Whitefly

by Abdelilah Hamdouchi

  “And Issa Karami?” the detective asked.

  “We gave his name to Central and the border police. We’re still waiting on word from them.”

  Laafrit stole a glance at his watch. It was a bit after three o’clock. He yawned and stretched his arms.

  “Commissioner, I wanted to let you know that I have not eaten lunch yet,” the detective said in an official tone. “And I only slept a little last night.”

  The commissioner saw the obvious exhaustion on Laafrit’s face.

  “Go home immediately and don’t come back until tomorrow morning,” he said, as if giving a direct order.

  Just as Laafrit was about to leave the station, he heard the clicking of high heels, and all of a sudden he saw his neighbor, the teacher, coming from the end of the corridor with her husband dawdling behind her.

  “Shit! Shit!” Laafrit repeated to himself, wanting to escape. He had completely forgotten about his three o’clock appointment.

  7

  AT TEN O’CLOCK THE NEXT morning, the cop at the reception desk led a young man to Laafrit’s office. The detective immediately knew it was the brother of victim number three.

  Laafrit greeted him warmly and asked him to sit down. After a few pleasantries, the detective asked him for his ID and then put a photo of drowning victim number three in front of him. Laafrit watched the kid’s expression closely as he stared at the picture in disbelief. The kid began scrutinizing the picture, holding it with his thumb. His feelings were a mixture of confusion and grief.

  “Tell me, Abdel-Jalil, do you recognize the man in the photo?” asked Laafrit.

  The kid shook his head without looking up from the photo. He stayed silent.

  “You’ll be more sure when you see him at the morgue,” said Laafrit. “What’s your brother’s name?”

  “Driss.”

  Laafrit noticed Abdel-Jalil was trembling in a way that indicated real grief. He was more than twenty years old but he had a bunch of pimples scattered across his face and his appearance indicated he was dirt poor.

  It seemed he was trying hard to open his mouth and that he was exasperated by the thoughts that were surfacing. Appreciating the delicate situation, Laafrit kept in check the urge to get some information out of the kid. He got up to leave so Abdel-Jalil could have a chance to calm down.

  “What happened to my brother?” Abdel-Jalil asked suddenly in an upset voice.

  “He washed ashore here in Tangier,” Laafrit said, filling his voice with grief. “No doubt he told you he was going to hrig?”

  Abdel-Jalil lifted the picture and looked at it again in disbelief.

  “But,” he said, confused, “my brother hrigged two years ago. He got to Spain safely with a group of guys from our neighborhood. They all live in Almería. He calls us all the time.”

  Laafrit was bewildered, and the papers got mixed up in front of him.

  “When’s the last time he called you?” asked the detective, unable to control his surprise.

  “A week ago. I’m the one who talked to him. He said everything was great.”

  Laafrit smiled doubtfully and put an end to the conversation. There had to be a mistake.

  “Look, there might be some misunderstanding,” he said, getting up quickly. “We’ll talk after you see the body.”

  When they got to the morgue, Laafrit evaded the medical examiner’s questions. He didn’t want to talk until Abdel-Jalil had positively identified his brother’s body. The professor responded immediately. He pulled opened the four freezer drawers nervously and left the observation room with his silent shuffling steps. The coroner’s strange mannerisms only increased Abdel-Jalil’s anxiety. Abdel-Jalil shut his eyes for a long time, unable to get close to the bodies.

  “Go on,” said Laafrit. “Do everything you can to get a grip on yourself.”

  Abdel-Jalil stayed about half a meter from the bodies. He put his hand over his mouth, unable to stop trembling. He looked at the first corpse and his eyes widened. All of a sudden, he overcame his fear and surged forward to look closely at the four bodies. A strange expression appeared on his face and the shock produced a sharp reaction that rippled through his body. His heart beat furiously and the blood drained from his face. Slapping himself on the cheek a number of times, he staggered backward. Laafrit rushed over to Abdel-Jalil and propped him up, telling him he had to calm down. But the kid started screaming and flailing as if he wanted to hit his head against the wall.

  Professor Abdel-Majid came back quickly with a group of assistants. When he saw the hysteria that had seized the kid, he rushed to get the corpses back in the freezer.

  “These things happen,” he said to Laafrit. “A lot of people can’t bear to see the dead.”

  “They’re all from my neighborhood!” Abdel-Jalil said in a cracking voice.

  “Did you see your brother?” asked Laafrit.

  The shock had clearly taken its toll on Abdel-Jalil and he looked like he was on the verge of passing out. Laafrit moved away from him and left him with the assistants. He thought for the first time that this kid, in addition to the state of shock, was suffering from stress and insomnia since he had no doubt spent the entire night on the bus and then the train, making his way to Tangier from Beni Mellal, which was about six hundred kilometers south. Maybe Abdel-Jalil hadn’t slept a wink. Maybe he hadn’t had breakfast yet either.

  When they left the morgue, Laafrit tried to get the kid’s mind off the tragedy. He asked about the trip and how the police at Beni Mellal broke the news to his family. Abdel-Jalil only responded with mumbles, as if he had tried but failed to extract the words from his lips.

  Laafrit parked the Fiat opposite the police station and instead of just taking the kid inside, he walked him over to the café next door and told him gently to have some breakfast. Despite the detective’s insistence, Abdel-Jalil didn’t take more than two sips of his tea and he didn’t touch the raghif he ordered or anything else Laafrit offered him. For his part, the detective was impatient to know exactly what had happened to Abdel-Jalil’s brother.

  When they got back to the station, Abdel-Jalil asked Laafrit if he could smoke. The detective put an ashtray in front of him.

  “So,” said Laafrit, doing everything he could to deal with him gently, “you recognized the four bodies. You said they’re all from your neighborhood?”

  Laafrit paused. Abdel-Jalil wasn’t looking at what was in front of him. He stared off into space as if recalling a distant memory. Laafrit gave the kid a moment to collect himself and then put the question to him another way.

  “Can you tell me the names of the others?”

  “Mohamed Bensallam, Jamal el-Kaidi, and Hicham el-Ouni,” he muttered, still in a state of shock.

  “In addition to your brother, Driss el-Yamani?” asked Laafrit. “You said in the morgue they were all from your neighborhood?”

  “Yeah, except for Bensallam’s family. They moved to Hayy el-Falah two months ago.”

  “Do the families have any idea what happened to them?”

  “No.”

  “You sure the bodies you saw in the morgue are them? If you have any doubt, we can go back.”

  Abdel-Jalil only took two drags from his cigarette. He put it on the edge of the ashtray and let it sit there burning.

  “I’m pressing,” said Laafrit, “because we’ll have to call their families and ask them to come identify the bodies, just as you did.”

  Abdel-Jalil nodded.

  “Good,” said Laafrit. “You said your brother hrigged two years ago.”

  “Yeah, with Jamal el-Kaidi, Hicham el-Ouni, and Jaouad Benmousa.”

  Laafrit took out headshots of the victims and put them side by side in front of Abdel-Jalil. The detective asked him to name each one separately so he could write it on the back of each photo. When he got to the picture of the shooting victim, Abdel-Jalil hesitated.

  “But Mohamed Bensallam was in Beni Mellal this summer,” he said, confused. “He came back in a big exp
ensive car, bought a house, got married, and had a huge wedding.”

  Laafrit found it hard to take in what he had just heard.

  “How could a harrag come back to the country just like that?” asked Laafrit, as if doubting Abdel-Jalil. “Did he get legal papers?”

  “Mohamed Bensallam,” said Abdel-Majid, “was the first to hrig. That was five years ago. He lived in Almería and worked on a huge farm. Because he was good at what he did, the farm owner got him papers.”

  “When’d your brother and the others hrig?”

  “Two years ago. The summer before last.”

  “The three of them hrigged at the same time?”

  “There were four, but Jaouad Benmousa isn’t here with the others.”

  “They all got there safely?”

  “Yeah.”

  Laafrit looked grave.

  “If I’ve got you right,” he said, as if reining in his thoughts, “Mohamed Bensallam hrigged five years ago, lived in Almería, and managed to get papers. As for the others,” he went on, turning over the photos so he could read their names, “Jamal el-Kaidi, Hicham el-Ouni, and your brother, Driss el-Yamani, they hrigged two years ago, got to Spain safely, and worked in Almería with Mohamed Bensallam. They’re the four you identified at the morgue.”

  “But Jaouad Benmousa wasn’t there with them,” Abdel-Jalil said, letting out a moan.

  Laafrit shook his head, trying to understand what was going on. He realized that the case, instead of clearing up, was only becoming more confusing.

  8

  THE REST OF THE VICTIMS’ families arrived from Beni Mellal at six in the morning the next day and waited at the station’s main entrance, weeping loudly. When Laafrit got there at eight thirty, the mourning had died down somewhat. There was no reason for Laafrit to accompany the family to the morgue, so he had Inspectors Allal and Abdellah go with them and question them. Laafrit asked the father of the shooting victim, Lakbir Bensallam, to stay with him at the station. The old man was clearly blind. When Bensallam’s father protested, Laafrit tried to convince him as best he could.

  “You can’t even see, uncle,” said Laafrit. “You won’t be able to help in the identification. It’s enough for your wife to go.”

  Laafrit helped him sit down, almost forcing the old man not to go.

  Si Lakbir was more than seventy years old. His face was covered with wrinkles and his eyes were hidden behind thick black glasses. He was wearing two djellabas, one on top of the other, and his head was wrapped in an embroidered turban he straightened every now and then, even though it wasn’t out of place.

  Laafrit couldn’t get him to open up about his son. The detective was afraid the old man would be too grief stricken. He definitely hadn’t been expecting such a painful blow. The old man was clearly still holding out hope the whole thing would turn out to be a big mistake. His hope was transferred to the detective, so, as a kind of precaution, Laafrit bided his time until the phone rang. He picked up the receiver and it was Inspector Allal calling from the morgue. Laafrit insisted on speaking in French so the old man wouldn’t understand. The inspector confirmed what Abdel-Jalil had said the day before—the bodies were now all positively identified. After hanging up, Laafrit turned to the old man, who was sitting opposite him, and told him that his wife had identified the body of their son.

  “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar!” repeated the old man, raising his head and index finger to the office ceiling.

  He made a fist and tucked it into his djellaba pocket. He then raised it up and began rubbing his chest as if to help him digest the disaster. Laafrit thought the old man was trying to express his acceptance of God’s will. But the shock was so powerful that the old man took off his glasses to wipe away his tears. Laafrit moved back. The old man’s eyes were shut completely, but teardrops nonetheless slid down as if they were leaking from above his eyelids.

  “I haven’t cried in thirty years,” he said with an odd smile. “There is no power and no strength save in God.”

  “May God give you patience, uncle,” said Laafrit delicately. “If you want to postpone our talk, I don’t have any objections.”

  The old man put his glasses back on and tried in vain to get a grip on his grief. He gritted his teeth and waved his hand as if he was going through memories of his son.

  “Why are they killing our children?” he asked in a threatening tone, leaning over the desk. “The godless infidels!”

  Laafrit was shocked.

  “Who told you they were killed?”

  “That’s what the police in Beni Mellal told us. It’s what everyone says. They’re racists there. They kill immigrants like they kill flies. May God curse poverty.”

  Laafrit sat up straight.

  “Please, uncle, when did your son hrig?”

  “Five years ago. I sold the land I owned to help him pay the smugglers.”

  “I know he managed to get papers,” said Laafrit, baiting the old man.

  “May God be pleased with him,” he said tenderly. “He was a real man, the only one from Beni Mellal who hrigged that managed to get papers.”

  “When did he get them?”

  “More than two years ago. After he got them, he came home safe and sound. If I knew they were going to kill him, I wouldn’t have let him go back. But it’s God’s will,” he said in resignation.

  “When did he go back to Beni Mellal the second time?”

  “After he got his papers, he came back to Morocco four times. Last summer he bought a house, got married, and had a wedding party the whole town still talks about. But it’s God’s will, God’s will.”

  “Was this the last time he came back?”

  “No. He came home last November but he only stayed for a week.”

  “Uncle,” said Laafrit, trying to hide his suspicions, “your son was coming back to Morocco a lot. Why?”

  “He lived in Almería, my son. Like he told us, this Almería is not very far from our country. He’d leave in the morning and be home with us in Beni Mellal by nighttime.”

  “That’s true, uncle,” said Laafrit. “Did he usually drive back to Beni Mellal?”

  “He came back by car the first time, when he got married, bought the house, and had a big wedding. God . . . God . . . His joy wasn’t completed. It’s God’s fate.”

  “When he came back to Beni Mellal last time in November, was there any specific reason? It seems to me, uncle, that after a summer vacation, he stayed at work for less than two months before coming back.”

  “That last time, my son, he stayed with us for one day and then went to the Doukkala region.”

  “Why did he go to Doukkala?”

  “He didn’t tell us, my son.”

  “Where in Doukkala did he go?”

  “I swear, my son, we didn’t ask him. He said he was going to Doukkala and he left. When he came back, he stayed with us for another day and then went back to his work in Spain.”

  “He didn’t tell you which town he went to?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have family in the region?”

  “No, my son.”

  “Does he have friends there?”

  “Maybe, but only God knows.”

  “Did he go alone? With his wife or someone else?”

  “He went alone.”

  “Didn’t he tell his wife why he was going to Doukkala?”

  “No. He said he had work there and left.”

  “Who’d he visit when he came back to Beni Mellal?”

  “The family. He loved his family and never forgot any of us. He’d always bring gifts for everyone, kids and adults.”

  “And his friends?”

  “He never forgot them either.”

  “Does he have friends outside Beni Mellal?”

  “Only God knows, my son,” the old man said, taking a deep breath. “But why all these questions?”

  Laafrit was embarrassed. He felt he had pushed more than he should have, and paused before answering.r />
  “Uncle, there’s something regrettable I have to tell you. When your son washed ashore, he’d been shot four times. The other three drowned.”

  The man trembled and his turban slid to the side. He hit it with his hand to put it back into place. His lips moved, but he didn’t utter a word.

  “We don’t believe your son was killed by racists,” said Laafrit.

  The man hit the edge of the desk and half rose.

  “Who killed him?”

  “We have the name of a suspect. Issa Karami. Have you heard that name before?”

  “No, never,” the old man replied without hesitating. “What’s his connection to my son?”

  “For now, only God knows. Issa Karami has an apartment in Martil and we found the gun there, the same one used to kill your son.”

  “Have you arrested him?” asked the old man impatiently.

  “Soon, God willing, he’ll be in our hands.”

  “Who’s this man? How does he know my son?”

  “Try to calm down, uncle,” said Laafrit, his mood worsening.

  He snuck a lozenge out of his pocket and put it under his tongue.

  “What kind of work did your son do in Almería?”

  “Farm work. My son’s very good at it.”

  “Do you know the name of his employer?”

  “Carlos . . . Gomez.”

  “Do you know who your son lived with in Almería?”

  “The owner gave him a place to stay on his farm. My son really liked him. He was always saying good things about him and he’d bring him gifts.”

  “And the others? His friends from the same neighborhood who washed ashore? Did Carlos have a good relationship with them?”

  “My son was the one who got them work at Carlos’s farm.”

  Laafrit took down Carlos Gomez’s name in his notebook. Now he had an excuse to call his friend in Almería, Luis Fuentes.

  The phone rang and Laafrit picked up the receiver. The commissioner asked him to join him in his office immediately.

  “Stay calm, uncle. I’ll be back in a bit,” said Laafrit, casting a look at the old man.

  The commissioner accosted Laafrit as soon as his feet hit the office floor.