The Last Patriarch

by Najat El Hachmi

  Isabel

  Isabel lived at the end of the street where the great patriarch would later live, and he got to know her in the hospital one day, after mistakenly hitting his hand and not the chisel with his hammer. While he was in the waiting room, Mimoun watched her walking up and down the corridor, a mop in her calloused hands, and wiping her forehead every now and then.

  By that time, the great patriarch had learned to refine his search so he’d find women who’d make life easy for him and not bring headaches. When the competition is keen and you’re at a disadvantage, you have to find your niche. Mimoun had found a niche to fit the criteria of his own personal taste, as well as the laws of the market. He’d known for some time that he preferred women older than himself, and over the years he’d also discovered: 1) that they were easier to satisfy than other women, and 2) as they’d been available to all-comers for some time, they didn’t mind doing things that might disgust or even frighten a younger woman. An older woman felt flattered that a robust young man like himself wanted to pull her, and he’s so dark and handsome, they’d say. Some still connected his origins to all the stories they’d heard their grandmothers tell about the Moors, and that was a point that played in Mimoun’s favour. Moreover, the elder women surrendered themselves one hundred per cent, and many didn’t need much by way of preambles to get to where he wanted to go.

  But the great patriarch refined his niche even further. He discovered there was a specific group among older women he not only derived great pleasure from winning over, but who were also willingly dominated by him after only one night together.

  Divorcees were the ones who could give you the most pleasure, even more than professionals, even more than Fatma or any girl in the village. Divorcees usually had a feeling of inferiority because they thought of themselves as secondhand goods. What’s more, many had children to look after, had to be mother and father at the same time, and hardly had a moment to think about their bodies, to be presentable, let alone to go to parties and try to pick up men. They were women with calluses on the palms of their hands and a hint of sadness in their eyes.

  But Mimoun discovered they so needed to be women again, bitches who enjoyed sex like animals, that it was easy to win them over. They were flattered a man like Mimoun deigned to look their way. Did you say that about me? one said. I’m pretty? Get away with you, who’ll ever look at a woman like me who’s got three teenage children!

  That was exactly what Isabel said when he accosted her one day while he was on his way home from work. You’re Isabel, aren’t you? That is your name, isn’t it? She was caught in his trap the instant she asked, do I know you? No, I sometimes see you in the hospital, but you’ve never noticed me. I’ve been looking at you silently all these months and you haven’t even noticed I exist. Touchée. The same strategy Mimoun practised on the other side of the straits worked there. A gambit they find hard to counter, and Mimoun took the opportunity to say, do you want a drink, you look exhausted.

  Older women and divorcees are satisfied with going for a drink, they don’t want you to take them to expensive restaurants or to the cinema or anything extravagant. And Isabel was like that, she’d only just met Mimoun and drunk beer in the Plaça dels Màrtirs, before getting into bed with him without a second thought.

  Isabel ought to have felt anxious…

  Mimoun said, wait here for five minutes. He ran home and told Jaume to make himself scarce. He tidied mother’s gleaming made-in-China blanket that touched the ground on one side and uncovered the pillow on the other. He wet and combed his hair and splashed on more water, so his hair went wavy when he combed it.

  He rushed downstairs at top speed. Isabel must have felt anxious before the unknown when Mimoun looked deep into her eyes. Come on, he said, and she followed. Come on, I only live round the corner, and she probably thought why not, you don’t get a lad like him very often, and because she was tired of all that mopping up and down and deserved a treat. We don’t know if she also deserved the smell the blanket gave off after so many nights wrapped round Mimoun’s drunken body, but she tried not to smell anything and he never stopped talking. His confused handling of vowels made her go cold momentarily, ti guchta? he said, and she probably thought if only he’d shut up it would go better, but she didn’t say a word until she felt all dripping inside and realised that man would bring her a heap of problems she hadn’t had before.

  So that was how Mimoun got to know Isabel, a name we’d grow up with from our early childhood, though she was so far away. But Mimoun, particularly when he’s been drinking, says it wasn’t like that at all. That first he had his doubts that I was his daughter, and after the anger that caused him, he decided to take his revenge on mother by finding a Christian woman he could hook up with.

  34

  The son’s daughter

  I was born on cue, although some say I came too early, timing that destroyed the family and provoked one of those upsets that pursues you throughout life. The truth is I don’t know whether I was right to be born. I still think perhaps I shouldn’t have been born that way, like that, on a whim of mine.

  The news was recorded on an audio cassette and grandmother said my son, it’s me, your mother, I’m speaking to you from a long way away to bring you news that will make you very happy. Thanks be to God your wife has given birth, and it’s a beautiful little girl. Mimoun listened to the background crackle that recorded tapes have, smiled at the machine, embraced it and jumped up and down he was so happy, as if Lady Luck had smiled on him for the first time in his life. He fetched Jaume and danced for a while, lifted him up round his neck, though he was on the heavy side, and went into the street jumping and singing like a lunatic. Then he went to Snack in the square and ordered a couple of bottles of cava; we don’t know if the people there knew him or not, but he invited everyone to celebrate the birth of his first daughter. I’m the father of a beautiful little girl, he said, she’s beautiful, and the people surrounding him must have found it rather peculiar for a Moor to celebrate a birth that way. But nobody complained and they all congratulated him on becoming a father, unaware that if Mimoun was so happy he’d procreated it was because this time he’d fulfilled his dream of having a daughter. Girls are more loyal to their parents, they take more heed of you and love you with all their heart, and aren’t just dutiful children. And girls show it, show they love you whatever you do and their love is always unconditional.

  I was born with a duty to be affectionate, with a prickly mother who’d been tamed from the start of her marriage and a father I rarely saw; with that inheritance I had to meet my obligation to be affectionate.

  Mimoun always tells how he partied for three days, how he went to all his regular bars and drank to my health, and everywhere he was slapped on the back and congratulated. Even his uncle, whom he met by chance in the dive where they once spent every afternoon, had said well done, you’re a real man. You spend a month at home and give your wife a kid. You can’t have got very much rest, right? How long is it since you were there?

  And the question hung in the air, jumped up and down in the cigarette and cigar smoke until Mimoun had a flash of light. Something inside the alcoholic haze in his head went click. Click, Mimoun, just think for a minute, Mimoun. You’re wearing horns like a bull and you’re celebrating your cuckoldry, she did it on you, the fucking whore, she did it on you well and truly. If the girl’s just been born, the pregnancy wasn’t nine months but seven, around the time when that wretch told me she visited her sick father. Now she’s going to be sick, and long term.

  Now he must have stopped celebrating and begun to think how he could best salvage his honour.

  While I was growing inside a shoebox covered in cotton wool and nobody knew whether I’d live or not, my ears still stuck to my skull, with membrane still between my fingers, Mimoun was thinking hard what he could do about all the stuff that shouldn’t happen if you create real bonds with someone.

  He’d already sent money to celebrate my birth, b
ut the whole family was agreed on waiting more than the statutory seven days before introducing the new family member to the world at large; they wanted to be sure I’d live. And I couldn’t make my mind up and mother put her ear next to my mouth to see if I was breathing or not, and suckled me by extracting milk and feeding it to me with a syringe. I could perhaps have chosen not to live, but with all the effort they were expending on me, it wasn’t really an option.

  And on the other side of the straits the patriarch felt half happy and half furious he’d a daughter who wasn’t his or he couldn’t be sure was his. He so much wanted to have female stock he let himself think perhaps I was his. Particularly after calling his father and saying he should let him divorce his wife. Send her back to her father, it’s obvious she’s cheated on me and you’re all accomplices. I don’t want to know the details, and don’t rely on me for anything from here on in. What are you talking about? asked grandfather, the girl was born before it was time, weighed a kilo and a half and isn’t quite finished. We’re keeping her in the warmest cotton wool so she can reach a healthy weight. Your wife hasn’t cheated on you, you’ll never find another such faithful woman. You reject her and I shall disinherit you.

  Although grandfather had half convinced him, from then on Mimoun had something tangible to justify his anger at mother and the rest of the world. It was a hard fact she’d given birth well before it was decent, it was obvious the only argument belying his hypothesis was thousands of kilometres away and voiced by his father. What if they were all in it together and my puny size was but an invention to protect my mother? And what if it was all part of a conspiracy against him, simply because his parents preferred his wife to their son?

  With all that to-do and in a rebellious spirit I expect I inherited from Mimoun himself, I decided to live on.

  35

  Bees

  Mimoun was beginning to cling to Isabel more than he’d ever clung to that kind of woman. There was no longer the excitement of finding out whether or not she’d let him do this or that, because she was up for anything. You could say she loved him, for sure. And he her, perhaps, if we accept the premise that Mimoun is capable of love, naturally.

  They’d been seeing more and more of each other. Ever since she’d introduced him to his children he was happy to see her almost on a daily basis. Are your children racist or what? he asked Isabel one day when one of them glanced at him and gave a sigh of resignation. No, of course not, you know, they’d just like me to get back with their father, that’s all.

  And Mimoun still found the little porcelain figurines on the glass shelves in the dining room quite horrific, not to mention the dog that acted as an umbrella stand and the rabbit-fur mats on the small tables between the sofas. The house wasn’t homely, and Mimoun wasn’t really sure why. But part of the fitted furniture opened to reveal all kinds of liquor, and everything was clean enough.

  For a time Mimoun spent more nights at her place than at Hamed’s, although he didn’t officially live there. He didn’t take clothes to be washed or play tapes of Rachid Nadori who sang about immigrants and women who mistreat you. Only for a time, until Mimoun decided he needed a woman, and that his roommate was all very well but he couldn’t provide him with those nightly caresses as he fell asleep.

  Until one day he turned up at Isabel’s house with his cases and the made-in-China blanket. She hid the latter in the back of her wardrobe after taking it to the dry cleaners, embarrassed by how tacky it was. For his part, Mimoun kept shifting that loathsome umbrella stand until it stood in the ironing room, face to the wall. From the side you could still see the dog’s tongue hanging out.

  Isabel probably didn’t think about whether or not Mimoun should have asked her permission to move in, but it seemed a reasonable enough step given the pace at which their relationship was developing. She no doubt thought she was finally refashioning her life and her ex would be fucked seeing her with a younger man, who was an A-rab into the bargain. I expect he’ll think his is longer and that’s why I want him in my bed. And though size doesn’t matter, she was pleased her ex would be jealous on that count. So was Mimoun. There’s nothing like the feeling you get laying someone else’s wife: but as he’d had more than his fair share of problems with married women, it was ideal having one who wasn’t married but had been.

  If he divorced, his wife would be faithful to him to the grave; it wasn’t for nothing he’d had her first.

  So things unravelled like this: while I was growing on the other side of the straits wrapped in sheets and anointed nightly with olive oil, Mimoun said nothing to Isabel about having something like a family in another corner of the world. In fact, she wouldn’t have cared less if he’d a wife and three children in the town near the provincial capital. But better not say anything because in that country women took offence at the slightest thing.

  And, of course, he’d not mentioned Isabel to his mother either on the cassettes he posted her, or in telephone conversations he had with his father every now and then. Jaume kept telling him, sahbi, can’t you see you’re going to mess up your life, better not meddle where you’re meddling. When they find out what you’re doing, they’ll both chop it into little bits. Then Mimoun went into a harangue about his wife’s infidelity, easily justifying his own behaviour. Have you seen your daughter yet? Maybe she’s the spitting image of you and you still doubting you’re her father. You could enjoy yourself no end, if you stopped the devil putting all this rubbish in your ear.

  Mimoun got to know me much later, they say, when I was seven or eight months old he decided he should come and see his people again. He packed his cases and told Isabel what he’d told the firm he worked for. His mother had died and he had to attend her funeral. And while he was about it he took the opportunity to ask Isabel for money and his boss for an advance. Neither knew Mimoun’s mother would die many deaths in the future to justify other trips and instant loans.

  My aunts always say they’d never seen Mimoun as happy as he was the day he met me. That he wouldn’t leave me alone, kept hugging me and they’d never seen him loving anyone that way, not even his own wife. That he was upset when I burst out crying the first time I saw him and flew into a rage with everyone as a result. But after a couple of days I was tweaking his moustache and laughing at him as I laughed at all the people I knew around me.

  They say we got so used to one another that we were inseparable. He took me everywhere, where babies of such a tender age aren’t usually taken, and liked to sit down with me under the fig trees in our garden. They say that as I still couldn’t sit up straight, he heaped stones on the skirt to my dress so they supported me and acted as a counterweight to keep my back straight. Poor daughter, mother said, it’s not good for a girl to be roaming so, especially in the places where Mimoun took me.

  Up to the incident with the bees, when Mimoun once again doubted whether I was his daughter. I still don’t know how I could be to blame in all that. Mother relates how he’d gone for a walk in the countryside, as he liked to do whenever he came back, and had stumbled upon a bees’ nest and been stung all over his face. His eyes swelled so he could hardly open them. Lumps also appeared on his lower lip, and on his cheeks and forehead.

  He returned home in that state, at dusk, when grandmother had begun lighting the candles and lamps to give some light before it got too dark. Mother was probably busy over the kitchen stoves. As soon as they saw him come in in that state, all the women ran to get mud from the yard outside and put it over his face. His face covered in lumps and all muddy, Mimoun said bring me my girl, I’m missing her. His older children looked at him aghast and quickly ran off to get grandfather, but they took me to see him, because he was longing to see me. And what was I supposed to do when I saw him looking like that? I expect I didn’t recognise him, or recognised him more than I’d ever done, but anyway as soon as he took me in his arms, I couldn’t stop crying, as if my life was at stake, as if someone had stuck a needle into me, and this was only the beginning, I c
ried and cried. Initially, he’d made an effort, throwing me into the air, singing songs and trying to play this little piggy with me. All to no avail, until finally Mimoun broke the tear-filled silence to say take her away, I don’t want to see her anymore.

  He didn’t say much more, but everyone knows that that was when he was confirmed in his doubts, that it was then he was certain he’d fallen victim to the biggest deception ever.

  36

  Abandon or leave altogether

  Mimoun had made that journey to feel he was the happiest man in the world but ended up feeling most unfortunate. It couldn’t really be blamed on outside circumstances, the fact is Mimoun has always felt more comfortable when everything’s going badly, when those who love him suffer and he feels unloved. We don’t know why peace and quiet upset him so, as if he were missing something. People say it’s all down to some incident in his childhood, but perhaps that explanation is too determinist.

  Mimoun returned to the local capital thinking that was where his final destiny belonged, that he didn’t need to go back ever again, because back there things were worse than ever. Besides, the fact that he had a family at a distance hardly made the effort he’d put in over the years worthwhile.

  So he clung more and more to Isabel, and got used to her porcelain figurines and children by another man. He never says whether all that was easy or not. But what is certain, however, is that he didn’t have to break her in. She was on offer when he needed it and that was a relief, she’d already been with other men and Mimoun had no need to defend her honour because he was of the opinion she’d been born without any. He would even have shared her with a friend in need, but Jaume had zero interest in women. Isabel was like so many others, except he didn’t have to pay her and was spared the expense of rent and the upkeep and running of the apartment.