This was how she had met Nabil Amrani, who always spoke with passion, whether it was about music or movies or, especially, politics. His eyes sparkled with curiosity whenever he looked at her. He smiled at her every time she passed him in a corridor, brushed against her when she brought a tray for his wife, asked whether it was true the nuns at the orphanage had chartered a bus to go see Nana Mouskouri in concert in Casablanca.
His wife had never suspected anything, but his mother, Madame Fatema Amrani, had found out and had thrown Rachida out of the house. She had not even given her time to pack her suitcase. Nabil had entered her life and changed it for the worse, but also for the better, for had he not given her Youssef?
Rachida had to start over in a new place. She was no longer Rachida bent Hammou ben Abdeslam ben Abdelkader Ouchak. She was merely Rachida Ouchak, a widow and mother, living in the city, away from the mountains of her childhood, away from the orphanage of her adolescence, away from the mansion of her youth.
The relief of sharing a story she had waited so long to tell was intoxicating. She could not stop, now that she had begun. Her father came from a long line of horsemen. He owned land and was respected in all the villages in the area. To go back to him pregnant would mean the end of him. So she stayed away from him and took her baby to Casablanca, where everyone could start over.
As she spoke, she watched Youssef’s face for hints of his reaction. Would he believe her, or would he, once again, look at her with his heartbreaking skepticism? There was a time in his life when she could read the emotions on his face. Once, when he was eight years old, he had come home, his right hand bleeding, saying that he fell on a rock. She inspected his hand; he had a deep cut, in the shape of a paperclip, and she immediately set about disinfecting it. As she worked, she noticed the way his lips quivered when she pressed him for details, and she knew he was lying. “I told you not to play with the neighbor’s bicycle,” she said sharply. “You fell on the handle, didn’t you?” His eyes widened in terror and he confessed on the spot.
But all that was long ago. He had changed so much in the past three years that she could not claim to know what went on inside his head. She expected he would be angry with her, and she would not blame him if he were. What she feared, though, was that he would accuse her of hiding something — she had lied to him so often in the past — and that he would ignore her pleas to stay away from Maati and from the café. She needed him to believe her. She took a deep breath, and when she released it, she spoke in the language of her childhood, in Tamazight, the words rolling on her tongue like a declaration of love. “Hati lmaaqul aktinigh, aywi, amni.”
At the sound of this new language inside their home, the lines on Youssef’s forehead disappeared. His jaw relaxed. He spoke in a whisper. “It is true, then,” he said.
“It is,” she said, and put her hand on his. “Now do you believe me?”
“Yes.”
“Will you stay away from Maati?”
“Yes.”
All of a sudden, her knees felt weak and she sat down on her bed, across the room from Youssef. It seemed that he was listening to her this time, not just hearing her words and reluctantly speaking his own. But then he lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling, lost in his thoughts.
Youssef had wanted nothing more than the truth; all his quarrels with his mother had been because of it. Now she had delivered it, and as it sank in, he began to see what it might mean. He was an Ouchak from Sefrou on his mother’s side, and an Amrani from Fès on his father’s side. He was half-Berber and half-Arab; he was a man of the mountains, and a man of the city; a man of the people and an aristocrat; a full-blooded Moroccan, with the culture and the history of a thousand years — a rich identity, of which he could be proud.
But this truth was as invisible as air, as fleeting as breath itself. The real truth was what everyone around him saw: he was a slum dweller, the son of a hospital clerk, a man with no illusions about his place in society. Youssef had yearned for a father, and the yearning had led him on a journey to find him. His father had deserted him. His friend Amin had betrayed him. His friend Maati had spied on him. What was left? Who was left?
The only constant in his life was his mother. She had played the role of the widow, when she had never had a husband; the role of an orphan, when all along she had had a father. She had done it for him. She had lied her way through his life, and yet she had also given him the only certainty in it — her love. In the end, she was his only home.
It was an inexpressible relief to find out the whole truth, but suddenly it did not seem to matter as much as it once had. Farid Benaboud’s life hung in the balance, and that was more immediate, and far more critical, than any story Youssef’s mother could tell. Benaboud’s troubles, Youssef thought, began and ended with the truth, too. He had angered government ministers with his articles about the “bonuses” they received for privatizing state companies; he had engaged in a public battle with Parliament members over their corruption and dereliction; he had persistently criticized the Party for taking over the social life of Hay An Najat; he had exposed Hatim’s murky finances. He had written the truth, or at least what he thought was the truth. Now he would pay for it with his life.
Youssef was taken out of his reflections by his mother’s voice. It was best to do nothing, she said. To just stay away from the Party. Stay away from the Oasis. Stay home with her. The police were watching Hatim, and someday very soon they would arrest him for one crime or another. It was important not to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
If the police knew about the assassination of Farid Benaboud, then they would stop it before it happened. For three glorious days, that simple hope numbed Youssef’s guilt at having stayed quiet, and silenced his concern about Farid Benaboud. He watched satellite news channels constantly, expecting to hear news about an arrest. Then the eve of the “operation” came, and nothing had been done. Despite having an informant inside the Party, maybe the police did not know of Hatim’s exact plans, since Hatim had been so discreet. Youssef began to wonder whether anything, or anyone, could save Benaboud.
18. THE DAY OF THE MURDER
THE BOULEVARD WAS HEAVY with traffic. Drivers strained to make their way through the single open lane, while workers in blue uniforms fixed a billboard advertising a music festival. The sound of exasperated car horns abated at the roundabout, where the water fountain ran and where flocks of pigeons came to drink and rest in between their peregrinations. At the top of the street, the Grand Hotel sat, its gigantic glass doors closed, reflecting the rays of the sun. Standing on the pavement across from the building, Youssef was blinded by the bright light.
He had left the house early, quietly closing the door behind him. Moussa had given him the knife and the disguise — a woman’s flowing jellaba and veil — and then taken him downtown by car, dropping him off two blocks from the hotel. Youssef had to walk the rest of the way. Periodically he looked behind him; he was sure Hatim had sent someone to follow him all the way to the door. As he neared the hotel, he watched carefully for signs of the police, for signs that his silence would not cost a man his life.
Now, raising his hand to shield his eyes from the sunlight, he surveyed the scene carefully. Four men were seated in a parked Peugeot. The two in front wore dark sunglasses and turned their heads back, listening to one of their companions in the back. Youssef thought — he hoped — that they were plainclothes officers, but after a few minutes the driver started the engine and eased his car out of the parking spot and onto the street. In another minute they were gone.