The doctor decided to admit Malika, who was put in a room with other patients. He gave a prescription to Malika’s sister, explaining to her that the drugs were powerful, but unfortunately, rather expensive. ‘I’ll manage,’ she replied. She’d just realized that Malika was gravely ill. Learning in the pharmacy that the medicine would cost over a thousand dirhams, she immediately pulled off one of her gold bracelets and ran to sell it to Hassan, the jeweler on the rue Siaghine. Besides the medicine, she bought some nougat, which her little sister adored. Back in the hospital room, the male nurse, named Bargach, hinted that he might be able to take good care of Malika, so her sister gave him a hundred dirhams. He then advised her above all not to leave the bag of medicines sitting on the bedside table.
‘Here they steal everything,’ he warned her. ‘It’s better to bring her each day’s pills and keep the rest at home. What she’s taking are antibiotics imported from France, they’re costly, so they’re much sought after by hospital employees. Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on things, and the child will be cured — Insha’Allah, God willing — and bloom like a flower, because the antibiotics, they’re very strong and very expensive, and the more expensive they are the better they work, that’s normal, right? Aspirin, for example, doesn’t cost much and, well, it cures hardly anything. I’ll also give her a double serving of soup. She’s okay, this little girl, I’ll watch over her, you can go home without worrying; the doctor’s a good man, he’ll take fine care of her.’
Malika didn’t know how to dry her tears — it was fear welling up in her eyes and coursing down her cheeks. She looked around: everyone was suffering, in silence. When a doctor went by, heads would abruptly shoot up in a single instant and call for help.
Malika was coughing less but could not manage to fall asleep. She kept her eyes open and was convinced that death was stalking her out in the corridor or had perhaps even entered the room already to find a candidate for the great departure. Malika held her nose; the smell of death was now everywhere. Yes, she thought, death has a smelclass="underline" bitter, pernicious, something between the odours of pus and mold, a summer smell smothered by the dankness of winter, a smell with a colour, a kind of pale yellow turning grey, a smell that weighs on the body. Now Malika suspected that death had carried off the old woman in the neighbouring bed. She wasn’t breathing. No matter how closely Malika studied her chest, nothing moved anymore. She really was dead. Malika reached over to touch the old lady’s forehead; it was cold, and her mouth was hanging open. Then Malika cried out. Some male nurses arrived with a stretcher, in no hurry, used to the fact that when someone cried out suddenly in the night, it was because a person had just died. Making noise and joking around as if they were carrying away some damaged merchandise, the two stretcher bearers went off to the morgue. Malika was shivering. Death had touched her with its icy breath, and she imagined that poor woman lying in the refrigerated room. ‘Now that she’s on the other side, at least she won’t feel the cold anymore. And tomorrow her family will finally be here, gathered around her in tears.’ How could anyone sleep, with death on the prowl? Malika still felt its presence, betrayed by that tell-tale odour. She began to drift…If only I were in France, I wouldn’t be in a hospital — simply because I wouldn’t be sick, because I wouldn’t have been working in a freezing factory, I wouldn’t have caught this lung disease, I wouldn’t be enduring this nauseating stink of death that’s keeping me from closing my eyes … which might make death think I’d stopped breathing and sweep me away as well! Death sometimes makes mistakes, awful ones, but death won’t get me, not here or anywhere else. I should have left, I should have held on to Azel’s hand and never let go, he’s handsome and so nice, he would never have abandoned me. Oh, Azel, where are you now? Why aren’t you coming to take me away across the water? I should have agreed to get into that car full of sleeping children, but I didn’t want to distress my parents, they would have looked for me everywhere; my mother would have gone mad, so I refused, and yet it was easy: the man had a passport with photos of six children, he was leaving at night, and the children were sleeping, so after a glance into the backseat the customs officer would stamp the passport. I was told that story, several times. The man came from northern Italy. He would take the children to another Moroccan, who’d put them to work in the street. They’d promised me that I’d be working for a family while I continued going to school. I was tempted: learning Italian, seeing some of the world, but I could not leave my parents, I didn’t even mention that plan to them, why worry them? — especially my mother, but I’m sorry now, I should have gone off on the adventure… My mother told me the other day that Azz El Arab’s sister has gone to Spain; even her mother, it seems, is about to go rejoin her son and daughter, all because a rich man wanted to help them. They’re so lucky! If only …
The drugs were beginning to have an effect; Malika was sleeping now, and dreaming. She is well again, tall and beautiful, wearing a long blue dress, walking slowly along a red carpet spread out for the occasion. Other women as nicely dressed as she is are walking beside her, then past her; when they reach the end of the carpet, they vanish as if they’d plunged over a steep cliff. Malika doesn’t want to disappear, she slows down, looking for someone to hold her hand. Before she reaches the end of her path, a man clothed all in white holds out his arms to her, then takes her hand to lead her onto a podium where a very long black car is waiting. That’s when she recognizes the doctor who took care of her. His expression has changed: he seems happy, at peace. The hold of an immense ocean liner is open. The limousine is parked halfway inside the opening. Malika lets herself be led along. The doctor smiles and talks to her, but as in a silent film, she can’t hear what he’s saying. She is now sitting in the limousine, which glides slowly into the depths of the hold, where other limousines are parked, all lined up with precision. She feels a slight sensation of motion; then, perfect calm. The ship is moving noiselessly across the sea. The doctor is gone. That’s when she recognizes, sitting next to her, the dead old lady. Malika screams but no sound comes out. She tears her dress. The old woman smiles, showing her toothless mouth. Instead of eyes she has small black holes. The more she smiles, the more Malika screams. The ship leaves the port of Tangier. It disappears into the night. Now the old lady has stopped smiling. Malika has stopped screaming. It is in eternal silence that she quits the country. She has finally left. Forever.
27. Kenza
KENZA LOOKED in the mirror and for the first time found herself beautiful. She was happy. Just for fun she hid her hair in a hideous scarf and imitated a Muslim woman in a veil. That’s their freedom, she thought, and it’s no one’s business but theirs. Me, my freedom is to love a man who pleases me in every way and makes me happy. What she liked best about Nâzim were his pale, almost green eyes, his long, strong hands, his olive skin, and his smile. When she took a bath, childhood memories began washing over her… She could hear her cries of joy the day her father gave her a bike to go to school; she’d been the only girl in the neighbourhood who had one. And then she looked carefully at her body, stroking her belly, feeling the weight of her breasts. In the end she found herself quite desirable.