by Fouad Laroui
“The detail!”
“Out of instinct, we bookworms huddled before the door of the party hall on the Avenue des Forces-Armées-Royales, we bookworms, out of instinct, take a step back. Murmurs of astonishment. (‘Who is this guy?’ ‘Chkoune hadak?’ ‘Mnin khrouj dak James Bond?’) Bennani, seeing that the door of the party hall was closed (that imbecile Mourtada had not yet returned), leans against the wall, calm, and lights a John Player Special—he would never have been caught raising a Casa Sports to his lips. Dadouche, vexed (his attempt to defy Bennani by gaze had been stopped short), demands:
“‘Hey, Bennani, who is this guy?’
“Wisps of smoke hovering below his nostrils, Bennani responds, as if stating the obvious:
“‘He’s my bodyguard.’
“And bam! Knocked back down, our ridiculous clothes, our cologne made in España, our shoes polished with Kiwi. As usual, the rich had distanced us by choosing another arena. (The rich shift the debate: that’s their great strength. They are always where we don’t expect them.) Distressed, we looked at the bodyguard with bulging eyes—we had never seen one from so close up. His face looked the part, and his gestures even more so. He positioned himself between us and his master and banged his right fist against his left hand. We were submerged in our astonishment. Zriwil asked:
“‘Your…what?’
“The bodyguard set about examining us all from up close, starting with Zriwil.
“‘One wrong word and I’ll kill you…’
“‘What, wrong word? All of our words are in bad shape, busted, broken…It was only yesterday that we were introduced to Hugo. And plus, we’re friends with Bennani,’ replied Dadouche.
“Meanwhile, Mourtada had returned, with the stride of a melancholic ferret, and we were able to enter into the party hall. Some sandwiches were moping in a corner, next to some withering drinks. A big banner, stretched across the width of the room, proclaimed the pride of the bus drivers to finally have their union. Yellow garlands trickled from the ceiling, looking like they’d hung themselves the day after the party. The boss, who had spared no expense, had installed an old Teppaz survived from the Titanic and exactly three records: Aznavour, Petite musique de nuit, and Nana Mouskouri (Greatest Hits). We were over the moon (c’était Byzance) but not Bennani. He threw down the covers with a disdainful air after barely looking at them.
“‘What is this junk shop?’
“That was how he crushed us, routinely. If someone was excited, he would denigrate: he had seen better, he knew better. Better: he possessed better. What am I saying? He was better.
“He shrugged his shoulders.
“‘I’ll bring you real music,’ he decides.
“He leaves, followed by his bodyguard, to rummage through the trunk of the BMW and comes back, followed by his bodyguard, with a big cardboard box, and in a flick of the wrist, LPs galore. Marvin Gaye, Paul Anka, the Supremes…Through this room barely widowed of its unionists echoes the animal desire glorified by soul music:
“Let’s get it on…
“Bennani grooves a bit, is imitated by his bodyguard, closes his eyes, then says:
“‘This song is magic, girls drop like flies listening to it, if you had brought your chicks…’
“The phrase lingers, unanswered. We lower our heads, mortified. As for ‘chicks,’ we had among us only three little bookworms, Najla and two others, our classmates, who bore the brunt of our fantasies but who seemed to be interested only in math—not in us, with our faces looking like we’d been dug up from the grave.
“The night unfolds normally, which is to say abnormally: three girls, sixty starving people—and Marvin Gaye. Standing in a corner, smoking his John Player Specials, Bennani observes us: he’s at the zoo. His bodyguard, who plays with a nonexistent earpiece, drinks beer after beer: it’s free, because who would dare ask for money from such a massive guy? From time to time, he inspects.”
“Inspects what?”
“Well, everything…he taps on the walls, like you do when you search for a hollow, with the palm of his left hand flat and little sudden knocks with the bent index finger of the other hand… He stares defiantly at the banner of the unionists. He sizes up the sandwiches, relieves them, if necessary, of their garniture (mortadella can be quite dangerous). He opens the door and examines the Avenue des Forces-Armées-Royales, so propitious to the rise of tanks. He comes to look at us from up close, with a suspicious air, as if we were cooking up an assassination attempt. He purports even to frisk the body of the little Najla, who escapes by screeching. He asks for identification from the landlord, who had come to check that everything was going okay. The landlord takes offense (he is after all in his own place), we nearly have an incident, the bodyguard has to rein himself in.
“So much so that we begin to feel sorry for him, this man with nothing to do. Ahmidouch asks him where he’s from. ‘Settat!’ he responds, as others might say New York or Paris. We look at each other, astonished—there’s a school for bodyguards at Settat? He misunderstands our hesitation. Menacingly:
“‘Do you have a problem with that?’
“Not at all, we explain to him. And the accusing index fingers are extended: he’s from Benahmed, him (the fat one) from Tata, him from Sefrou, him (the little guy) from Sidi-Bennour, I’m from Fkih Ben Salah…
“The strongman of Halles can’t believe it. He thought we were all sons of the upper class, bourgeois, loaded, from Casablanca or maybe even from Fes…And he finds out we’re as much of a bumpkin as he is! Dumbstruck (I’ve been wanting to say that for a while now), he goes to check that the avenue hasn’t changed directions. Then he comes back, as if some dawn is beginning to glow beneath his neurons. He murmurs:
“‘But you’re all sons of the masses…’
“A collective shudder courses through us. You have to remember that this story takes place in an age when three people out of two were part of the police, where snitches abounded, where you could be denounced by your own shadow—the bitch. Expressions like ‘sons of the masses’ that seem harmless today rang out at the time like a proclamation along the lines of: ‘I am Marxist-Leninist and I plan to overthrow the government.’
“In any case, the fact that Mr. Bodyguard used such a dangerous expression suggested to us that: 1) he was crazy; 2) he was a snitch; 3) he was drunk. The truth was probably a combination of the three (1+2+3).
“As soon as the words are heard and their dangerousness percolates in our brains, we disperse throughout the party hall, not wanting to finish the year in prison—we had competitions and exams to worry about. The bawdyguard follows us (he divides in two, in three, in umpteen), clinging to some of us, embracing others, smooching Najla and proclaiming urbi et ‘roubi, to the city and to us country folk, that he loves us all, on the whole and in the details. Bennani, standing in a corner, stunned, was like Napoleon looking on as Moscow burned, with no fire extinguisher.
“His bodyguard is crying now, so sloshed from the alcohol we could have set him ablaze with a snap of the fingers. He stammers, snot deforming his words:
“‘You are all sons of the masses…Like me.’
“He turns, by chance, toward the native of Sidi-Bennour.
“‘My name is Bouchta! And you, my brother, what did God name you?’
“‘Jilali,’ the Sidi-Bennourien affirms proudly.
“The bodyguard steps back a few centimeters and stares at Jilali’s pants. They’re pants that (how can I phrase it?)…have lived. They were originally corduroy, probably. A long time ago. Then, at the mercy of rubbing against the back of CTM bus seats (the most cramped in the world, calibrated for Pinocchio); of the abrasion suffered from rough chairs; against entryways waiting for a door to open; on the sidewalk, the days of lining up in front of the police station, waiting for the forces of Law and Order to hand over an identity card; against the trees on the boulevard; the stadium bleachers; the deteriorated, discouraged walls; on the asphalt, if there was a fight or skirmish…at the
mercy of all that, the corduroy was no longer ribbed and barely corded; now it looked like one of those humble fabrics we turn into dish towels—and these were Jilali’s Sunday pants.
“The bodyguard turns toward another guy.
“‘And you,’ he asks the Fkih Ben Salah native, ‘what name did God give you?’
“‘Cherki,’ replies Cherki.
Bouchta the bodyguard attentively examines the aforementioned shirt of Cherki. It has traveled, it’s undeniable. One can speculate it’s had an adventurous life, come from a weaving loom from the age of the Hittites, falling cleanly on Assyrian buttocks, at the beginning, then little by little deteriorating, passed from one person to another in the great movement of migrations toward the West, debarking one day from a dhow or a felucca, along with a thousand of its sisters, prisoner of privateers, thrown in a heap on the floor of illegal souks, grabbed by a speculator who puts it up in a dark alley the next day to sell for a profit (“It’s from Germany, my brother!”), and it’s Cherki who acquires it, moved, dreaming of the effect that beautiful shirt, only the tiniest bit worn, will have on the little Najla when he sports it at the big party where he finds himself presently, the eye of the bodyguard fixed on him. The bodyguard intensifies his sobs while his retinas dart back and forth between Cherki’s rag and Bennani’s shirt, designed by a Parisian couturier, brought from Paris by the arrogant Airbus, unwrapped the same morning as it had been packaged in silk paper by a maid with eyes lowered, pressed (the shirt) even if it was of no use. Bouchta repeats, tearful:
“‘You are all sons of the masses…Like me.’
“Bennani, understanding that everything was going to heck in a handbasket, wrests himself from his promontory and comes to take the human rag by the arm to drag him toward the light of the avenues. But nothing could be done: the man frees himself in one move, seizes his master by the throat and yells out:
“‘But you! You! You are not a son of the masses!’
“Shock! The masks fall. The troupe fraternizes. Comrades, drop your weapons! Marvin Gaye stops singing: the promise of a happier tomorrow. El pueblo, unido…The banner flaps in the wind—now it’s taking on all its meaning—the meaning of History. The owner of the hall has disappeared: he probably went to go alert the police. We other bookworms, we watch the scene, eyes bulging. So many things happening! The garde du corps bellows in the face of Bennani before him, spraying him copiously with spit and with his class hatred, and hurls out:
“‘I’m gonna kill you!’
“Bennani runs away, his hands awkwardly hanging onto the lapels of his jacket, like a diligent turkey; he breaks through the door and runs toward the BMW. The bodyguard follows him, light-footed Achilles, with us on his heels. The rest, the murder, the decisive blow, happens in the blink of an eye. Pif, paf…Hissing of the noble fabric of his shirt…Crack of the collector’s item watch smashing on the cobblestone…Bennani lies on the sidewalk, nose smashed, writhing in pain. The bodyguard retreats into the night with a supple step, head sunken into his shoulders. He’s stopped crying, only his haughty sniffling recalls the outbursts from earlier. He turns around and from a distance yells to us in a manly voice, no longer trembling:
“‘Adieu, boys! Bouchta salutes you!’
“Indeed, he said ‘Bouchta.’
“He was no longer ‘the bodyguard’ of anybody.
“He was a free man.”
THE INVENTION OF DRY SWIMMING
At Café de l’Univers, there were six of us, seated, observing the comings and goings of our Casablancan citizens, during a lovely lethargic afternoon in the month of May; but it could have been another place, another day, different people. It could have been Tunisia, April, a crisp morning. Seoul, December, night, all of us lying down. On the other hand, what Hamid told us was truly incredible and unique. He hadn’t said a word for an hour. Taciturn, meditating. Lost in the labyrinth of his neurons. A guy had asked us the way to the cathedral, which had brought about biblical complications. When the dust had settled again and the man had left, Hamid finally shook himself, opened his mouth, and started to talk. He began with a loose characterization of Moroccans:
“We are,” said Hamid (he paused), “we are (he swallowed a sip of coffee), we are (he put down his cup) an inventive people.”
He had put the word in italics. So we examined it closely. Then we demanded, silent, the proof (we, too, know how to use italics). Confronted with this nonverbal wall, this walled-in wall, Hamid had no other alternative than to elaborate.
“I say this because, while you were grappling with that persistent man, I remembered a curious affair that took place in the ’70s near El Jadida. It was all about, or rather it all started with, a memorandum from the Minister of National Education, a memorandum coated in the pompous style we affected in those days—and in classical Arabic if you please, the language of Jahiz and Mutanabbi. This memorandum arrived one day, like a swirling dead leaf, on the desk of all the leaders of the establishment…”
“They all shared one desk?”
Hamid, shrugging his shoulders, ignored Khalid’s interruption.
“…a memorandum informing them that a new discipline had been registered in the program for the sports portion of the baccalaureate: swimming!”
A sip of coffee, inhaled noisily, punctuated this revelation that we sensed was heavy with consequences—but which exactly? Had water in a cage, in cubic meters, ever threatened anyone? (Heavy water, maybe?) Chlorine poisoning? Stings from stray jellyfish? Amoebas? We digressed in aquatic conjectures. Hamid, his molecule of java ingested, continued his story:
“The memorandum concluded thus, threatening: all necessary measures must be taken so that those among the candidates who choose this discipline for the baccalaureate, this new discipline, can do so in the best conditions. With my most sincere regards, etc., etc. Signed: the Minister of National Education. Followed (I imagine) by a moment of astonishment. Then the leaders of the establishment held their heads in their hands…”
“…in their one office?”
“…held their heads in their hands (at least, I assume, because I wasn’t there), and a single roar ascended into the untroubled azure of the peaceful El Jadida skies: WHAT?”
Ali felt impelled to contribute his grain of salt to the affair. He protested:
“Hang on! It would amaze me if we were able to roar the word ‘what,’ which is, by the way, a pronoun. At best we might cackle or caw pronouncing it.”
Jamal:
“Or squeal it. We can squeal ‘what.’”
Hamid shook his head.
“Imbeciles. We can roar all the words of the dictionary. We can snarl them, bray them. It’s all in the intonation, the timbre, the breath.”
“Tra-la-la, pee-pee, hip-hop—there are plenty of words we can’t roar. Let alone snarl or bray.”
Nagib snapped his fingers, as if he had resolved a particularly difficult enigma.
“I understand now why lions have such a limited vocabulary: they can roar essentially nothing. That said, I don’t really know when a lion would have the opportunity to use tra-la-la, pee-pee, or hip-hop in a conversation. At night, in the savannah.”
Hamid put an end to these flights of fancy by loudly striking the table.
“Shut up, all of you! This is my story, let me tell it or I’ll keep quiet and never open my mouth again!”
“Oh my…Look how mad he’s getting…Go on, tell us, tell us.”
Hamid started up his story again:
“If the leaders of the establishment took their heads in their hands as one man, if they roared WHAT? as one wild beast, it was because they had immediately seen the problem, ze big problem, which was…”
He interrupted himself to bend down and pet the cat, leaving us to simmer in our curiosity. Then he straightened up and began again, his voice cavernous, his eyes tragic, index finger raised as if he were at last revealing the third secret of Fatima:
“…which was the regrettable, deplorable, but never
theless irrefutable, absence of even the smallest swimming pool in El Jadida!”
Boom! So that was it. We got down to brass tacks concerning the tragedy, the complications, the eleventh dimension. He leaned toward us all, which was a bit of a feat since there were five of us (excluding him), necessitating that he contort himself into the barycenter of a hexagon:
“Nothing! Zilch! No pool! Nada (you can say that again)!”
Nagib furrowed his brow:
“But wait a minute…I vaguely remember those days, I was a kid then, but…Wasn’t there a pool at the campsite run by Madame Muñoz’s husband? I mean her second husband, the Moroccan, what was his name?”
Time stood still as all six of us tried to remember what the devil the name of Madame Muñoz’s (Moroccan) husband was.
“Tarik? Abdelmoula? El Haj? Abdallah? Maati? Miloud? Robio? Driss? Lgouchi? Bouazza? Mohamed? El Ghoul Jr.? Hassan?”
A quarter of an hour went by before we all agreed that we had never known the name of Madame Muñoz’s (Moroccan) husband. We saw him sometimes in her villa; he would water the garden, play with the dog, smoke a cigarette, go in, go out…He was an anonymous type, it seemed, or if he had a name, he never revealed it to us, for his entire essence came down to the fact that he was the (Moroccan) husband of Madame Muñoz, and that sufficed for a name, like all men who merge with an exploit—the man who saw a bear, the man who beat El Gourch in a bicycle race, etc. For Madame Muñoz was beautiful and rich, like all French women, and so tell me how a little guy from El Jadida had managed to replace—in her heart and in her bed—her first husband, who was French and thus handsome and rich? It was an exploit at least as worthy of being recognized as that of the man who beat El Gourch (in a bicycle race).
“Anonymous or not,” resumed Nagib, “that guy managed the campsite, didn’t he? And there was a pool in the campsite, wasn’t there?”
“Yes and no,” responded Ali.
“What do you mean, yes and no? What kind of logic is that?”
“There was a pool, in the guides and on the sign at the city entrance; there was one in rumor, in hearsay, and in memory. But there wasn’t one on the site, where it should have been: it had been filled in by the previous managers, the Révolles, who had had a lot of children and who worried that one of them would fall in.”
