The Bottom of the Jar

by Abdellatif Laabi

  “A shame about the daggers. Instead of destroying those, you could have turned your attention to the kitchen knives and the meat cleaver. Those are the true weapons!”

  “And what about you? You took the tagine right out of our mouths,” Driss retorted, carrying on in the same jocular vein. “Was that so you could get even or because it had really burned?”

  “May Satan be cursed!” Ghita replied, in a conciliatory tone. “Don’t hold it against me. I’m just like my mother. Sometimes I act a little crazy. I hear strange voices in my head. Well, at least we have some eggs and preserved meats. I’ll look after your bellies. This way, little scamp,” she said, turning to my sister Zhor. “I need some help.”

  19

  THE REPRIEVE DIDN’T last long. The black cloud that had plagued us and then drifted off, leaving us to breathe a sigh of relief after a close shave, came back with a vengeance, this time accompanied by a funereal detachment of soldiers. Our sky was about darken for good.

  Other assassinations took place after the khatib’s murder. The press made inroads into our family. We were very fond of those headlines, even if the way they reported events was appallingly one-sided. Le Petit Marocain stressed the need for censorship laws and condemned the terrorist plots, guaranteeing they would fail. La Vigie, on the other hand, believed the affair bore the signs of the machinations of foreigners, especially by an organization whose name had been unknown to us until that point: the Communist International. The rebels were labeled as butchers, monsters, and – an odd qualifier – atheists. When we opened the dictionary to add this new term to our vocabulary, we were horrified. Could it really be that there were human beings who were capable of such ideas? How could anyone think that Muslims had been infected by such a malady of the soul? Despite the one-sided nature of official mouthpieces, we were able to glean some details that quickly allowed us to gain a full picture of the situation. Fez was a single stroke, a dab, one character among many. And it wasn’t the central focus. We discovered a country, with cities and diverse populations, a north and a south, an east and a west, and that the whole of it was bent back like a bow, overcome by the same worries, knocking on the same door, hoping for salvation, bleeding for the same cause, committed to making the same sacrifices. One magic word summed up all the expectations and the refusal to wait any longer for their realization: istiqlal! The walls of our Medina were festooned with slogans scrawled with charcoal, where the word “independence” was prominently featured. The recitations of the Latif resounded even more powerfully in the mosques. Demonstrations took place every day and were quickly repressed by the security apparatus. The police stations in Nejjarine and Boujeloud were filled to capacity. Additional detention centers were opened to accommodate the uninterrupted flow of nationalists taken in for questioning. Numerous horror stories were told about these places. The regulations banning festivities from taking place couldn’t have been stricter. Circumcisions were carried out in secret and marriages were continually postponed. The professions that relied on the extravagance of these celebrations suffered a heavy toll: adouls,15 neggafates, musicians, hairdressers, tailors and dressmakers, caterers, upholsterers, cabinetmakers, and so on. Only the tolba16 were able to do nicely for themselves since it was difficult to dispense with their services when it came to funerals and religious wakes. Worst of all was the blanket ban on slaughtering sheep during the Festival of the Sacrifice. A group of religious leaders were up in arms over this issue, pitting the hard-line Orthodox faction against enlightened Salafists. This sowed discord among the simpleminded. They wound up striking a compromise: The slaughter of the sheep would be allowed on the condition that the hides were donated to support the struggle. And though many of the people who donated these hides did so grudgingly, they realized there were serious consqeuences if they refused to do so. The bans, boycotts, and all-around restlessness eventually began to affect the nerve center of our city: commerce. Business in the souks was visibly declining. Merchants wore long faces, with the exception of those involved in the food trade. The demand for primary foodstuffs was on the rise and those merchants rubbed their hands with glee. The winds of hope and the resurgence of pride therefore didn’t manage to lift spirits during this time marked by gloominess and hardship.

  IN THIS CLIMATE, I dare say, our family life felt the strain as we hobbled across the grave conflicts and concerns of the hour. We had trouble getting past the fright caused by the murder of the khatib and the suspicions that surrounded our family as a result. But other matters presented themselves, giving us food for thought and causing further tension within our home, which if nothing else allowed us to bear the insufferable pressures outside the home a little better.

  This is what happened: Though Driss wasn’t an activist, he had long since taken up the cause of the spearhead of the nationalist movement, the Istiqlal Party. He truly idolized their leader, Allal al-Fassi. But now there was a new political faction, ostensibly less popular, the Democratic Independence Party led by Belhassan Ouazzani. This schism was heartbreaking for the great many citizens of Fez that didn’t belong to either party. Weren’t both leaders true Fezzis, scions of illustrious families that were fighting to achieve the same objectives? If that was the case, why should one have to choose between them? Those who made such a choice, including my brother Si Mohammed, quickly found themselves in the minority. The reasons upon which he based his decision were not without appeal. Belhassan was more modern than Allal. He dressed in European clothes, spoke perfect French, and wore neither a fez nor a turban. As its name implied, Belhassan’s party furthermore advocated both independence and choura (democracy). Si Mohammed had once again turned to the Larousse dictionary, and this new word had swung his decision to join that party.

  There would be an unavoidable showdown with Driss, who while very tolerant when it came to other subjects became intractable when this issue came to the fore. As far as he was concerned, one couldn’t follow two leaders at the same time. He had nothing against Belhassan, far from it, but Allal, as he put it, was Allal. A great alim, he had committed the sixty chapters of the Qur’an to heart. Another point in his favor: Out of the hundred members of the saddlemaker’s guild, not one was a follower of Belhassan. So as you can see, Driss would conclude, only someone who’s crazy could pledge loyalty to a leader who didn’t have any followers.

  As a habitual spectator to these controversies, I must admit that my brother’s arguments were more effective in winning my sympathy than my father’s. But I kept this to myself, above all out of respect for Driss, especially since I didn’t know what to do with these new convictions of mine or how I would ever put them into practice. All the more so because, after looking around, I noticed that, first of all, none of my other brothers proffered an opinion and second, my sisters were excluded from these conversations among men. Then there was Ghita’s tendency to grumble, fidget, and rush in and out of the kitchen to make it known how these debates annoyed her. Unable to take it any longer, on one occasion she intervened, displaying her characteristic gift for metaphor and mockery.

  “The more you rub it in, the more it rubs me the wrong way. One day it was about who would follow Abdel Wahab or Farid al-Atrash, and today it’s about who’s going to die for Allal or Belhassan. The way you talk would make one think that you were the ones who were going to bring about independence. This is best left to God and not His creations. It is He who is all-knowing and all-seeing, who will inflict on the Nazarenes what He did to the Pharaohs when they took it too far. He will put a single mosquito inside their mind that’ll make them lose their minds, paralyze their limbs, and turn them into sloths. At which point all we’ll need to do is grab a broom and sweep them out.”

  Temporarily dizzied by this sledgehammer argument, the debate eventually got going once more.

  This point of view got me thinking. I tried to imagine how my mother’s ideas could be put into practice. Would the mosquito – why had she chosen the creature I was named after? – also attack
the only Nazarenes I knew: Mr. Cousin, who had been my teacher the previous year, and Mr. Fournier, the headmaster? If they were forced to leave, would the school have to close down? This troubling prospect distracted me from the conversation that was taking place. I needed to find other areas of interest so as to widen what was otherwise a fairly isolated life: going to school, playing in the neighborhood, excursions to the Jnan Sbil gardens or the cinema, and the occasional outing to the municipal stadium. Listening to the radio in an assiduous way was of great help. I left the news-focused frequencies to the adults and instead turned to the ones that played music and hosted game shows that people could take part in, lured by the prospect of winning prizes.

  Radio Tangiers became my lifeline and a cherished source of happiness.

  TANGIERS, THE INTERNATIONAL zone. Its name alone was enough to induce dreams. As far as I was concerned, it wasn’t a city but a distant country. According to Driss’s stories, one had to cross two borders to get to it. It took a whole day. When he’d gone there, he’d found Moroccans who looked just like us, even if there were more foreigners there than anywhere else in Morocco: Fraanchmen, Sbanishmen, Breets, Geermans, Eetalians, Mericans, and even Heendous. One could find unimaginable merchandise for sale over there. Some leaders of the nationalist movement lived there and were able to express themselves freely without worrying.

  Tangiers the tall

  Perched on its pillars

  Awlaïlah!17

  Radio Tangiers often interrupted its broadcasts to play this song to salute the city. Speaking of broadcasts, the one I most devotedly listened to was a game where you had to guess the name of a song – who wrote it and who sang it – after listening to a brief sample. One had to write in with the answers quickly. After which there would be a random drawing for prizes where the ones who had sent in the correct answers would be eligible. A few days later, the names of the lucky winners would be read out and they’d be sent a surprise gift in the post.

  After numerous unsuccessful attempts and weeks spent in nerve-racking anticipation, I hit the jackpot: My name was drawn. Anticlimactically, I didn’t receive the good news in person. I was told by a friend, who’d heard it from a friend, who in turn had heard it from another friend. Though a little mispronounced, my name had been heard loud and clear. I blamed myself for not having been in front of the radio. Another failure, I chided myself. I began to think things seemed worse than they actually were. I was gripped by doubt. The fact my name had been mispronounced didn’t bode well. It couldn’t have been just a simple mistake – they had meant to announce someone else’s name, which was similar to my own. At least – and this was the most anguishing of my hypotheses – this meant I didn’t have a namesake living somewhere like Chaouen, for example, where it seems our family had originally come from.

  I spent the following two weeks on tenterhooks. By the time I was beginning to calm down and lose all hope, something unexpected happened. One morning there was a knock on our door. I went to open it and found myself in front of a man wearing a uniform and a flat cap, carrying a large leather bag over his shoulder. I thought it was a man from the electric company who’d come to read our meter. We had been warned not to let anyone in on those occasions unless either Driss or one of my older brothers was in the house. I therefore parroted the response I’d been taught: “The master of the house is out.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Driss.”

  “The package isn’t for him. It comes from Tangiers. It’s for a certain . . .” (He uttered my name.) “Is he here?”

  “That’s me.”

  “Well then, here you go, and please sign this for me.”

  “What do you mean sign?”

  “You know how to write, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So take this pen and write your name there.”

  I got through this unforeseen exercise, tore the package from the inspector . . . I mean, postman, and dashed back into the house. I took the steps to the terrace two at a time, feeling the need to be out of sight so I could discover the contents of the package. Once there, panting – as much from the agitated state I was in as from having flown up the stairs – I savored that precious moment slowly. It was the first time I had received anything in the post. My jubilation was similar to what athletes must experience as they cross the finish line to win a race. Except that there were no spectators, and as far as applause went, I heard nothing but the shrill sound coming out of a stork’s beak. I finally opened the package and pulled out the long-hoped-for gift: a bar of scented soap, whose brand name I cannot keep to myself this time, without which the magic of the moment wouldn’t be properly conveyed. Ah, the joys of Cadum! I was gripped by euphoria. Similar to the euphoria the baby depicted on the soap’s shiny paper wrapping seemed to be experiencing. A brilliant smile leaping from his chubby cheeks. I suddenly felt a sort of paternal love at the sight of that cherub. Oh, it was too much for my heart to take!

  As I left the terrace and descended the stairs, I restrained myself from advertising this godsend. I hid the bar of soap and decided I wouldn’t use it until my next trip to the hammam. The little pink cloud upon which I was floating helped me brave the blows that fate had in store for us.

  JUST WHEN WE’D thought that the threats menacing our family had passed us by, we discovered “one fine morning” that soldiers had been posted in front of our door. They weren’t there to “pay us a visit” or because of the investigation into the khatib’s murder. No, they were there for the long haul. How could we interpret their presence? Had we been targeted and placed under house arrest, or was this part of more widespread measures? Driss wanted to know more. For safety’s sake, he decided that no one should leave the house. He set out on a fact-finding mission. Ghita was at a loss, words failed her. Before letting him go, she made sure he had enough warm clothes on: one djellaba on top of another and woolen socks. She took to this with an uncharacteristic meticulousness, looking fondly at him with tears in her eyes. He left. We waited for him, our hearts in our throats, our ears glued to the door. When he returned to us safe and sound, anxiety was written on his face.

  “What we feared has come to pass,” he said. “The soldiers have taken over the city. They have been posted to each square, each souk, and each road. They ask you who you are and where you are going before they let you through. If your hands are in your pockets, they order you to take them out. Make sure to walk slowly, even if you’re in a hurry. They have ‘red eyes,’ oh Latif, and their fingers are on the trigger. I don’t know what our leaders are going to do, but there is talk that they’re planning to respond in a way that matches the gravity of this provocation. They didn’t want to tell me more, their secrets needed to be kept. Now you’ve heard me and have understood what I’ve said. When you go out into the street, make your way slowly, as if nothing were wrong. Avoid running and don’t make eye contact with the soldiers. You won’t find anything in those troubling faces.”

  We stepped in line and organized our lives accordingly. Fez was occupied! Nothing of the sort had been witnessed in living memory. Our instincts warned us that such a situation wasn’t made to last. No army had ever been able to control our labyrinthine Medina. What about the hanging labyrinth? Everyone knew that you could move across town by cutting through one terrace after the other. Our fedayeen had no qualms about traveling in such a manner, and as far as giving orders or advising precautionary measures, Radio Medina was up to the task, without antennas.

  Little by little, this bleak, topsy-turvy sort of life became routine. The soldiers on sentry duty in front of our house were visibly bored. They even started knocking on our door asking for a glass of water or for a can opener for their tins of preserved meat. This situation became ridiculous. Ghita broke the all-time record for contradictions. We heard her say, “Those poor men, forced to stay outside as if they were dogs. Without any sleep or real nourishment. He who is a true Muslim has compassion in his heart.”

 
She therefore decided to send a plate of couscous, only on Fridays, that she had prepared.

  Once the initial shock wore away, nobody resisted this new state of affairs, especially since the men who had been posted to keep an eye on us comported themselves discreetly. Driss even had a highly moral reflection filled with optimism: “As long as they’re believers, those who break bread with you can’t do you any harm.”

  Our tolerant outlook was not exceptional. It was only in neighborhoods where the soldiers arrogantly and shamelessly demanded to be fed by the local inhabitants that relations turned sour. In these cases, the initial hostility toward the soldiers blossomed into outright hatred.

  The leaders of the nationalist movement struck back in the midst of this poisonous atmosphere. Watchword: a general strike. The Fezzis turned out in force. Once all the shops had been shut, they filed into the mosques and recited the Latif once again in between prayers. The sanctuaries of Moulay Idriss and Qarawiyyin were particularly sought out. People felt safer there because the army couldn’t come too close. The arm-wrestling contest with the colonial authorities had reached its apex.