Displaying a remarkable aptitude for pedagogy, Zhor shed some light on the situation.
“They have to switch the lights off at the cinema, Mother, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to see the images.”
“Oh good, I didn’t know that. But the dark makes my heart race, sweetheart.”
“Just be patient, dear Mother. Look, the film is starting. Here’s Farid al-Trash.”
“Is that him? That’s not how I imagined him. He has a crooked mouth. And he’s cross-eyed, too. You see that?”
“Stop it! He has a golden voice. Just wait until he starts to sing, then you’ll see.”
“What’s he waiting for then? He’s just babbling on and on and on. I can’t understand a word he’s saying.”
“He’s telling his friend that he’s going to meet a girl who has stolen his heart.”
“Where is she?”
“She’ll show up soon. It’s Samia Gamal, the dancer. You’ll spot her.”
“Finally someone’s going to show up! If you say he’s doe-eyed, then she must really be something.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet. Just wait until she starts dancing.”
“Why didn’t they start with that? Singing and dancing is what I like, it soothes my heart. I’ve had my fill of idle chatter. Come on, fellas, get a move on and treat us to some hypnotic dancing!”
“Here we go! Look!”
“Allah, that’s what I wanted! Oh yes! We haven’t wasted our money. Give thanks to the Prophet! Her skin is like ivory and she’s as slender as bamboo. Look at how she sways her hips! It’s as if she didn’t have any bones. May God make sure her parents guard her. But, tell me, is she going to marry that man with the crooked mouth? What a shame! He doesn’t deserve her. His friend would be a better match for her.”
“He’s already married, Mother.”
“So what? All he has to do is get divorced and marry Samia Gamal instead.”
“But she’s in love with Farid.”
“Girls today don’t have any taste, even when real beauty is right in front of their eyes. But it’s true, greed can blind you. That Farid must be very rich, that’s why she prefers him.”
“No, he’s actually poor, but she’s in love with his voice.”
“What voice? He brays like a donkey.”
“That’s enough now, Mother. Plenty of people go crazy over his voice.”
“I prefer Abdel Wahab’s voice. Next time we’ll go see his film. At least he’s a handsome man. He wears a fez and it suits him. As for this Farid, well, his head is so enormous. No fez would ever fit on that.”
AN INTERLUDE. Namouss has fallen asleep with the story of the fez in his ears. Another screen unrolls in his dream. He is at the El-Achabine cinema, and the long, pockmarked face of Eddie Constantine has replaced the smoother one of Farid al-Atrash. Lemmy Caution is wearing his legendary hat. He is sort of in love with a dancer who is playing both sides in a plot strewn with dead bodies. A suitcase full of money is at stake. The villain is a casino manager who loves animals and drinks Cinzano. Constantine is masterful at landing punches on his adversaries, each one tougher than the last. But then things take a turn for the worse. Constantine is suddenly surrounded by a bunch of burly henchmen in a cellar. They remove his hat and tie him to a chair. One of his captors pulls out a switchblade and points it at him. Close-up on the blade as it draws nearer and nearer. Gunfire is heard just in the nick of time. All hands on deck. One barely has the time to see Constantine free himself from his constraints and jump back into the fray before the image starts to skip, blur, and finally go up in smoke. The spectators howl. His eardrums feel like they are going to burst, but then Namouss opens his eyes and finds himself once again in the calm, cozy surroundings of the Boujeloud cinema. He takes a deep breath.
Much had happened in the course of the film. There was a big problem between Farid and his lady love. Farid was unkempt and unshaven as he sang a soul-shattering lament. Zhor was sniffing and crying, wiping her tears away with a handkerchief. Ghita seemed to be going through the same motions. She unjustly blamed Samia Gamal’s father for opposing his daughter’s marriage to Farid. Though she’d initially disliked him, she’d eventually turned her vitriol against the stone-hearted patriarch.
“That man is an enemy of God,” she said. “He has no pity or compassion. What’s to become of the poor?”
The next image pulled her from these considerations. Having finished his song, Farid, now in a café, was leaning his elbows on the counter. The bartender was pouring him glass after glass of a dubious-looking liquid. Ghita didn’t fail to notice this particular detail.
“Wili, wili!” she exclaimed. “What’s that he’s drinking?”
“A cordial to make him forget,” Zhor replied diplomatically.
“Go ahead and call it what is: wine. You think I don’t understand anything? The Egyptians are clearly sinners. That’s enough, we’re leaving! Otherwise we’ll be corrupted too.”
“It’s only a film,” Zhor said, trying to explain. “Farid is actually only drinking water mixed with red pigments.”
“That’s fine by me, but I’m still afraid. Fine, how long is there to go until the end? This is getting rather gloomy. You’d think we were at a funeral.”
“Don’t worry, Mother, good will prevail.”
“So are they going to get married?”
“Of course.”
“Will Samia come back to dance?”
“No, Farid won’t want that. He’ll insist she look after the house.”
“You’re right. But what a shame.”
Namouss had once again fallen into the arms of Morpheus. He woke up just in time to see Samia Gamal in a wedding dress with Farid, looking much happier, seated beside her, while a new dancer was swaying her hips in front of them. On her way out, Ghita had one last comment for Samia Gamal’s father, who hadn’t been able to prevent the young couple’s union: “I hope you die of shame, you old baboon!”
18
THAT’S ALL FOR Namouss.
Allow me now to retrace his footsteps and place myself back in the house in the Siaj neighborhood where I stayed the night of Si Mohammed’s wedding. The sandman came at the moment when Ghita ordered my brother to go back to the bridal chamber and “finish the job” that by his own admission he’d botched. I don’t know what happened after that, not even if his efforts were crowned with success. I had mentioned at the time that I had nothing to say on the subject of that questionable ritual involving the display of the bloodied sarouels.
Over the course of the following days, I felt a sense of relief take hold around me. Not that anyone was actually cheerful. It seemed that one needed to exercise the utmost self-restraint during those dark days the country was going through. Ghita was of the opinion that something fishy was going on. It hadn’t quite slipped my mind that ever since we’d received those written threats, my mother had seriously begun to strain against the reins, giving vent to her anger against the nationalists who were standing in the way of her celebrating her son’s wedding in style.
I’d only understood dribs and drabs of the reasons for this change of heart. The most salient of these was her desire to make plain for all to see, from the very first days, how committed she was to her new role of mother-in-law. She needed to start her relationship with her daughter-in-law off on the right foot, ensure that their respective roles were firmly defined, and impress upon her who was boss. Gone were the smiles, the caresses, and the convoluted pleasantries. The only line she dared not cross was not addressing the girl by the title to which she was entitled by virtue of being one of the Prophet’s descendants. Ghita therefore continued calling her daughter-in-law “Lalla” Zineb. But that’s as far as it went. Having waited for three days, she announced on the fourth that it was time for her daughter-in-law to roll up her sleeves and take on her fair share of the domestic chores. She wanted to put the qualities the girl’s mother had raved about during that preliminary visit to the test. “Let’s see if her hands really are made out of gold,” she said. So Ghita — rather unimaginatively — made recourse to the classic test used in such circumstances: the preparation of shad. A veritable trap for someone with little experience in the kitchen. This was because the chabel was a noble fish and could not be handled as if it were a common sardine or whiting. Once scaled, one had to scrub the skin until it was smooth, carefully gut it, gather its eggs without breaking them, chop off the head and tail just at the right place, slice it into even pieces, then wash it three times with salt water in order to blanch the skin and get rid of the smell, which was considered too strong, and leave it to drip dry. One could then begin preparing the marinade: a lovely bouquet of coriander, cloves of garlic, capsicum, a pinch of hot chili pepper, cumin, salt, oil, and vinegar. One could spot the expert cook if she used the right proportion of ingredients, as well as by the consistency of the resulting paste. Assuming that the marinade went well, one would have to move on to the most delicate step: the actual cooking. One would have to coat the slices of fish just so and, before frying them, know how to get the timing just right so that they wouldn’t be too tepid or too scalding when they were finally served. While the slices were being cooked, one had to beware they wouldn’t lose their shape and retained a crisp, golden crust.