The Bottom of the Jar

by Abdellatif Laabi

  We celebrated the return of our prodigal uncle. The children were fascinated by his bohemian side. They could poke fun at him, outrageously so at times, without the threat of reprisals. Zhor, the eldest sister, took the initiative since she was better equipped to converse with Touissa. She’d learned the sign language used by the deaf and put it to wonderful use. One habitual game consisted in taking advantage of Touissa’s culinary phobias, since he was terrified of honey and okra. Zhor would therefore pretend to dip her index finger in a pot of honey and then place it in her mouth, accompanying the motion with a sucking sound while feigning delight. Even though she was only pretending, Touissa would begin shaking in fear. But Zhor would stay on the offensive. Pulling her finger out of her mouth, she would slap her forehead with the palm of her hand shouting: “Honey! Honey!” Touissa would then stamp his feet and shake even more, and attempt to escape. The children would then surround him and start to tickle him relentlessly, right up to the point where they feared he might start to suffocate. Giving him a little room to breathe and recover, they would then renew their assault, this time armed with okra. L-mloukhiya!

  These games would last the whole day. Touissa was happy to spend time with Ghita and Driss, despite the fact that this intimacy would begin to wear thin the moment he felt the need to smoke his sebsi. He didn’t dare do it in front of Driss, since even though Driss wasn’t the eldest, he was nonetheless older than Touissa. He therefore owed him some respect. So he waited impatiently for Driss to leave so he could give free rein to his vice. Rather than getting offended, Ghita would encourage him.

  “Well, what are you waiting for? Now that your belly is full, you can let your hair down!”

  Night came and dinner was served. A simple meal of couscous flavored with sugar and cinnamon and accompanied by a glass of milk. Seeing the disappointment on the children’s faces, Ghita then announced there would be dessert – but only a chhioua (candy) – while winking in Touissa’s direction. The more cunning of the children sensed there was something fishy going on.

  The sweets were brought out after the couscous. Ghita put a large raffia plate on the table, which was covered by a cone-shaped lid. Namouss didn’t get it at first. Zhor, one step ahead of him, had figured it out. Shouting in Touissa’s ear, she said, “Lift the lid!”

  Touissa didn’t understand why Zhor had asked him of all people, but he did it anyway, and in uncovering the plate discovered there was a large rooster underneath the lid, which leaped on him, all the while beating its wings before flapping off to the other side of the room. This time Touissa wasn’t the only one who was laughing. Everyone in the room was in hysterics. Namouss’s clan certainly came up with some kooky ideas!

  An hour after the meal, everyone moved to the couch. Driss lowered the flame on the gas lamp. A sense of peace reigned over the room, and Touissa knew the time had come for him to take center stage. He began by asking everyone to repeat some phrases that would serve as good omens, as well as inspire the storyteller.

  “Curse you, Satan!”

  “May you be cursed and cast down!”

  “Blessed are you, oh Prophet of God!”

  “Blessed are you,” the others chimed in.

  “And again.”

  “Blessed are you!”

  “And again.”

  “Blessed are you, oh Prophet of God!”

  Then Touissa began: “It is told, ladies and gentlemen, that once upon a time, in a country blessed by the heavens, there was a king whose reign was just and compassionate. His fair-mindedness extended even to animals, so much so that the sheep got along with the wolves, and the lions and gazelles slept peacefully side by side . . .”

  We will content ourselves with this little taste, since Touissa’s stories were long, in fact very long, and Namouss had never been able to follow them to the end. Each time, the delightful stories would deliver him into the embraces of sleep.

  A question, however, begs to be asked: How did Uncle Touissa, who barely spoke during the day, transform into such a formidable bard thanks to the power of the word? How had a deaf – and illiterate to boot – man come to acquire such culture and the ability to impart it? Yet, after all, wasn’t Homer blind? Long after these events, Namouss would ask himself these questions and answer in all honesty: Touissa was my Homer.

  GHITA, WHO ONLY a week earlier had waged a war to go on holiday, wound up finding it exhausting.

  “We came here to feast our eyes on some greenery and to relax, and what did we get out of it? Excess flab and work. And the holy month of Ramadan is fast approaching and I know what’s waiting for me back at home.”

  Taking advantage of the situation, Driss approved enthusiastically.

  “Your mother is right. It’s time to go home.”

  “Hmm,” Ghita remarked, “you were just waiting for me to open my mouth so you could use my own words against me. You’re so honey-tongued you’d think I’d been throwing sweets at you.”

  On that bittersweet note, the decision was made to go home. In his hurry to get back to work, Driss arranged to travel back to Fez by bus, partially fulfilling Namouss’s dream.

  The vehicle that was to transport them home was a beat-up old bus – so rusty that its original color was indiscernible. As far as its size was concerned, it was just as Namouss had imagined it, happily so considering the number of people and the mountains of baggage it would have to carry. It took almost an hour to load everything on the roof and another hour for the passengers to come to an agreement as to who should sit where – there weren’t many places available – and there was also the business of putting the hand luggage on the overhead rails: sacks heaving with fresh vegetables, baskets of eggs, oil drums that threatened to spill, chickens that had been bound by their feet, cackling and flapping their wings, even slices of mutton, still bloody, that had been wrapped in rags. Once the seats had been filled, the conductor allowed the few visibly less moneyed passengers to perch on the roof for half the going fare. Namouss would have loved to join them. From there, he would have had a better view of the landscape, and with nose to the wind, could kiss the sky and steer an imaginary wheel, feel as if he were the one in charge of that crazy, traveling band. He put the idea to Driss, who refused him outright.

  “Up there is only good for the country bumpkins, plus it’s dangerous.”

  On that note, the conductor yelled to the driver, “Yallah, drive!”

  The bus left Sidi Harazem, descending a road filled with twists and turns. The bus snored and swayed like a live beast. The motor emitted a strong gassy odor that reminded Namouss of the stench he’d experienced during the departure: the foul farts that Abdelwahab the horse had let rip. Looking for someone to share this memory, he turned to Ghita, but she, who had reacted so stoically the first time around, was now looking ostensibly indisposed. Mixed with the swaying of the bus, the smell of gas was making Ghita’s stomach turn. To keep from vomiting, she was smelling a bit of orange peel and reciting the usual list of saints and relations she used whenever she felt in peril.

  Having made its descent, the bus rolled through a level stretch of countryside and the driver stepped on the accelerator. The uneasy silence that had pervaded gave way to deep sighs of relief, then grew into a chorus of encouragement directed at the driver. All the children and the adults – except the women – joined in:

  Zid, zid, ya chefor Go, go, driver

  Zid nghiza fel-motor! Step on the gas some more!

  Heeding the will of the people, the driver stepped on the accelerator until it was flat on the floor. The bus sped ahead, acquiring a velocity that made the male passengers even more excitable. Seeing the direction things were taking, Namouss, who had originally taken part in the chorus, now kept very still. Ghita was feeling even worse, and even Namouss was beginning to worry. He began to ask himself how a vehicle that was going this fast could ever come to a stop. Would it not instead continue on its trajectory until it lifted off the ground and took flight, slicing through the air
to God knows where? As it happened, his anguish didn’t last much longer. Some signs began to emerge informing the travelers they were drawing near to Fez: The houses on the side of the road were now made of bricks. Cars and bicycles were coming from the other direction, and confusion began to grip the inside of the bus, as passengers started taking their hand luggage off the rails. When the bus came to a crossroad, Bab Ftouh came into sight. Coming back to its senses, the bus slowed down and came to a smooth stop at the foot of the city walls.

  FEZ IN THE summer, at the beginning of Ramadan. A frenzy of activity. Craftsmen and shopkeepers double their efforts in advance of business slowing down during the holy month, as it usually does. It is also the time when households stock up on all essential goods – flour, oil, sugar, honey, clarified butter, spices, dried legumes, preserved meats – because this month of great abstinence also comes with great nocturnal feasts. The liveliness of the Medina is at its zenith. This suits the children just fine, who exploit the situation to their advantage. Parents reach into their wallets and the pocket money harvested is passed on immediately to the vendors of firecrackers, marbles, and whirligigs. The entire city resonates with the sound of crackling and explosions. The side streets next to the souks transform into the staging grounds of marble and whirligig tournaments, which the neighborhood kids follow attentively.

  But things weren’t going so well for Namouss. Driss didn’t even want to hear about firecrackers, the sole object of Namouss’s desire since he wasn’t any good at the other games, which he limited himself to watching or on occasion to acting as a referee, a lackluster role in these circumstances. He was only able to get enough money from Driss to buy a whirligig. While he was at it, he decided to satisfy an old craving, since, when it came to whirligigs, Namouss wasn’t taken by the European varieties found in shops. Those factory-made whirligigs usually broke on first impact and their colors faded quickly. He preferred instead the handmade ones built by local artisans whom Namouss loved to watch while they worked.

  The woodturner’s shop was located right at the end of Namouss’s street. The woodturner was always hard at work, with such . . . how to put it . . . loving devotion that nothing could distract him. Even when clients turned up with orders, they knew they would have to wait for the master craftsman to finish working on the piece he had in his hands. If the customer in question was a child, the wait became even longer. The craftsman had more important priorities, and when he eventually turned his attention to his young customer, it was more out of kindness than anything else, since making a whirligig wasn’t such a big deal. He would then take a piece of shapeless wood, sand it down, keep it in place with his toe, and start to chip away at it. The way he used his tools made him look like a violinist. His chisel flew through the air like a bow and – presto! – the whirligig began to take shape. The only thing left to do was to equip it with an iron tip. But that was not the woodturner’s job. For that, the child would have to go a stone’s throw away to the blacksmith in the El-Haddadine souk.

  Total change of scene. Having accomplished the most pleasant part of his quest, Namouss was frightened by this next part. But he had no choice. The blacksmith’s forge was shrouded in darkness. The flames of the furnace barely lit the blackened faces of the master and the apprentice, who was blowing air into the fire with a bellow. The smell of burning was unbearable. The eyes of the blacksmith shone with a strange sparkle, and the smile out of the corner of his mouth froze Namouss with fear. All’s well that ends well. The iron tip was ready and it was then attached to the bottom of the whirligig, allowing Namouss to flee that dangerous situation.

  Back out into the open air. Though he had his whirligig in his pocket, he didn’t feel like playing. The trip to Sidi Harazem had inspired new feelings in him. That first voyage had filled him with a sense of pride. Many of the neighborhood children he played with had never lived what he considered a great adventure. That shift in time and space had opened a window onto the future, there, in a place where he had seen himself equipped with wings, flying above the city of Fez, embracing horizons both known and unknown. All of a sudden – and perhaps because he has just evaded a great peril – the desire to rediscover his town took hold of him. To rediscover it with eyes that had gone traveling, with the need to commit to memory what was at risk of being lost, if ever he should acquire those wings, which would whisk him so high and far away to the point of no return. Right up until that moment, he had lived inside the Medina as if it had been a cocoon. He had never before asked himself how that cocoon had come to be and who had made it. A pupa among pupae, he waited with a vague sense of consciousness for the moment when he might break through the soft pod and step out into the light.

  And this is where the journey begins.

  10

  NAMOUSS’S STOMPING GROUND was the size of a handkerchief. He kept within the bounds of the Qarawiyyin neighborhood, if that. As for the other neighborhood, that of the Andalusians, Namouss had never, in a manner of speaking, set foot in it. For him, as for most of his friends, it was almost a foreign country, where one should never venture. Hostile children lived in those parts, with whom they never crossed paths aside from the occasional scuffle. When those took place, the battles were regulated by strict rules of engagement. An emissary was dispatched to the enemy camp to deliver the declaration of war, to put forward a date for the commencement of hostilities, as well as to agree on the weapons that were to be used – usually belts and/or stones – not to mention techniques of impromptu hand-to-hand combat, where direct blows to the head were deemed dangerous and only permitted under certain circumstances. The neighborhood’s self-proclaimed Joint Chiefs of Staff then set to planning their strategy and commenced their recruitment drive. Barely a flyweight, Namouss was not among the children called up for duty. Even though he was entrusted with some small tasks, when the hostilities began he’d had to content himself with watching from the sidelines.

  Admittedly, he felt comfortable with this role. Was it a case of cowardice or rather a precocious adherence to the tenets of nonviolence? The question remains unresolved. In any event, those wars did not leave a significant mark on him. By the time he would remember a battle was due to take place in his neighborhood, it would already be over, the dust settling – according the “official” version of the events – in triumph over the foreign invaders. Victories aside, what Namouss had learned was that he should not cross into enemy territory on his own. His neighborhood was enough for him, since it was after all the most prestigious one, home to both of the city’s leading mosques – the Qarawiyyin and the Moulay Idriss – and was also the liveliest, since the business activity of the city was concentrated there. Namouss knew his neighborhood souk by souk, square by square, street by street. He knew all the shortcuts to take through its alleys. More important, he knew how and when to meet the unusual characters that so fascinated him. Who were they? Angels or demons? Beggars or prophets? Who knows. Both the settings they were in and the way they spoke stood in sharp contrast to how demure most people usually were. The adults didn’t hold them in high esteem. They would stop and listen with half-amused, half-reproachful looks on their faces and then continue on without a word. The children, however, were torn between a vague sort of admiration and an instinctive hostility against those poor outcasts. As for Namouss, he was pulled in by their eccentricity; they reminded him of his uncle Touissa. The words that came out of their mouths had the same effect on him as his uncle’s stories. Through them, he discovered that words could be used in unconventional ways. Not unlike his first day of school, when Mr. Benaïssa had begun to play his flute, Namouss understood that there were words and words, music and music.

  Speaking of words and music, the first character that took his place in Namouss’s pantheon was a rather gentle, taciturn man, and a regular feature in the Spring of Horses: Mikou. It was said he was a scion of a large family, which he had left behind in favor of a free, wandering lifestyle that had in turn led to his family disowning him
. As a result, many homes opened their doors to him, where, depending on their mood, Mikou would be able to eat and sleep in exchange for a few chores: taking the bread to the oven, filling buckets of water at the public fountain, carrying heavy packages, or assisting with the spring cleaning. Somewhat simpleminded, Mikou had a glowing face and was particularly popular among the children, who occasionally paid him court throughout the course of his peregrinations. Mikou would then perk up and, surrounded by a small crowd of his followers, would use his beautiful voice to intone one of his own compositions:

  Hear me, oh girls

  They say Mikou’s dead

  That a donkey bit him

  And that’s why he’s dead.

  Why did he address his song specifically to girls? Which Mikou was he singing about? Nobody asked themselves these sorts of questions. The song became a real hit among the children, who added it to their repertoire.

  THERE WAS ANOTHER way in which Mikou was looked after in the neighborhood. Even though he was able-bodied and in the prime of life, he was the only man who could mingle among women in their homes. The men looked on this as normal and the women were delighted with his presence. They could go around unveiled and adopt a casual air with someone unrelated to them. A game that seemed to excite them. They didn’t hesitate to tease him about “below the belt” subjects, and poor Mikou, who had taken a vow of chastity, would blush a bright red right up to his ears.

  Hear me, oh girls

  They say Mikou’s dead . . .