By the end of the day, he had sold everything. He went back to Bouchaïb to refill his cart.
That evening, despite being tired, he went to see Zineb at her parents’ place. They liked him. He told Zineb about his day and ate some crepes with her before heading home.
8
In the meantime, a plainclothes police officer visited Mohamed’s mother. He asked her some questions about Mohamed and wanted to know why he didn’t see the unemployed graduates’ group anymore. The poor woman answered as well as she could, with hesitation and apprehension. The police officer handed her a summons according to which her son was to report to the police department that same evening. She started to cry, knowing that the police never brought good news. She thought it best to tell the officer: “My son is not political.” The police officer left without saying anything.
When she gave Mohamed the summons, he looked at it and then stuffed it into his pocket.
“I’ll go in a little while. They’re going to interrogate me. If I don’t go, they’ll come for me, which will be even worse.”
“My son, this visit has raised my blood sugar. I can feel it; my mouth is dry, and I don’t feel well.”
“These people are paid to create problems for us. In all likelihood, that cop comes from a family as poor as ours. But, as you know, the poor don’t like one another.”
9
At the police department, Mohamed waited on a bench for a long time. From time to time he got up and tried to find out why he had been called in. Everyone ignored him. He suspected the summons was intended simply to intimidate him. He had received a similar summons when he first joined the unemployed graduates’ demonstrations. Beside him sat an old man who was clearly impoverished; he didn’t say a word, and seemed about to fall asleep. What could one hold against this man, who was coughing and spitting and who would be better off in a hospital room? Mohamed moved away from him. He was afraid of catching tuberculosis.
There was also a woman wearing a djellaba; she smoked cigarette after cigarette and railed against life.
“I was happy in my village. My God, why did I marry that imbecile who has now abandoned me?”
She called Mohamed to witness:
“I’m a prostitute! I am not ashamed to say it. But someday all this will change, you’ll see. I’ve always had this feeling. It can’t go on…”
Around midnight, a man signaled for Mohamed to follow him.
Identity verification.
Classic interrogation.
The police officer found it intriguing that Mohamed was no longer in touch with his former fellow activists. He wanted to know if the Islamists had approached him.
“No, it was my father’s death that turned my life upside down. I took over his cart, our only means of survival.”
“Yes, I know. How is it going?”
“I’ve barely got started.”
“You know, there are no miracles. There are those who manage and make quite a bit of money, and there are others, the chumps, the losers. It’s up to you to choose.”
It took Mohamed some time to understand the deal the police officer was offering him: become an informer and have a profitable spot or refuse to serve the police and say good-bye to his business.
“Think about it hard. Tomorrow, I’ll meet you at the Independence traffic circle. Now go home.”
Mohamed knew if he showed up the next day at the appointed place, he would have to accept the cop’s proposition.
Early in the morning, he took his cart and headed toward a working-class neighborhood far from the famous traffic circle.
10
His mother’s diabetes was out of control. She needed to go back to the doctor and get a new prescription. Mohamed made some calculations. Not enough money to meet this unexpected expense. He decided to take her to the public hospital. His seventeen-year-old sister went with them. He left them at the entrance and started to sell his produce. He realized that the hospital entrance was an excellent spot. People visiting the hospital bought fruit for the patients. An hour later, two police officers, one of them a woman, appeared before him:
“Your papers.”
He gave them his papers.
“This is not your neighborhood. What are you doing here?”
“I brought my mother to the hospital. She has high blood sugar.”
“Bless you child! It’s good that you brought her here, but you’ll be even more blessed if you clear out. We won’t make you pay a fine this time, but you’ve been warned. Don’t ever come here again. Is that clear?”
“But this is how I earn my living.”
“God’s Earth is vast.”
Mohamed would have liked to answer that God clearly does not like the poor and the Earth is vast, but only for those with means. Yet he told himself, “It isn’t worth making things worse for me. They are capable of arresting me for atheism.”
He was perhaps not an atheist, but since the Islamists were almost everywhere now, he had distanced himself from religion. His father used to say to him, “The believer is destined for sorrow. God tests him, so be patient, my son!”
11
Just when Mohamed was about to leave, a car stopped in front of him. The man, who seemed to be in a rush, asked him to weigh all his fruit and put it all in a big basket that he was holding out. “I want to buy it all. Today is a day of celebration, my son just graduated from high school. Can you believe it? I am going to send him to America, yes sir, to America, because here you can study day and night and then there’s no work, but when you have an American degree, they hire you right away. I am happy. He’s my only son. My daughters don’t count. I can’t get them married, nobody wants them…. Well, hurry up, quick, quick! How much is it? Calculate quickly. If you want I can help you.” He took out his cell phone and started calculating as Mohamed dictated the numbers. “Well, it comes to two hundred and fifty-three rials. Here, three one hundred bills. You deserve it. You are a good guy. It shows.”
Mohamed started pushing his cart toward the wholesale market. He wasn’t going to go to Bouchaïb anymore. He would pay cash.
12
At the end of the afternoon, he put his cart away and went to wait for Zineb at the entrance to her office. Nearby he saw a large number of busy young people. He was stunned by how many ways these people had thought of to make a living: there were vendors of loose American cigarettes; there were people speed-washing cars; some were helping the elderly who have trouble getting around; there were also sellers of hand-drawn postcards and toys made of soda cans; others were selling maps, or photographs of Michael Jackson and Ben Harper. There were acrobats dressed in red, who were performing tricks; there were monkey and parrot trainers; there were vendors of pirated DVDs, with films for all tastes — Indian, the latest American, classic films, Egyptian, and French; there were also storytellers with microphones pinned to their jackets…. Only snake charmers, fortune-tellers, sorcerers, and other swindlers were missing.
Then, suddenly, there was panic. The street vendors all began running — security agents were chasing them. Violently, the police managed to catch two people — a parrot trainer and a DVD seller. Blows, insults. The parrot was screaming. The DVDs lay crushed on the ground. Among them was the movie Spartacus, starring Kirk Douglas. All that remained of the DVD was its sleeve. The two vendors were thrown into a National Security van. Mohamed felt like screaming, but he thought about his mother, about his entire family. He swallowed his anger and told himself, “I have to see Zineb.”