Текст книги "Horses of God"

Автор книги: Mahi Binebine

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If Nabil was a graceful creature, it wasn’t his fault. If men did a double take as he walked by, he hadn’t chosen to have a pert ass, or white skin, or silky curls. The older he got, the more desirable he became. I’m not saying I was immune to his charm. His feline, delicate beauty attracted me just as much as the others. I’m not saying I’d never considered it, but I’d quickly banish those appalling thoughts from my mind. The memory of that night in his shack with the Stars still makes my stomach heave. Nabil was dogged by bad luck, which is contagious. It was an easy life, for sure, now that we were no longer scavenging on the dump. We had a cushy job that brought in a hundred dirhams a week and elevated us to the rank of princes. Not for a moment did giving it up cross our minds. But that damned ass of Nabil’s only ever caused us grief.

One evening, when he was staying late at the shop to fix a bike, Ba Moussa came back from prayers and lowered the metal grille. He took off his djellaba and went over to Nabil, who instantly recognized the look in his boss’s eyes. He stayed on his guard, going on with his work as if nothing were amiss. Ba Moussa’s voice was soft and syrupy, quite different from his daytime one, which was harsh and grating. He leaned over him and pinched his cheeks: “You know you’re a beautiful boy!” Without thinking for a second, Nabil grabbed the wrench in his grease-blackened hands and struck him violently on the temple. A muffled, frightening sound, and the man’s full weight fell on the scrap metal. No doubt it was panic that had unleashed Nabil’s strength, to make him knock him out like that. He might have left it there, pulled up the grille and walked out. Events might have taken a different turn. A reconciliation might have been possible the next day: a couple of slaps and order would have been restored. But Nabil was in the grip of some demon that made him go on with the attack and lay into his aggressor, who was lying on the ground, barely conscious. He bent over him and, blinded with rage, pounded him again and again, shattering his skull. And as if that weren’t enough, he seized a hammer that was lying around and began to batter him furiously in the balls. He was battering the man but also the fate that had condemned him from birth. The spurting blood only excited him more. And he went on until he was exhausted, until he could no longer hold the tool in his hand; then he lay down on top of the boss and stayed there motionless a long while, like a wild beast, sated, slumped over its prey.

Seeing him a few hours later, not far from where we lived, I was afraid. His face was pale, his clothes were soaked in blood, and he was incapable of uttering a word. I brought him a glass of water and we sat down on the step by our door. It took a long time for him to pull himself together, then, with unnerving calm, he said:

“I’ve killed the boss.”

I was stunned.

“Are you sure?”

“I hit him hard, very hard, the disgusting pig.”

“Maybe you just knocked him out.”

Nabil looked down and didn’t answer. I realized that he was serious and that that meant the end of our stint as mechanics. Together we went to explain the situation to my brother Hamid, who, once again calling on his garage friends, rescued us from that nightmare. Ba Moussa was buried in the dump that same night, near where Morad lay. And to avoid the risk of anyone finding the two corpses, they set fire to the whole area. We’d gone with them and it was a beautiful sight, the fire in the night. It crackled, it glowed red. The high flames pierced the black sky and, as we danced under the gaze of the silent stars, our deformed shadows trailed over the filth. Abu Zoubeir and Hamid said a prayer. I’d have liked to join in, but I didn’t know the words. I was afraid the fire would spread and said so to Hamid, who dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand, since it had rained the day before. I wasn’t entirely reassured. Thinking about it, he was right. He knew the dump better than anyone. Little by little, the flames died out, as if they were tired, over the ashes of Morad and the boss. On the way back, we barely spoke. Near Omar the coalman’s shop, Abu Zoubeir turned to my brother and said: “You ought to invite them to the garage! It would do them good to be closer to God.” Hamid agreed.

Apart from a distant cousin who visited him once a year, Ba Moussa didn’t have any family. So no one asked questions about his disappearance. Besides, the denizens of Sidi Moumen were used to people moving in and out in a hurry. People come and go without anyone really knowing why. Others take their place, make a home in an empty hovel, improvise, adapt, and maintain the general decrepitude, as if to ensure the survival of our species.

After he’d cleaned the shop, Hamid brought us the crate of tools, saying that it might be useful, seeing as we’d learned the trade. He advised us to clear off, make ourselves scarce until things settled down. Which we did. And life resumed its course, as if old Moussa had never existed.

11

GHIZLANE DID NOT appreciate my going to live with Nabil. I reckon she was jealous; she’d have liked to take his place. Yemma, too, was hurt by my decision to leave. She cried the day I broke the news. My brothers had left, one after the other, heading for the city or joining the army; three of them had gotten married and built their own homes in Chichane. There was only Said left to support her. Said was a lovely boy. A bit simple, it’s true, but he didn’t bother anyone. You barely noticed he was there; he was almost transparent. Never the least complaint out of him. To him, Yemma’s cooking was delicious even when she put far too much spice in it. We could gauge my mother’s mood by the amount of salt she used. An oversalted tagine meant we’d better watch out: it had been a bad day and the slightest misdemeanor would lead to a beating. Said did all the hardest jobs without ever making a fuss. Yemma wasn’t fair to him, she was always shouting at him because he got everything wrong. Sometimes she’d feel bad about it and, by way of an apology, she’d slip a few dirhams in his pocket. “Clear off! Go outside for a bit! I can’t have you under my feet all day.” Said would walk all round the shacks and come back a quarter of an hour later, sitting down next to my father to play checkers. The streets frightened him; he felt better at home with his transistor radio and his faded newspapers. He never tired of the mining stories my father endlessly regurgitated, which had different versions depending on how ill he felt. Said would follow the news with unswerving attention, as if the future of the planet depended on him. He commented on events, supplying his precious analysis, without realizing that Father was practically deaf and Yemma didn’t understand a thing about politics. But at least he’d talk about issues beyond the usual concerns: “The roof’s leaking,” “The water from the pump smells bad,” “The price of oil, sugar, or tea has gone up,” “The pirate stations have been scrambled. .” Anyway, I was glad he’d stayed at home. I was sixteen and my shoulders were broader than Hamid’s. It was time I started fending for myself like other boys my age.

Nabil and I had decorated the shack as best we could, the way we’d dreamed about in the old days. My brother and Abu Zoubeir had given us a substantial sum of money to set ourselves up; a generous donation, which was deeply touching. It meant we could buy a straw mattress, a pillow, a woolen blanket, and a strong zinc sheet to reinforce the roof. We allowed ourselves one treat: a radio-cassette player, almost new, because the old one was well and truly dead. So we organized ourselves and shared the workload. Nabil was in charge of the cooking and I’d work as a mechanic. I’d picked up an old wheel from a cart and wedged it between two big stones on the street to show that repairs were done there. Since everyone knew us, we took over Ba Moussa’s trade. If Nabil had finished his chores early and the tagine was simmering on the brazier, he’d come and give me a hand. He’d mostly patch up flat tires. And business was pretty good, thanks to the shards of broken bottles, scraps of metal, and sharp stones that littered the paths. I’d built up an impressive stock of equipment. We’d dismantle mopeds that had been stolen in the city and sell off the separate parts at prices that were absolutely unbeatable, so a large portion of our profits would be reinvested. I was a past master in the art of recycling and DIY. Whatever the problem, we had the solution. And we had a lot on our plate because Sidi Moumen’s two-wheelers were in a hopeless state of disrepair. However old, however broken down, even falling to pieces, we’d find them happy owners who’d torture them for a few more years. They made me think of the buses the French would sell on to us after a lifetime of good and loyal service in the motherland, which we’d use for at least a decade before palming them off on the Africans, who could eke out of them a few more fine days in the bush.

We played soccer less and less, but our shack was still the Stars of Sidi Moumen’s HQ. Friends would come by in the evenings to hang out with us. We’d started drinking red wine. It was cheap plonk but it suited us. If we’d done well that day, we’d have a round of beers, which we’d buy by the case. Khalil the shoeshine had done time for stealing from a foreigner. He claimed he was innocent, saying he’d found the wallet on the ground after he’d polished the tourist’s shoes. The police didn’t see it that way and he got three months behind bars. Khalil was seething with rage. He wanted to leave, go to Europe, where people had rights. And if, by some mishap, someone was wrongly accused, they’d get a fortune in compensation. Yes, he was very seriously thinking of getting together the necessary amount to slip across to Spain and leave this godforsaken country. But there was that story his cousin had told us about what happened to illegal immigrants, which wasn’t exactly encouraging. On a northern beach, as he waited for the crossing to Algeciras, he’d come across the corpse of a sub-Saharan hopeful, spewed up by the tide. A colossus of a man, whose facial features had almost completely disappeared. He’d lost a shoe and the fish had nibbled away his toes. A small crab was clambering out of his left eye. Khalil’s cousin had seen this and had given up the idea of leaving. He’d said: “You see, even the crabs wanted nothing to do with that African!”

Khalil didn’t like that story; he said that you could die anywhere – on a sidewalk, by falling out of bed, or swallowing something the wrong way. In any case, he was sticking to his plan. He said the police were scum because they’d beaten him up to make him admit to his crime. He’d finally signed his confession, but it wasn’t true at all. He’d have confessed to anything to make them stop punching him. They’d threatened to make him sit on a Coca-Cola bottle if he didn’t spill the beans. They’d taken him down to a dark cellar and shown him the pliers they’d use to pull out his nails and the electric wires they’d connect to his balls. But a couple of hard slaps and a kick had done the job. So he’d signed and signed again because the tourist in question happened to be the French consul. In court, it had all been over in five minutes, and the judges were scum too. Just like the screws, who’d roughed him up all through his interminable stay in prison.

Khalil was raging at the entire world and after one too many he was a different animal. Between us we’d tear limb from limb the judges, the police, the screws, and all the consuls on the planet. We let him talk because it made him feel better. When his face relaxed, we’d follow him in his reveries, over the Strait of Gibraltar on a makeshift raft, and Spain would be ours for the taking. Oh, those gorgeous Andalusian women, our long-lost cousins, all forlorn and yearning to be our future conquests. But Paris, only Paris really counted. Khalil would serve us up the “Champs-Elysées,” “Saint-Germain-des-Prés,” “Sacré-Coeur,” and the “Eiffel Tower”: garlanded names he’d picked up here and there, which we’d repeat all together, the way we’d learned our lessons in the Koranic school when we were small. We’d clap our hands when fortune smiled on us – when Khalil described the scene of his return to Sidi Moumen, in a brand-new station wagon with a blonde at his side and an electric guitar on the backseat. The idea of marrying a European woman, suitably fattened up on hormones, made him hard. He’d take out his stiff, fat cock and bang it on the table, saying: “And this, this is my passport to paradise!” And we’d fall about like kids. Khalil wanted to be an artist too. He’d gotten that from an American soap opera he must have watched on TV; he’d slipped inside the hero’s skin and refused to get out. When the drink went to his head, he’d start singing in a strange new language, with an English accent, prancing around and playing air guitar. Nabil couldn’t help jigging up and down with him and said we ought to form a band; we’d be so famous the whole wide world would be open to us. Talent breaks down borders, everyone knows that, so we wouldn’t need visas, or any other proof, to enter the Garden of Eden. .

Dreams, too, are contagious.

Ghizlane would come to cook for us on Fridays. She’d bring a basket of vegetables and some mutton. Nabil would help her and the two of them would prepare meals fit for a king. Her specialty was barley couscous. We’d sit round a huge earthenware dish and have a feast. Fuad would join us after school with his mobile stall, which he’d park indoors. He’d pretend to be furious when we nicked sweets from him. He’d chase us down the street and Ghizlane would laugh like a little girl. Sometimes she’d surprise us, whisking from her basket cakes that would melt in the mouth. We’d savor them outside in the sunshine. Ghizlane was growing more and more beautiful. I’d look at her breasts, which her loose smocks weren’t able to hide. They were two pears, almost ripe, with raisins on top, which poked at the embroidered cloth and seemed frustrated that they couldn’t come out into the open. I could tell they were unhappy, those pears, and dreamed of consoling them with a thousand caresses, of biting into their soft flesh, burying my nose and my senses in them and losing myself there. Ghizlane noticed my insistent stares and pretended she hadn’t. I could tell by the pupils of her eyes, which were slightly dilated, and the way she smoothed down her hair.

It was a wondrous time, I realize now, when everything seemed to come together as if by magic.

Blackie had at last rebelled and left his father’s shop. One day when Omar the coalman, over some nonsense, had raised his hand to slap him, Blackie had grabbed it and squeezed hard, signaling that he’d no longer allow himself to be beaten, and then let go, looking his father straight in the eye. It was a breathtaking moment, without precedent in the two men’s lives. Omar the coalman was suddenly aware that he was losing a second child. Blackie had grown up, he was white again because he’d gradually deserted the shop. He was a good head taller than his father. He too had understood that the estrangement was complete. It wasn’t premeditated, but it had happened. Helpless and weary, sitting on a stool between sacks of coal, Omar silently watched his son leave.

When Blackie showed up at our place with his belongings, we of course welcomed him. It was a summer evening and I remember we were sitting on the doorstep smoking kif. The moon was round and so white that we could not make out the features of our late king, who was supposed to be visible in it. Blackie sat down opposite me and I saw the light bathe his sad face. He smoked with us and started to feel better. We chatted idly, with no mention of his father. I’d been afraid of this moment, but I had no choice: leaving my friend on the street was out of the question. Nabil invited him in, pointed to a sheepskin, a blanket, and a cushion and said: “Take them, they’re yours.” And now there were three of us in the shack. It was cramped, but no one complained. Blackie tried to make himself as unobtrusive as possible, so he wouldn’t be any trouble. He helped Nabil with the cleaning and did the shopping in Douar Scouila on market days. The rest of the time, he’d do odd jobs here and there to make a bit of money and contribute to household expenses. Nabil and Blackie slept in one room and I slept in the other. My brother’s behavior had rubbed off on me, because I became, in a way, the head of the family. That authority over my friends had come about without my having to impose it. My decisions were followed to the letter because they made sense (or so I thought at the time). And that’s why, when Hamid persuaded me to attend the classes that Abu Zoubeir was giving at the garage, they all came with me, unquestioningly. So began our slippery descent into a world that was not our own. A new world that would suck us in deeper and deeper and finally swallow us for good.

12

THERE WERE FOUR of them, the emir and his companions. They had odd names, all beginning with “Abu” something. Exotic names, reminiscent of the days of the Prophet. To be brief, I’ll call them by the “something”: Zaid, Nouceir, and the Oubaida brothers, Ahmed and Reda.

The oldest, and probably the most erudite, was Emir Zaid, who was twenty-five but seemed older because of the thick beard that covered three-quarters of his face. He always wore a big pair of horn-rimmed glasses, a crocheted skullcap, and a white robe, so he looked almost interchangeable with any one of his comrades. Originally from the north of the country, for some unknown reason he’d wound up in the Chichane slum. Nothing was known about his family or how he’d come to undertake his studies. But in any case, he was knowledgeable in many areas of scholarship. We could ask him anything and he’d be able to answer, or if he wasn’t sure, he’d bring us precise information the following day. He had a serious, soft voice, a welcoming expression, and he always rested his hand on the shoulder of whomever he was with, as a sign of brotherhood. Seeing him in the street, no one would suspect that this chubby-faced man of average height was in fact a master of martial arts. He had done his training outside Morocco. Some said in China, others Japan, but in any case, light years from Sidi Moumen. Abu Zoubeir showed him a certain deference, as did my brother Hamid. Zaid was particularly interested in young people, meaning my friends and me. He nobly offered to teach us kung fu techniques. Nabil was over the moon. He’d always dreamed of being able to defend himself, and the emir was offering him this priceless gift on a plate. He’d wake me early in the morning and drag me off to a place near the garage where I’d do my exercises and say my first prayers, too – a prerequisite for participating in training sessions.

Khalil the shoeshine and Blackie joined us and soon we were all caught up in it. We’d meet in a windowless room, in a concrete building. The floor and some of the walls were covered in raffia mats, with a silk carpet at the back, where Zaid would sit, holding a string of beads that he’d wind round his wrist during the class. It was like a miniature mosque. It had the kind of silence that befitted a place of worship, where you feel the Lord’s presence more keenly than anywhere else. The samurai bow was accompanied by a verse from the Koran, so we’d begin our warm-ups in quasi-religious fervor. Then came the collective kata, where we’d fight invisible adversaries in the name of Allah. We had to wait several weeks before starting to fight properly. But even then, we didn’t hit anyone in the face; we held back before impact, which was a massive change from our usual fistfights. We learned self-control, the art of evasion, and discipline. But at the end of the class, as soon as Zaid left the room, we’d hurl ourselves on top of each other in riotous scrums. We had great fun imitating Bruce Lee in Fist of Fury, and made ourselves copies of his lethal weapon: two bits of wood linked by a chain. Nouceir taught us the countless ways to handle them. It wasn’t easy at first. We’d get hit all over our faces and bodies. Which made us laugh, despite the pain. Not to blow my own trumpet, but after a few weeks I was a wizard with that thing. Our whole time was spent leaping in the air, executing spectacular combat positions, but we were a long way from Bruce Lee’s acrobatics. Nouceir used to say that the master’s flying leaps were cinematographic effects, but we weren’t convinced. When his films were shown on TV, we’d ensconce ourselves in the café and watch them religiously, as if they were soccer games. Like our hero, we too wanted to right wrongs, avenge the weak, and restore justice. Zaid agreed with us, but repeated that there were different ways to change the world. The main thing was to use our brains. He claimed that it was never too late to learn, to perfect ourselves, and drive out the darkness that threatened us. The advantage of kung fu, he added, consists in turning the stronger man’s weapon against him. That was why Bruce Lee, who was smaller and less muscular than his enemies, always overcame them in the end. He said that Allah was just, that He loved justice. But I wasn’t so sure. If that were so, how do you account for places like Sidi Moumen? Zaid said the fault lay with men, who’d turned away from the divine message. Whatever the truth, we were so enthusiastic that we never once missed a training session.

These sessions were starting earlier and earlier. We’d make sure to do our ablutions and say our prayers together, at dawn, after the muezzin’s call. If Yemma could have seen us, she wouldn’t have believed her eyes. Hamid and I, at first light, standing in the middle of a room packed with the faithful at prayer. She’d have been proud to see us putting on our brand-new kimonos, which were presents from Abu Zoubeir. Hamid would choose me as his adversary in combat, which I loved. Fuad had joined us in the end, because he wanted to learn to fight too. And since he lived in Douar Scouila, he’d often sleep over at our place. I’d let him have a corner of my room and he was happy there. Now there were four of us in a tight space; it reminded me of the hovel I’d grown up in. Still, we were always outside. Between sport, bike repairs, our evenings at the garage, and praying five times a day, we didn’t have time to catch our breath. We’d stopped drinking alcohol because we didn’t dare anymore. Maybe a joint from time to time, but we kept it quiet. In any case, we were so tired in the evenings that we only wanted to sleep. And I can tell you, we might have been in a flophouse, our snoring was so loud.

Nouceir was Zaid’s cousin. In fact, they weren’t really cousins, they just came from the same village, up near Larache. He was the only one of the emir’s companions with whom I had anything in common. Not much older than me, he’d been goalie for the Chichane team. We both hero-worshipped Yachine; we could talk about him for hours. We’d had to be rivals in the old days, but that was all in the past. He had a soft spot for Ghizlane too, but backed off as soon as he found out she was meant for me. He avoided looking at her directly when we met on Fridays after prayers. Now there was a crowd of us eating couscous outside the shack. Beggars would be hanging around and we’d invite them to join us whenever we could. To get some peace, we decided to make a separate bowl for them. Otherwise it would be a free-for-all; their big paws would grope around in the couscous to get to the meat. They seemed hungrier than us and they ate very fast.

Fuad had moved in permanently, which was the perfect pretext for Ghizlane, who’d come to visit twice a week and more on holidays. She’d made us green velvet curtains, and sheets, which we didn’t dare use, since we’d never had any before. The place had a woman’s touch: now there were plastic flowers in a superb gilt vase and photo frames for our pictures. Nouceir had brought over a wool carpet, which was a present from Zaid. It was more comfortable for group prayers. Our shack became a cheerful, convivial place. If Hamid gave us a bit of incense, it smelled like paradise. We listened to cassettes of the Koran and speeches by oriental sages. They comforted us. The emir and his companions were simple people, who sometimes did us the honor of coming to visit, filling us with light and peace. Hamid was proud of me; I could see it in his eyes. Sometimes Abu Zoubeir himself would join us. And it was like a victory over our mediocre, small lives. We’d drink in everything he said, because we understood him. He’d given us back our pride with simple words, winged words that carried us as far as our imaginations could go. No longer were we parasites, the dregs of humanity, less than nothing. We were clean and deserving and our aspirations resonated with healthy minds. We were listened to, guided. Logic had taken the place of beatings. We had opened the door to God and He had entered into us. No more chasing around frantically, expending pointless energy, no more insults and stupid brawling. No more living like cockroaches on the excrement of heretics. Gone, the fatalism injected in our veins by our uneducated parents. We learned to stand shoulder to shoulder, to flatly refuse the worm’s life to which we’d been condemned in perpetuity. We knew that rights weren’t given, they had to be seized. And we were ready for any sacrifice. Friday became a real day for celebration in Sidi Moumen.

Ghizlane wasn’t so happy, because she’d suddenly been excluded from our circle. She’d still come to make couscous for us and then go back to Mi-Lalla’s. That hurt, but I didn’t show it. Sometimes I’d go to see her in Douar Scouila. She said I’d changed, and reproached me for neglecting my parents, which was very bad, since my mother was unhappy. I had trouble explaining to her how I felt. I simply replied that God was great and He’d make everything all right in the end. She said that God had nothing to do with it, that parents were sacred, even bad ones. Mi-Lalla claimed that paradise lay beneath mothers’ feet, that to get there, you had to kneel down and kiss the soles of those feet every morning. Ghizlane told me my beard made my face look hard and it didn’t suit me at all. I promised her I’d shave it off. It wasn’t compulsory anyway; I’d only grown it to look like Zaid. We all tried to copy the emir. She complained about her brother, who was hassling her to cover her hair. I didn’t agree with him, even though it wouldn’t detract from her beauty. I said I’d have a word with him, that there was no point falling out over something so small. Her beautiful hair definitely didn’t deserve to be imprisoned by a bit of cloth and I didn’t see what was so provocative about it. I asked Zaid about it one evening in the garage, after prayers. He replied that a woman who sought to tempt men did not deserve respect, because temptation is Satan’s province. That this was an ancestral value that evil minds sought to deny. He added that, in order to preserve our identity, we must follow the path trodden by the Prophet Muhammad, peace and salvation be upon Him. That dissuaded me from taking it any further. I felt that a woman’s eyes were far more alluring than her hair, anyway; but if I’d said so, he’d have advocated the burka. At least with a veil you could cheat a bit, depending how you wore it. And, on the whole, some of the colored scarves weren’t so bad. So in the end I asked Fuad to leave his sister alone; it was simpler.

Weeks and months went by with us living on top of each other in this way. Everything was regulated, measured, weighed. I more or less gave up the bike repairs, since our evenings at the garage went on later and later. We learned the Koran by heart. It wasn’t that hard. Abu Zoubeir would analyze its innumerable aspects. He’d launch into passionate explanations and commentaries. The life of the Prophet was now an open book. Our hearts quivered to the rhythm of his conquests, which God planned in advance. We knew that the battle the crusaders and the Jews were waging against us was insidious. And sometimes completely blatant. Jihad was our only salvation. God demanded it of us. It was written, in black and white, in the book of books.