“Him you vouvoyer?”
“Yeah, because we were speaking in French, not Moroccan.”
“Bizarre, etc.”
“ Five minutes later:
“‘Si Ahmed, this is all great, but how do you stay up to date with what happens in your wilaya? I mean, at the level of the average citizen? Your regular guys?’ His eyes widen. ‘Or perhaps it’s your secret police who take care of that?’ His eyes widen. ‘Or else, you stroll around incognito in your city, like Haroun Arachide did before in Baghdad?’ The governor throws his arms to the sky, appalled by my ignorance. ‘What do you mean, secret police? What are you talking about, Arachide? For everything I need to know, I consult Bouazza, of course!’”
“Again Bouazza?”
“The same. I don’t have time to mark my astonishment, Si Ahmed gets up, rolls out his six feet and two inches, crushes my dextral and excuses himself: he has to welcome Darryl F. Zanuck to convince him to transfer Hollywood to Khouribga — or at least to make a branch of it there. An ancient taxi, the kind that stays at the same speed even when it’s lost its wheels, quickly brings me to the Trade Union House where I meet the legendary Kafouyi…”
“Kafouyi himself?”
“…Kafouyi who directs the federation of local trade unions with an iron fist, Kafouyi who makes Les Bitumes du Tadla tremble when he raises his left foot, when he threatens to unleash…”
“Lightning, like Zeus?”
“…the famous general strike that will bring down global capitalism starting with Khouribga — it’s only a beginning, let’s continue the fight! The man, whom I telephoned from Si Ahmed’s office, awaits me resolutely in front of the building that houses The Trade Union—be afraid, bosses! Militant handshake, virile pat, the man receives me as though we had stormed the Winter Palace together. I go to make my little provocation…”
“You dared provoke the famous Kafouyi?”
“I did.”
“And you survived?”
“I did.”
“Well well, my colonel, etc.”
Five minutes later:
“So, I set right about provoking the old Kafouyi of the zmâlas: ‘Mr. Secretary General, you have been in power since the departure of the French, since the death of at least three popes, since the passing of the comet, that’s a bit long, no? People are saying that you cut yourself off from the laboring masses, people are whispering that the Trade Union House is like the palace of Sleeping Beauty — people are protesting that nothing has changed since the year of Typhus. So (I clear my voice) how do you know what the state of mind is of your adherents?’ His eyes widen. ‘How do you decide when it’s necessary to trigger a strike and when to stop it?’ His eyes widen. ‘How do you estimate the combativeness of your troops?’ He gathers his brow, irritated by my insolence: ‘I know very well what the workers are thinking, monsieur,’ he quakes. ‘All I have to do is talk to Bouazza!’ Hell and damnation! Again Bouazza? Who he? The large Kafouyi shows me to the door without ceremony, like a vulgar reformist, like the last of the Mensheviks, and without leaving me the time to ask him who he is, this famous Bouazza, to top it all off! Waiting for an unlikely taxi on the sidewalk, liquefied by the sun spreading over the city like a layer of magma, I think to myself that it’s obviously this Bouazza I need to interview instead of wasting my time with second fiddles — whether they be unlikely CEOs or a megalomaniac governor or the king of the syndicates. He is the one who is, without a doubt, ‘the man who matters’ in Khouribga, the one who makes things happen, one of the movers and shakers, as we say in good French. Before going on the hunt, I needed to cool myself down (it was 104 degrees F) and get a haircut. Desperate, I play the semaphore and a Peugeot survived from the band of Bonnot stops before me. I throw myself in. I collapse. The taxi driver kindly helps me out. ‘A good hairdresser? Well, you don’t have a choice, there’s only one in the city. It’s Bouazza.’”
Consternation in Café de l’Univers.
“What? A hairdresser? Oh misery, deception!”
“Our illusions, crushed!”
“We thought at least L’Orchestre rouge…”
“…the Count of Saint-Germain…”
“…a bionic spy…”
“I am filled to the brim with astonishment. I would even say: flabbergasted. The taxi drops me off in front of the barbershop. I enter, a bit worried, but there’s really no reason to be. The place resembles a hundred others, but the boss, the aforementioned Bouazza, doesn’t resemble anyone else. Bland, gray on gray, the mustache of a field mouse…He extends a floppy hand, I am his first client of the afternoon, he informs me, and points me toward the chair where I am to perch myself. A sweeping glimpse around: a few guys sitting in chairs but, visibly, they are not clients, but rather friends, neighbors, the curious. No apprentice in sight, no associate. This Bouazza seems to do everything in his den: shampooer, delouser, hairdresser for women, hairdresser for men, colorist if the occasion presents itself, perms for the Polynesian dentist’s wife washed up there no one knows how. Bouazza is a polyvalent figaro — as in, you ask him if he can do something, he responds: I can!”
“We all know someone like that.”
“The man of agile hands starts to do his work, his fingers ferret about in my hair, searching for the rebel cowlick, and I set about learning the central role he seems to play in the capital of bitumen. I don’t double cross him, I put all my cards on the table: I cut the deck with the governor, I declare Tijani, I lay down Kafouyi. He, the capillary artist, nods, ambling through my hair; doesn’t say a word but nods; and when I’ve finished, as the prose writer said, he remains silent for a moment, contemplating his oeuvre inversed in the mirror: he did a sort of monk tonsure that was very à la mode, àlamoude, he affirms — for example, from the times of cathedrals — then finally responds to the question I had asked him. Correct, he says, correct: all these characters are his clients.
“‘And it’s you,’ I dared, ‘who informs them of what goes on in their fair city?’”
“He wipes his hands on a rag dating from the year of the unicorn. The three or four bumpkins seated along the wall had not yet opened their mouths — like a brochette of half-wits waiting to be devoured by a giant. Then he gives a faint smile, like a grin putting on airs, and finally he murmurs:
“‘Me? But I know nothing of what goes on here… I never leave this shop, which I inherited from Mr. Ceccaldi, who was the hairdresser at the time of the French. I was his apprentice.’
“And then the brochette of half-wits starts up in unison:
“‘Bouazza never leaves this shop. He inherited it from Mr. Ceccaldi, who was the hairdresser at the time of the French. He was his apprentice.’