by Fouad Laroui
“Sure, but hang on a second, someone must have pulled strings for you. One doesn’t just become a freelancer for La Tribune like that.”
“You think someone pulled strings for me? You accuse me of being some kind of bourgeois? etc.”
Five minutes later:
“One day, and this is what I’ve been trying to get to, one day, I found myself in Khouribga, researching (get this) ‘men who matter.’ Bizarre, no? (And note that I’m talking about men, not women—freelancers aren’t sent off to research icons or muses…”
“That wouldn’t be a bad film title: No muse for the freelancer.”
“…nor the skilled kolkhoz women, even less the Cleopatras or the Kahinas, as if those tramps’ counterparts didn’t exist in the Cherifien Empire under Hassan II. But anyway.) You’ve asked me to essplain. It was a sudden whim of the director of La Tribune. Thumbs passed through the holes of his cardigan (he didn’t have the money to repair the seams, you know how poor the gazettes are), so, fingers in the holes, a badly lit Casa Sports dangling from his disdainful lip, spectacles on his nose (à la “press boss”), he hit me with the following, at dawn: ‘You’re gonna do a piece for me on men who matter…’—utterly untimely—‘…in Khouribga.’ I didn’t dare ask him what he meant by that. (A freelancer shuts up or gets out.) I wasn’t so much worried by the strangeness of this inquiry: why the devil was La Tribune de Casablanca interested in what went on a hundred miles to the east, high up on this arid plateau where nothing grows except esparto and problems? I’m a freelancer, I don’t bother myself with these considerations. So I rushed pronto to the bus station, I boarded a bus dating from before the Flood—held together only by a bolt, paint, and prayers—and after a trek which it’s best you know nothing about (someone even vomited on me, a baby), I got off around noon in Khouribga, a dusty little town…”
“…with every intention of staying that way…”
“…where a cousin of mine had been wandering around the Tadla bitumen office for months. I quickly stumbled upon him, as he spent all his days in a café, hoping for employment that never came, but still living in hope. Emotional embraces, taps on the back, I’m fine, my brother, hamdoullah, and your mother, hamdoullah, and your sister, hamdoullah, fine, fine, thanks be to God, and the little Narjis, he’s getting bigger, hamdoullah, and the old Allal, may God rest his soul, oh really? ma cha’llah, and the neighbor So-and-so, we hung him, and the cat, etc. Five minutes had passed when I suddenly remembered the reason for my expedition.
“‘Hamou…,’ I say to him.”
“His name was Hamou?”
Ali ignores the senseless interruption.
“‘Hamou, I say to him, I’m looking for men who matter in this town!’ He nods, pours himself a cup of tea, sips the boiling beverage, brow furrowed, eyes half-closed, lost in thoughts as deep as ‘the lake’ of little Lamartine (do you remember, from high school?), thoughts so deep that one might worry he’d never return, lost in the world of Ideas (you remember, philosophy class?). Then he shakes himself…”
“What does that mean, ‘he shakes himself’?”
“…he shakes himself like a horse and hits the palm of his hand on the table, with a male and resolute air. ‘Ali,’ he says to me, ‘I know them all!’”
Sensation around the table.
“Happy times when one can know all the men who matter in Khouribga!”
“Today, the population has exploded in every direction. We’re even in Italy!”
“We don’t know our neighbor, monsieur!”
“We don’t even know where we live!”
We finally kept quiet and regarded, eyes filled with emotion, our friend who was recounting this incredible adventure in such detail. During the explosion of commentary that interrupted his narration he was chomping at the bit, metaphorically speaking, all while caressing a cat; this cat submitted his derrière to him, as is the habit of cats, all while purring peacefully. The silence that had just fallen over Café de l’Univers invited Ali to resume his story.
“So Hamou tells me about many of these men who matter; he even has the courtesy to present them classified by category—my cousin is methodical, like all the Soussis. I note in petto what he reveals to me, thank him, take care of the bill (a languid tea, an insoluble coffee) and plunk myself on the sidewalk. Did I mention it was hot out? It was as if we were, as the poet said, ‘under the torrents of a tropical sun.’”
“Which poet?”
“It doesn’t matter, it’s just an expression. The tropical sun, ‘which spreads heat over our fallow lands.’ What is to be done? as old Vladimir said. Let’s begin with the entrepreneurs, I say to myself, mentally consulting my list, maybe there’s a lunch to be had from it. I begin my rounds with Tijani, a prominent businessman, owner of a second-hand Bentley bought from an old crazy Tangéroise woman. I bribe the chaouch who keeps guard at the entrance of the building. He opportunely turns his gaze toward the road, shimmering with dust, while I climb a steep staircase; then I’m parleying with a panicked secretary in a sort of antechamber—I swear, it was as if she had never seen a journalist before, that young bird, much less a freelance journalist—one might even say she had never before seen a man, so much did she gawk, mouth agape—I try to dazzle her by presenting my fake press pass but does she even know how to read? Well, when she finally understands that I don’t want her virginity, or her wallet, she goes to scratch at a door, pokes her head in, chirps…Long story short, Tijani receives me in a brand spanking new office, minimalist, in tones of gray anthracite, with a green plant in a corner that seems to keep watch. Tijani went to high school in Casablanca, some engineering school in France, then did his MBA at an American university—without tiring himself out, I might add—I would learn later that he’s hypermnesic and a total idiot. He returned to the country, one wonders why, perhaps to make his mother happy, or else he did something stupid in the US (we’ll save the slander for another time), so he returned to the country and created his company here, christened Tijani and Co., which incidentally is a bit boastful since he’s alone in his office, with the green plant and the secretary in distress: Mr. Co. is conspicuously absent. Whatever it may be, I congratulate Tijani on his success. Bravo! He shows me, quite proud, the plans, graphs, and diagrams, the hyperboles and even a parabola—then proposes that I, for the sake of my article, meet his FD, his HRD, or even his XYZ (all gentlemen who I suspect only exist in his head, for I didn’t see anyone in the hallways of Tijani and Co., except for, useless to repeat it, his trying secretary and his plant, haughty as a hidalgo). I suspect he is a mythomaniac, a high-flying crook, but it’s too hot to clarify matters; and in the end, hey, as long as he doesn’t eat my cookie or bother my wife what does it matter to me whether Tijani is a businessman or a scrounger? I have just enough time to ask him a question: ‘Dis-moi, Tijani…”’
“You addressed him with the informal tu?”
“At the time, everyone tutoyer-ed each other.”
“Who’s ‘everyone’?”
“Everyone who knew how to read and write. And who spoke Moroccan.”
“You’re taking the piss out of us, etc.”
Five minutes later:
“So I ask him: ‘Tell me, Tijani, how do you follow the cycles of demand, the needs of the consumers, the projections, all that?’ His eyes widen. ‘Or maybe it’s your FD who takes care of it? Or perhaps your XYZ?’ His eyes widen. ‘Unless there’s a secret journal here that monitors the market?’ His eyes widen. ‘But I go see Bouazza, of course!’ he cries. ‘For God’s sake!’ He can’t disclose any more, he has to slip out for an important business lunch—to which he forgets to invite me, the pig. Here I am on the sidewalk, the sun dripping from the heights of the blue sky. Qué calor! as the Colombians say. As if we were in a hammam at rush hour. I wipe my forehead with the sleeve of my shirt. My next rendezvous is with the governor, Si Ahmed, one of those brilliant technocrats recently nominated by the king to the head of important cities. I go by foot
to the prefecture. It’s at the end of the avenue. The chaouch who stands guard before the imposing building starts chasing me like I’m some kind of scumbag, at least he’s about to, pitchfork raised, murderous eye, when he understands that I purport, me, a simple citizen, to go see the governor; stop there! I brandish my fake press pass, decorated with the colors of the national flag, threatening, and pass myself off as a special correspondent of Basri—might as well really go for it. Do you remember Driss Basri, who was minister of the interior at the time? Yeesh…The sole utterance of his name made men piss themselves; the sight of his face, from a distance, made women faint from fear; and the chaouch fell like flies when his emissaries presented themselves at the drawbridge.”
We interrupt Ali.
“We were all alive then. Today’s youth don’t want to believe us. They downplay it, the little bastards: come on, they say, he wasn’t so terrible, your Basri.”
“Our Basri? The dogs!”
Ali was starting to get irritated.
“May I continue?”
“Go on, go on.”
“So the chaouch, before perishing from terror, opens the front door for me and from one moment to the next I find myself in the office of Si Ahmed. His Excellency, who doesn’t hate being talked about, receives the hack journalist, the freelancer—but what did he know of it?—with kindness. He is welcoming, certainly, even courteous; but he is also a voluble visionary who deploys, to my stupefaction, relief maps, perhaps of Vauban, on a big meeting table. His hands flutter about: he points out this, shows me that, underlines, designates, regenerates, erases, constructs. He’s the demiurge, I swear! Next he shows me the aerial photos taken by drones belonging to the US Air Force, which maybe didn’t even exist at the time; he speaks to me of phantastic, phantasmic projects, perhaps even pharaonic, in any case there’s a ph somewhere in there. He gets heated, he sweats, he evaporates, more and more eloquent. Globalization is a game for him, his benchmark is millions of dollars, he’s met Bill Gates and slapped a Chinese man. All the same I end up interrupting: ‘Si Ahmed, this is all great, mais comment faites-vous…’”
“Him you vouvoyer?”
“Yeah, because we were speaking in French, not Moroccan.”
“Bizarre, etc.”
“ Five minutes later:
“‘Si Ahmed, this is all great, but how do you stay up to date with what happens in your wilaya? I mean, at the level of the average citizen? Your regular guys?’ His eyes widen. ‘Or perhaps it’s your secret police who take care of that?’ His eyes widen. ‘Or else, you stroll around incognito in your city, like Haroun Arachide did before in Baghdad?’ The governor throws his arms to the sky, appalled by my ignorance. ‘What do you mean, secret police? What are you talking about, Arachide? For everything I need to know, I consult Bouazza, of course!’”
“Again Bouazza?”
“The same. I don’t have time to mark my astonishment, Si Ahmed gets up, rolls out his six feet and two inches, crushes my dextral and excuses himself: he has to welcome Darryl F. Zanuck to convince him to transfer Hollywood to Khouribga—or at least to make a branch of it there. An ancient taxi, the kind that stays at the same speed even when it’s lost its wheels, quickly brings me to the Trade Union House where I meet the legendary Kafouyi…”
“Kafouyi himself?”
“…Kafouyi who directs the federation of local trade unions with an iron fist, Kafouyi who makes Les Bitumes du Tadla tremble when he raises his left foot, when he threatens to unleash…”
“Lightning, like Zeus?”
“…the famous general strike that will bring down global capitalism starting with Khouribga—it’s only a beginning, let’s continue the fight! The man, whom I telephoned from Si Ahmed’s office, awaits me resolutely in front of the building that houses The Trade Union—be afraid, bosses! Militant handshake, virile pat, the man receives me as though we had stormed the Winter Palace together. I go to make my little provocation…”
“You dared provoke the famous Kafouyi?”
“I did.”
“And you survived?”
“I did.”
“Well well, my colonel, etc.”
Five minutes later:
“So, I set right about provoking the old Kafouyi of the zmâlas: ‘Mr. Secretary General, you have been in power since the departure of the French, since the death of at least three popes, since the passing of the comet, that’s a bit long, no? People are saying that you cut yourself off from the laboring masses, people are whispering that the Trade Union House is like the palace of Sleeping Beauty—people are protesting that nothing has changed since the year of Typhus. So (I clear my voice) how do you know what the state of mind is of your adherents?’ His eyes widen. ‘How do you decide when it’s necessary to trigger a strike and when to stop it?’ His eyes widen. ‘How do you estimate the combativeness of your troops?’ He gathers his brow, irritated by my insolence: ‘I know very well what the workers are thinking, monsieur,’ he quakes. ‘All I have to do is talk to Bouazza!’ Hell and damnation! Again Bouazza? Who he? The large Kafouyi shows me to the door without ceremony, like a vulgar reformist, like the last of the Mensheviks, and without leaving me the time to ask him who he is, this famous Bouazza, to top it all off! Waiting for an unlikely taxi on the sidewalk, liquefied by the sun spreading over the city like a layer of magma, I think to myself that it’s obviously this Bouazza I need to interview instead of wasting my time with second fiddles—whether they be unlikely CEOs or a megalomaniac governor or the king of the syndicates. He is the one who is, without a doubt, ‘the man who matters’ in Khouribga, the one who makes things happen, one of the movers and shakers, as we say in good French. Before going on the hunt, I needed to cool myself down (it was 104 degrees F) and get a haircut. Desperate, I play the semaphore and a Peugeot survived from the band of Bonnot stops before me. I throw myself in. I collapse. The taxi driver kindly helps me out. ‘A good hairdresser? Well, you don’t have a choice, there’s only one in the city. It’s Bouazza.’”
Consternation in Café de l’Univers.
“What? A hairdresser? Oh misery, deception!”
“Our illusions, crushed!”
“We thought at least L’Orchestre rouge…”
“…the Count of Saint-Germain…”
“…a bionic spy…”
“I am filled to the brim with astonishment. I would even say: flabbergasted. The taxi drops me off in front of the barbershop. I enter, a bit worried, but there’s really no reason to be. The place resembles a hundred others, but the boss, the aforementioned Bouazza, doesn’t resemble anyone else. Bland, gray on gray, the mustache of a field mouse…He extends a floppy hand, I am his first client of the afternoon, he informs me, and points me toward the chair where I am to perch myself. A sweeping glimpse around: a few guys sitting in chairs but, visibly, they are not clients, but rather friends, neighbors, the curious. No apprentice in sight, no associate. This Bouazza seems to do everything in his den: shampooer, delouser, hairdresser for women, hairdresser for men, colorist if the occasion presents itself, perms for the Polynesian dentist’s wife washed up there no one knows how. Bouazza is a polyvalent figaro—as in, you ask him if he can do something, he responds: I can!”
“We all know someone like that.”
“The man of agile hands starts to do his work, his fingers ferret about in my hair, searching for the rebel cowlick, and I set about learning the central role he seems to play in the capital of bitumen. I don’t double cross him, I put all my cards on the table: I cut the deck with the governor, I declare Tijani, I lay down Kafouyi. He, the capillary artist, nods, ambling through my hair; doesn’t say a word but nods; and when I’ve finished, as the prose writer said, he remains silent for a moment, contemplating his oeuvre inversed in the mirror: he did a sort of monk tonsure that was very à la mode, àlamoude, he affirms—for example, from the times of cathedrals—then finally responds to the question I had asked him. Correct, he says, correct: all these characters are his clie
nts.
“‘And it’s you,’ I dared, ‘who informs them of what goes on in their fair city?’”
“He wipes his hands on a rag dating from the year of the unicorn. The three or four bumpkins seated along the wall had not yet opened their mouths—like a brochette of half-wits waiting to be devoured by a giant. Then he gives a faint smile, like a grin putting on airs, and finally he murmurs:
“‘Me? But I know nothing of what goes on here… I never leave this shop, which I inherited from Mr. Ceccaldi, who was the hairdresser at the time of the French. I was his apprentice.’
“And then the brochette of half-wits starts up in unison:
“‘Bouazza never leaves this shop. He inherited it from Mr. Ceccaldi, who was the hairdresser at the time of the French. He was his apprentice.’
“My heart skips a beat out of fright, or perhaps from surprise. What is this cinema—or rather this ancient theater, with choir and coryphaeus? I get up, shove a few crumpled bills in the hand of the artisan, who verifies the amount with a glimpse of the eye—l’oeil du maître—then pockets them without saying a thing. I don’t know why, I feel a strong desire to slap him but I restrain myself, for these events are bigger than me and I find it all very tiresome. Well, it’s decided, I’ll leave this incomprehensible town—after all, my article is written. I start running, on the big avenue I stop an old Strindberg car, and I slump into a beat-up seat. The road that leads to Casablanca snakes around the plateau that shines with a thousand fires, etc. (I’ll describe it another time). I have a moment to think, between two deviations in the road. And it’s then that I understand.”
“You understand the deviations?”
“No. I understand this story of Bouazza the hairdresser, who calls to mind a cretin from the Atlas, who most certainly is a cretin, and a beautiful one, and yet, it’s in his den where conflicts are mitigated, it’s in this insignificant place, essentially empty…”
“That reminds me of the Tao: The spokes of the wheels converge at the hub. They converge toward the empty space. And it’s thanks to the empty space that the chariot advances.”
