Текст книги "Horses of God"

Автор книги: Mahi Binebine

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Mahi Binebine
Horses of God

For Claude Durand

1

YOU MIGHT WALK right past our part of town without ever suspecting it was there. A high, crenellated adobe wall separates it from the boulevard, where an uninterrupted stream of cars makes an unholy din. In this wall we’d hollowed clefts like arrow slits so we could freely contemplate the other world. When I was a kid our favorite game was to pour bowls of piss on to rich passersby, biting our lips as they cursed, yelled insults, and looked up at the sky. My brother Hamid was our leader; he rarely missed his target. We’d watch him do his stuff, stifling our laughter, which, seconds after the golden shower, would burst out uncontrollably. We’d be jubilant, rolling around in the dust like puppies. Ever since the day a stone thrown by a furious victim hit my head, I was never quite the same. At least that’s what everyone around me thought; that’s what had been drummed into me nonstop since I was little. I ended up accepting it and, eventually, quite liking it. All my escapades were half forgiven on account of that handicap. But I was no stupider than anyone else. In soccer, everyone will tell you, I was the slum’s best goalie. My idol’s name was Yachine. The legendary Yachine. I never saw him in action but there were so many stories. . Some claimed he could stop a ball fired from a Krupp cannon, others that his body defied the laws of gravity. People even said that his premature death had been plotted by international strikers, put to shame by his talent. Whatever the truth, I wanted to be Yachine or nothing. So I changed my name to his. Yemma didn’t like it, but since I refused to answer to the name for which a lamb had been sacrificed in front of our shack, she’d had to get used to it. Only my father, who’d always been old and stubborn, kept on with the outdated “Moh.” You’re not going to get very far with a name like that.

In any case, I didn’t hang around in life too long because there wasn’t a lot to do. And I have to say right now: I’m not sorry to be done with it. I don’t have the slightest nostalgia for the eighteen or so years of misery that were my lot. Although at first, in the days straight after my death, I’d have found it hard to say no to those biscuits my mother used to make with salty butter, her honey cakes or spiced coffee. Still, those earthly needs slowly faded and even the memory of them eventually vanished too, eroded by my new status as a ghost. If in the odd moment of weakness I still think of Yemma stroking me as she rooted around in my hair, getting rid of the nits, I say to myself: “Get a grip, Yachine, your head’s been blown to smithereens. Where could the nits go burrowing if you no longer have any hair?” No, I’m glad to be a long way from the corrugated iron, the cold, the sewers spilling their guts, and all the putrid stench of my childhood. I won’t describe where I am now because I don’t know myself. All I can say is that I’m reduced to an entity that, to use the language of down below, I’ll call consciousness: that is to say, the restful outcome of myriad lucid thoughts. Not the dark, narrow ones that dogged my brief existence, but thoughts with aspects that are infinite, iridescent, sometimes dazzling.

2

LONG BEFORE EVERYONE had a satellite dish, ingenious contraptions made out of couscous pots sprouted over all the roofs of our neighborhood, enabling us to watch foreign programs. To be honest, the images were blurred, almost scrambled, but you could just about see the outlines and the sound was more or less okay. We’d mostly watch the Spanish and Portuguese channels for the soccer, German for the porn (the poor image quality at least made the brutish look erotic), and the Arab channels for our daily dose of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the evil doings of the man-eating West. Since color TV was beyond the reach of most of His Majesty’s subjects, we had a strip of colored plastic film that we stuck over the screen: three horizontal bands, azure on top, poetically evoking the sky, pale yellow in the middle, and grass green below. This meant we saw the flickering images through multicolored plastic, which was often scratched and grubby. Also, because my father was deaf, we’d turn up the volume so loud that we’d have to watch the same channel as our neighbors so as not to be disruptive. In spite of all that, young and old would come together every evening around this magical screen, brazenly open to the wonders of the world.

If Casablanca had had a record book, Yemma would have been right up there: fourteen pregnancies in fourteen years! Can anyone top that? And eleven had lived. All boys. If the twins hadn’t been struck down by meningitis at the age of three, we could have made up the soccer team all by ourselves: the Stars of Sidi Moumen, pride and joy of the neighborhood. We’d have made all the teams from the other slums quake. And Yachine, yours truly, regular goalkeeper, would have been its unbreachable defense. We’d have been so famous that even people from the rich parts of town would have risked climbing the wall to come and cheer us on. Who knows, the town dump might have become a real soccer field. Perhaps not with turf like the stadiums of the big teams, but at least an open space, rid of the revolting mounds of rubbish. And as for the people that make their living from them, well, tough; they’d just have to go scavenging elsewhere. It’s not as if there’s a shortage of dumps. That said, poor as we were, Yemma banned us from working at the dump. There was no escaping the sniffing session when we got home at night. If you stank of rubbish, you were in for it. Our mother had made a formidable whip that she kept hanging by the door. And as for bringing anything home, no chance. She delighted in destroying it then and there. Still, we’d find stuff at the dump. Hamid was the only one who dared to defy our mother. Incapable of doing without hashish, he’d resigned himself to paying the price each day. And though he was careful to wash himself all over at the street pump, he’d still reek of his crime. Yemma could thrash him all she liked, he carried on. He had to have his fix, his expensive tobacco, and his rolling papers.

I can modestly say that of all the scavengers at the dump, Hamid was the most gifted. He had almost a sixth sense for unearthing the rare pearl. Combined with precocious intelligence, this animal instinct instantly placed him ahead of the pack. He knew exactly which district any particular garbage truck came from, and he didn’t stint on bribes for the drivers in return for information. So, rather than foraging blindly like most people, he’d search methodically. By the age of twelve, he was already employing one kid to clean and repair his booty and another to sell it off at the flea market at a price he’d set in advance. I was fascinated by my brother Hamid. He protected me. And spoiled me. He could turn violent if anyone started on me. One evening, I remember it like yesterday, he beat to death a neighbor who’d dragged me over toward the cesspools, way behind the dump. Though we’d only been playing, imitating Bollywood heroes. Morad was having a laugh, nibbling my ears, whispering weird words. His rough tongue gave me the shivers. He’d pinned my hands to the ground to stop me from running away. His curly hair smelled of olive oil. And tasted like it too; my mouth was full of it. Morad’s tickling was making me laugh so much I didn’t hear Hamid, who suddenly appeared, like a ghost. But instead of throwing himself into the fray he stood still, stiff as a rod. I didn’t notice the stone he was holding, because the night was black. When Morad cried out, I thought he was still singing. I don’t know why Hamid struck him so hard, on the head. The blood started gushing down his face and I was so scared I wanted to scream. I couldn’t. My screams stayed inside me, as if they’d been sucked in by my belly. I tried opening my mouth; nothing came out. In a daze, I looked at my brother, who was trembling, his fists clenched. I knew I’d get it next. Wearing those lethal boots with the crampons he’d picked up on the dump, he kicked my ass, calling me a fag and other insults I don’t even dare repeat. I told him that we were only playing, we hadn’t hurt anyone. But he was wild with rage. It was as if his anger, amplified by the darkness, was a battalion of devils brandishing their pitchforks, ready to stab me. My brother could sometimes be unfair, it’s true. And yet he loved me; he’d have done anything for me. I was angry with him about Morad, but that’s all in the past now.

I never went near the cesspools again. Obviously I couldn’t hang out with Morad any longer, because he hadn’t survived my brother’s attack. He’d been buried in the dump. Hamid knew every nook and cranny of it. No one went foraging on that side anymore. It was old garbage, passed a thousand times through the sieve of human despair. At first I refused to believe my friend was dead. But I ended up forgetting him. Well, not completely. The few times I let in a goal at soccer and went off to fetch the ball, I couldn’t help glancing at the exact spot where my friend lay decomposing. One evening, I felt brave enough to go and check if he was still there. On top of the mound I’d located thanks to the white carcass of a dog shriveled by the scorching heat, I used a stick to scrape away the sludge he’d been buried in. Maybe Morad had survived my brother’s assault after all. Perhaps he’d just pretended to be dead so Hamid would stop hitting him, and had stood up right after we’d gone and left the slum. Perhaps he’d disappeared purely to give us a fright, to punish us. So I dug, first with the stick and then with my hands, which was easier. The natural stench of the dump overpowered that of the corpse. When I saw a finger sticking out of the mud between two food cans, I ran off as fast as I could, not turning round, because I thought Morad’s ghost was after me. I only stopped when I reached Omar the coalman’s shop. A paraffin lamp made a halo of light round the hunched figures of ex-soldiers who congregated there to play checkers. My heart was thudding, I was trembling all over. Just thinking about it would give me goose bumps if I still inhabited my skin.

From then on, I decided to fall in line and believe, like everyone else, that Morad had fled the slum to fend for himself in the city, like so many kids his age. Believe that he’d come back someday, his pockets so full that his parents would soon forget he’d run away and even encourage him to go off again and carry on. With hindsight, now that I’m up here, I’m not angry with my brother anymore. I tell myself that in a sense he did Morad a favor, in the same way that Abu Zoubeir did me one, except he didn’t hit me with a stone. His weapons were different, more devastating. But I’ll tell you about that later. Because Abu Zoubeir is very much alive. And still hanging out in a so-called garage with other half-starved wretches like me.

3

WITH HIS CHESTNUT hair and green eyes, Nabil should have been born somewhere else. He looked so unlike the rest of us. Without his rags, on feast days, you’d have sworn he was from the other world. A reverse immigrant, one of those crusaders fresh from the North, come to rub up against our poverty, like the hippies. Yet he was definitely one of us. We’d grown up in the same filth, waded through the same sludge. He got his good looks from his mother, Tamu, a prostitute who’d decided to devote her charms to the layabouts of Sidi Moumen. A champion of cheap sex, she saw herself as providing a public service, and charged rates that were near communist. Tamu commanded particular respect in our neighborhood as well as in the surrounding slums. Some say she could have plied her trade anywhere, even in the rich parts of town, had she bothered to scrub up a bit. Enlivened by her gold teeth, Tamu’s luminous features exuded carnivorous charm. The eighty kilos of creamy flesh filling her satin djellabas drove men crazy as she walked by. She also worked as a singer on occasion, at weddings, baptisms, and circumcision ceremonies, and she sang so well that, despite their misgivings, the neighborhood women would eventually seek her out. Not one to bear grudges, and conscious of her talent, Tamu readily agreed to make an appearance in the most hostile of shacks. For spicing up a party she had no equal. She’d launch herself body and soul among the guests, tambourine under her arm and buttocks twitching as if an electric current had shot through her; fluttering her eyelids like a Hindu dancer, she’d slay one man and then the next, as her piercing voice rang out through the loudspeakers set up on the roof, spreading happiness into all the surrounding hovels.

Nabil lived alone with his mother in an isolated shack near the street pump. He’d spend the day outdoors because his mother saw her clients at home. That’s why he’d be the first to show up at the dump and would only leave after dark. He worked for my brother Hamid, who treated him fairly. He protected him too. Woe betide anyone who dared to call him the son of a whore! Hamid, who was handy with his fists, would instantly pummel the guilty party. Anyway, after Morad disappeared, Nabil and I became inseparable. Sometimes I’d help him out at the dump, picking up bones, bits of glass, and metal. Occasionally I’d turn up a ram horn, which was highly prized at the souk because it was used to make combs. I’d also skin the rubber from wires, to get to the copper. If he lent me his knife, I could make ten balls of it a day. Nabil had to fill the three burlap sacks that my brother would supply every morning. And he’d do it in style; whether the rain beat down or the wind blew a gale, the sacks were ready and tied up neatly by dusk. A wooden cart, dragged along by a skeletal mule with a one-eyed old man at the reins, made the rounds to collect them. Hamid no longer even bothered to come and check if the work had been done by the book. He trusted Nabil. He said that he was no cheat, unlike those other punks, who’d lie around sniffing glue all day. Although Nabil was better paid than the rest of them, money ran through his fingers, so he never saved any. He’d often invite me to share his tin of sardines, his barley bread, and a big bottle of Coca-Cola. We’d sit down in a shelter he’d built out of planks and cardboard and treat ourselves to a feast, talking about the city we’d go and visit one day. His mother had described it to him in fabulously lavish detail. I don’t think he was making it up. The only time I was able to go there was the last time, when everything in my mind was so muddled.

Nabil dreamed of transforming his shelter into a real house. He already had the whole thing planned out: two bedrooms, a corner for the kitchen, and a living room. As for a toilet, he’d do what everyone else did: go and relieve himself at the dump. But for the moment his project was difficult to get off the ground. Every time he picked up some corrugated iron, or a beam in good condition, it would be stolen. Still, he didn’t give up hope. I promised to help him the day he started seriously planning the work. My brother Hamid said much the same: “We businessmen must stick together.” He suggested an empty hut for storing Nabil’s materials: plastic, branches, bricks, girders – anything, in fact, that might help us build a roof that didn’t leak and could withstand the lashing of the wind and other bad weather.

Nabil would dream. He used to say that the day I felt the need to stand on my own two feet, I could come and live with him. We’d have a brazier and a big pot for cooking up succulent tagines. It was only a question of time. If we worked hard and persevered, we’d get there. That was when I started to feel cramped at home. We slept six to a room no bigger than a cellar. I couldn’t stand the snoring, or the mixture of barely identifiable odors: the stink of shoes, sweat, pants, the DDT powder that Yemma did her best to spread under the raffia sleeping mats every night. Yes, I too began to dream of a room of my own. Of a real bed with a box spring that no scorpion could scale, nor any other creature, except maybe ticks, which never really bothered me. In any case, I much preferred them to the suffocating smell of insecticide. There wouldn’t be mothballs in my room either. I don’t know why Yemma was so concerned about moths; we had so little wool, so few clothes, that our hovel would have been the last place they’d go to feast. But Yemma was like that. The cleanest, shrewdest woman I ever had the good fortune to meet. Early each morning she’d begin by waking one of us to go and fetch water from the pump, though she’d spare the little ones. It took several trips to fill the big earthenware jar. She’d splash water over the yard in a kind of daily war against dust. Next she’d water the pots of basil that stood at the entrance to the bedrooms, to keep out mosquitoes. Finally, she’d fill the kettle to boil water for us to wash with, and set about preparing the breakfast we’d all have together. She loved watching us eat. She’d fuss over each of us like a mother hen. We were her men. Nine strong lads and a father who’d decided to be old before his time, crouched in his corner, endlessly fingering his amber prayer beads. He prayed sitting down because he claimed he no longer had the strength to stand. He, the former quarry worker, had become so thin, so desiccated, just like the wasteland that had once been the industrial district, where he’d always lived. Yemma would serve him his soup and plump up the cushions behind his back without a word. Then she’d look over our clothes like a corporal inspecting his squad: a button missing from a shirt, a sock or jumper with holes in it would trigger an avalanche of reproach: “What! Are you trying to make me a laughingstock?” Or “Come on! You take that off immediately, I’m not dead yet!” And she’d grab the sewing basket. “Yachine,” she’d call out, “come over and thread this needle for me, you’re the one with the best eyes.” I was so happy to have something that was better than the others. I’d moisten the thread between my lips and slip it through the eye first time. Yemma smiled at me. I loved seeing her smile.

Some days, Nabil would turn up on our doorstep at dawn. As soon as Yemma heard his whistle (that was his way of calling me), she’d dunk a crust of hot bread in the plate of olive oil and say: “Here, give this to your friend.” Looking hungry, his smile as wide as his ears, Nabil took it gratefully. He’d ask me for a glass of water to rinse out his mouth because in Sidi Moumen our teeth grated continuously, due to the dust that got everywhere. Then he’d wolf down the hunk of bread before he went to work. Nabil was no poorer than us, far from it. It was just that his bohemian mother was in the habit of sleeping in. She worked so late that getting up early was out of the question. To avoid waking her, he’d sneak out like a thief, on tiptoe. I have no idea how anyone could sleep with the garbage trucks’ morning racket anyway. But around there, everyone got used to everything – to the stench of rotting and death, for instance, which became so familiar and clung to our skin. We couldn’t smell it anymore. And if it were suddenly, magically, to vanish, Sidi Moumen would lose its soul. The air would probably seem bland and insipid; dogs and cats would vanish from the scene, as would the hordes of seagulls that besieged the place, preferring its contaminated, sweltering heat to sea air, its shadowy foragers to fishermen of the deep. Even the old people would be bored if there were no more flies to swat away, or mosquitoes or anything. Can you imagine: Sidi Moumen, stripped bare! Without its wild nights at the dump. Without its campfires, where random musicians, their petrol cans transformed into mandolins, unfurl their laments into a hashishscented sky; and those fields of plastic bags that sing in the wind, while the teasing half-light turns the rubbish dunes into infinite beaches. .

What? I’m rambling! Well, so what? What else can I do now that I’m consumed with loneliness and, like a strange ghost, skulk around my childhood memories? I’m not ashamed to tell you I was sometimes happy in that hideous squalor, in the filth of that accursed cesspit; yes, I was happy in Sidi Moumen, my home.