A Country for Dying

by Abdellah Taïa

  Well then, tell the truth. Say my name. Tell my story. My departure from the country for political reasons. My flight. Tell of your sadness. Your solitude. That will touch them and earn their trust. And they will speak of him. Samih.

  Mama, it’s important that you do this. I need to know what’s happened to him. Is he in good health? Alive? Dead? Hurt? And why did he stop writing to me?

  If his mother tells you that he’s in prison, pray for him and don’t go visit him. If she refuses to talk to you, don’t insist. Try to guess what she wants to tell you, but don’t insist. Like you, she wants to protect what she holds most dear, most dominant in her heart.

  And if a miracle occurs, if Samih is at the house, ask to see him. And when he is before you, look at him, kind, tender, beautiful. In him you will find a bit of me, maybe even a lot of me.

  Tell him simply: “Mojtaba asked me to tell you hello, salam. He hasn’t forgotten you.”

  Is it too much, all of this, for you, Mama? Yes? No? I am far from you and the distance makes me bold. But you are still my mother. You are now more than my mother.

  It was just us two in Iran. We couldn’t count on anyone else.

  Now, you are over there, separated from me, always, forever, a large presence within me.

  I am here, in this empty world, without your prayers and without your anger.

  You have to go see Samih’s family. It will do you good. You will get out. You will walk in the streets. You will have a purpose. A mission. A bus to take. An address to look up. A yellow house to find. You will ring the doorbell. It might be Samih who opens the door for you. He will recognize you. You will recognize him.

  Do it. Complete this step, this visit, Mama. Don’t cry. No matter what happens, don’t cry. Just close your eyes.

  Go back to the house. To our home. It will still be daylight. You’ll have to close all the blinds and draw all the curtains. You’ll know where to go. To the center of our house. I will be there. I will be there. I am with you. No matter what happens after the visit to see Samih.

  Allah cannot belong only to them. Zahira, the woman in Paris, knows him better than them. For me, because she believes in him, she will go to paradise after her death. Like you, Mama. With you. Samih and I: probably not. But that’s okay. What matters: this note that I am writing to you from my own darkness.

  You are not here before me. But I see you. I am not there, near you. But you see me? Right? Right?

  See you soon, Mama. Very soon. You know where to write to me from now on. The secret address in Paris.

  See you soon, Zahira. From the bottom of my heart, I say to you again: thank you, thank you, thank you.

  We’ll find each other again. All of us. One day. I am sure of it.

  I’m sending tender kisses to you both . . .

  Mojtaba

  Paris, August 2010

  3. May She Burn

  She must die.

  It’s her destiny. That’s the way it is. Useless to resist. It’s stronger than all of us.

  I am in your dream, Zahira. You can’t do anything. I’ve taken control of everything in you. Do you hear me? I am in your head. In your night. Whether you like it or not, the race has begun. I can’t stop anymore. Like so many others before me, I have received the order. Now I must execute it. I am in full pursuit. I’ll admit that I didn’t expect it at all. I didn’t know that Masters and jinns were interested in men, too. They possess me now.

  A force compels me. I’ve left everything. I walk. I run. I fly. Towards you.

  The mektoub will be fulfilled, Zahira. Your mektoub.

  You thought you had fled our world, our Morocco and its routine violence. You thought you were free forevermore. Far from all judgment, rid of us. Like your father’s sister, Zineb, master of yourself. That you could leave and never come back. Zahira master of yourself. You thought you were capable of building the foundation of a new world somewhere else. Far from us. Far from our eyes.

  You are who you are. Zahira, daughter of Salé, even in Paris. Sooner or later you’ll have to come back to us. Dead or alive. From the beginning, your flight was cursed. Your aunt Zineb might have managed to forge another destiny for herself, to completely forget her origins, the voices of her childhood. Not you. You hear me? Not you. You are not Zineb. You will not be a legend like Zineb. No. No.

  I had stopped thinking about you. I had almost completely forgotten our past. Your brothers came to see me twice a year. They made sure I was doing good work for you all, for you. Guard and tend to the land, your acres in Tadla, at the foot of the Atlas Mountains.

  Your lands. The void. Two mountains over there. The sky that keeps on expanding. My shed. That was the scenery of my life after you.

  I have to be here. Always here. Faithful guardian. Absolutely not leave this land. Surveying the threat that will never arrive. Today I know. Here. In the countryside, its heavy sadness and its routine crime. Here. The terrifying world and me. Alone. The wind that passes, blows without ever growing tired.

  I’ve always done my work well. I bury my salary, two thousand dirhams per month, beneath my shed. Under me. The workers from a nearby factory would bring me something to eat every week. I paid them what was owed. They didn’t speak.

  One day, exactly one week ago, one of them said:

  “Zahira is a whore.”

  Was he talking about you?

  “Zahira, the girl you knew a long time ago, became a whore in France. In Paris.”

  Was he really serious?

  “It’s Zahira who pays for all of this here . . . And for you, too . . . She’s the one who bought the land . . . Her parents got out of poverty thanks to her, thanks to her haram money . . . Even your salary . . .”

  Silence. He lowered his eyes.

  “Apparently your salary, she’s the one who sends it every month, through Western Union.”

  I lowered my eyes. When I looked up again, the worker was gone. Had he really come to see me? Had he really said what he’d said? I was dreaming. Yes? No?

  She must die.

  It’s her destiny. It is what it is.

  I left the land, the shed.

  I went to the souk. I searched for the worker for a long time, an entire day. I finally found him in the makeshift bar of the souk. He was drunk. But I needed to know the truth. It was the right time. So I slapped him, shoved him, knocked him to the ground. I threw myself on top of him. And I stared at him hatefully straight in the eyes. He admitted everything, a second time, in front of everyone:

  “Yes, she’s a whore, your Zahira. She opens her legs for infidels from morning to night. What she earns is what you earn. Sinful money . . .”

  And he burst into laughter.

  “Do you still want to marry her, Allal? Make her the mother of your children?”

  That old dream had vanished from my heart a long time ago. Zahira no longer existed in me. Doesn’t exist. Can no longer exist.

  I broke two empty bottles of wine on the worker’s head. He lost consciousness. His friends took care of him.

  I got up. I left the souk. No one tried to stop me.

  I returned to my shed. Far from everything, once again. I didn’t sleep for three nights. At the beginning of the fourth night, I received my orders.

  I saw them and didn’t see them. But they were there, the Masters, in the darkness of my heart. They told me what to do. I am thrilled to obey. Everything must end. I have to see it through.

  How could you do this to me, Zahira? Forget me completely and, years later, once more humiliate me, crush me, turn me into a faceless man? From far in the past, you returned to destroy what remained of my dignity. From over there, from the land of the French, you showed me your unabashed contempt once more. Your second and mortal vengeance.

  For all those years, while everything in me was slowly forgetting you, you were th
e one paying me, without my knowledge. And even the land I was surviving off of, it belonged to you.

  No. No. No. No. No! I cannot accept that. I don’t want to fall all over again. I don’t want your love or your pity, and even less your dirty money that you make with infidels.

  I don’t want to go back. To before you became a whore. Face your parents, who lowered their eyes rather than answer me.

  They said nothing. Nothing.

  “I want to marry Zahira. I want to make her my wife before Allah and his prophet Mohammed. I am in love with her. I think she loves me, too. I’m a nice man. As a mason, I earn a good living. I can rent and furnish an apartment not far from your house, for her and me.”

  Nothing. No response. I didn’t let myself be discouraged. I fought to the end.

  “She is your daughter. I will not steal her. I am a good person. I can work hard. I’m not afraid of hard work. I am a branch cut from a tree. I don’t have a family. I have no one in the world. Zahira will be my world. Everything, absolutely everything, for me.”

  Nothing. Still nothing. And despair set in slowly.

  Your mother finally looked up. Without saying a single word, she locked eyes with me. That told me everything.

  Your father was no longer with us. He was leaving. He was slowly dying. Everyone in the neighborhood knew that he was very ill.

  Finally, your mother gave me her categorical refusal:

  “Go to the mirror, Allal, and look at yourself. You see who you are. Do you see? Do you understand? Zahira will never be yours. Not in this world, anyway.”

  Hiding in the kitchen, you heard everything, I know it, Zahira. Your mother, heartless, condemned me. Cut off my head and my feet.

  You did nothing. You didn’t cry. You didn’t yell. You didn’t even try to send me a discreet signal. Nothing. The void.

  Already we weren’t living in the same world anymore.

  Later, I stood in front of the mirror. I looked, for a very long time. I saw what I am despite myself.

  I am black. Moroccan and black. Moroccan, poor, and black.

  You, you and your family, were Moroccans, poor, and not black.

  Zahira must die.

  It’s her destiny. It is what it is.

  I agree with that sentence. Death for her, too! Death by my own hand!

  I am in full pursuit, Zahira. I will find you again easily in your Paris. There’s no use hiding. Do you hear me? I am still in your head. I do what I want. I have the power now. They gave it to me.

  You ask yourself: Who are they?

  Don’t play games, Zahira. You know them as well as I do. Your invisible Masters. Your jinns. They’re mine now. I spent my whole life avoiding them, mollifying them. I didn’t want to be possessed. I didn’t want that. They conquered everything in my body, my heart, and my spirit.

  I see through them. I travel through them. I’ll have my vengeance thanks to them.

  No pity for you, Zahira. I’ll see this through. A man’s life must have purpose. I’ve found mine.

  For an entire year, you said to me over and over: “I love you, khouya Allal. You are my brother and my beloved. I love you. I love you. Take me . . . Take me far from here, from our sad reality . . . Take us . . .”

  No one had ever said to me what you said to me. No one had ever so closely linked me to their dream of forever.

  “I am yours, Allal, with or without their blessing. Take my hand. You have already stolen my heart. Take my right eye. My left leg. My thick lips. My overly large feet. Take everything. Everything. I am no longer me. I am yours. I am you. You, Allal, my love.”

  Why, Zahira? Why did you say all that to me? Why did you fill my head with those sweet, lofty words, straight out of Egyptian movies? Why?

  Why, like a lamb that belonged to you, did you brand me for life? Who, now that you’re gone, will help me navigate this narrow-minded world, leave it behind with no regrets? Who? How will I fly up high where it’s beautiful, with you, kiss your wild and pure heart? Did you think of me, in an uncertain future, without your body to set me on fire?

  Are you asleep, Zahira? Wake up. Wake up, Zahira, and tell me. Wake up and answer my questions. I’m giving you a chance to defend yourself. Go on! Speak! Explain yourself!

  In front of the mirror, after the rejection from your mother, I repeated your words of love to hurt them, to hate them, to destroy them, to dishonor them.

  Impossible.

  I was screwed. Condemned to a life of suffering. Alone in suffering. Wretched despite myself. Over time I decided to remain in that state. In this cruel world, I had nowhere to go.

  I didn’t know Morocco. Your mother’s eyes revealed its reality to me. The hatred. Profound. Blatant. Everywhere. Between everyone.

  I’m nothing but a slave, is that it? A negro. An azzi bambala. The colored. The Touargui. An invisible. A less-than-a-man. Eternal servant. Eternal reject. I had no family. I thought I would belong to yours. To you. More or less. But, of course, there are lines one cannot cross. Even among the poorest of the poor, there are boundaries.

  You are black. Black. BLACK. Don’t ever forget it!

  I so wish I had had the courage to pick myself up and spit in your mother’s face. Throw that hatred and wretchedness right back at her, uncompromisingly and with no regret.

  I wish I had cried out your name.

  “Zahira! Zahira! Zahira, where are you? Come! Come save me! I’m sinking. I’m dying. They’re killing me. Come. I don’t want to be alone. Keep living alone. Zahira, my love! Zahira, my sister and my little girl! Zahira, my direction, my path! Zahira, my quibla! Zahira, my life and my end! All my most beautiful memories.”

  “I was born at night, you’re right, little Zahira. How did you know? I was born the color of coal but I’m not bad, no. No. I was born far away.”

  “Where?”

  “I’ll never know.”

  That was our first conversation, Zahira. Our eyes met. I understood immediately. You understood, too, I know.

  You were barely twelve years old. I was twenty-five.

  We had to wait. Five years.

  I never had any doubt. I knew nothing about you, about what was happening to you, about what was going on in your heart, your head. But you came. You didn’t forget me. You sought me out. You knew where to find me. You always ended up finding me. There were many construction sites at the time in Salé. I worked a great deal. And I earned a good life as a mason.

  You would come and you would speak tenderly.

  “I brought you crêpes with fermented butter. Do you like those, Allal?”

  “I bought half a pound of mandarins for you, my brother Allal. Don’t tell me you don’t like this fruit.”

  “On my way back home, I passed a man selling candy apples. He gave me two but he only made me pay for one. It’s for you, the second one. Take it, Allal . . . Take it, my brother . . .”

  “Today my mother made an incredibly delicious dish with chickpeas and cow feet. You have to taste it, Allal. It’s to die for. You’ll see. I stole this piece for you. Go on, eat it! Eat it and tell me what you think.”

  “The bread is still hot, it’s from the communal oven, Allal. I cut this piece and put a bit of olive oil on it. It’s all we have these days at the house. It’s not much. Do you want some? Take it. It’ll give you some strength . . . Take it . . .”

  Your mother is not a mother. Your heart, Zahira, though tender and generous, must possess some of that woman’s hardness, her maliciousness. Her intransigence.

  She scares me, your mother. She transforms men into statues, into sand, and she stomps all over them.

  That day, faced with her death stare and her rejection when I asked for your hand, I was made to feel that I should never have been born.

  I had to leave. Distance myself from your mother’s anathema.

 
I fled.

  Where to escape to when you know only one city in Morocco, Salé, only one river, the Bou Regreg, only one sea, the Atlantic Ocean?

  Where to go to die a little bit more?

  I left our neighborhood. Our Building 15. I escaped to the countryside. I crossed cities and medinas without ever stopping. Rabat. Temara. Mohammedia. Casablanca. Settat. Khouribga. El Ksiba. Souk Lakhmis.

  I distanced myself from you as much as possible. I didn’t want to recognize the air of the sea we had breathed together. I wanted to destroy the taste of life in me. Abandon myself to the wretchedness spreading everywhere.

  Opposite the Atlas Mountains, I stopped. Not far from a city, Beni Mellal. But in the solitude of the countryside. Tadla.

  That’s where I let the years go by.

  Oblivion exists. I sincerely wanted to believe that.

  Your love had left. I don’t know where it went.

  My love: I smothered it with my own hands, night after night.

  I went from being a mason to being a farmhand.

  The Black Man. That’s what they called me over there. I answered to it each time. What was the point of resisting? Might as well enter into that other skin. That negation.

  “This life is only one life. Others will follow.”

  It was you, Zahira, who said that to me one day. Those obscure words.

  I came to understand them and apply them in Tadla. In the gradual oblivion of you. It was only the first life, I know that now.

  I resigned myself. Elsewhere, I invented another hope.

  One day, we will see each other again.

  You’re asleep, Zahira. You can’t do anything. Destiny is on my side this time.

  I know what I have to do.

  You are in Paris, in France, in Europe. I am in Tadla, in Morocco, in Africa. Cities, seas, rivers, countries separate us.

  Tonight, the borders no longer exist. I won’t need a visa. I am beyond that now.

  I’ve been preparing everything for a week. The big knife. Not Aïd el-Kebir’s knife. An even bigger one. Two bunches of mint that I’ve dried. Two glasses of tea. Two pomegranates: your favorite fruit.