I never spoke to Maurice again, and I no longer feared him.
Then came a day when one of my dreams – for I was learning to dream now – was shattered.
I had walked Lucette to her aunt’s house in Choupot, some distance north of where we lived, and was heading home. It was an October morning. The sun hung in the sky as big as a pumpkin, autumn was plucking the last tatters from the trees, while the wind whipped armfuls of the dead leaves into eddies. On a wide boulevard where Lucette and I liked to stare in the shop windows, there was a bar. I don’t remember the sign that hung over the door, but I still remember the drunks who frequented the place – angry, foul-mouthed men given to brawling. The police often had to restore the peace with truncheons. That afternoon as I was walking past, a fight broke out. I heard shouting and swearing and tables crashing, then I watched as a furious barman grabbed a beggar by the collar and the seat of his pants and threw him down the steps. The poor fellow landed at my feet like a bale of hay. He was dead drunk.
‘Don’t let me see your face round here again, you lousy bastard,’ the barman threatened from the top of the steps. ‘We don’t want the likes of you here.’
He stepped inside and reappeared with a pair of old slippers.
‘Here! Take your slippers. You’ll need to run if I set eyes on you again.’
The tramp tried to duck, but a slipper hit him on the head. He lay in front of me, splayed across the pavement, and not knowing whether to walk round him or cross the road, I stood rooted to the spot.
Face down on the ground, his turban unravelled, the tramp panted and gasped as he tried to get to his feet, but he was too drunk. After a couple of attempts he managed to sit up. He groped around for his slippers, put them on, then picked up his turban and would it crudely round his head.
The stench from him was terrible; I think he had wet himself.
Swaying as he sat, one hand pressed against the ground to steady himself, he looked round for his walking stick. Seeing it lying in the gutter, he crawled over to get it. Suddenly he became aware of my presence and froze. As he looked up at me, his face contorted.
It was my father.
My father . . . a man who had the power to move mountains with his bare hands, who could conquer all uncertainties, who could wring the neck of fate itself . . . was lying at my feet, dressed in filthy, stinking rags, his face swollen, his lips flecked with spittle, his blue eyes as pained as the bruises on his face. A wreck, a ruin, a tragedy.
He looked at me as though I had returned from the dead. His puffy eyes misted over and his face crumpled like old paper.
‘Younes?’ he said.
It was not a cry, but something between an exclamation and a sob.
I was dumbstruck.
Still staring at me, the strain showing in his face, he struggled to get to his feet. Leaning on his walking stick, he managed to haul himself upright, careful not to let out a groan, but his knees buckled and he fell back into the gutter. And as he fell, it was as though all the promises he had ever made, all my dreams and aspirations, were whipped away by a harsh gust of the sirocco. I was shocked. I wanted to lean down, to put my arm around his shoulders and help him to his feet. I wanted him to take my hand, to allow me to support him. I wanted so many things, but still my eyes refused to believe what they saw and my limbs refused to obey my commands. I loved my father too much to see him like this, sprawled at my feet in rags and tatters, his finger-nails black, his nostrils flaring . . .
In a last spasm of pride, my father took a deep breath and, leaning on his walking stick and drawing on his last reserves of dignity, hauled himself upright again. He swayed, stumbled backwards and collided with a wall. Though his legs threatened to give out under him, he marshalled every ounce of strength in his struggle to stay standing. He looked like an old nag ready for the knacker’s yard. Then, carefully putting one foot before the other, shoulder still pressed to the wall, he stumbled away. As he went, he tried to step away from the wall, to show me he could walk unaided. In his piteous battle with himself I saw everything that was brave and grotesque about suffering. He was too drunk to walk far, and after a short distance he stopped, gasping for breath. He turned to see if I had gone, but I was still standing where he had left me, as helpless as he was. At that moment he gave me a look that was to haunt me for the rest of my life – a look of such despair that it choked the life out of a noble father’s promises to his son. It was a look such as a man can give only once in his lifetime, since after it there is nothing. Seeing it, I realised that those eyes, which had fascinated and terrified me, which had watched over me, warned me, loved and pitied me, would never look upon me again.
‘How long has he been like this?’ the doctor asked, slipping his stethoscope back into his case.
‘He seemed fine when he came home at lunchtime,’ Germaine said. ‘Then when we sat down to eat, he took a few bites then ran to the bathroom to be sick.’
The doctor was a strapping, big-boned man with a pale, thin face. The coal-black suit he wore made him look like a marabout. He fastened the straps of his briefcase as he stared at me.
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with him,’ he confessed. ‘He has no fever, he’s not sweating and he doesn’t seem to be cold.’
My uncle, who was standing next to Germaine at the foot of my bed, said nothing. He had followed the examination carefully, glancing worriedly at the doctor from time to time. The doctor had looked in my mouth, shone a small torch in my eyes, run his fingers over my ears, listened to my breathing. As he straightened up, he looked circumspect.
‘I’ll give him something for the nausea,’ he said. ‘You need to keep him in bed for the rest of the day. These things usually settle down by themselves – it’s probably something he ate. If he’s not better by tomorrow, give me a call.’
After the doctor left, Germaine stayed with me. She was worried.
‘Did you eat something while you were out?’
‘No.’
‘Have you got a pain in your stomach?’
‘No.’
‘What’s the matter, then?’
I didn’t know what the matter was. I felt as though I was falling apart. Whenever I lifted my head I felt dizzy, my insides felt twisted and tangled, my soul felt numb . . .
When I woke up, it was dark and there was no sound from the street outside. My room was lit by the glow of the full moon and a gentle breeze tugged at the trees. I knew it had to be late, since usually the neighbours did not go to bed until they’d counted every star. I had a bitter taste in my mouth, and my throat was burning. I pushed off the blankets and got up. My legs were shaking. I went over to the window and stood, my nose pressed to the glass, watching every shadow, hoping that in each of them I might see my father.
Germaine found me standing there, freezing cold, the window misted with my breath. She put me back to bed and whispered to me, but I could not understand what she was saying. Her face would melt to become my mother’s face and then my father’s, then my stomach would clench and I would feel sick.
I don’t know how many days I spent in this state, but when at last I was well enough to go back to school, Lucette told me I had changed. She said I was not the same person. Something inside me had broken.
Bliss the broker came to see my uncle at the pharmacy. I realised who it was as soon as I heard him clear his throat. I was in the back office doing my homework when he arrived. I peered through a gap in the curtain that separated the office from the shop. Bliss was soaked to the skin, wearing a second-hand burnous that was much too big for him, a mud-spattered baggy sarouel and rubber sandals that tracked dirt all over the floor.
My uncle looked up from his ledger, clearly none too pleased to see the broker. Bliss rarely ventured into the European part of town. From the look on the man’s face, my uncle could tell that whatever had brought him here was not good news.
‘Yes . . . ?’
Bliss pushed his fez back off his face and scratched his head f
uriously, obviously embarrassed.
‘It’s about your brother, Doctor,’ he said.
My uncle slammed the cash register shut. Realising I had been watching, he came out from behind the counter, took Bliss by the elbow and led him to a corner of the shop. I climbed down off my stool and crept to the curtain to listen.
‘What about my brother?’
‘He’s disappeared.’
‘What? What do you mean, he’s disappeared?’
‘He hasn’t been home . . .’
‘Since when?’
‘It’s been three weeks now.’
‘Three weeks? And you’re only coming to tell me this now?’
‘It’s his wife’s fault. You know what women are like when their husbands run off. They’d let their house catch fire rather than ask for help. I only found out this morning when Batoul the clairvoyant said that your brother’s wife came to her last night and asked her to read her palm and tell her where her husband was. That was the first Batoul knew that the woman hadn’t seen her husband for three weeks.’
‘My God!’
I dashed back to my desk.
My uncle pulled back the curtain and found me poring over my poetry book.
‘Go get Germaine and tell her to look after the shop. I have some urgent business I need to deal with.’
I picked up my book and left the shop. As I passed, I tried to see what Bliss was thinking, but he turned away. I tore through the streets like a child possessed.
Germaine couldn’t sit still. As soon as she’d served each customer, she would come into the back office to check on me, worried by how calm I seemed. From time to time, unable to stop herself, she would tiptoe up behind me and lean over my shoulder as I learned my recitation pieces by heart. She stroked my hair, then let her hand slide down to my forehead to take my temperature.
‘Are you sure you feel all right?’
I said nothing.
That last look on my father’s face as he stood, reeling from drink and shame, gnawed at my insides again like a tapeworm.
Night had fallen hours ago and still my uncle was not back. Outside, in the driving rain, a horse had collapsed in the street, upending the cart it had been pulling and spilling a load of coal across the road. The driver, cursing his horse and the weather, tried in vain to get the animal to its feet.
Germaine and I watched from the window as the horse lay in the street, its neck twisted, its mane rising and falling on the rising river of rainwater.
The carter went to fetch help, and found a group of men prepared to brave the storm. One of them crouched next to the horse.
‘The old nag is dead,’ he said in Arabic.
‘He can’t be, he just slipped.’
‘I’m telling you, he’s stone dead.’
The carter refused to believe the man and crouched down next to the animal, though he did not dare touch it.
‘I can’t believe it, he was fine earlier.’
‘Animals can’t tell you when they’re sick,’ said the first man. ‘You’ve probably been driving the horse too hard.’
Germaine took the crank handle to lower the security grille, handed me her umbrella, turned out the lights then urged me outside. She put the padlock on the shutter, took the umbrella from me and hugged me close to her as we dashed home.
My uncle did not arrive back until late that night. He was dripping wet. Germaine took his coat and his shoes in the hall.
‘Why isn’t he in bed?’ he said, jerking his chin at me.
Germaine shrugged as she climbed the stairs to the first floor. My uncle looked at me carefully, his wet hair glistening in the light but his expression solemn.
‘You should be in bed, you’ve got school tomorrow.’
Germaine reappeared with a dressing gown. My uncle put it on, slipped his feet into his slippers and came over to me.
‘Go on, son, go up to your room . . . for me.’
‘He knows about his father,’ Germaine said.
‘He knew before you did, but that’s no reason.’
‘He won’t get a wink of sleep until you tell him what you found out. This is about his father.’
Germaine’s remark irritated my uncle and he glared at her, but she did not turn away. She knew I was worried and felt that it was unfair to keep the truth from me.
My uncle put his hands on my shoulders.
‘We looked everywhere,’ he said. ‘We checked all the places he usually goes, but no one has seen him for a long time. Your mother doesn’t know where he is, she can’t understand why he would leave . . . We’ll keep looking for him. I’ve told Bliss to find three men I can trust to scour the city for him.’
‘I know where he is,’ I said. ‘He’s gone to make his fortune. He’ll come back in a shiny new car.’
My uncle glanced anxiously at Germaine, clearly afraid I was delirious, but she shook her head.
Up in my bedroom, I stared at the white expanse of ceiling, imagining it was a cinema screen, and pictured my father somewhere making his fortune, like in the movies Lucette’s father sometimes took us to see on Sunday afternoons. Germaine came up more than once to check on me and I pretended to be asleep. She came over to the bed, felt my forehead, adjusted my pillows, pulled the blankets up, then tiptoed out. The moment I heard the door shut, I threw off the covers and went back to staring at the ceiling. Spellbound as a little boy, I watched my father’s adventures.
The men my uncle sent out to find my father came back empty-handed. They checked the police stations, the hospitals, the brothels; they checked the rubbish tips and the souks; they questioned gravediggers and gangsters, drunks and horse traders. There was no word of my father.
Several weeks after his disappearance, I went to Jenane Jato without telling anyone. I knew my way around the city by now, and I wanted to go and see my sister without having to ask Germaine’s permission, without having my uncle take me there. When she saw me, my mother was angry. What I had done was stupid, she said, making me promise never to do it again. Jenane Jato was crawling with criminals. It was no place for a well-dressed boy; I might end up in a dark alley with my throat cut. I said I’d come to see if my father had come home. My mother told me I didn’t need to worry about my father any more, that Batoul had told her he was fine and well on his way to making a fortune. ‘When he comes back, he’ll stop off and pick you up from your uncle’s house and then come and collect your sister and me, and we’ll all drive off to a big house with gardens and fruit trees.’
Then she sent Badra’s eldest son to fetch Bliss so that he could walk me back to my uncle’s house.
This brusque dismissal by my mother troubled me for a long time. I felt as though I were to blame for all the misfortunes on earth.
7
FOR A whole month, I couldn’t fall asleep until I had watched my father’s adventures play out on the bedroom ceiling. I lay on my back, propped up on my pillows, and watched as a disjointed movie unfolded above my head. I imagined my father as a sultan surrounded by courtesans, as an outlaw plundering far-off lands, as a prospector discovering the biggest gold nugget of the century or a gangster in a three-piece suit, a cigar in the corner of his mouth.
Some nights, seized by a nameless fear, I imagined him drunk and unkempt, wandering through some squalid neighbourhood pursued by a pack of street urchins. When the fear took hold of me, it was as though my wrists were trapped in a vice, a vice exactly like the one that had almost forced my coins into my flesh the night I tried to make my father proud of me by giving him the money I had made selling goldfinches.
My father’s desertion stuck in my throat; I could neither swallow it nor spit it out. I felt I was to blame. My father would never have abandoned my mother and my sister if he hadn’t run into me that night. He would have gone home, slept it off and none of the neighbours would have suspected a thing. My father was a man of principles. He used to tell me that if a man should lose his money, his land, his friends, his fortune, even his bearings, there
was always a possibility, however small, for him to get back on his feet again, but that if a man lost face, then all the rest was futile.
My father had lost face. Because I had seen him that night, seen him at his lowest ebb. This was what he could not bear. He had been determined to prove to me that he would not allow misfortune to break him. But the look I had seen on his face as he struggled to stand outside the bar in Choupot told me something different. There is a despair from which there is no way back; that was what I had seen in my father’s face.
I blamed myself for taking that particular street, for passing at precisely the moment when the barman tossed my father into the gutter and my world with him; I blamed myself for leaving Lucette so quickly, for spending too much time staring in shop windows . . .
At night, in the darkness, I brooded on my sadness, searching for something that might absolve me. I was so miserable that one night I went into the box room to look for the statue of the winged boy that had terrified me on my first night in my uncle’s house. I found it at the bottom of a musty crate full of bric-a-brac, dusted it off and set it on the mantelpiece opposite my bed. I stared at it intently, convinced that I would see its wings flap, its head turn towards me . . . Nothing. The winged boy stood on its pedestal, mute, unknowable, and just before dawn I put it back in its crate.
* * *
‘God is cruel!’
‘It has nothing to do with God, son,’ my uncle said. ‘Your father decided to leave, that’s all there is to it. The Devil didn’t push him nor the Angel Gabriel lead him by the hand. Your father did everything he could, but after a while, he couldn’t take it any more. It’s as simple as that. Life is ups and downs – there is no middle ground. The important thing to remember is that you don’t have to go through it alone. Misfortune is like lightning, it doesn’t decide when or where to strike; it doesn’t realise, doesn’t suspect what tragedy it brings. If you want to cry, then cry; if you want to hope, then hope, pray, but there is no sense looking for something or someone to blame.’
What the day owes the nigth Page 8
