The Last Patriarch

by Najat El Hachmi

  It is certainly true that the man who was to be the great patriarch would spend a night under the ancient stones of the medieval bridge, but it’s no less true that the following day he again tried to find someone more familiar than all those usual flushed, blurred faces, and this time his search brought success. He didn’t light upon the lad with the sleek hair and silly fringe that framed his good-natured face, Mimoun can’t even have noticed him, thinking any possible conversation would be limited to the scant vocabulary he’d recalled in his second stay in that country.

  It was the other fellow who stared at him for a time when they were both propping up a bar, and Mimoun was about to punch him in the face, thinking he was coming on to him, when he asked, smiling broadly, how come you’re wasting your time around here? The fact he spoke to him in his language wrong-footed him, and Mimoun’s anger transformed into an equally broad smile. You bastard, I thought you were a bloody Christian; why didn’t you say something before? It’s fucking obvious I’m a Moor. And what a Moor at that, the other probably said as they squeezed each other’s hands.

  The lad was a Hamed, but everyone called him Jaume, as in Jaime, and he entertained Mimoun with his repertoire of jokes about foxes and lions. When they’d had a good laugh and he’d forgotten about his situation, Jaume asked, you off on your travels?

  Mimoun no doubt told him his bastard uncle had insulted his wife and, you know, sahbi8, there are things you can’t accept if you want to defend your honour. He must have proudly related the beating he’d meted out and how the whole episode had concluded.

  So that’s how the great patriarch, who still hadn’t quite made it, entered the apartment on Carrer Gelada, an apartment as shabby as his first one, but a long way from the stinking river and tanneries. He went into his bedroom, pleased he’d met that strange-looking man who spoke to him in the language that he cherished most. He didn’t yet realise that their friendship would last almost a lifetime.

  30

  At home

  Jaume looked after the house just like a woman. The apartment where they lived wasn’t much better than the one Mimoun had shared with his uncle, but he felt like going there after work. Perhaps because Jaume was always making coffee the moment he got home and the aroma greeted Mimoun as soon as he came through the door. Perhaps it was because the tanneries were far enough away for the smell of coffee not to mix with the stench from the factory waste. Or perhaps because the river hadn’t brought Mimoun much luck and he felt it was better for his spirit to be some distance from water.

  Mimoun had been longing for a clean house for some time; he hadn’t realised that was why he always had his jaws clenched. He and his uncle scattered their dirty clothing all over the apartment, and piled up the dishes until they didn’t know how to demolish their castle full of dried-up scraps. Mimoun had even reached the point of buying new crockery when he couldn’t find a plate for his next supper. And it wasn’t because he liked to live like that, with a floor that stuck to your shoes and made the noise that it did, sherp, sherp; no, housework was simply beyond him. His mother and sisters had brought him up to be a little lord and master, and his wife had continued in the same groove. Even now, if he decides to peel fruit, one of his aunts will run over and say, no, no no, what are you doing? Why do these things yourself when there are so many women in this house? Come on, let me, it’s our work.

  That was why Mimoun couldn’t fathom an unusual individual like Jaume, who he reckoned was almost a hermaphrodite because he was so handy at making chicken and potato stew or that kind of pancake full of bubbles. No, he was a man, sure enough, but he didn’t suffer the typical hang-ups of his gender when it came to doing housework. Mimoun relaxed on the sofa in his free time with a can of beer and a cigarette and watched him mop every corner. Hey, sahbi, don’t you get up until it’s dry, all right? And he’d answer, right you are, dearie.

  Mimoun was always making fun of him, but the other fellow dodged the poisonous darts that flew from his tongue. Before he’d said a word, Jaume had already mocked himself as much as he could, thus neutralising Mimoun’s jibes before he could even come out with them. When Mimoun asked how come a man like him had ended up in that country, what had driven him to migrate, Jaume always gave the same answer: Isn’t it obvious, they drove me out because I didn’t seem a proper Moor? They thought I was too white and blond and wanted me off their radar, sahbi, you get me. And his roommate laughed, although it was hardly a new joke. He’d ask the same question day in and day out, and he always came out with the same reply. Besides, with your fringe cut like that, Mimoun always added, who do you reckon you are, a Beatle or what?

  The great patriarch’s quality of life improved a lot from the second he met Jaume; we don’t know what led him to act the way he did, but you bet it was the first time Mimoun could be certain someone was helping him simply because he wanted to.

  Jaume not only made him feel at home as he’d never felt since leaving his village, but also spared him lots of scrapes. He restrained Mimoun in the market when he wanted to hit a trader who’d laughed at the way he spoke the Catalan language or at that habit of his of saying give me so many pesetas’ worth of potatoes or tomatoes. Mimoun was also in the habit of shouting when the stallholder in question began to laugh with a scornful what will this fellow say next? and Jaume, who saw what was coming, quickly moved him on. You’re dead meat, Mimoun had time to shout at the trader, who was no longer laughing. He gestured the way he always did to scare other people, knowing how terrifying it is. He’d quickly run his flattened palm over his straining neck.

  Despite this kind of incident, Mimoun had generally made improvements. He worked his tally of hours and had fewer arguments with his boss, was exhausted when he got home and went out drinking less and less. He’d even bought his own mortar bucket, trowel and level and did little jobs on the side at weekends. He replaced mouldy bathroom tiles, put up farmhouse walls that had fallen down and repaired cement floors that were badly cracked.

  Now he almost had no time to think of mother and whether she was ignoring her promises or doing everything he’d told her. Time was moving on and his uncle’s words would occasionally echo round his brain. Missing something? The bastard, what can my wife be missing?

  He got up one morning and decided he was missing home. He made his mind up, gave no explanations, had no Proustian reminiscences or anything of that sort. He’d enough money saved for the journey and for gifts for everyone. Mimoun was no longer thinking he’d buy a truck on this his first return home, the first of his own choosing, and not because he’d been kicked out.

  31

  That’s the last time you cheat on me

  Mimoun’s back, Mimoun’s back, mother, mother, he’s here. Our brother’s back! The aunts shouted as soon as they saw him walk up the stone path from the road and grandmother’s knees were shaking with excitement, so she says. Mother can’t have known what to do. Should she be pleased to welcome her husband? Should she show her pleasure to all and sundry or just to him? What could she be feeling if she didn’t know what this madman she’d not seen for two years aroused in her?

  Your husband’s here, Mimoun’s sisters said, but she didn’t stir, she just looked at him as he gazed at her with that glint in his eyes. She just took his hand, too embarrassed to show more emotion in front of the family. His sisters laughed, bet you were only thinking about grabbing his hand, right?

  But mother was embarrassed, simply because he stared at her like that in front of everyone. She’s your husband, love, her mother-in-law said, and he won’t bite unless he has one of his fits. It was a good moment to joke with Mimoun.

  His sisters took him to their bedroom and sat him down, taking his shoes off and bringing the wash basin. I’ve bought soap that’ll leave your skin really smooth, nothing like the dry, flaky stuff you give me. You just see. Holding his first steaming glass of tea and a lit cigarette between his fingers, Mimoun started to tell them how well it was all going. You could say, and I’m not
lying, that I’ve got my own company. An apartment where you’d like to live, with mod cons you’d never find here. You don’t know what a washing machine is, do you? The day you get electricity here and we install a cistern so you’ve got running water, I promise I’ll send you one by registered post and you won’t have to go down to the river anymore, ruining your hands on those stones.

  The aunts must have opened their mouths and repeated, did you hear, mother, a miracle of God, who’d have thought it? Mimoun probably thought he could get used to his family feeling so proud, perhaps it had never happened before.

  To celebrate success and give thanks to the Supreme One for your good luck, when you have some, people say you should organise a get-together and invite everyone who’s not as fortunate as yourself. In fact, these were get-togethers people have always put on to show their economic might to everyone else and show that they’re below you.

  For one reason or another, Mimoun had decided to give a big party. Grandmother probably felt happy, thinking it added lots of positive points to the minus ones her son had accumulated for his entry into paradise. You’ll have even more success, my son, if you share it with others. If I gave birth to you, how could it be any different? I knew you were good-hearted deep down.

  They bought a couple of sheep, kilos and kilos of fruit and vegetables, olives, honey and the best butter and white city bread, and the aunts baked pastries in the mud-brick oven in the yard outside. And it all went to plan. Grandmother sent one of the girls off to the neighbours’ to ask for plates and cutlery to complement what they already had, and the girl took the opportunity to recite the litany she’d been taught for the invitation. That was the only way to do it.

  It was still all going to plan. Until the great patriarch went over to the girls washing the melons in a bowl in a corner of the inside yard, putting their weight on their heels and trying not to stain their gleaming garments. Perhaps they guessed he was standing silently behind them and thought it boded only ill. Before he could open his mouth, they’d already asked, what’s up with you?

  It was a good moment to put on a show, even if it was all provoked by the slap that resounded thwap! Or by whatever happened to him by the river, or by the prickly pear episode, the cause of the great patriarch’s behaviour wasn’t at issue. His fits always chose moments when there was an audience, especially women. She’s a whore, he told his sisters, ignoring all the rules that stipulate you shouldn’t speak ill of anyone in front of someone older than yourself or the women in the family. Mimoun never had a fit when by himself, luckily, they thought; lucky you only have one when we’re on hand.

  She’s a whore and you’re all her accomplices. I know, because she’s been out of the house, hasn’t she? She’s disobeyed me, hasn’t she? That’s why she’s so cold towards me, why she’s so odd, she’s seeing someone else. My own wife, the one they say is the quietest woman in the village, about whom nothing dishonourable has ever been heard, now turns out to be a whore like any other. What are you saying, brother? There’s no one like lalla, and we can tell you she’s not been out anywhere. We’ve been like her shadow and haven’t let her out of our sight for a moment, precisely because we knew you’d warned her. How can you lie like that, and what about her father? Can you deny she went to see her sick father? If he’s not dead, he’s going to see how you lose a daughter. And you liars can watch out – you’d rather betray your own brother than her.

  No, no, no, she only went out for a day, and we didn’t even take a taxi, her brother fetched her. They thought he was dying, Mimoun, they thought they were the last seconds of his life. We were with her the whole time, we didn’t leave her alone for a moment, Mimoun, please don’t beat her.

  But Mimoun wasn’t listening because he was having one of his fits. One of our aunts had already gone to warn mother, who was frying chickens in a pan full of oil; they said, move away from the fire, you know it brings bad luck. We’ll protect you, we won’t let him hurt you. They pushed her to one side of the kitchen and surrounded her. But mother was so tall her head stood out above all the women protecting her. Don’t beat her, Mimoun, if you still love us, leave her in peace, because each time you hit her it will be as if you’d hit us. Then a slap rang out, thwap, above the hubbub of voices and hissing of pans. Only one, a single one that resounded loudly.

  Mimoun couldn’t ever have imagined when he aimed that blow at mother that it would be more significant than any other beating he’d given her. Firstly because it had been in public: there’s nothing more humiliating than a slap given in front of the village cook, the girls and cousins of the girls who came to help grandmother. Secondly, because nobody thought he’d leave it at a single blow and mother must have been expecting other blows to rain down for many a day. After all, she must have deserved it because she’d disobeyed him, though his orders were ridiculous.

  But he didn’t beat her again, he just said that’s the last time you cheat on me. I’m sure there was a full moon when he said that, because mother always says I’m the way I am because I was conceived during a full moon. That was how Mimoun, before returning to his local capital, left me germinating inside her belly, before he departed for Catalonia. Perhaps I’m the way I am because he left it in her grudgingly, still unsure if anyone else had passed that way. Perhaps he’d tried to find out whether she was as tight as before he went away, though one knows how hard it is to measure such things.

  32

  Perpetual Nostalgia Syndrome

  Mimoun set out on the same journey again, and his heart no longer beat so quickly as he leaned on the counter waiting for the man with the twirly moustache to examine his passport. This was all old hat by now, what was new was that Mimoun had begun to think this was his destiny in life: to go back and forth each year, spending all his savings in a few weeks. Destined not to know if the people you’ve created bonds with will forget you when you’re not around. Mimoun knew his wife was the best of women but she was still a woman. He’d felt she’d been distant during his stay; that wasn’t the way a wife should treat a husband who’s been away a long time, no way. If she’d only hugged him, clasped him tightly around the neck and said I’ve missed you so much or my love or some sweet word he could take with him to the country next door… No, mother had always been quite prickly. Sensitive, yet prickly, because that was the only way she knew how to be.

  Mimoun’s sisters had told him: If she’d behaved like that, like any ordinary woman, what would you have thought then? Wouldn’t you have said a decent, married woman shouldn’t act like that? Wouldn’t you have started asking her where she’d learnt such words and who’d said them to her? No, Mimoun, lalla isn’t one of them, she’s not like that.

  All that must have been going through Mimoun’s head while he let himself be rocked by the swaying of the boat as he curled up in one of the blue moquette armchairs and tried to get some sleep. He wrapped himself up in the lurid, made-in-China blanket mother had forced on him willy-nilly. My best blanket, Mimoun, it must be very cold over there. She’d fried him a couple of chickens in oil and the girls had made the best possible remsemmen, hard-boiled eggs and homemade bread. I wish there was a way to send this wholesome food of ours all the time… if only it wasn’t so far away. Because grandmother still sent her married daugthers ‘their share’ of the crop of prickly pears, figs, a couple of sacks a year of almonds or olive oil that she’d pressed. That’s why Mimoun was carrying one of those white five-litre flagons adorned with the drawing of a red peacock that grandmother had filled with oil. Mimoun, you’ll never be ill on this, take a spoonful on an empty stomach every morning and see how the cold and the rain won’t affect you.

  Mimoun would have preferred a cure for other things. For the uncertainty of not knowing how long his destiny was fated to last, for example. Or whether he should run from the feelings of anxiety he had the day before his departure, when grandmother went all weepy doing the housework, my son, my poor son. He pretended to get angry. Don’t start, mother, don’t start
, I know what you’re like. She couldn’t hold back her tears and said, what do you expect me to do? He threatened to have a fit if she didn’t stop crying, if you cry, I’ll cry and you know I want to leave in a good mood. I want to be happy when I go, mother. He looked round and his eyes were saying don’t start as if to signal he’d start throwing things or hitting himself, but he didn’t. He went into his bedroom so he couldn’t see how grandmother went on sweeping the dust in the yard with that sheave of branches, bending her body double, and the tears flowing, which she immediately wiped away.

  Mimoun wanted to get back to work and forget that world which was always waiting for him, two children who took no more notice of him than his wife did and lots of sisters who admired him more than ever. He wanted to forget that grandfather had only swayed his head from side to side and told him that’s enough of spending so much money on gettogethers to feed half the village, that what he had to do was take care of his family for the rest of the year. You should send money, like everyone else who’s gone to live abroad, it’s your duty. Mimoun must have stared at him, that way he does that makes your heart race and you daren’t breathe. He must have looked at grandfather like that to curtail the conversation, but he was still mulling over what he had said.

  This had to be his destiny, at last. To work as much as he could to live well and see to a man’s needs, to send money back often for the upkeep of the family and save enough to go back every year and celebrate his success. That was how Mimoun was planning his life when he walked into the apartment he shared with Jaume and smelt the welcoming incense. Welcome home, Mimoun, I see you’ve been expelled from that country yet again.

  Mimoun had decided that that was his destiny, to be upstanding and all that, but then Isabel appeared on the scene.

  33