Mother didn’t want me to go with her.
And now you’ve come here to eat?
No.
Come on. You thought I’d gone to the Feddane. I know a little about you, when you come in and go out, you son of a bitch. Tell me. Isn’t that true? Speak up. I don’t feel like your father. Who knows? Maybe somebody else was with your mother. You’re nothing like me. More like her. She spoils you the whole time. You plot together against me. You defend each other. You never listen to what I tell you. Isn’t it true, what I’m saying? Speak up, you damned whelp! You hate me so much you wish I were dead.
I thought to myself: Now you’re beginning to make sense.
You want her all to yourself. She’s the only thing in the world you care about.
That’s true, I thought. You don’t think I’m going to love a dog like you!
I can see the love in her eyes, and in yours too. Anybody’d think you were still sucking her milk.
And you? I thought. I wonder how your mother was with you.
You’ve still got her milk in you. But I’m the one who married her. She’s your mother, yes. But I’m your father. If there’s anybody you should listen to, it’s me. Nobody else, just me! Me alone! You obey me, not her, do you hear?
I hear you perfectly, O Khalifa of Allah on earth, I said without speaking.
But it’s no good talking to you, he went on. Words don’t mean anything. Even when I’m in front of you, you don’t believe I’m here. I want every one of my children to think of me as always in front of him, whether I’m here or not. Do you hear me, damn you?
I hear, O messenger of Allah!
The only thing you’re good for is to bite your mother’s nipples.
I remained present in front of him as he wanted me to.
Tell me. Just why did you come here now?
Mother told me to come home.
Why?
To clean the room.
You’re all alike, you liars. She doesn’t dare to leave you at the stall because you steal the money. She doesn’t take you with her to the market because you eat everything in sight. The vegetable men and the porters down there have told me all about you. They’ve caught you in the act. Filling your pockets with fruit and nuts, and insulting them if they say anything. If only I could find a way to get rid of you once and for all, damn you!
That’s just how I feel, too, I said silently to the maniac.
I wish I knew why I hate you so much, he went on. Now go out to the stall. Don’t let the kids steal from Khemou.
I was trembling as I went back down the stairs. I don’t want to be late to the cinema.
He’s tired. He’s been working very hard with me at the stall. She puts him off. Which is why I do not hate her as I do him.
I tiptoe carefully up to the roof. He is quiet now because he is filling his mouth. He eats like an animal. I tie the rope with which I am going to escape, and look behind me. His ghost is standing there.
Where are you going, damn you? Stay where you are.
Without hesitation I leapt out and caught hold of the thick electric cables that were strung along the street. I heard him yelling. His hands reach out into the emptiness to strangle me. I thought to myself: I knew all along this was going to happen. My intuition didn’t play me false.
You wait, you son of a whore!
Then he was not there. I looked down. It made me a little dizzy.
He’ll go out of the house and try to catch me as I fall, I thought. Then he’ll grind me to a pulp. He’s very bad tonight.
I breathed deeply, shut my eyes, and let myself drop, landing on top of a pile of stones and rubbish. As I ran my foot hit something alive and round.
My head! Who’s that? Grab him! Stop thief! Help!
Everything rolls and slides under my bare feet. I can tell the difference between melons or watermelons and human heads only when I hear someone cry out under my feet.
The night-watchman came towards me. Hey, you! Stop! Come here! The old Spaniard danced about as he shook his club at me. Come here, boy! Come here, damn you!
I turned to the left, hearing the watchman’s whistle. Someone’s ghost was running desperately behind me. Five or six figures moved in the background, gesticulating and pointing. I could hear their faint cries in the quiet street. I slowed down, but I was afraid one of them might take another alley, cut me off, and be standing there ahead of me, waiting. And it might be my accursed father. Again I began to run as fast as I could. I’ll keep running until I fall, I thought. Until I drop like a balloon that’s had a pin stuck into it.
In the cinema I lit a cigarette. From time to time I rubbed my bleeding feet with the tips of my fingers. I imagined my father coming towards me to seize my neck with his two powerful hands. He has become the villain in the film. As if I were breaking a feather between my fingers, I pulled the imaginary trigger. My father dies. The lead is cooling off in his heart and brain. And the blood runs from him as it runs, from the villain on the screen. His legs quiver for the last time. I see my father trembling as my hands tremble when I sit down to eat at his table. The man is dead now. My father is dead. This is the way I’ve always wanted to kill him.
From the cinema I walked to the Feddane and sat down on one of the stone benches. Many of them were occupied by visitors from the country, now asleep. There were also men from other cities who were passing through, and people who merely did not want to sleep at home, like me. Boys, youths and old men were sleeping all over the ground and on the benches like fish stranded on a beach. Every little while another arrived and lay down. He would move about for a bit in the spot he had chosen, getting himself comfortable, and then he would be quiet.
I had seventy-five pesetas on me, and I wanted to hide them. But where?
I folded the notes tightly and, taking care to see that no one was watching, buried them in the dirt behind my bench beside a rose-bush.
I slept. My father was chasing me. I felt a hand moving softly in my pocket, but I did not move. My eyes were half-open. It was a man, much older than I. I’ll let him look, unless he wants to do more than look. That would be another story. I changed my position so he could go through all my pockets. He stopped searching. I waited for him to start again, but he walked away. I catnapped and had reveries for the rest of the night. One dream finishes in Tetuan and another begins in Tangier. Still in Tetuan, but already in Tangier.
7
Already in Tangier, asleep again in a park. I had arrived that evening.
I awoke in a fright. The boy was shaking me by the shoulder and talking to me. Get up! Get up! A raid! The police are coming.
I felt in my back trouser pockets. The sixty pesetas were gone. As we ran, I said: They stole my money.
How much was it?
Sixty pesetas.
We slowed down. You’re lucky, he said.
We were both panting. What do you mean, lucky?
They didn’t rape you. When there are two or three of them, if they don’t find anything on you, they rape you.
What’s sixty pesetas? I thought. My arse is worth a lot more than that.
We were in the neighbourhood of the graveyard at Bou Araqia.
Where are we going?
Follow me and don’t talk. There’s nothing to worry about.
We walked into the world of silence. This was where my little brother Abdelqader had been buried after my father had killed him. When my father dies I’ll go to his grave and piss on it. I’ll make his tomb into a latrine.
We were walking over the graves, and we stopped in front of a walled-in family mausoleum. The boy leapt over the wall.
Jump. What are you waiting for?
I jumped. In a corner lay a pile of flattened cardboard boxes, and he began to spread them out on the ground.
Here’s your place, he told me. Then he made his own spot. I sat down and rested my elbows on my knees. Once he was comfortable, he said: Where are you from?