right of his table, but I jumped up immediately: I had sat on something human.

“Excuse me!”

I stared in confusion, ashamed. After a few seconds I could see a woman, plunged in a jellaba of cheap tricale, old, flowing, and striped, with a green veil rising to the middle of her eyes. It was impossible to make out their color. She was raising her head so her veil fell tautly stretched, forming an unavoidable declivity between the two hillocks that lifted her jellaba a bit, just between her breasts.

Did she see me? Yes, I had sat in her lap. But from the small expressive surface of her eyes—a few square inches—nothing appeared to indicate that she had seen me or felt my presence.

Si Qobb had been standing like a statue in the sun; he had greeted me and gone to bring tea, as usual. I had been staring at his elegant black cane, as usual, and I had wanted to sit in my place, as usual—and so it happened that I sat in her lap, because I was a prisoner of habit. I had felt her two plump thighs. The silence embodied my error, as if I had been soiled by mud. Si l-Habib cried, to remove the aftereffect, or perhaps the mud, “The lady is a relative of Si l-Jaza’iri. This is Si l-Sharqi. Please sit here.”

A chair to his left. I sighed with satisfaction and extended my hand to shake hers; but she gave her head a small shake, coldly, and my hand hung twitching in the air, alone. She did not say a word. No doubt she sufered from some illness in her eyes if she wasn’t blind, blinking her eyelids by force of habit only. But that was unlikely, and so her refusal to shake my hand was a pinprick in my dignity, confirming the shame and cowardice.

Qobb put down my tea, fragrant with mint, and I began to compare the color of her head covering with the color of the tea. There was a cup in front of her, which she had not drunk. Since there was no one else with Si l-Habib I imagined that she had been there for some time, because sipping tea takes more than half an hour with Si l-Habib.

Qobb was taking his place where he always was, in the corner of the shop facing Si l-Habib, leaning on the door way, assuming a guard duty he imposed on himself. He was watching the street, brilliant in the sunlight; his magic cane seemed like something new and strange, as his hands toyed with it.

I said, chiding him, “Did you not warn me on purpose?”

The stiff features of Qobb’s face began to move slowly. He just smiled. But his staid facial expression soon regained its place, in the dust of a cloud of diffidence. It seemed to move him internally as well as setting his huge body in motion. He disappeared.

“He’s going to go to France.”

“France?” I asked, disbelieving.

“His papers are complete. He’s going to work there.”

“You didn’t tell me!”

“Before I was certain…?”

“Will he succeed there?”

“Do you know what Si Sabir says about him?”

I nodded, “Yes.”

Si Sabir’s words flowed into my head: “That giant is the stupidest man I’ve ever seen in my long life, Si l-Sharqi. I don’t know what the relationship is between stupidity and strength! It should be the opposite, as Darwin says. Shouldn’t it?”

When I defended him, saying, “But he’s loyal,” Si Sabir nodded in agreement: “Loyalty is stupidity.” At the time we were sitting in the café and Qobb was passing in front of us. “Look at him—he can break the neck of any man with one squeeze, like a mouse. Crack, and everything ends.” Qobb was solidly built, with the broad chest of an athlete and massive muscles. His clothes would swell when he moved, giving a true indication of his fearful strength. It was all the more fearful for his perpetual silence, which was broken at times by a voice he was careful to keep low, in order to hide a violent rattle in his vocal cords; but his effort would always fail, and he would retreat to the safety of silence.

“Will he succeed, even so?”

Si Sabir was open in his opinion, and everyone must have heard it. Perhaps that came to Si l-Habib’s mind as we were talking about Qobb, and he wanted to dispel all those doubts about his stupidity. He added,

“He is intelligent. Anyone associated with him realizes that.”

The image of Qobb’s eyes appeared to me, brown and shining with a penetrating gleam like the eyes of a cat in the dark. But his eyes were always moving, lost and seeking permanent stability in the midst of chaotic, tumultuous movement.

“Are you helping him leave?”

He did not like to talk about himself. He shrugged: “Friends…” Then he added musingly, as I was still thinking about Qobb’s intelligence: “Can you discover a forest the first time you walk through it?”

I finished my tea, and Si l-Habib sighed as if finishing a delicate task. He extended his hand to the woman, with the key to al-Jaza’iri’s apartment. “Dear lady, please go with Si l-Sharqi.”

“Dear lady”: this phrase made me imagine the woman as an elderly or mature relative who had come to Mohammediya. It would be strange for a woman alone to take a summer holiday, so I expected that her family must be going to follow her later. I looked at her as she looked at the key. She was still sitting, perhaps wondering how safe it was to go with someone who sat in women’s laps before meeting them!

I looked, and when I took what was in his hand I said, “These are two keys!”

“She may need something from my apartment.”

I arose but she was still sitting. I thought it unlikely that she felt unsafe with me. Perhaps it was fatigue after a long journey…. Ah! Might she not be blind and waiting for someone to come forward and touch her hand?

I would have committed another blunder, had she not saved me in time by getting up with a sudden movement and picking up her small suitcase. I bent down. “Let me help you.”

“No.” She said it without shaking her head.

“Please go ahead.” I pointed with my hand. The sun enfolded us, the shade of the shop sinking into a sea of light that made me feel as if my whole body was dissolving, becoming dispersed in the light. The mind alone remained to deal with this strange chaotic force. Qobb saw us while making us think he had not seen us, as he stood at a distance, on the other sidewalk.

In that moment it seemed to me that Si l-Habib’s great caution suited the depth of his thinking, for at a time when his heart could not bear climbing stairs, he had not sent her with Qobb. Why? She was walking less than half a yard ahead of me, and I was trying to gauge my height and hers in the mirror of the shops on the right. She was erect, a little taller than I. I distanced myself and looked at her feet. If she took of her high heels she would be my height.

I entered the door of the building ahead of her. There were rapid footsteps on the stairs, and it seemed to me that I knew them.

“Where have you been, Si l-Sharqi?”

“Al-Baqqali? You haven’t gone away?”

He embraced me, and I hugged him with real afection. “Didn’t I tell you?”

I complained, sighing, “Loneliness was about to kill me.”

I wondered at myself—how could I complain when this was the first day of vacation? Yesterday we had stayed up until midnight bidding them farewell. Was it the fear of fate before its time? But al-Baqqali did not notice my complaint.

“Have you ever been to Casablanca?” He pulled me forcefully away from the middle of the narrow entryway to where we were facing the apartment of Si l-Habib. I thought from the secrecy of his tone that there must be some great good news making him speak at this amazing speed, his eyes shining. No, rather there was good hunting.

He shook my shoulder, as if he were waking me from sleep. “Listen.”

I laughed. What else was I doing?

“It’s not the time for jokes. I’m not going away as I had planned. Three girls are coming today from Casablanca. Don’t be late!”

“At this hour of the morning?”

He cried in a loud voice: “Vacation, my friend!”

The impatient posture of the woman near the stairs doubtless made him realize that she was with me. He was silent, guessing that she must have heard everything. He moved his eyes between her and me. It seemed as if he was predicting an unknown fate, while I wished I could allay his misgivings by a sign or look. At the same time she turned her face to the wall of shining gray marble, drawing herself up in great hauteur. Al-Baqqali blushed, and I noticed real alarm in his eyes. Did he think he had made some mistake? I smiled encouragingly and whispered, “I’ll see you later.”

He grinned, like someone finding himself after being lost, and looked at her back. He signaled with his eyes, moving his nose and upper lip, dismissing her like an inconsequential insect. He tried to speak through a tumult of feelings which crowded together in his eyes, then gave way to one that allowed him to relax. But I extended my fingers to his lips and signaled to him to leave, so he moved quickly to the second door, leading to the garage.

She sensed his departure and looked at me. I said, as if hiding something shameful that had happened in spite of me, “This is Si l-Habib’s apartment. Would you like to look at it?”

“Later.”

That was the first sound she emitted, and it was an entire melody. Dozens of musical instruments in complete harmony sending melodies that echoed from a distance. I couldn’t believe my ears—her jellaba was somewhat old, large and flowing loosely—and she was a relative of al-Jaza’iri?

I went into my apartment and she entered behind me. I looked at her and smiled. I tried to hear that voice again, grasping at any idea even if it was silly.

“This is my apartment.”

The green veil did not allow me to see her eyes clearly. Her face was opposite the window, and the pale reflected light touched the small spot between her eyes with a delicate shine.

“And the apartment of Si l-Jaza’iri?”

There was more than a little blame in her question. But I closed my eyes as I rose and fell in a sea of melodies to which I was led by her mellow voice.

“This one. Permit me…”

I crossed the space between her body and the door, and she cautiously came behind. I opened al-Jaza’iri’s apartment. “Please…”

She remained motionless as brilliant light streamed from her relative’s apartment. Had her eyes been unveiled I would have been able to probe the secret of her great hesitation. But doubtless it concerned her embarking on a great risk by placing her confidence in a man who had opened his apartment to her when she wanted another. That very point confused me—why had I done that? Did it follow from having opened the door of Si l-Habib’s apartment? Since I wanted to show my good intentions, my confusion made me fall into a second mistake: I rushed into al-Jaza’iri’s apartment, though I soon drew back. This must have given her another bad impression, after my successive failures. I was alarmed, so I began to move my hands meaninglessly. My embarrassment remained, inscribing shame on my face, nipping at my cheeks. As she entered her relative’s apartment, she was careful to keep away from me as far as possible, as if I had the mange; and I was careful to comply with that, as if I had experienced it from birth. But I followed her, stepping cautiously, for the floor of the apartment and all the rich old man’s simple furniture was covered in a thick layer of dust—a soft, distasteful chalky powder that invaded the lungs without permission. In the glaring sunlight it portrayed a miserable human vacancy: a small table on which there was a small night light, whose green color had been turned to gray by the dust; an old, iron single bed; disordered, flimsy covers; a pillow dented in the middle, giving evidence of a rough, greasy complexion; a dirty, wrinkled sheet—that was all, and it emitted a penetrating rancid odor.

She sighed; she must have been very disappointed. In spite of myself, I cried, “What filth! How will you clean everything?”

“What ’s that odor?”

“Maybe it ’s from something rotten.”

Without noticing I had come to the window over the beautiful street, and I took a deep breath. A new car with a foreign license passed, and Si l-Wakil raised his head. For a moment I thought he was looking at me, but he was following the trail of a jet high above; no doubt the sun blinding my eyes prevented me from following it. Still, I cried, “The view from here is wonderful!”

She was facing the light, and I was able to make out her eyes and lips beneath the veil. The dirty, depressing atmosphere of the room had given me the sense that I had done my duty and that I should escape, so I hurried out unconsciously; but a hesitant step or half step from her stopped me.

I had regained my composure. I half turned, and said, “I’ll be in my apartment. If you need hot water, or towels, or sheets or anything else, let me know.”

I stretched out on the bed in my clothes. I decided I would wait a few seconds only and then go to al-Baqqali. The door of my apartment opened, however, and she entered, filling the doorway with a green dress figured with trees stretched over a plump body; her swelling chest showed in a wide opening from which the dress receded. I was overcome with confusion, which she noticed with interest. Where was the mature woman of the jellaba? Before me was a young woman, not a “dear lady.” God forgive you, Si l-Habib, you must not know her. I remained stretched out where I was, disbelieving, comparing her two appearances. Had I not seen the change with my own eyes I would have sworn it was impossible. I had often been deceived by a veil, especially when it rose to the level of the lower eyelids; but this was the first time it made me seem like an idiot. I thought that if I had been standing I would have seen the attractive valley between her two shining breasts; but I resisted the attraction, especially as I felt that she wanted to reassure herself. Her stance combined command and execution. Her eyes were the power from which flared a provocative flame, exasperated with existence: they shone, while her closed mouth gave a wan smile, barely bending that dark red streak.

“When will the water be hot?”

She put down the suitcase. Once again the melodies began to set me adrift on a dark path. It seemed to me that I would become drunk, as had happened before. The inflections of her voice seemed to bring together lines that coiled around the resistance of any man, pulling him toward the power flaring from the burning eyes so that he melted in the flames.

I couldn’t help myself, I stood and stared at her. Her face contained enough beauty for half the girls in the world. I nearly cried, “From what sky have you descended, O enchantress?”

“It seems I’ ll be spending my day here. After I rest, I’ ll clean the apartment.”

I rejoiced—no, I nearly flew from joy. But I trembled, and sweat began to drip from my fingers.

“Where is the bathroom?”

“Discover it yourself, my apartment isn’t Buckingham Palace.”

“You know how to joke, coming from the East!” She said the last word with great scorn and disdain.

She took of her shoes near the door and put on my sandals, taking everything without asking my opinion. I stretched out again and closed my eyes, as she hummed a popular tune without words. The rustling of her silken dress enveloped the room in an air of domesticity which I had been deprived of for a long time in my life. Sounds of interrupted lovemaking. It reminded me of a muwashshah poem in which birds chirped and nightingales warbled and sang as the soul leaves the body, swimming in endless depths of pleasure. There I would meet in it diaphanous colored bodies, beloved, on a bed of cottony clouds, in a happy childhood world which disappeared only with the end of the notes of that muwashshah.

Since I knew from long observation that I become embarrassingly confused in any situation that requires me to harmonize, spontaneously, a state of rapturous love with appropriate external behavior, I withdrew to the balcony and began to wipe the abundant sweat from my hands on the thick hair of my forearms. The pretty Jewess whom the Ethiopian claimed to own was on the roof hanging clothes. Her tall house overlooked the little low roofs spread out to the distant west.

“Your apartment is prettier. It’s not bad.”

She stood near me at the window, her figured dress touching my trousers.

“But al-Jaza’iri’s apartment is cleaner.”

The joke was silly, but her laugh was contagious, so I laughed not only out of courtesy but with all my heart. There was something else: I had begun to disintegrate emotionally, collapsing in a way I never had before, and which I could not stop. Why?

“Do you clean it?”

“I have a maid.” My voice came out broken and weak, with nothing manly about it, so I was worried. But I kept my smile, even though I guessed it was inane.

“Pretty?”

“Who?”

“The maid.”

“She’s about forty.”

“I didn’t ask you about her age!”

Often in a situation like this provocation would arouse me, and I would welcome it because it would restore my selfconfidence. But I was not aroused. I shrugged. “Maybe, but I…”

What did I want to say? The words escaped me. Any word would seem stereotyped, especially to someone doubtful.

She rescued me. She put her tender fingers on my lips in an accustomed movement, as if she had known me for a long time, setting in motion many wishes. I envied others their ability to deal with situations like this and get what they wanted in a mirthful manner. I could have kissed the beautiful finger, on which shone a beautiful large stone. I could have bitten it. But I did not. I condemned myself; it was insipid, sensible behavior.

“And Si l-Jaza’iri, does he have a maid?”

“Not that I’ve noticed.”

I had begun to get used to my elation over her sweet, musical timbre. She nodded, gesturing toward his room. “A miserly old man doesn’t care.”

“How are you related?”

She smiled and shrugged. “He’s just a relative.”

Her words were empty of any feeling of love, or hate, or pride. It was scientific language, as if she had said, “my dress.”

“Then you’re Algerian.”

“No.”

She stretched out on my bed as I leaned on the window, her exuberant chest rising and falling. She closed her eyes, and her long eyelashes against her white cheeks formed the symmetrical rays of a black sun.

“How so?”

She put one foot on the toe of the other foot. She was balancing something hidden. The green dress fell away from her shining white leg and its plump calf, and she began to move her feet like the pendulum of a clock. She said musically, “Does it matter to you to know?” She lowered her legs, sat up, and moved her head, so her long hair fell to her shoulders.

“No. I like interrogations.” I withdrew; my hesitancy returned to me and I was silent.

“Is the bath water hot?”

“Yes.”

“Where will I take a siesta?”

“Don’t you like the place?”

She wrinkled her nose as her eyes moved over my modest furniture. “Not bad.”

Then she leaned on her arms as if she were about to get up. “At least there’s no rancid odor in your place.” She stared at me with her bold eyes, and inclined her head to the left. “Tell me, are you a thief?”

I laughed. “I don’t have anything valuable.”

“Where did you get this good television? What do you have for lunch? Or do you eat in a restaurant? Can I use your towels? And first, do you have a clean towel?”

I believed she wanted to arouse me, for she poured out continuous questions not for their own sake but just to talk— dozens of questions that interested her about her relative and his wealth, which she said she despised, and the neighbors. When I answered her she didn’t pay any attention.

The lunch left by the maid that morning was simple: cooked vegetables, some tomatoes and dried mint, lemons, sardines. Before we ate she darted to the kitchen where I kept several bottles of drinks; without asking permission she opened a bottle of old wine, set out two glasses and filled them, simply. A sudden happiness came over me, and I wished wholeheartedly to extend the lunch hour for the longest possible time.

“Talk to me about Si l-Habib.”

She clinked her glass and mine, and I realized what was jarring about our conversation: she was the one who always took the initiative and I remained withdrawn. Why? Her sleeves were knotted behind her back in preparation for eating, revealing her desirable forearms, which lit a blazing fire in me. I nearly choked on the wine. “Si l-Habib?”

She nodded her head, and said in chiding tones mixed with joking to lighten the sharpness, “Do I have to ask the question more than once?”

“What do you want, the past or the present?”

“The past is in the newspapers; we know more about it than foreigners. Talk about the present.”

The word “foreigners” stung me but it did not ofend me. If I had heard this dry answer from anyone else I would have been annoyed, but her manner, her voice, her enchantment all made me pleased with myself for ignoring the afront. “Tell me exactly what you want to know.”

“What does he drink?”

I laughed heartily, saying mockingly, “Martini vermouth.”

“Only?”

“Champagne… gin.”

“And the food he prefers?”

“Bastilla, couscous… grilled lamb… chicken with olives.”

“Fruit?”

“Strawberries… cherries.”

“Does he have a servant?”

I unintentionally bowed my head, as I always did when words escaped me. “Not a servant exactly, because he doesn’t consider him one. You could say he’s a friend, or a companion,or a brother.” I was silent, but the word flashed before me, and I said, “An assistant—yes, an assistant. But he’s going to France.”

She smiled with satisfaction. Before eating she had tied back her coal-black hair in a striking fashion, which made my eyes ache whenever they strayed from her. She spoke spontaneously, and her good table manners seemed automatic.

“The statue?”

I began to laugh. “Yes, the statue.”

“He’s a dumb lamb.”

I cut her of. “He hasn’t harmed you.”

“I don’t like him. But tell me more about Si l-Habib.”

Her cheeks were flushed after several glasses of the wine, and her lips had begun to shine. Cigarette smoke formed magic pictures as it circled her face.

I had the sense that I was falling passionately in love with her. Nonetheless, I repressed a flare of lustful tension: I felt clearly that she was safely on the other bank of the river separating us.

“Why?”

She smiled. “I love him.”

I began to laugh. “That fast?”

She laughed too. “I swear to God.” She set down the glass and raised her right hand as if taking an oath in court.

The sun occupied a few inches of the window sill as a light that wasn’t strong began to pour into the room and reflect on her face. I laughed for no reason. “Is he the first?”

“No.”

Her shining eyes were fixed on the remains of the wine in the glass. Her voice had the ring of truth that drink causes in some people. It occurred to me that her attractiveness, which I cannot begin to describe adequately, came not so much from her unique, glaring beauty as from something else. Perhaps it was her candor, her amazing capacity for delicate behavior. Maybe that’s what pushed me to make a big mistake, for I cried unconsciously, “And will he be…?”

The word “the last” was written clearly in my mind, but my courage failed me before I spoke it. She smiled, leaving me certain that she realized what I had wanted to say, but that my silence after this little outburst pleased her. Then I enlisted under the banner of a long daydream, which made me a partner in a silent conspiracy that seemed absolutely immoral. Finally she looked at me with her bold eyes, and wondered, “And women?”

I got up and went to the window to hide the signs of my tension. “What of them?”

“What kind does he like?”

“All women.”

“Dreamer!”

“Who?”

“You.”

I smiled again. “He loves all women but he will never have a relationship.”

“He hasn’t found the right one.” Then she looked grave, as if she were taking the first step in a plot: “He has found me now.”

She got up, so I said, “You cannot.”

She made a sign with her eyes. “We’ll see. Do you want to bet?”

I stood like a statue, staring at her. I had never dreamed that any woman in the world could combine desire and candor. At that moment I doubted my manhood: she had not categorized me as a rival for her; rather she made me into a being with no value sexually. Since I felt I loved her and wanted to possess her, she had brought me into a struggle of severe torment where I had no desire to be, a struggle whose outcome was foreordained.

“Where will you have your siesta?”

I came to, and said in confusion, “I’m going to Casablanca, and I’ll be back in two hours.”

“To Casablanca, or are you going to bring Casablanca to your friend’s house?” She burst out laughing, a symphony of rippling pleasure.

“What ’s his name?”

She began to think, smiling, the alcohol making her glow. “Hmm…Al-Baqqali.”

“You’re a devil!”

“Know then that I am going to sleep now and that I won’t open the door before four.”