The Bottom of the Jar

by Abdellatif Laabi

  And where was Ghita during all of this? She was nowhere to be seen. Namouss began to despair of ever finding her in this courtyard of miracles. He felt bound up and wanted to be sprung out of this cage. He decided to slip away and leave his mother to her stories of Lalla Mira.

  This is how he blew his initiation.

  14

  THE BEGINNING OF the new school year rescued Namouss from a state of despondency. At the end of a summer marked by peregrinations – where he had gone from frightening discoveries to questions that only led to more questions – he had come to an unsettling conclusion: he had taken stock of his life and not only found the results disappointing but also didn’t have the vaguest notion as to what might constitute a better life – or a world without struggles or worries.

  The big cloud of these heavy ideas burst while he was walking to school. The air on that October morning was bracing, the sun sparkling. After the climb of the Grenadiers, Namouss went down the rue El-Amer and walked alongside an orchard surrounded by a low wall topped with a hedge. The smell of caramel and musk invaded his nostrils. From inside the orchard came the aroma of freshly turned earth that had just been watered, of chopped cardoons, and of Seville orange blossoms. Among the intoxicating fragrances, a particularly enticing one began to insinuate itself . . . something Namouss had forgotten but now quickly remembered. He picked up his pace and ran into the street vendor posted at the bottom of the staircase that led up to the school gates, which were already surrounded by a group of children. When his turn came, he didn’t know whether he should go through the turnstile or leave that to the vendor. Given the stampede, he opted for the latter.

  “One!” the street vendor cried. Then he lifted the lid of his tin and – surprisingly – pulled out two waffles, which he held out to Namouss and smiling, added: “Here you go, the second is in case luck betrays you.”

  Such generosity was welcome. It brought comfort to Namouss, who was starting to become superstitious. Thanks to the street vendor’s gesture, he cheered up.

  Boy, were those waffles good! Leaning against the school gates, Namouss gobbled them up as fast as he could, partly because he couldn’t resist and partly so no intruder would show up and ask for some. He swallowed the last bite, the most delicious, just as the bell was ringing. Then immediately, the gate opened onto other trials and tribulations.

  THE YEAR STARTED out auspiciously. The new teacher was French, a real Frenchman. He had a blond mop, a large mustache, and eyes so blue it hurt to look at them. Mr. Cousin, he was called. In his childish colonial mind-set, Namouss interpreted this as a setup. Here he was standing in front of a Nazarene, a mythical being with mysterious powers and the object of a confused fascination. Contrary to stereotypes, Mr. Cousin had a benevolent expression and from time to time a sincere smile formed on his lips. There he was, weighing his words carefully, walking around the classroom, going from one row of desks to the other, writing on the blackboard, and getting his fingers covered in chalk, and he didn’t mind wiping the board clean with a brush himself, once the students had copied the relevant parts of the lesson. The only thing that shocked Namouss was watching Mr. Cousin pull out a handkerchief from his pocket and blow his nose into it noisily. How to interpret this ill-bred behavior? Was this due to his coming from a different culture or was it a sign of the contempt in which he held his audience?

  Despite this anomaly, the spell remained unbroken. As the weeks went by, Mr. Cousin proved himself worthy of the praise his coreligionists heaped upon him. He led the class into a whirlwind of knowledge and made everyone’s head spin with vertigo. It all began on the day he brought a globe to class and solemnly placed it on top of his desk. Seeing this multicolored balloon fixed on a revolving axis, the students expected to be given a lesson on their favorite pastime. The teacher immediately disappointed them by giving them explanations that left them completely flabbergasted: The globe represented the earth on which we all lived. As we could see, it was round, and as we could also see, it turned on its axis. Namouss let himself be submerged in this avalanche of revelations and posed himself the same questions that must have been racking the minds of his fellow classmates. How could people live on the bottom part of the world without falling off? If the earth spun on its axis, why couldn’t anyone feel the movement and why did everything remain fixed in its place? Mr. Cousin, however, seemed to be able to read their minds, and in order to convince his students of the validity of his theory, took out a bucket that he’d brought just for the occasion and began to give a presentation.

  “Look, this bucket is two-thirds full of water. I’m going to spin it around as fast as I can and as you will see, not a single drop of water will fall to the floor.”

  The demonstration was conclusive. What Namouss kept in mind – following an adage often quoted by his father – was that science was an ocean and this ocean only obeyed those who knew it well. As such, Nazarene or not, Mr. Cousin should be taken at his word. How would he tell Ghita? Taslim! Taslim!

  All went well until that fateful day when Mr. Cousin introduced a new subject: the life sciences. For this, he had brought along a poster that he unrolled and pinned to the blackboard. Namouss had never seen a dead body before, let alone one where only the bones were left and that was still standing up. He was afraid. His teacher’s presence, however, did much to reassure him. Soon enough, Mr. Cousin’s explanations allowed him to turn his thoughts away from death and toward a new skill: the acquisition of new words. By the end of the lesson, he experienced the pride of someone who’d taken a plunge into this ocean of knowledge and had brought back with him a number of rare pearls. Curiously, however, Mr. Cousin did not seem to partake in this euphoria. By way of conclusion, he complained about the lack of suitable equipment.

  “If only we had a skeleton, a real skeleton, I would have less trouble teaching you stubborn mules!”

  The week had come to an end, and on leaving school, the older kids in the class decided to meet in the Bab Guissa cemetery on Sunday afternoon to play soccer. Namouss asked to join them. After talking it over briefly, they consented. It seemed as if his position on the margin of the team was about to change. His responsibilities had hitherto been restricted to fetching the ball as and when needed. This was to be expected since he was one of the youngest in the class, which for the most part was composed of guys of about the same age as his older brothers. One of them, it seemed, was married, or was at least engaged. From time to time, Namouss had been allowed to become a substitute goalkeeper whenever an opposing team forfeited or the regular goalkeeper didn’t show up. This promotion made him happy since he naïvely believed they must have recognized some talent in him. Little did he know that as far as this half-baked crowd was concerned, the position of goalkeeper didn’t mean much. The longer the score remained nil, the greater the chance there was of scoring. The matches took quite some time to kick off because the position of center forward was highly coveted and required lengthy discussions before being assigned. When there were two opposing teams, they would share one goal, so to speak. In absence of a net or goalposts, they got the job done using two stones as markers.

  SUNDAY AFTERNOON. The Bab Guissa cemetery. A secluded corner, strewn with old tombstones whose topmost edges barely rise out of the earth. Worn down by time, by the sun, by inclement weather, but also by a herd of goats that regularly went there to graze. The field has therefore become flat and smooth for the players, who had to pay more attention to their shoes than their feet since here, just like in the Spring of Horses, they played barefoot. Shoes were considered a luxury item.

  Turning to the highlights of the match, the arguments over hand balls and free kicks, or over whether the ball had been kicked too high above or too far to the side of the imaginary goalposts, or even over the purported laxness on the part of the goalkeeper, accused of being in cahoots with the opposing team. What was certainly true was that Namouss tried his hardest – in the spirit of justice and conciliation – to ensure there wasn’t too
great a gap between the opponents. Sometimes he was simply distracted – the matches often lasted two or three hours – and some balls would sneak past him. Then, when he would eventually wake from his stupor and make a surprising save, he would inevitably incur the wrath of the opposing team, who had blown their chance.

  The final score, 18 to 12, provided a perfect portrait of the match. Both winners and losers had scored their fair share. Namouss therefore didn’t prove himself completely unworthy. He left hoping they would call on him again.

  Peace and calm were restored. The sun was starting to set and its last rays were bathing places in a cold light. In this dimness, the forgotten, dusty tombstones – looking like the ruins of ships half buried in sand – came into view once more. Namouss was in the process of putting his shoes back on when he noticed that something was happening around him. A group of his older classmates were talking to one another. Though they were speaking in hushed voices, Namouss was able to make out one word they kept repeating: skeleton! He didn’t immediately make the connection between that word and the life-science lesson Mr. Cousin had taught them a couple of days earlier. Yet he had the hunch that somewhere in a remote corner of the sky, his consciousness was taking a sinister shape, forming into a burning glacial cloud, equipped with an eye of fire, which was now starting to move toward him with the wild speed of raging elements. The wind reached and engulfed him soon enough, making his hair stand on end. The ember sparked in his troubled mind. Spotting his classmates around a tomb while one of them was kneeling with his hands deep inside it, he understood what was going on. He wanted to run away but his legs wouldn’t respond to his commands, and neither would his heart, which had slowed down to a suffocating rhythm. He wanted to shut his eyes to avoid having to watch the scene, but even his eyelids weren’t working anymore. It was as if someone had turned them inside out and glued them into place. Powerless, he watched the events unfold. His classmates were carrying out their task without any second thoughts whatsoever. The procedure was being executed as if it were a game, a game they had taken to with the utmost seriousness and concentration. The skeleton was pulled out of the tomb piece by piece, the skull last, intact. Namouss couldn’t help himself from comparing that skull to the one on Mr. Cousin’s poster. They were frighteningly similar. This brief tangent helped bring him a little relief and turned his mind to more mundane thoughts. After all, Mr. Cousin was going to be pleased by all this, he thought, surprising himself. The presumption of the Master of the Ocean’s consent did much to mitigate his distress.

  The older kids must have planned the skeleton heist in advance. One of them had brought along a jute sack, while the one who seemed to be in charge filled the sack with the bones, making sure they were all accounted for. The sack was tied with a bit of string, and the order to move out was given alongside strict instructions: The secret must be kept. Not a word of it should reach their families or any of the other classmates. The skeleton would be delivered the following day to Mr. Cousin.

  Namouss went home in a rush, making sure to avoid being seen by the rest of the household. There was no doubt in his mind that his crime was engraved on his face: an indelible cross etched in the middle of his forehead, scars on his cheeks, or pimples emerging on his nose. Above all, he must not look at himself in the mirror. He went to bed without dinner, pulled the sheet over his head, and tried to go to sleep. All in vain. The night was long and when he managed to doze off, the images of the skeleton being pulled out of the tomb flashed past him in scenes that were alternatively gloomy and comical. Stirred from his sleep, the skeleton came back to life, stood up, and brandishing a golden-yellow sword, cut off the heads of everyone around him. Their heads toppled from their bodies and rolled along the ground, which was swarmed by a throng of people that, mistaking the heads for balls, started knocking them about and scoring goal after goal. In another scene, the awakened skeleton wasn’t only made of bones but was also covered in flesh. He wore a beautiful djellaba and a black burnous, as well as a spotless turban. He resembled Si Daoudi, the Arabic teacher. As soon as he got up, a winged horse in a magnificent harness landed in front of him. He mounted the horse in a single leap and rode off toward . . . the Sekkatine. Driss was waiting for him. Si Daoudi got off the horse and said, “I have come to speak to you about your son.” “Yes, Sidi, I know.” “So what are we going to do about it?” “You cut his throat Sidi, while I scalp him.”

  The most grueling version of this dream was the one where Namouss pictured himself in the tomb. He and the skeleton were one and the same. He was dead without being dead. After a moment, he began to hear the confab of kids – who’d come to disturb his eternal sleep. He was unable to address them, to dissuade them from their mission, which he believed would be fatal for all parties. As they began to pull out his bones, he felt as if his soul was still hovering above the grave and was about to take flight and disappear forever. Nothing will remain of me, he told himself. They will forget about me – and, God forbid, I will be absent on Resurrection Day.

  Early in the morning, Namouss was awoken by the sound of thunder and the heavy splatter of rain falling in the courtyard. The fury of the sky brought back to mind the nightmarish visions he’d experienced, and above all the anguish he felt at the thought of what might happen at school if the episode of the skeleton were to turn out badly. Who could he turn to in order to prevent dire consequences from arising? Whom could he speak with about the unspeakable?

  Ghita was already up on her feet, or rather bent over double sweeping away the water that had accumulated in the courtyard and threatened to flood the bedrooms. Glancing at Namouss, she didn’t seem to read anything out of the ordinary on his face. She even smiled at him and prompted him to go wash up while she prepared his breakfast. Blessings upon you, Ghita, you who brings sunshine to bear on rainy days! Hope returns.

  TWO DAYS WENT by at school without anything arising from the skeleton episode. Mr. Cousin had started up the life-science lessons once more. The new poster he’d brought to class depicted a man who’d been flayed, revealing the vivid, red surface of his muscles. Names even more complicated than those linked to the skeleton rained down on Namouss. He raked them in avidly. Words became a sort of drug that helped chase away the images of the cemetery, whether real or nightmare-induced. He nevertheless sometimes lost his train of thought and lapsed into those visions. A chill ran through his spine and made him want to shout: “It wasn’t me, sir! I swear, it wasn’t me!”

  The reprieve was short-lived. On the third day, it was battle stations from the get-go. Mr. Cousin announced that Mr. Fournier, the headmaster, would be visiting the class. The latter arrived soon after, followed by Si Daoudi and another Arabic teacher who looked after the higher grades: Si Ben Jebbour. They had somber, menacing expressions on their faces. It was Si Ben Jebbour, whom the students didn’t know from Adam, who first addressed them, in Arabic to boot, thus letting the Nazarenes that were present off the hook and allowing them to leave while the going was good. The speech began, and it was harsh.

  “I want to tell you little savages that you clearly lack any notion of faith or religion. You belong to the most vile and evil category of miscreants. Know that there are three sins that God cannot forgive his creatures: lying with one’s mother, doubting His existence, and desecrating the dead. Know that even in hell, your place will be in the seventh circle, the last, where no one will save you from everlasting suffering. Nothing will save a desecrater from his fate, not even if he prays and fasts for a century, nor if he distributes piles of gold to the poor. And if he thinks he shall cleanse his soul with a pilgrimage, he is bound to burst into flames before he can even reach the sacred Kaaba. We belong to God and to Him shall we return. If I have come here, it is to remind you of the tenets of our religion and to warn about God’s coming judgment. As for earthly judgment, this falls to the headmaster, who will soon inform your parents of the sanctions that will be taken against the culprits. My greetings to those of you who have followed the
right path. Amen!”

  Once the visitors had left, and after a heavy silence, Mr. Cousin wrapped up the episode by emitting an odd “Well, there we have it” and then smiling half in jest, half in earnest. Thanks to his reaction, Namouss concluded that once more he had been saved, even if he didn’t know why.

  The sentence was passed the following day. Three students were handed a fifteen-day suspension, a punishment Namouss couldn’t find fault with. Among the three students was the presumed leader of the perpetrators and the one who had carried out the desecration. The third student was the one who had slung the bag of bones over his shoulder and carried it off. Had one of them willingly confessed or had one of the other boys who had been with them let the cat out of the bag? One thing was certain, it hadn’t been Namouss.