“Around.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Around.”
“Leave us,” Amin told his friends.
The house was less than a block and a half away now.
“Your father kicked you out,” Amin said.
“No.”
“You think that just because I live here, I’m stupid?”
“I didn’t say you were.”
Another thirty meters to go.
“What are you doing here, then?”
“Buying sugar.”
“It’s a long way to come for sugar. He threw you out, didn’the?”
Youssef didn’t answer. He felt his anger sharpen inside him again, taking the form of a blade, ready to strike at his friend.
Ten more meters.
“He threw you out,” Amin said. “I told you those people aren’t like us. I told you. But no, you had to go on pretending you were someone you’re not.” He was close enough that Youssef could smell cigarettes and hashish on his breath. “I told you!”
“Fine, you told me, O Professor,” Youssef said, shooting him a dark look. “Bezza’t. Get over yourself.”
Five meters.
Amin stopped abruptly. “I should have known better,” he yelled, “than to befriend a son of a whore.”
THE WORDS TORTURED Youssef all day. When his mother came home from work, he told her he had a migraine and felt dizzy and nauseous whenever he stood up. He gave her such a look of distress that she did not bother him further. But the next day, she brought him painkillers from the hospital and stood over him as he swallowed the recommended dosage. “Now, why don’t you go out to stretch your legs?” she suggested.
“I don’t feel like going out, a-mmi.”
“You don’t want to go out and see your friends?”
These were words he never thought he would hear from her. Although he savored the irony, he also wondered how much longer he could avoid seeing Amin. The man was probably parading around the neighborhood with his new sidekicks, telling everyone how his joke had sent Youssef running home — what an intolerable thought.
That afternoon, just before dusk, Youssef went to the Oasis. The Party’s building looked better than it had the last time he had been there. Huge flags with the motto THROUGH GOD. WITH GOD. BY GOD hung from the main door, lights outlined the facade, and all the windows were open to let in the cool evening air. Youssef could see young men clustered around the tables in the café. Maati stood guard at the entrance. When he saw Youssef walk up, an expression of shock lit his face. He opened his arms wide. “Long live he who sees you, my brother,” he said. “Where have you been?”
Youssef stuck to the story his mother had told the neighbors: a cousin of hers had helped him find a job at a hotel in Marrakech, but now he had been let go. He was grateful for the hug Maati gave him, for the gruff pats on the back that made him feel that things could still be the way they used to be. He scoured the café, looking for familiar faces: Simo was playing chess with Rachid; Mounir was doing a crossword puzzle; Rachid’s brother was watching a football match; Hatim was reading the paper, holding it with one hand, while with the other he fingered his green prayer beads. And there, at a corner table, was Amin, with his new friends.
“Go in, go in,” Maati said. “Order some tea or coffee. I’ll look for someone to cover for me and I’ll come join you.”
Youssef asked for two glasses of tea at the counter, carrying them to a table at the other end of the café. Before he could sit down, though, Amin cried out, “Look who came here today. He thinks he can come and go as he pleases, like he owns the place, like he’s better than us.”
Youssef turned around and stared Amin down. The others — Simo, Mounir, Rachid, and his brother — looked up, and they all got up to say hello. While they were still exchanging salaams, Amin approached. “What are you doing here?”
“What do you care?” Youssef replied.
“This is our café. You have no business here.”
“What’s going on, my brother?” Simo asked.
“This is a public space,” Youssef said. “I can sit here if I want.”
Amin grabbed Youssef’s table and shook it from right to left, knocking down the glasses. “Get out,” he said. At the sound of the glass breaking, Hatim folded his paper and sat up in his chair. Youssef’s other friends looked confused by the argument.
“Look what you’ve done,” Youssef said, his voice trembling. He pushed the shards of glass away from the edge of the table so they would not fall on the floor, where they might injure someone.
“Get out,” Amin said between his teeth. In his eyes was a determination Youssef had never seen; he looked like a stranger.
Suddenly, Youssef had the horrible feeling that his coming here had been a bad idea. But now that he had provoked the confrontation, he could not walk away from it. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Amin shoved him; Youssef shoved back. Their friends restrained them, but Amin managed to break free and grab Youssef by the collar. Finally, Maati broke through the crowd. “What’s going on here?” He held Amin back. “Leave him alone.”
“Tell him to get out.”
“He’s not going anywhere.”
Amin lunged at Youssef, but Maati grabbed him by the waist and easily pushed him back. “If you can’t control yourself, I’ll have to take you out. Why don’t you just go back to your seat?”
“Son of a whore,” Amin said. The insult was not meant for Maati.
Hatim stood up. “Calm down, Amin. There’s no use for that kind of language.”
“Hadak lehmar,” Amin screamed, “he doesn’t belong here. Tell him, Hatim, tell him.”
Hatim spoke in a steady voice. “I told you there’s no use for that kind of language. Either go back to your table, or leave. We don’t want any trouble here.”
Amin stormed off, followed by his two friends. Youssef took a deep breath of relief, grateful to both Maati and Hatim for having defended him. With a snap of his fingers, Hatim signaled to the waiter to come clean up the mess, and Youssef, still shaking with anger, took his seat at the table. Hatim put a hand on his shoulder. “How have you been? We haven’t seen you here in a while.”
There was something in Hatim’s voice that made it difficult to lie to him, but Youssef had no choice. “I was just staying with my mother’s cousin.”
“I heard you had a job,” Hatim said. “In a hotel?”
Hatim never left this building, it seemed, and yet he, too, had heard the story of the job in Marrakech.
“I did. But I lost my job, so I’m back.”
“Meskiin. Did they tell you why they fired you?”
“No.”
“And you didn’t do anything, did you?”
“No,” Youssef said indignantly. He looked up at Hatim now, ready to defend his record, ready to share the madness of what had happened, but Hatim didn’t appear to be interested in the details. “I can’t tell you how many cases like this I hear about every day,” he said. “The injustice in this country boggles the mind. If people only knew what was happening around them — but they don’t. This country is like a car going down a ravine, and everyone’s asleep in the backseat.” Youssef nodded, his pain having found a home in Hatim’s words.
13. THE TEST
IT WAS JULY. In other parts of Casablanca, jacaranda trees were shedding their purple blossoms, yielding a soft, sweet smell, but here in Hay An Najat, houseflies thrived, growing bigger and bolder. They grazed on piles of trash, competing with sheep and cows for tea grounds, vegetable peels, and empty containers of yogurt. Mosquitoes appeared, and flying ants, and gray moths, and gnats. Meanwhile, men still sold fish at the market, women still worked in the textile factories, and children still stood at street corners.