Monarch of the Square Read online

  “I’ll have a whiskey. The bar-owner refuses to let me drink cheap stuff.”

  The café was pretty empty: just eight people scattered along the length of the bar or sitting on chairs to the side. The door and windows were shut and the lighting was dim. Through the kitchen door came the sound of plates clattering and glasses being washed. Once in awhile, the girl brought them out and stacked them under the counter.

  Sitting in a corner by the door, a woman had lifted her veil, revealing a tattoo that covered her face in the Zammori style. She was drinking one glass after another. At the same table, the man who was with her was completely drunk. The edge of his turban dangled over his shoulder and forehead, and his lower lip drooped, as well.

  “The whiskey’s bad for me,” the barmaid said. “But I have to drink it.”

  “Try red wine instead.”

  “I can’t. Look at that woman over there. She only drinks red wine, and she’s stronger than a devil.”

  “Her husband’s gotten drunk just on beer.”

  “He gets drunk easily,” she replied. “But he’s not her husband. He’s married to two other women.”

  “Lucky man! He must be rich.”

  “He sells cattle and owns two trucks. Even the Caid’s scared of him. His two wives know about his relationship with this woman.”

  The girl heard a cup being placed on the bar and went over to dry it.

  Now two men came in, their hats pulled down firmly over their ears. Their hats and clothes were white, and their bodies were covered in snowflakes. One of them, his greasy face shrouded in steam, started rubbing his hands together and blowing on them. He was clearly a mechanic, while the other one looked like a truck driver. They both went straight to the bar, stood by Ahmad, and ordered two cups of hot coffee. They whispered to each other, drank their coffee quickly, then left, but only after pulling their hats down firmly and opening the glass door. A freezing cold draft blew in, which made the customers shift their positions and bundle up in their clothes.

  Ahmad took a cigarette from his pack, thinking he could at least warm the space around his face. Emptying the rest of his glass, he tapped it on the bar. The girl came over, refilled it for him, then served herself. She said she might get drunk tonight; it was a really good idea, especially in such awful weather. “It is very cold,” she went on in Berber, “Do you know Tashelheet?”

  “No, but I understand you. Are you Amazigh?”

  “My late father was, but my mother was an Arab from Doukkala. Sometimes I have to speak Tamazight because most of the people here are Amazigh.”

  “So why have you exiled yourself to this place? You don’t seem to be from these parts.”

  “No, I’m not. That’s a long story, a very long story. Anyway, I can’t go back to my own city. He keeps threatening to kill me.”

  “Who?”

  “Him.”

  “But what about the authorities?”

  “Oh, I know all about that!” said the barmaid. “Might as well not even mention it. I’m living a fairly happy life here, in spite of the isolation. By now, I’m used to the place, but I’m afraid I may be spending the rest of my life here.”

  “Anyone else in your situation would dread the idea, too. Can you see the moon, high above the snow-capped peaks?”

  “The window’s fogged over,” she replied. “I can’t see a thing.”

  “Me neither. I only imagined it. Give me another drink. I’m extremely tired. I don’t know where I’m going to sleep tonight in this freezing cold. You say there’s no hotel here.”

  “That’s right, there is no hotel. We only have three rooms, but tourists have already booked them for four days. Drink up, and we’ll think of a solution later. I know, it’s hard for you. The nearest city is eighty kilometers away. Not to mention the foul weather.”

  “Yes. Not to mention extreme fatigue. I can’t drive my car now. Do you understand?”

  “Very well.”

  She poured herself another drink, served another client in the corner, then with a cough she came out from behind the counter and went over to the jukebox. It started playing a tender American ballad. The man with the dangling turban woke up and started singing in Tashelheet. The girl told him to stop. It wasn’t the right time, she told him, but promised that they would all listen to him later.

  “Give us something to drink,” the man told her. “Life is short. I’ve got to sell a whole truck full of cattle next Saturday. What a deal!”

  “Don’t assume that other people are begging,” replied the barmaid. She turned to Ahmad. “He only brags about his money when he’s drunk,” she said.

  “He’s right,” said Ahmad. “Life is short. It’s freezing cold, and I need to get some sleep. How about me spending the night with you and paying you?”

  “I don’t know about that. It’s never happened with any customer here before.”

  “So then, let it be the first time! Empty your glass. Life is short. Uuh, everything is tiring, even sleeping with a woman. Don’t think I’m like the others. I’ll just sleep. If you don’t want it, I won’t even touch you. Even so, it’ll be better to sleep in the same bed tonight.”

  “You drink too much. Have you had anything to eat?”

  “I ate some sardines and half a kilo of bananas, but that was hours ago.”

  “That’s not enough. Do you want me to order you a sandwich? I need to eat before I go to bed, too.”

  “OK, just as you like. Pour me a drink. It’s not so cold now; I feel warmer.”

  “But your nose is red.”

  She heard a customer calling her and went over to get the bill. Three men left the café, but he didn’t even feel the wind that blew in again. He watched as the thick flakes kept falling in the light of the streetlamps. The empty street was completely blanketed in white. The glass door closed by itself.

  “Are you a government employee?” Ahmad heard her asking.

  “No.”

  “Businessman?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, I see. A drug smuggler? They pass by here a lot.”

  “No, I’m not a drug smuggler, but I do other things in life. Do you work with ‘Them’?”

  “Drug smugglers?”

  “No. ‘Them.’”

  “Who are ‘Them’?”

  “‘Them.’ Don’t you know ‘Them’? The police.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s the way it is,” she replied. “I’ve ordered two sandwiches. Can I get myself another drink? You’re very generous.”

  “I just want to get some sleep.”

  “It’s possible, but still difficult. You don’t know the region. I can’t take a client home with me. Tomorrow everybody would be talking about it.”

  “But it’s just one night in your life here.”

  “I see. You’ll have to wait for me for two hours or more till the bar’s finally empty.”

  “I’ll try. Will you take me with you?”

  “I only have a small bed.”

  “That’s even better.”

  The wine made Ahmad’s head feel heavy. He closed his eyes and slumped back in his chair.

  “Go and wait for me in your car,” said the girl. “I’ll join you when I’ve finished. That way, nobody will know.”

  He paid the bill, grabbed the sandwich, and walked out chewing. The wind was freezing cold, blowing in from far away. He was shivering all over and found it difficult to run because his legs wouldn’t obey him. He fell on the snow, struggled back to his feet, and headed for the car. He closed the door and tried to eat the sandwich, but found it impossible. He felt his hands letting the sandwich drop on to his thighs, but could not manage to bring it back up to his mouth. As soon as he started to feel warmer, he started snoring loudly, head down. At the same time, the girl had started dropping glasses between her feet at the bar. There was just one drunk customer left.

  Shrine Visiting Season

  The truck stopped at the side of the road. Halima jumped up in alarm and so did her three children. Lhadi opened the door, got out, and slammed it shut behind him. That annoyed the driver, but he did not protest, or say anything at all. After checking to make sure no other car was coming, the driver opened the door and got out on the other side. Lhadi walked along the right side, while the truck driver walked on the left. When Lhadi reached the back, he called out to Halima, who quickly answered, stood up, and looked down at him.

  “Wake the kids up,” he shouted.

  “They didn’t get any sleep.”

  “Good,” said Lhadi. “Get ready to climb down.”

  Lhadi watched the driver on the other side as he headed for the ditch. It was dark; there were no sounds, only the chirping of tiny insects in the trees. The driver went into a thicket of trees close to the road and started peeing standing up. When Halima saw him, she hid her head so Lhadi wouldn’t slap her.

  When the driver had finished, he turned back toward Lhadi. “Get back on the truck,” he said, still buttoning his pants, “and make sure your wife, kids, and your things are out of the truck. I’m in a hurry, and it’s a long way to Oujda. I have to be there by six tomorrow evening.”

  Lhadi put his hands on the side of the truck. He was about to get in, but then a thought crossed his mind. He could make his wife step down; that was not a problem. But who was going to help her get off the truck? When he imagined the driver putting his hands on her hips to help her down out of the truck, his stomach got in a twist.

  “Halima,” he shouted.

  “Yes.”

  “Get down and leave the kids. I’ll come up and get them.”

  Halima agreed. She threw down her cherbel, then grabbed the side of the truck and lowered first one leg, then the other. Wh
ile she was suspended in mid-air, Lhadi reached up, put his hands on her backside and hips, and eased her down. She moved away and sat down with her back against a tree, but then she discovered that she was perched on a protruding piece of wood or a small branch. It hurt, so she changed her spot. She was panting hard, almost as though she had just run a very long way. Lhadi jumped quickly and nimbly into the truck. His three children were standing there, anxiously waiting for him in the dark. After talking to them first, he lowered them to the driver one at a time. They went straight over to their mother and squatted by her, watching what their father and the driver were doing. Lhadi started lowering blankets, piles of clothes, and a worn-out old suitcase to the driver below. Finally he handed down a pile of what must have been metal, because, when the driver grabbed it, it clanked. He also heard the sound of glasses clinking. This man had to be really crazy, he told himself, to put glass in a package without realizing that it would break.

  The driver got back into his truck and switched on the ignition. The truck moved off. Lhadi stood in front of his wife with his hands on his hips. “In just a few minutes, it’ll be daylight,” he said. “Should we leave now or wait till dawn?”

  Halima had no fixed opinion on the matter, so she told him to do as he wished. He sat down beside her and leaned against the trunk. The three children were half-awake, but eventually they fell asleep. The first snuggled in his mother’s arms, while the second and third rested their heads on either side of her lap. Lhadi took out a cigarette and started smoking.

  “You’d better finish this pack,” Halima said.

  “I will.”

  “Now, before daybreak. Your father shouldn’t see you smoking or smell it on you. It’s forbidden.”

  “I know. Anyway, I’ve only got five cigarettes left. I’ll smoke them before dawn. I don’t know what I’m going to do this week without being able to smoke.”

  “Why can’t you behave like your brother, ‘Abbas?” Halima suggested, as she wiped her nose on her clothes. “He doesn’t smoke.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You could if you were a man.”

  “I am a man.”

  “We’ll see if you can survive this week without smoking.”

  He kept smoking, gazing longingly at the cigarette as though it were his last one. He would have to quit smoking for a week because his father would not allow him to do so. Even though his father didn’t pray or fast very often because of his age, he considered smoking as much a sin as drinking. That was why, during this visit to the shrine of the holy man, Lhadi would have to stop smoking, just as he had had to do in previous years. It would be like a fast from smoking for a whole week. Even during the fasting month of Ramadan he would regularly smoke, but he did conceal it from his neighbors. If they had found him smoking, they would have stoned and cursed him, then recited the Qur’anic Sura of “The Kind One” [Al-Latif] in the mosque, which would immediately turn him into an undesirable person. Halima kept on warning him not to smoke in the daytime during Ramadan, especially on Sundays when he went to the airbase. But on other days she never knew how he managed not to smoke. She had asked him once, and he had replied that everyone smoked. It was exhausting, debilitating work; his body could not tolerate it.

  Now Halima started thinking about this tricky problem. “Will he be able to stop smoking for a whole week?” Actually, he had never managed to do that; even here at the shrine for the last few years, he would go off with his friends and smoke somewhere. But at all events, he never smoked in front of his father. This week he would also shave his head and put on a red fez. His father could not bear to see him with hair like the Christians.

  Lhadi stared into the dark, thinking about the day ahead. Insect sounds could still be heard from behind the trees close by. Just then, Lhadi watched a truck as it drove by, an American military truck. Lhadi tried to get a look at the driver, but failed. The all-encompassing darkness was making many things difficult.

  Lhadi took out another cigarette, lit it, and started smoking with great relish. He put his hand over his crotch and started scratching with his long nails. Even though he had gone to the baths the day before, there were still a lot of bugs in his pubic hair, which made him itch. As they grazed freely in the thicket of hair, Lhadi itched and felt the urge to scratch. He cursed the bugs, which in fact were neither lice nor fleas but tiny bugs that attached themselves to the roots of small hair; they only detached themselves when they had sucked all the blood out of the place where they had attached.

  Halima was well aware that the bugs kept bothering him. “Are you still scratching?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Keep scratching then! I’ve told you thousands of times to shave that forest of hair and keep yourself clean, but you’re stubborn. I’ve told you a million times to use a bit of kerosene, but you always refuse. You only ever listen to that impetuous mind of yours.”

  “You know nothing,” said Ahmad. “The doctor at the American base told me not to shave my pubic hair. It enhances a man’s potency.”

  Halima told herself that was not true; his vigor had certainly not increased recently. In bed he would turn his back on her and go to sleep without stirring a single hair. That was not the way a man with any virility was supposed to behave.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked her.

  “Nothing. It’ll soon be dawn. Do you think your father has set up camp before us?”

  “As I recollect, the people from our tribe set up camp one or two days before the season starts. That’s a good idea, because latecomers have a hard time finding anywhere to pitch their tents.”

  “This year do you think your father will have put up his tent near the dome?”

  “He’s done that for years; that’s the only place he’s prepared to put up his tent. He wants to get the holy man’s blessing so that the crop yield will increase every year. But unfortunately the harvest hasn’t increased for years. As you know, my father’s a spendthrift.”

  “I know. I wonder how a man his age still insists on getting married.”

  “Me too. And now he’s married that slut. She’s much younger than him; she’s even ten years younger than me. Sidi Lkamel doesn’t come to the aid of any man who marries frequently and squanders money. Even so, his clemency is plentiful and vast.”

  While Lhadi was talking, Halima had already fallen fast sleep. He let her and the three children sleep on. For his part, he thought about smoking the remaining cigarettes before dawn. Afterwards he could chew some mint leaves, and that would hide the smell. Then, when he gave his father a hug, the latter would not notice the tobacco smell on him. Halima had not slept all night, so her body was now crumpled up in sheer exhaustion. She had tried to snatch some sleep on the truck, but it kept on swaying all over the road. Not only that, but the children had kept asking questions about a whole host of unconnected things. All that made sleep impossible. Lhadi was smoking, apparently competing with some imaginary ghost. He felt himself dozing off, too, even though he had assumed that the cigarettes would keep his brain alert. “Don’t fall asleep,” he told his wife. “It’s nearly dawn.”

  “I haven’t been asleep,” Halima replied with her eyes closed. “Wake me up at dawn. . . . Let me rest my eyes.”

  “No, wake up now. You can sleep when we get to the shrine.”

  “We’re already there.”

  “I mean, when we reach the tents. Once we’re there, you can sleep for two whole days if you want.”

  “Be quiet and let me sleep. I’m here to visit the shrine, not to sleep for two days.”

  While they were talking, their eldest child woke up. He was thirteen years old, but was mentally disabled, so he could not understand what they were talking about. The child was abnormal. He started staring at his father’s face, trying to make out his features, but without success. Instead, he watched the bright-red tip of the cigarette and was delighted whenever his father took a puff.

  “Father, are we going to get to the shrine today?” the boy asked.

  “Yes, very soon,” his father replied “At dawn.”

  “Is my grandfather going to be there?”

  “Yes, he’s pitched his tent near the holy man’s shrine. This year he’s going to be able to stay right near the dome.”