20
The other day, my mother asked me why I never visit my father’s grave. Because I’m just not able to concentrate on a slab of marble. I read and reread the headstone and my thoughts wander. I prefer to carry his memory inside me, and I dream about him often. Better than that, I think about him and realise I’m becoming more and more like him. I have the same little habits, the same moods and, perhaps, the same rage. Like him, I can’t bear insincerity, betrayal, injustice or hypocrisy. ‘Neither can I,’ said my mother. ‘But he went too far. Have you forgotten how he’d lose his temper over nothing, son? Food that was too salty, or a window that didn’t close. I put up with his outbursts, I said nothing, I waited for the storm to blow over. But one time he really went too far. You were there, I felt you protecting me, I felt strong. So I told him what I thought of him and his wretched behaviour. He threatened me, I think he raised his arm to hit me. I ran out of the house like a madwoman, with no djellaba on. I couldn’t stand it any more. I was outside, with no idea where to go. You came, followed by your brother, and took me back to the house. I remember you’d invited a young woman over, a European, and I felt ashamed. I must admit he never hit me. His tongue hurt more than his hands. He couldn’t control his rage or his bitterness. He was unhappy, often jealous of those doing better than him in business. He had a habit of pointing out that such-and-such a millionaire used to be an apprentice in his shop in Fez. I didn’t like that resentment. I hope you won’t take after him in that respect. My blessing and my prayers will protect you from anyone trying to hurt you. But you never know, people are so fickle. The man who embraces you today will stab you in the back tomorrow. God keep us from wicked people! I must pray for you and your brothers. I have a feeling you need it; I can see the shadows prowling around you. But never fear, you’re in God’s hands. He is watching you, in my eyes, in my stomach, in my heart. You’re in my deepest thoughts, the ones that go from my heart to God the Most High, He who guides our steps and keeps wayward souls away from us: people without scruples, those who take advantage of our goodness and our trust, the ones dissatisfied with life, with heaven, with God. Your heart is pure as silk, you have nothing to fear, God will raise you above those whose eyes are full of envy … Oh dear, I haven’t taken my pills. That’s one of Keltum’s tricks. She wants to get rid of me. She told me yesterday that the pharmacy won’t give us credit any more. She has unpaid bills. Can you believe it? The pharmacist can’t do that, Keltum’s just making it up so as not to give me my pills. She’s an ignorant woman. Your father detested ignorance. He said that all evil comes from ignorance. What can we do, my son? You spoke to the pharmacist. That’s good, I knew you would. You know, I complain about Keltum but I couldn’t bear to see her go. She knows that, so she blackmails me. She makes me cry. She puts on her djellaba and tells me she’s leaving. You see how I suffer? She’s the only one who knows which pills I take, the only one who can take me to the bathroom. She washes me, but she’s not gentle. She often shouts and frightens me. But my own daughter refuses to wash me, so I put up with Keltum’s cruelty. Sometimes I say to myself she’s my fourth husband — a tyrant, full of anger, never happy, except when you’re here and you give her extra on top of her wages. Why don’t you move in here, close to me? I’d see you every day and I wouldn’t be afraid of the tricks Keltum plays. Why not come and live in this house? It’s big, you still have your room. Oh yes, I forgot, you’re married and you have children. You live far away. What are your children’s names and how many do you have? Let me guess. Oh forgetting, this devilish forgetting, it’s the enemy, stealing everything from me. It comes just like that and takes my memories — by what right? Go on, you’re educated, why do people forget? So I was telling you your father hadn’t come to see me this week and my little brother won’t stop his singing in the yard, he doesn’t even dare push the door open and come to keep me company. I know his wife’s stopping him. Give me a drink, I’m thirsty, and I have to say my prayers. I’ve already said them? I don’t remember. Did you see me pray? That’s no good, son, so turn off the TV, come and sit beside me and read the Qur’an. You’d rather it was your elder brother, who knows the Qur’an better than you. But you went to the M’sid, the Qur’anic school in Buajarra in Fez. You’ve forgotten? No, you can’t forget the M’sid and Fqih Meftah, the teacher with only one eye, who saw everything … He was very strict, he always had his stick to wake up the ones who fell asleep. You don’t remember Fqih …? What was his name again? Help, I said his name five minutes ago … Fettah … Fellah … Mftuh … Fettuh … F … I saw him yesterday, he brought me a lovely bunch of fresh mint. He’s a good man. What’s his name? He’s going to come by again to give me the coupons, so we can go and get the oil and the flour. Soon the war’ll be over. I hope there won’t be coupons for food … What, you weren’t born in the days of coupons? But of course you were … You were twenty years old and you wanted to marry … What was her name, the girl with the long hair?’
My mother dozed off trying to remember the name of the teacher at the Qur’anic school. She has absences, periods when she’s not there, her eyes half-closed, her mouth open, her head lolling. I don’t like seeing her like that. She’s like a badly assembled object, a thing that doesn’t hold together. She lets herself go, collapses and becomes insignificant … my mother is breathing … I watch her chest rise and fall and I wait.
It reminds me of 1977, when she went into Salé hospital for a cataract operation. She had to lie on her back for thirty days with her eyes bandaged. I spent a lot of time with her. We had to watch out, make sure she didn’t rip off her dressings. My brother would come in the evening, after work. But I was there all the time, of course. I was free, no boss, no children; a writer’s time is his own. I’d talk to her, and she’d tell me family stories, asking me not to write them down, not to name names. At the time, I was writing Moha the Mad, Moha the Wise and I was angry. Morocco had become a police state, colluding with people who claimed not to be involved in politics but were shamelessly lining their pockets, making corruption a way of life. I remember times when, driven by fury, one eye on my sleeping mother, the other on my notebook, I’d be anxiously scribbling away. My mother had no idea what I was writing. She could hear the scratching of pen on paper and would say: ‘Be careful, I’m afraid for you!’ I’d reassure her, then she’d ask whether our neighbours’ eldest son had been found, whether his parents had had any news. His disappearance made her agitated. She put herself in his parents’ shoes and couldn’t understand why a young man who’d done nothing wrong had simply vanished overnight. She didn’t mention the king, or his ministers, but said the police were cruel and heartless. She thought about the neighbours’ son, Miloud, ripped from his family by police in plain clothes. That’s what a police state is: arbitrary punishment, cruelty and brutality. How many mothers have suffered, and doubtless died of grief, because of a police directive to ‘disappear’ a child of theirs, a child who’d demonstrated in favour of justice and democracy! Morocco has known dark years, when all opposition was suppressed — even the most common, nonviolent kind: ideas.