A Palace in the Old Village (3 page)

MOHAMMED THOUGHT ABOUT
his five children. They would stand by him, no question; they wouldn’t abandon him or let him fall prey to sadness but take care of him, fuss over him, give him presents, send him on another pilgrimage to Mecca. No, the children were his pride and his protection against feeling lonesome. They respected him even though they rarely spoke with him. He never said much to them, either; they hadn’t a great deal to talk about. When a problem arose, they’d go to their mother, who would then talk it over with him. Habit and tradition.

They hadn’t seen a lot of their father. He’d always left for the automobile plant while they were asleep, come home in the afternoon, and gone to his room to rest. He praised them when they received good grades at school. He gazed at them tenderly and gave them big smiles. On Sundays he saw his pals at the mosque, then at the Café Hassan, which served no alcohol. It was a place of weary melancholy. Strictly male clientele, some of whom played dominoes. Against the background of a TV always tuned to a Moroccan station, they discussed the high cost of real estate in Agadir and Marrakech or watched Parliament in session and ridiculed those
Westernised
men dressed up in white djellabas. They talked
about plans to go home and sometimes discussed their thorniest problem: their children’s future.

So all that only to wind up without our children! No, that’s not quite it. Let’s just say that our kids are more up-to-the-minute than we are. They’ve discovered
modern
life and they love it. When you take them home to the countryside, they find everything old-fashioned, don’t like it; at first they’re happy enough, but then they get bored, they’re tourists, tourists in their own country, but they’re not even curious about it, they’re
uncomfortable
and don’t understand why we love being there while they complain about the dust, the flies, the starving cats, and the old people who do nothing. The landscapes seem weird to them; they expect to see some hero from
Star Wars
pop up with a light sword in his hand. They wait for something to happen. Nothing, absolutely
nothing
happens. There are only stones, prickly pear cacti, and dogs staggering around in the stifling heat. Back home is the back of beyond: tons of boredom. It’s hard to talk to our children about our roots. They’ve no idea what home means to us!

But just a minute, my brother! It isn’t their country, let me explain this to you: it’s
your
country, you’re the one who’s attached to it, while they see it through the eyes of foreigners, and most of them don’t even speak the
language
, so the truth of it is, it’s our fault, for not teaching them Arabic or Berber! I’m not going back, that’s for sure. When I get my ’tirement, I’m setting myself up here, I’ll open a small café and wait for them to give me some grandchildren! I sold the house in Agadir, at a good price. It was French retirees who bought it; they’re
going to live out their lives over there, in the sun—it’s the world turned upside down! And look at the Frenchies themselves: they have kids, who then leave them behind to fend for themselves, and they all go their own ways!

Yes, you’re right, the parents do the best they can, and then one day it’s real hot, really,
really
hot; it’s a huge heat wave, and then they croak, alone: fifteen thousand old people died from the heat, can you imagine? Alone, with nobody to give them a glass of water, and where were the children? On vacation. Hey, wait a minute—lots of them were in Agadir for the sun and the sea, while their parents were dying alone back in France like animals forgotten by the roadside!* Well, if my son does that to me, I’ll … kill him—no, I’ll disown him—but our
children
are blessed, they won’t let us die like dogs!

It’s true: in Morocco we don’t have old folks’ homes. We’re not modern, but we’ve still got some good things going for us. You know, the children of the people killed by the heat, they didn’t all come home to bury them. Some of them waited for LaFrance to do that before they bothered to show up! Why? I don’t understand! It was just because. Because they didn’t want to pay for the funerals. Oh yes, my friend, they pinch every sou in this country, they’re not like us. Our parents—Allah said you owe them respect or you’ll go to hell.

Allah says lots of things. He even says it’s our mothers who get us into paradise!

Allah said that? I don’t remember it.

Well, then you’re a godless fool!

Mohammed recalled the story of the man everyone
called Momo, Hajji Momo, tall and thin, always wearing a greasy old cap of threadbare velvet, a former soldier in the French army who had left his village in the Aurès Mountains of eastern Algeria to make war against the Germans, to liberate France. He’d had a fight with his brothers and sisters about an inheritance and had been so disgusted that he never again wanted anything to do with that family tearing itself apart over money. He’d gone off to war, fought like a lion, and then in 1945, instead of going back home, decided to stay in France. There he met Martine, a buxom and warm-hearted woman from Normandy. His military pension was not enough to live on, so he worked for Renault with the same energy he’d shown during the war. He was a good man, but he had one fault: he drank. He sobered up in Mecca and for three months did not touch a drop of alcohol. When he returned, however, Martine went through a depression—Momo never knew why—and left him. Momo went straight back into alcoholic hell. Abandoned, without children, he died alone in their tiny apartment and was found three days later. The Arab community was stunned: this was the first time an immigrant had died utterly alone, as sometimes
happens
in French society. Dying so forlorn, that was
intolerable
. People had thought this would never happen to Muslims because they all belonged to the same clan, the same house, the house of Islam, which unites the rich and the poor, the great and the humble.

The shadows of Brahim and Momo haunted
Mohammed’s
thoughts. The life left in front of him, he reasoned, was bound to be shorter than the life behind him. It
wasn’t death that frightened him; it was what led up to and brought on death that preoccupied him, even though he was counting on his faith for comfort. That left loneliness, which didn’t scare him, because he was absolutely sure that neither his wife nor his children would abandon him. But the spectre of solitude kept him constant company anyway.

It was during this period of doubt that Mohammed ran away. Like an angry adolescent, he decided one day not to go home as usual after work. He took a different train and wound up where he’d never been before. It was in late spring, when the air was mild; the landscapes had pretty colours, passers-by were smiling, and some said hello to him. He felt buoyant, imbued with the energy of his childhood. Fewer people from the Maghreb lived there; it was mostly eastern Europeans. He went into a bar and asked for a nonalcoholic beer. The waiter, who had his back turned, replied, We don’t carry that stuff here! Thinking he’d made a gaffe, Mohammed ordered a Coke. Still busily cleaning glasses, the waiter said
without
turning around, With ice, lemon, or nothing?
Nothing
. The man slid a can of Coke down the bar to Mohammed, who would have liked a straw but didn’t dare ask for one. Making an effort, he said softly, Omelet, I’d like an omelet. The waiter came over, looked him in the face, and shouted, An omelet how? Your choices are country ham and cheese, Parisian ham and button mushrooms, Spanish ham and cheese, Italian
prosciutto
…. I’d like just an omelet, with nothing else. I don’t eat pork…. Ah! You’re a Muslim! But with a plain omelet, a little glass of white would go very nicely! No, I
don’t drink alcohol either. So it’ll be a plain omelet! Not even
aux fines herbes
? Plain, yes, just eggs and a bit of butter.

He’d rarely eaten an omelet as good as that one. It was nothing special, but he had done something out of the ordinary, so everything seemed wonderful to him. He told himself he ought to have this sort of escapade again.

And yet, as he left the bar he felt strange. He was having trouble digesting the eggs and all that butter. He thought about his wife, who was probably starting to worry; he could have phoned but didn’t know what to say to her. He was incapable of lying, of coming up with credible scenarios. He would have been ashamed to admit he’d taken off like that because he’d felt dejected and wanted to play a trick on his routine.

He took the train back in the other direction,
reaching
his neighbourhood forty minutes later. It was
evening
. Families were watching television. A few young people were hanging around here and there. One called out to him: Hey, Pops, you in the market for the real thing, some good homegrown? If you don’t use, at least give some to your kids! Just joking, you old fart!

Old fart! He’d heard that insult many times before, but never directed at him. As he walked home, head hanging, he wondered if he really looked like an old fart. What is an old fart? Must be a pathetic guy, someone who doesn’t fight back, who endures life, and the day he decides not to go through the same motions, he runs into a fresh kind of hostility. He has never found where he belongs. Outside of the painting shop at the plant,
he’s in the way, he feels unwanted, and at home the
routine
is even more painful because of occasional small scenes with the children. Perhaps he’d rather have lived at the plant, where he was needed, where the assembly line depended on him for its smooth operation. He’d noticed behind the foreman’s desk a little corner that he’d have really liked to make his own, his home, his bed, his refuge, but he would have missed the children, even if he was beginning to get the idea that they didn’t miss him much; in any case, they kept their feelings hidden. They’d become little Europeans, looking out for themselves, pushing their parents into the background.

The guy who murdered his wife and three children but botched his own death—he must be “an old fart.” There’d been a lot about him on TV. To kill and then attempt suicide because of debts or regret over a wasted life, that was something Mohammed did not
understand
. Suicide was forbidden in Islam. And anyone who commits suicide is punished by God for all eternity, forced to repeat his action forever. Just imagine a guy who hangs himself: until the end of time he’ll be
hanging
himself, maybe not from the same tree but in houses, stores, right in the middle of a wealthy family’s living room….

Mohammed suddenly thought, Wait: will there be houses and stores in the afterlife? I know, no one has ever returned to tell us what goes on there. Kill? That’s horrible, I’d never do that! At the celebration of Eid
al-Kebir
, I used to refuse to cut the sheep’s throat, leaving that to my older brother or our neighbour. The sight of blood upsets me. I’ve never raised my hand to my
children, always tried to restrain my temper. At the same time, I’ve indulged them too much, especially my youngest girl—so spoiled she became a terrible student. I realised this when she decided to drop out of high school. That day, I cried all alone after prayers. To me, it was more than a failure, a humiliation. I don’t like school, she told me, I’m quitting, and anyway I want to get a job. I understood then that any attempt to set her straight would be useless. I could have told her, If you only knew how I suffered from not getting to attend school, from missing out on so many things because I’m illiterate. If you had any idea what I’d give today to have knowledge, expertise, education, diplomas, but I feel like a donkey, a faithful animal going along the same road every day, doing the same things, unable to vary my routine for fear I’ll get lost, afraid of drowning in a calm sea. Oh, if you knew how alone I feel because I need someone to help me whenever I go into an
administrative
office, but all that, I guess it has nothing to do with you, you were born in a different time, you found life a little easier, a little less puzzling.

You children don’t like to be reminded of what we
others
have gone through. Remember the day when you wiped your knife on a piece of bread? I had a fit: bread isn’t a scrap of rag! I was taught to bring bread to my lips and kiss it before taking a bite or putting it away. Bread is sacred, and you, you were treating it as a thing of no importance. You didn’t understand my reaction,
especially
since you weren’t used to seeing me react at all. Then there was that time you turned up your nose at some bananas, pushing them away with your fingertips and
saying, Don’t like them. I made the mistake of saying that when I was your age I dreamed of eating bananas and apples, and that I’d had to wait till I came to France to taste them. But that didn’t interest you or your brothers and
sisters
. It’s like the time your brother Mourad talked back to me when I was objecting to the people he was friends with, when he said, I hope I don’t turn out like you, oh no, not like you: you’re there and no one sees you, so excuse me, but you don’t make me want to be like you at all.

I looked at myself in the mirror for a long time, but I never figured out why my son wouldn’t want to be like me. What’s so crummy, so repulsive about me? I’m clean, I don’t hurt anyone, I do my work the best I can, I’m faithful to God and carry out my duties, and none of that shows in my face! Maybe I should turn mean,
wasting
the family money in bars with whores, dragging around in the streets like Atiq, that guy who lost
everything
, especially his mind.

Except for the youngest daughter, Rekya, each of his children had had a different reason for going away, and Mohammed’s house had slowly emptied out.
Mohammed
had a hard time coming to grips with this. He hadn’t noticed that they were growing up, choosing their paths, then leaving on them. Angry at himself for not having paid more attention, he took comfort in the fact that other parents were in the same boat. Then he brooded over the evil influence of a charlatan he held responsible for his empty nest, one of those old Berbers who take up sorcery, fortune-telling, and other services to plump up their bank accounts for their old age. These
con artists let their beards grow, dress in traditional clothing, set themselves up in a small apartment,
surround
themselves with books on Islam, and burn a bit of incense. They hang calligraphed names of Allah and his prophet Mohammed on the wall next to photos of Mecca and Medina; on the floor lie prayer rugs with the image of the Kaaba. They claim to do no evil, simply to protect people from it. As a good Muslim, Mohammed detested such sorcerers. His wife and even his eldest daughter, Jamila, consulted a certain Allam, who extracted tidy sums from them in exchange for
talismans
to carry or hide among their belongings.