His destination on that day was Bab Ftouh, and he set off at break-neck speed. Namouss got there without a minute to spare. Dakhcha, a muscular man whose face had been ravaged by the pox, was just about to close the doors. Before letting the latecomer in, Dakhcha warned him he would have trouble finding a place. He was right, the movie theater was at full capacity. There was no hope of finding a seat. Namouss was forced to make do with the benches right at the front, which were almost on top of the screen. Even there, he had to haggle with the children already tightly squeezed into a tiny space for a sliver of bench barely large enough for one of his buttocks. For better or worse, he managed to wedge himself in. Then later he’d maneuver himself to create a bit more space. An opportune moment came when the cinema’s manager walked in and was welcomed by a roar of applause and cheers.
“Long live Bel Mokhtar!” the spectators shouted.
Some of the people next to Namouss carelessly stood up to better express their enthusiasm, allowing him to nonchalantly make his move. Mr. Bel Mokhtar got up on the stage. He called for silence and launched into a speech.
“Gentlemen, you’re only going to hear good news. You will love this week’s film. We had it sent from America. It features great actors. No idle chatter in this one, only action, and plenty of it. A hundred fists and two hundred gunshots — with both revolvers and rifles — and seven kisses. Have no fear, laâribi is going to face great dangers, but he will escape unscathed. At the end, he will marry l-bent who stood loyally by him through all his challenges. Next week’s film, which you will see a trailer of, will also be to your liking. Don’t worry. The same hero will return to take you on new adventures. He will marry a new heroine since the last one, poor thing — may God protect her soul — died in an accident. One last thing: Please remain calm should the reel snap or catch fire. We’ll fix it right away. I don’t want any mayhem, otherwise we’ll cut the film short. There you have it, I’ll leave you to it and see you next time.”
More cheering followed the end of the speech. Before long, the lights went out. Pathé’s robust rooster appeared on the screen and sounded its triumphant cock-a-doodle-doo.
“May God cut your throat!” one of the spectators cried at the top of his lungs.
Another spectator took the joking further and belched, emitting a stupendous burp, letting everyone know — all messages were coded — how he would have loved to feast on such a fleshy-looking bird.
The images that followed made the audience shut their beaks. The magic of the incomprehensible. They spoke of troubles in faraway lands: a flawlessly choreographed military parade, a grand dame baptizing the hull of a ship with a bottle, important men shaking hands, a factory where machines had replaced workers, a castle ballroom where a dance was being held, an ancient street where a blind man was playing the accordion. The rooster then crowed again before moving on to local news, where the images became more familiar. The audience loosened up and reacted to the images ad hoc. The appearance of a fellow Moroccan astride a donkey that was trotting along in the open countryside caused an outburst of hilarity.
“Cha!” someone shouted at the donkey.
“Rra!” another shouted.
“Tikouk, tikouk!” cried a third with a straight face, convinced that he would be able to startle the beast of burden.
Snap! It rolled to another scene. The donkey driver was now in a room, bare-chested. A French doctor was examining him. He made him open his mouth, pressed down on his biceps, turned him this way and that, and then finally swabbed his forearm. Snap-snap! A ceremony taking place in front of a caid’s tent. An officer heavily decked out in insignias and with a kepi on his head was pinning a medal to an official sporting a djellaba and a burnous. The voice-over specified that the Moroccan man in question was a close friend of France.
“Boo! Boo!” resounded through the room, then followed by a “Hush!”
Unable to hold it in any longer, some foolhardy loudmouth broke the silence and shouted, “Long live independence!”
The audience held its breath.
The next reel brought some much-needed relief before sparking allout jubilation. Could it be? Fez’s municipal stadium came into view followed by a few highlights from the match between MAS and Roches Noires. The reel focused primarily on the goal scored by the visitors and accorded only five seconds to Couscous’s equalizer. The whole room broke into the MAS chant to celebrate his feat:
We’re going to the stadium
Oh champions of ours
Pass us the ball
Don’t forget about us. .
The trailer advertising the following week’s film restored a tenuous calm. Then came the long-awaited moment. The opening credits rolled, the atmosphere began to heat up. Thanks to his reputation as a man of the law, Gary Cooper was greeted as a hero. Regardless of his actions, as far as the public was concerned he could do no wrong. They urged him on whether he killed bandits or Indians. They warned him about gunmen lying in ambush that he hadn’t spotted, especially when they would sneak up on him from behind. When he gained the upper hand in a brawl and dealt his adversaries a decisive blow, they started to count the punches: five, six, seven. . Needless to say, they were impatient to see the kisses too. Whistles and sucking sounds could be heard as soon as the heroine made her appearance. And when she hit it off with Gary Cooper and their lips drew close, most either sighed longingly or made quick-witted remarks that were accompanied by heavy slaps on their thighs.
“Drink up, cousin.”
“Oh take pity on me, little mother.”
“It’s God who provides.”
Namouss didn’t join in with these verbal excesses, but neither did they bother him much. He was a prude, though without being conscious of it. He would get swept away by the action, sure, but in between the shooting matches and fistfights, he’d take in other elements offered up quietly during the horseback rides and the dismounts: breathtaking mountains and rivers, the chiaroscuro sculpting faces at a campsite, and — why not? — the feelings that emerged, knotting and unknotting as the characters interacted on an emotional level. How free they were, tied down to nothing but where their thirst for adventure might lead them next. Could he not compare them with Driss, Ghita, and all the others? Which of these characters did he resemble the most? Who should he aspire to be? Not for a single moment did he question the reality of what he saw on the screen. In that sense, he wasn’t that far removed from the others in the audience all around him, who took this theater of shadows at face value.
CHANGE OF SCENE. Destination: the Boujeloud cinema. A different kind of atmosphere, and the venue for a very special occasion: Ghita’s initiation into the world of cinema, which Namouss witnesses in the company of his sister Zhor.
Driss spared no expense this time. He gave his wife enough money to purchase tickets for balcony seats so she could avoid mixing with the clientele on the ground floor, which consisted only of men. Namouss could hardly believe his eyes when the usher led them into an honest-to-God box, where seats upholstered in velour were waiting for them, and where he had an armchair all to himself that was larger and softer than the mattress he slept on. This uncustomary luxury was not without consequences. For a good part of the show, Namouss had to struggle against falling asleep and was only able to follow the narrative — and his mother’s reaction to it — intermittently.
When the lights went out and the first images flashed across the screen, Ghita’s reaction to it made her cinephile son smile.
“Wili, wili!” she exclaimed. “A power cut! We’re off to a good start. Are we going to watch the show in the dark or what? It’s as if we were at the hammam.”