I’m not superstitious. I write these words and Mother is dominating my thoughts. It’s a Tuesday in December. My mother doesn’t like Tuesdays. She’s always avoided travelling or doing anything important on a Tuesday. I see her in her bedroom, the pale light, the television on. It’s Ramadan, someone’s reading the Qur’an. She summons Keltum just to sit with her. She complains because she thinks I’ve forgotten her. My last phone call was three days ago. I don’t like phoning every day. I’m trying not to let her get used to a daily call, but she forgets and can’t remember when I last spoke to her. She mixes up the days just as she sometimes thinks I’m someone else. That no longer upsets me. I understand her confusion, her turmoil, and I prefer not to say anything, not to point out that she’s raving. One day my sister decided to test her memory, making her recall the names of all her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It was unkind of her to subject my mother to an interrogation like that. I find it hard to remember names too. I don’t forget faces, but I don’t always retain the names of people I meet. I understand how you can get them muddled up and not remember each person’s name. It’s not necessarily a sign of madness or even senility.
I can picture Mother young and beautiful on the sunny terrace of our first house in Tangier, overlooking the sea. She gazes at the houses built into the cliffside. She comments that there are more and more of them and says: ‘Poor things, they live in terrible conditions!’ She’s plumpish, her large bosom and short stature make her look bigger. She doesn’t like the east wind that blows in from the Moroccan coast. In Fez there wasn’t any wind! She’s convinced the wind has always spared her native city. The east wind is Tangier’s greatest fury, it sweeps away everything in its path, drives out the mosquitoes, blows away foul smells and wards off the evil eye. It makes people jittery and causes headaches. She’s afraid of it because she expects to be faced with my father’s bad temper. ‘No, son, there was no wind in Fez, or dust, or people getting angry because of bad weather. Here in Tangier everything’s different. You remember, my little brother used to say Tangier was the land of the Christians. He thought Morocco was no longer ours, but already belonged to the French. I felt like a foreigner — that’s how it was, I didn’t have any friends or relatives in Tangier. I missed Fez, I missed my family, I missed Moulay Idriss’s mausoleum, and besides, Tangier was the city that took everything from me — my youth, my family — and gave me nothing back. I was only ever unhappy there: your father was miserable all the time, his brother wasn’t kind to him. Anyway, they’re all dead, God have mercy upon them. I put up with a lot, I held my tongue, my mother brought me up well. Oh, I must call her. Mother must be all alone in the country … what country? Remind me, I saw her last week, she looked radiant. I think she’s in the cemetery in Fez, but she came to see me — for someone who doesn’t like Tangier … Remind me, where is she? Can you see her? Speak to her, tell her I’m tired, and if the train leaves, I’ll join her. There’s no train? I know there’s no train, or boat, but we must all go to meet the luminous face of our Prophet. I’ll say my prayer again. I can’t stop thinking about those first days in Tangier. I have to bring out the memories so I can be rid of them. You were small, I can’t remember, we were living behind your father’s shop — well, your uncle had found a shop to help your father out, but behind it was a house. It was dark — you must remember, because you often cried in the night, you had nightmares. That house wore me out. At the time, Tangier belonged to the Christians. I never could count in pesetas. The Rif women counted in rials, but I couldn’t work out the price of things, and I couldn’t understand why no one used Fez money.’
No, my mother isn’t dead. I just need to call her and I’ll hear her say: ‘Son, light of my eyes, beat of my heart, the one who’s always looked after me, you’ve never abandoned or forgotten me, you’ve always rescued me, what would I be without you? I don’t think I’d still be here if you weren’t with me, your hand outstretched, generous, ready to do anything to carry me to the mountain top, making sure I don’t suffer and especially that I don’t go without. You, my son, God will reward you as you deserve, I know your kindness is your fortune …’
22
I arrive in Tangier a few days before the end of Ramadan. It’s December. There are floods in Andalusia and rain in Tangier. Fasting makes people tetchy, aggressive even, especially towards late afternoon.
Mother is refusing to eat and, worse, won’t take her medicine. She says it’s Ramadan; between sunrise and sunset, only the infidels dare eat. Keltum reminds her she’s ill and God forgives the sick if they don’t fast. Mother protests and pushes away her food. An excess of zeal or a new contrariness? Has she simply forgotten she’s ill, just as she’s forgotten that her parents, her brothers and her husband are all dead?
She greets my arrival without much enthusiasm. I’m a stranger, or one of her brothers she’s fallen out with. She hasn’t recognised me. I’m a little disappointed, but I don’t complain, there’s no point. I ask her who I am. ‘You’re Aziz, of course, you come to see me every other day, your wife’s always ill, your children got married without telling you, you don’t go to the shop any more, you spend all your time at home with your wife. You must get very bored …’
Then she carries on tearfully: ‘You know your aunt, my sister, my little sister, she died. She came to see me last week, she was so well, she was talking and laughing, making me laugh. She died in her sleep, you know. She had supper, just a light soup, said her prayers and then death came and carried her off. It’s odd, she’s still young. I can see her right there, facing me. She’s looking straight at me, as if she’s about to speak to me. It’s not fair, but it’s God’s will …’
I almost believed her. After all, it was plausible. She spoke with conviction. Keltum signals to me that she’s delirious. I phone my aunt in Fez and ask her to call my mother, to reassure her, tell her she’s still alive and well. My aunt bursts out laughing and promises to call straight away.
The house is shrouded in sadness. It used to be a beautiful home surrounded by a little garden. It wasn’t traditional but had an old-fashioned charm, there was something soothing about it. My parents had just left a house that overlooked the sea, on the Marshan clifftop. My mother didn’t like it because of the relentless east wind, and the neighbourhood. Here, they were shielded. My father said it was solid, and he was proud that he’d bought it from the Rabbi of Tangier.
It was at the end of a cul-de-sac, opposite a little house where an elderly French couple lived. My mother liked them because they were quiet and, most importantly, they didn’t leave their rubbish by her door. She’d say hello to them in French, laughing, and occasionally took them a plate of cakes.
Over the years, cracks appeared in the walls, the paint peeled, the plumbing broke down, the timber doors and windows warped: the house wasn’t being maintained. My father couldn’t afford to carry out all the repairs. It upset my mother. The house symbolised the state of their health: everything slowly falling apart and nothing they could do about it. One day, running a high fever, my father even came to identify with the house: ‘Me too, I’m finished, I’ve got cracks everywhere, my pipes are blocked, my head’s leaking, my legs barely hold me up. I refuse to walk with a stick, my eyesight’s getting worse and worse, which suits me fine — I don’t see the things that bother me. It’s all deserting me, I’m an abandoned house, an empty house without a roof, with no doors. I have nightmares. If I’d had money, I’d have repaired everything, restored everything, I’d have turned this house into a small palace. But I’m no king, just an old man crumbling under the weight of his responsibilities, crushed by ruthless time. I’m a house that’s falling to bits … Nothing works, the phone’s out of order, it’s a relic from the time of the Spanish, the wires constantly need reconnecting, they’re so old you can’t buy any more from Madani, the general store that sells everything. That just shows how time has eroded the things in this house, which is dying with me …’