We Have Buried the Past

by Abdelkrim Ghallab

  A deathly silence now pervaded the court. Abd al-Rahman stopped thinking. Anxious faces kept glancing at the pasha-judge. His eyes gleamed as though he were hunting for prey, and his face twitched anxiously as though he were eager for revenge; his tense body gave the impression that he wanted to leap on his quarry. The accused looked from the pasha to the governor; anyone who had been in court before was aware that the real judge was the French governor who lurked in the pasha’s shadow. Abd al-Rahman was not one of those people, so he continued to focus his attention on the portly body that filled his field of vision. He stared at the man’s mouth, expecting a verdict, not a political harangue.

  For a strained moment the pasha turned to the governor; from the way his lips moved Abd al-Rahman gathered that he was asking a question. In reply the governor whispered a few words in his ear, but to the curious observer they were clearly focused and specific.

  The pasha made ready to speak again. ‘May God pour blessings on the life of our dear master, the governor!’ he intoned again in the same terrifying tone. The aides and guards now realised something important was about to happen that required their total attention.

  Having pronounced his obeisance in ringing tones, the pasha’s thick lips exhibited a slight smile, which was soon replaced by an expression intended to show that he was the authority: it seemed he felt the need to give people a true sense of his importance. He was eager for his assistants to present him as such to the prisoners, as the person who was about to announce his verdict on all of them – all the more since they had been accused of sedition, and so they must be given the clear impression that they were standing before an authority that would brook no such rebellion. It also seemed that the pasha felt the need to make them appreciate his position as someone enjoying the confidence of the governor. The fact that he could converse secretly with the governor pointed to the significance of his position, particularly in front of these rebels.

  Thus, the ringing shout of ‘May God pour blessings on the life of our dear master!’ repeated by the court aides made the pasha feel his own importance. His dreams of authority, power, and force toyed with his mind as he found himself caught between his own feelings and the specific instructions he had received in his office from the governor, who had repeated those instructions in no uncertain terms in front of the accused in order to make it completely clear that, while the pasha was the law’s representative, the authority, power, and force did not reside in that corpulent body with its thick blond beard and huge white turban, but rather lurked inside the governor’s own bald head and his eyes hidden behind thick spectacles.

  The pasha now cleared his throat, anxious for the prisoners to register his presence. This noise, which might normally result from something stuck in the gullet, was a way of confirming his presence before this group of people who might well disdain his status.

  He proceeded to speak, mangling the ‘r’ sound to such an extent that he strained his vocal cords and his voice turned hoarse. The fat red face flushed, the blond beard quivered, and the gleaming eyes intensified. ‘Reprobates!’ he roared. ‘You’ve no shame! You incite rebellion and defy the government. Like idiots you go out into the streets stirring up trouble. Who do you think you are, raising your voices against the government? Obedience is an obligation for all. I will not forgive a single person who rebels. I’m… I’m the pasha who rules this land.’

  There he paused for a moment, as though he had just said something wrong. He looked over at the governor, who appeared quite unconcerned but was actually paying close attention to every word the pasha uttered; he did not even bother to look over at the pasha, as though no one were looking in that direction.

  ‘You’re all rebels,’ the pasha went on, ‘and you must all be punished.’ At the mention of the word ‘punished’ his nostrils expanded, as though the very idea excited him. He went on. ‘And I know exactly what your punishment will be.’

  He shook his hand to indicate a caning motion, as though somehow the words themselves were not enough to convey his meaning. As he uttered the word ‘punishment’ again his whole body shook, until his legs could barely support him. Abd al-Rahman had the impression that what the pasha really wanted to do was to pounce on them all like a hunting falcon; he was concerned the pasha might have a seizure as he availed himself of the authority represented by the governor who was standing calmly by his side.

  ‘If this man would just let me talk to him for a minute or two,’ Abd al-Rahman thought, ‘I’d be able to demolish his sense of power and authority and calm him down.’ But the pasha’s frenzy only increased, and Abd al-Rahman’s thoughts were disrupted as he heard his next statements.

  ‘If His Excellency the Governor had not interceded with me, I would have had you whipped right here and now, before the punishment you will receive in the prisons and detention centres. But I have no intention of showing you any mercy. I know from previous experience that the best way to put your perverted and errant minds back on to the straight path is to…’

  Abd al-Rahman’s nerves were on edge, and his blood boiled. His ears could not tolerate the verbiage they were now hearing. He stood up and raised his index finger in the air, the way he used to do at the academy when responding to an opinion expressed by the teacher with which he disagreed. ‘Your Excellency, Pasha!’ he said in a muted but firm voice.

  A pair of coarse and violent hands reached to his neck, grabbed him by the collar, and put him in a choke-hold using his jallaba, in an attempt to stop him opening his mouth again. They tightened their grip until he was almost throttled. A third hand came down on his neck with a mighty cuff that knocked him down. The rough hands clung to him as though he had just been arrested in the act of committing a crime. The pasha stopped speaking and looked daggers at him, like a victim who was trying to escape his clutches. All his aides now stared viciously at Abd al-Rahman, waiting to be told what to do with him. The pasha stared long and hard, knitting his thick eyebrows and examining him with eyes bursting with hatred. The room was as silent as a grave, as though some terrible event had rocked the havens of justice. The prisoners watched the pasha’s mouth, as if anticipating the fate that would soon emerge from it. He did not remain silent for long. Turning to Abd al-Rahman, the pasha addressed him in a tone dripping with contempt. It was almost as if he could not see the young man’s youthful form before his eyes. His voice was now much lower, as though he considered himself above the need to address a child whom he could only despise.

  ‘Who is your father?’ he enquired, rather than asking about Abd al-Rahman himself. He was too proud to talk to a child, but it would be appropriate to talk to his father and pass judgement on a man rather than on a child.

  ‘I am Abd al-Rahman—’

  The pasha raised his voice. ‘I asked you who your father was.’

  The rough hands came crashing down again. ‘Tell him your father’s name!’

  Abd al-Rahman now raised his head proudly. ‘I am Abd al-Rahman, son of Hajj Muhammad al-Tihami.’

  ‘Abd al-Rahman, son of Hajj Muhammad al-Tihami,’ the pasha repeated. His eyebrows twitched as he recalled a name that resounded in his ears for some considerable time. ‘Your father’s a good man,’ he went on. ‘How is it he’s abandoned you to these’ – and here he used an ugly word – ‘to addle your brain?’

  Abd al-Rahman’s face turned crimson as he heard the abhorrent term the pasha used to describe his fellow prisoners. It seemed to him that it was all his fault. ‘If only he didn’t know your father,’ his conscience told him. ‘If only you hadn’t raised your finger, if only—’

  ‘You must be punished,’ the pasha said, interrupting his thoughts. ‘The same fate now awaits you as all these others. That will put a stop to your bad behaviour.’

  Abd al-Rahman felt somewhat relieved. He had been worried that, in addition to insulting his fellow prisoners, the pasha might also insult him personally by releasing him because of his age and out of respect for his father.

  �
��The government knows no mercy,’ the pasha now declared, reverting to his previous stentorian tone. ‘Your punishment… your punishment…’ He looked at the governor as though to check on something, and the governor nodded in agreement. ‘The punishment decreed for all of you,’ he announced, ‘is two years in prison. Now get out of here!’

  With that, the pasha, the governor, and their aides turned and disappeared en masse through the door of the ancient office. Guards now surrounded the prisoners like a pair of handcuffs. Coarse hands grabbed them by the scruffs of their necks and pushed them out. At the court gateway they were loaded onto the trucks.

  ‘Court, judge, deputy prosecutor, lawyer,’ Abd al-Rahman thought to himself, ‘and now two years’ imprisonment.’

  27

  As the prison gateway enveloped Abd al-Rahman in its clutches, that sequence of words – court, judge, deputy prosecutor, lawyer – still rang in his ears, as he relived the few moments he had spent inside the pasha’s domain. His neck still ached from the stranglehold that those coarse hands had used to twist his jallaba until his eyes almost popped out. The image of the pasha – with his thick beard, puffy face, and thick neck – still occupied his vision, as though he had never before seen such a sight.

  Abd al-Rahman was the first to enter through the gateway. Suddenly a gleam appeared in his eyes, one that blew away the confusion in his thinking. Between the twin doors of the gateway he felt his head reeling, but did his best to stay on his feet, hunching his head between his shoulders to stop it from falling. Then he received a brutal and powerful left-handed blow, aimed at his right cheek. It reverberated in his ears like the crack of a whip. He tried to recover, but the hand that had slapped his cheek now shoved him back to leave space for his colleagues to receive their fair share of the traditional ‘welcome of honour’ imposed on nationalists as they entered the prison. It was customary for the guards to give the newly arrived prisoners a clear idea of what prison meant; rough hands administered two powerful slaps to each new guest when the huge gateway was opened to admit them. Abd al-Rahman realised that this was merely the first insult in a world of insults. It set his nerves on edge, but an experienced fellow prisoner calmed him down with a tacit gesture. Abd al-Rahman now watched as the vicious blows rained down on all his colleagues, and he heard the kind of filthy language that he could never imagine emerging from the mouths of people who had any self-respect. He was filled with anger that was expressed only in his thoughts.

  ‘My entire country’s a prison, with guards standing on its neck. A slap on the cheek, foul words ringing in my ears, vicious stares hounding me everywhere… I’m a citizen, one among millions living in a country with slaps, insults, and foul language, their honour impugned, turned into sheep. People… “natives”… My sense of honour finally exploded into action on the day I decided to lead the demonstration, all so that my fate would be to receive yet more slaps and foul language.’

  When Abd al-Rahman received the vicious slap by the gateway and banged his head against the edge of the iron structure, making it bleed, he let out a groan of pain and lost all contact with his thoughts. His colleagues, bunched together between the twin doors, turned around to see where the groan was coming from. One of them tried to help him, but a guard grabbed him as though he were about to commit a crime. With tears in his eyes Abd al-Rahman gave Abd al-Aziz an affectionate look, and the pain vanished from his expression, to be replaced by a severe, determined look that presaged an impressive challenge. From within the folds of Abd al-Rahman’s pain there emerged a beaming smile that lit up the faces of those on whom pain had inflicted such a gruesome wrong. This smile of victory now provided inspiration to all the prisoners.

  ‘What we need,’ he thought, ‘is experience, more insults to reinforce our spirit of resistance. The blow inflicted on my head is better than a thousand books that I might read about nationalism or memorise about history.’ The smile shone like a flood of light that revealed his complete understanding of the realities of the world – realities that now gleamed in souls darkened by humiliation. Lips that had previously curled in fury, eyes that had festered in pain, now turned into smiles and gleeful looks.

  The huge iron gate of the prison hid away the group that included Abd al-Rahman and Abd al-Aziz, but was this not the last time the great gateway would give them its welcome as it enclosed them within its world of misery, deprivation, and suffering. As they came and went each day, it would open to grasp them, overwhelmed, their naked bodies staggering from disease, hunger, exhaustion, and deprivation. It would open again to spit them out at sunrise so they could go out to the fields, where they would plough, sow, or reap; pull up palm-roots, grass, and dry weeds; or wander round the rugged heights smashing boulders and breaking rocks.

  They could not object or resist. The whip was always behind them to check any idea of resistance they might have. The effort left them exhausted; hunger, thirst, heat, and cold all destroyed their very being. Intimidation – whips, cuffs, and foul language – pursued them everywhere. But they were above all ongoing victims of the notion that was deeply ingrained in the minds of the prison guards: ‘Shut up! Prisoners have no rights.’

  On steaming hot days, when the burning sun set the entire firmament on fire, the impact of hunger and thirst on the prisoners was much worse. On one such day, a squad was in the stark mountains, where they were breaking up rocks and carrying them a long way to the place where they had to break them down still further into smaller stones and tiny chips. The mountain stubbornly resisted the efforts of muscles that were exhausted by labour and wracked by hardship and deprivation. Their endurance was sapped by the sweat that poured off them and the intolerable strain they were under. In a moment of sheer despair Muhammad, the work gang’s leader – the prison authorities would choose such a leader for each group – raised a finger to ask the guards to hear what he had to say. He was middle aged and could not tolerate this level of labour in such conditions. He was a bulky man, but sheer exhaustion had diminished that bulk until he looked like a pining lover laid low by illness. He was known for his endurance and patience – but hard work had finished off his endurance, and thirst had put an end to his patience.

  He raised his finger and, since he did not expect to be allowed to say anything, yelled his protest like a wounded lion. ‘Sirs,’ he shouted, ‘we’re thirsty and completely exhausted. Give us a rest and let us have some water.’

  The simple words were like an arrow directed at the guards’ authority, something that always alarmed them. The chief guard, who was vicious and poisoned by hatred, leapt up in fury, his eyes almost popping out of his head.

  ‘Shut up, or else I’ll smash your head in!’

  Despair forced Muhammad to raise his finger again. The cruel whip cracked in the air, and the chief guard came over to him, looking as though he had been personally insulted. Once again the whip cracked, but this time on Muhammad’s head. The bloody lash came down on his head and his cheek, but it did not stop there: it kept cracking the air and coming down hard on the man who had simply asked for a drink of water.

  The men stopped digging. They all stood up and leaned on their pickaxe handles. Anger was boiling inside them, but they were surrounded by a troop of guards, each with his whip at the ready, and armed guards with their rifles aimed. In the distance another whip came down on someone’s back, but the fury of the savage hands began to subside and the flaming eyes of both prisoners and guards now turned to look at the central scene: Muhammad had collapsed under the rain of torturous blows he had received, and now a dark flow of blood was coming from his mouth, nostrils, and ears. The guard simply stood there with his mouth agape. The prisoners threw down their pickaxes and rushed to hold Muhammad, but it was not long before a voice rang out.

  ‘There is no god but God! God was in the past, and He will continue…’

  During the two years that Abd al-Rahman spent in prison he witnessed nothing but life’s cruelty and violence. But even with all the suffering, hi
s thoughts were pulled in two contrary directions. He was in despair, and the world appeared dark before his eyes. The path was long, arduous, and rough. The guards were armed to the hilt with power and authority, and a wave of aggression was rampant. The prisoners were just a small, modest collection of dreamers, their dream being to bury their current situation – while having no means of doing so beyond the pickaxes with which they pulverised rocks. Unrelieved despair was the rule of the day.

  ‘We embarked on a reckless adventure without weighing the consequences,’ Abd al-Rahman told himself. ‘A gruesome fate awaited us. What kind of idiocy possessed us to end up in suffering, revenge, and even death? If I had followed Abd al-Ghani’s advice, I would be at school today, studying quietly with my schoolmates and living like other students who had not been so stupid and arrogant as to let themselves be exposed to prison, suffering, revenge, and death. If only I had done what Abd al-Ghani told me to do.’

  But his thoughts came to a halt with Abd al-Ghani’s name. An image came to him of the other kind of world in which Abd al-Ghani lived, with all its trivial and random aspects. The idea of living like Abd al-Ghani was something he could not conceive, and a sudden shift in his thinking made itself known.