The Last Patriarch

by Najat El Hachmi

What Isabel couldn’t provide was the excitement of the chase, the butterflies in the stomach and doubt or certainty whether the prey will be yours or not. That could only happen once with each woman, so for his own sake Mimoun had to go and try his hand and not get out of practice. She’d never been faithful to him, she’d been with other men before, so why should he have to be faithful to her? Besides, he saw to Isabel’s needs, but he needed more, he’d always been a man and a half.

  Mimoun put his duties as a great patriarch into hibernation, wanting to forget all that and unpack his suitcase for good. He tried to do so by bedding as many women as he could, going out every night and coming back in the early hours. He must have reached a point when not even the chase was as exciting as it had been when he was younger: he was perfectly familiar with all the mechanisms that made women fall into the traps he set and finessed the hunt with every outing. A time came when he preferred to keep on drinking than try to get off with the waitress. It was more relaxing getting into an alcoholic stupor than having to think where to take her, if she’d be satisfied with a one-night stand or want to marry him. Because it turns out that here there were women wanting marriage, who offered sex as a down payment on the stable relationship they hoped to have, who, if you told them you were married, lost interest in you, and if you said you weren’t they’d ask what your line of business was. In that respect they were much the same as the women in the provincial capital.

  His lethargy towards women intensified, and alcohol gradually filled more of his nights. Or strawberries. Those strawberries he pursued by putting coins in a side-slot and pressing little buttons that made the fruit spin round to earsplitting music. The three strawberries demanded lots of coins, lots of changed notes before they’d agree to ring the bells of victory. They could take a whole night, a night when Mimoun would only take his eyes off the machine to order a rum and coke, and another, and another.

  Jaume would see him around and about, and sometimes accompanied him on his bar crawl. Mimoun would say the firm’s only starting and I’m not earning enough money. He’d say so puffing smoke out of one side of his mouth while he counted the change the waiter had given him. You know how hard they find it to trust a Moor. That’s why I decided on that name, you know, Construcciones Manel SA. I don’t know what the S and the A stand for, but it’s what you have to put if you want to look like a real company. Or SL. They let you choose. You know, some people will give me work because they know me and know I do a good job at a good price, but sometimes I lose money. It’s the way to get started, so your name gets around. By word of mouth. One problem is sometimes they’re expecting Manel from Construcciones Manel to be a shade lighter than I am, and are reluctant to give me work. Until they’ve seen me chomp on a sausage sandwich they won’t believe my name is Manel. Jaume listened, as he always did, and probably shook his head like grandfather. Mimoun, you’re on the wrong track, sahbi, you really are. If he was in a good mood, Mimoun might let his friend harangue him on the life he should be leading but wasn’t, but mostly he let out a don’t you start, and Jaume shut up so as not to get trapped in that dead end where Mimoun would start bawling that his wife had turned him into a fucking cuckold.

  At this stage we don’t know if Isabel knew that mother, their children or yours truly existed. What we do know is we all knew lots about her life. People said Mimoun would never come back, that he’d ‘abandoned’ or ‘abdicated’ his role as head of our family as well as a son, brother or father.

  Several years went by and the only news we had was that Mimoun was living with Isabel and, you know, when Christian women get their teeth into a man, they never let go. Who the hell knows what that woman gave him to make him forget everything and want to have nothing to do with his own family.

  So a good few years passed and it seemed everything would carry on in the same vein until the business of the phone call, that I always say should never have happened, and that was to change the course of our lives.

  37

  The family is a sepia portrait

  Despite these goings-on we had to grow up, we had no choice in the matter.

  Without a father, with our mother, grandparents, the couple of aunts who were still single, and an uncle who’d come for holidays and for the great Eid9. We were haunted by a sadness we couldn’t fathom, but it wasn’t devastating. Father lives abroad, we’d say, but he didn’t send us presents for the end of Ramadan or money during the rest of the year; it was clear he’d abandoned us, though we didn’t dwell on that.

  Grandfather loved us dearly, but he’d often say at his age he shouldn’t be maintaining anyone, it was his turn to rest and be looked after. The photos from that period, the one in which he seems skinnier than ever, the skin on his scrawny neck hanging off the scant flesh and his eyes shut so much he has to keep them open with his fingers to see properly. That’s the photo of us with our arms down by our sides as if we were in the army and someone had roared, attention! I already had the neatly combed ponytail I wore for so long, and that broad forehead I so disliked, and my brothers those girlish fringes I wasn’t allowed. Mother was the missing person, apparently the photo had to travel a lot and nobody knew whose hands it would end up in, and they couldn’t risk exposing mother’s image to unknown eyes. It was a photo to send to a father who’d abandoned us, in case he decided to abandon us no more.

  Grandfather really loved us, but he’d say it couldn’t go on like that, he’d already sold another piece of land to pay our way and his son was studying for his school certificate and couldn’t get work yet, however good he was at school. That his other son hadn’t divorced his wife, she was tied to him forever and couldn’t change her fate one iota. She was abandoned yet tied to him, it went against every law, both Arab law and ours.

  Grandmother did what she could and told me I’ll soon be able to buy you some little gold earrings and you won’t have to wear those threads in your ears anymore. She wasn’t ashamed by poverty because she was happy enough working the land and being able to eat spring onions and bread at midday, we’ll get out of this, but I’d rather you stayed with me and kept me company. But she did feel ashamed that at my age I still had the sewing thread my mother had put in my ears in the shape of a ring so the holes wouldn’t close. She said I’ll sell so many eggs and young rabbits that I’ll soon be able to ask Soumisha to make you some of those tiny gold earrings.

  Mother did housework and that kept her away from the evil spirits that make you ill. She worked with us, woke us up in the morning, washed us so we were always clean and woe betide if you got your clothes dirty. Even today they tell us no children in the village were as neat and tidy as we were. When we went to play in the fields, she’d sprinkle our heads with the eau de cologne second grandfather had brought her on one of his rare visits, she combed our hair until the boys’ hair was sleek against the skull, and made me that plait that always looked so round. She swept, mopped, washed the sheepskin rugs, whitewashed the walls when they needed it or cleaned the tea set to look like silver, which it wasn’t, with that special whitish liquid. She worked so hard she had to have a nap after lunch, the time of day I most hated it was so silent. And after her nap in the bedroom with the door half open, come on, back to it. She’d not give it much thought, get up, put her headscarf that had slipped half off her head back on, fetch water and perform her ablutions in the bathroom. She made tea, and remsemmen when there was enough oil, and khrinhgu10 when there was enough flour. Very occasionally she’d get an egg and scramble it with olive oil and take us into the darkest part of the house, in the pantry, and say eat it here. I particularly liked the softer mud on the walls in that low-ceilinged room which was unpainted and very welcoming. Apparently nobody must find out we three had shared a single scrambled egg.

  On many evenings neighbours would come and chat with grandmother, and sometimes they’d find mother by herself and she’d say much more than she’d ever say in the presence of her mother-in-law. No secrets, but she’d amuse herself recounting
anecdotes about things that had happened before I was born, things that had taken place a long way away.

  The name Isabel would sometimes crop up on many such afternoons, and I soon discovered they called her Christian, Stinky or Slut. They rarely used her real name, they always referred to her using one of these adjectives or all together. Stinky Christian Slut, or worse.

  I didn’t know what that Isabel had done, but I learned to loathe her, and when I had my worst nightmares, if snakes didn’t pop up everywhere she would appear to frighten me. Grandmother said this girl has inherited her father’s fears.

  I no longer knew if I remembered that man she called my father, I don’t know if I remembered him or simply memories the women recounted and all that stuff about the bees and the mud. My brothers said they remembered him, that he was very tall and strong and always shouting, but that one year he’d brought them those plastic horses and little men who couldn’t bend their elbows or knees, who wore hats that revealed the holes in their heads, if you took them off.

  I think we were happy enough, even though we had to split an apple between four in order to eat; how sweet apples were then… But grandfather shook his head and said he couldn’t take anymore and it couldn’t go on, no, no and no again.

  38

  The call, or how destiny takes an unexpected turn

  I get all the praise for the call, but at that age I can’t really have known what I was saying. I don’t even like to think that one so young could influence the decision that everyone took, pointing our destinies to a place completely unknown. No. I didn’t go to the city and pick up the phone, and I wasn’t the one who managed to speak to father.

  We still don’t know what people did to persuade our father to wait for our call in that bar where Jaume had taken him. Apparently uncle had acted as a go-between. The one who brought to the village each fresh piece of news about Mimoun, and who must have told his sister he didn’t want those children to go to waste and that, when he went back, he’d try to get Mimoun at the very least to speak to them on the phone, if he didn’t want to listen to the tapes his children, wife and parents sent him. A boat full of hugs and kisses we had said we were sending him, while the machine Fatma had left us was recording. Our voices made us laugh, because they seemed deeper and more serious than we in fact were.

  We’d already recorded lots of tapes like those, and taken more of those photos with our eyes wide open and our mouths shut, but we’d never spoken on the phone.

  Grandfather said get dressed, dear, you’re coming with me, and she said no, I’m not, Mimoun would kill me if he found out, I’m not coming. Mimoun’s already killing you, grandfather retorted, and that phrase etched itself on my brain forever.

  Mother had gotten dressed to go out in the street and had put our shoes on. We didn’t know what a telephone was or what we should say to our father because we almost didn’t know what a father was. Grandfather had said she shouldn’t build her hopes up, my cowardly son probably won’t turn up and we won’t get to speak to him. Luckily a nephew of grandfather’s was driving the car. Throughout the whole journey mother stared at her shoes, for fear her eyes might meet the eyes of the driver in the mirror hanging down from the roof of his Mercedes. We loved the bends and swinging one way and the other as if we had no will of our own. Mother didn’t want to talk, and told us to keep quiet with that look in her eyes that said you wait till we’re by ourselves.

  The telephone was in the apartment that belonged to grandfather’s other nephew, an apartment without a yard, the walls of which were smooth and straight, and the ceiling was full of plaster friezes. I looked at them while grandmother, grandfather and mother kept talking to that Mimoun. They sometimes cried, shouted and all of a sudden said, sorry, son, don’t hang up, please don’t hang up.

  Then they shouted to me, so they say. They said, here, talk to your father, and I can’t have known what to say. Come on, say something, every minute costs money. I don’t remember very well, but apparently God shone his light on me and I used my little girl’s voice to sort out the entire family’s problems. Or perhaps I had the most lucid moment I’d ever experienced. I know these were the sentences I came out with, because they were much talked about. I added to the collection of Driouch legends.

  Why don’t you leave that whore of a Christian for good and come and look after us? Don’t you think it’s high time you thought about your own family?

  They grabbed the phone because I was being so rude and they were shocked, but they were all soon very proud of me. Very proud.

  Especially when grandfather received the money to get our passports, especially when they accompanied us to the boat and I didn’t know how to bid farewell to so many people I loved, just like that, so abruptly. They were so proud I’d said that that grandmother spent three days in bed after we left, and even more proud of me when they discovered Mimoun had left Isabel.

  In fact the reverse happened, but they never found out down there. She threw him out of her home and life. It was one thing for him to deceive her, quite another to bring those slags home and do it in her own bed, no, that wasn’t on, however great a divorcee she might be. And we don’t know if my message had such an impact because father was by himself again or if it was what persuaded him to force the situation so Isabel would throw him out of her home and life.

  Whatever the truth, Mimoun said we should come as soon as we could find someone to accompany us, I fell off the bunk because I turned over in my sleep thinking I was still sleeping on the floor. But I’d never sleep on the floor again, never ever.

  I can still remember mother, who gripped my shoulders so tightly to make sure I didn’t leave her for a second it hurt, who never let us out of her sight and was awake for the whole journey, afraid we’d be kidnapped, robbed, beheaded, heaven knows what could happen on what was a journey into the unknown for her.

  And right at the end, we arrived with our hair all over the place after so long in the bus and its brrm brrm still pursuing us. At the end of so much tiredness and get off here, get on there, now we’ll catch the bus, now a taxi, now a train and now another taxi. At the very end there was a passage, a long, lonnng passage. And at the bottom of the passage: him. He was waiting for us with open arms and I remember running and that it was such a long way. There he was, and I can still see him sweeping me up in his arms while he pricked me with his moustache.

  PART II

  1

  A long, long passage

  The long passage is what I remember most, and it was very, very long. I went there quite recently and it didn’t seem that long, but I was little then and father was waiting for us at the far end, and perhaps that’s why it seemed so far or maybe it was the light coming through the door to the yard; we couldn’t see his face from where we were, flatfooted by the rusty door that had just shut behind us. Mother was smiling but didn’t know quite what to do. My brothers ran to give him a hug and clung to a leg each while he put one knee on the ground and opened his arms wide. I don’t know if he said I’ve been waiting so long for you or perhaps my memory is playing tricks on me. That would have been a nice phrase to greet your family with, but mother never wants to reminisce much about what happened that day.

  I do remember things. The passage walls were swollen, as if they were pregnant, about to burst. The kitchen-diner was right at the back, with two leather armchairs in a disgusting state and next door was a windowless bedroom. Next to the windowless bedroom, another windowless bedroom and next to that, a room with a window with a grille looking out onto the street, like a prison. The stench everywhere. A stench that had already begun in the city, the district, the province and the whole country.

  Mother didn’t know what to do with her new husband, who’d tell her I’ve really missed you. A lie. Or half truth, because he’d not realised he’d missed her so much until he’d seen her. If that had been really true he’d have come to get her long before and I wouldn’t have fallen off the bunk bed in that enormous boat. But mother di
d know what to do with the dirt and disorder that was everywhere. An ability to transform reality has always been one of her most shining virtues. A Mila11 with headscarf and string belt, she soon hitched up the hem of her dress so they didn’t get in the way. She put water on to boil, we’ve not had time to buy a heater, said father, we’ve not been in the apartment much. If we’d been travelling for so long and she’d not slept for fear someone might kidnap her children, how come she wasn’t tired? She must have been while she looked for buckets where she could mix hot and cold water, while she filled bag after bag full of cartons, fruit peel, plastic rubbish and endless glass bottles she found in every corner. She dusted, swept and picked up what she’d collected throughout the house, using her two flattened palms as a spade, as she’d always done. And as always, she washed the floor with an old rag, bending over the way I can no longer bend, her legs stretched apart and her dress sagging in the middle. We’ve got this, said father, pointing to a scourer on a stick and she said that’s no use at all.

  In the bedroom the sheets were already that nondescript colour and mother hardly recognised the made-in-China blanket he’d taken all those years ago, and she changed them for the ones she’d brought from the other side of the sea. She emptied the ashtrays piled high with cigarette butts, picked up foul-smelling socks from every corner and under the wardrobe, made a mountain of dirty washing and put it in the sink in the yard. She still didn’t seem tired or was refusing to look tired. Or perhaps she just couldn’t rest, seeing the place in that state, because everybody told her this man needed his wife. I’ve always thought everyone needs somebody, whether a woman or not, but nobody would have understood me.

  Father said, come on, let’s go, and he let mother carry on cleaning while he proudly took us for a stroll around the barri. I don’t know if I remember that clearly, but I thought all those people were friends of his, he was on the best of terms with them and then I began to understand why he’d not fetched us before. There was that man in the bar who told us take this, take that and gave us packets of crisps that were so thin they melted in the mouth. A man with a red nose whose name I never knew and who always played that trick with his hands, pretending to take off and put back on one of his index fingers. The fattest lady I’d ever seen with blue-veined, swollen legs, but very fair and angel-faced. That comes from eating pork, father said in the language they didn’t understand. See how that woman’s legs are rotting? It comes from eating so much pork. You want to try some? Noo, we went, looking disgusted. Imagine ending up with those legs that looked fit to burst.