A Riffians Tune (23 page)

I heard the word ‘Exchange!' and wondered what it meant. I heard, ‘Pesetas! Deutschmarks! Dollars!' Standing in the middle of the street, not knowing which direction to take, I saw rich as well as poor people and followed the poorest, looking African. I passed a terraced café where traders with piles and piles of money in front of them sat enjoying their coffee and cigarettes. Armed police patrolled the street, and the traders were unrestricted.

The attractive and ornate boulevard ended in a twisted fork, where I stood and hesitated again. I took the left, as more people were going that way. Not far along was a large, barren uncemented area with red soil agitated by dust swirling in the air and the smell of fried sardines. Two traders in front of massive piles of melons called, ‘Hey! Taste and buy! Pick and taste!'

In front of a high pile of melons and amongst the whirling dust, I became lost in my thoughts.
What am I doing here?
I thought to myself.
What has brought me here? My needs or Sanaa's? We are both lost for different reasons.

I spied two women, one far taller than the other, looking relaxed and happy, emerging from the boulevard, both carrying baskets and moving up a steep road full of wide potholes. From several metres away I shouted, ‘Do you know where I can find Awisha?'

‘The witch?' answered one of them.

‘Yes,' I said.

‘Follow me,' the older woman beckoned. A few metres up the hill, on the right side of the road, stood a row of dilapidated terraced houses. They all looked alike: low, with tiny doors and different shades of blue paint peeling off. The women stopped, spoke to each other, turned around to me, and said, ‘Look! Cross the road. Number fourteen is Awisha's house.'
She must be very famous
, I thought to myself.

Crossing the road, I felt a wave of blood shooting through my head, then found myself at Awisha's door. I thumped on the door, and a woman opened it as if I were an expected guest.

‘Come in,' she said, without asking who I was or what I wanted.

She struck me as dwarf-like, very short but very wide, and impressed me with a round, pinched face, full of energy. She was clothed completely in black with a scarf wrapped around her head, and the ends hanging down her back like a dog's tail.

‘Follow,' she said. She took me to a seat in a small, dark closet with a low ceiling, no window, and just a thin candle spitting wax in a corner.

She sat opposite me, her knees rubbing against mine. ‘I detect something important is troubling you, your family or someone you love. That is why I am here,' she said. ‘I won't let you go from here before you see the light, and the tear is mended. Where have you come from?'

‘Zaio,' I responded, ‘but I live in Kebdana.'

‘I know where it is,' she said.

‘I am here on behalf of my sister Sanaa,' I explained. ‘She has a marital problem with her husband and wants your magic power to bring her husband back to her, as he is a womaniser.'

Awisha scurried out of the closet and went into another closet, tiny and dark, adjacent to where I sat. There, on a little round table in the corner she lit two red beeswax candles. Then, she disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a big bowl of water that she put between the candles on the round table. Returning to me, she took me to the closet and asked me to sit beside her on a tiny, low chair around the small round table. Again, she sat too close to me; had she touched me, I would have taken her for a whore, and then I wouldn't have known what to do.

‘Remind me of your sister's name. What is her husband's name?' she asked. She repeated the names after me. ‘What does he do? How many children do they have?'

I got confused and started to count them on my fingers. I certainly gave the impression of being simple.

‘For how long have they been married? Do they share a bedroom?'

‘How would I know?' I answered.

I couldn't answer all her probing questions. She pulled two tall, thin cruets from a cabinet under the low table, one I thought was oil and the other vinegar. She poured a teaspoon of oil into the water. The oil broke into different sizes of drops, swirled around and floated on the top.

‘Here he is.' She pointed with a wand at the floating drops and said, ‘He is a womaniser,' and she pointed to the largest drop. ‘Look at this. He has fallen in love with this big cow. Look at her! Look at her! Do you see her?'

‘No,' I answered. I was looking to see a picture, to know who the woman was.

‘She is following him wherever he goes and giving him no peace!' She then dropped a spoonful of vinegar into the water and asked me to watch. The vinegar sank down to the bottom and immediately dispersed. ‘Sanaa is sinking. She is in a whirlpool between her husband and his lover. I will destroy this cow, bury her alive and restore the broken union between Sanaa and her husband.'

She led me back into the other room and handed me two balls of a black, foul-smelling, hardened mixture. Hesitating, I recoiled. Surprised by my fearful gesture, she gave me a piercing look, but smiled afterwards.

‘What are those?' I asked.

‘My might, my soul! Call it whatever you will!' she said. ‘Stone and mortar need to be forced to hold each other before they support each other. Oil and vinegar are tasty when mixed, but they don't always stick together. There is a
bagra
(cow) coming between Sanaa and her husband. The
bagra
should die.'

Nervously, I picked up the balls and asked, ‘How should I use them?'

‘Nip a tiny piece and sink it in a pot of tea or coffee just for him to enjoy.'

I shivered.
Poison
, I thought. The fee was extortionate, more than Sanaa had predicted. I worried about how I would explain it to Sanaa so that she would believe me. Awisha took me to the door and gave me a dirty look. I left and she slammed the door behind me. I wondered why, as I had paid her in full.

I remembered the road and headed back to the melon market. I pulled the balls from my pocket, smashed them on the dusty ground and stamped on them, but they were very hard to crack. I jumped on them and ground them into the soil.

A middle-aged woman saw me and yelled, ‘Sin! Sin! Don't stomp on food!'

‘It's magic, not food!' I shouted back. She accepted my word and went away.

Quickly, the afternoon caught up with me. I hurried to the boulevard to catch the bus back to the Spanish border. Standing waiting, I wondered,
Will I make it home?
A sudden foreboding enveloped me, like a vulture circling above me and ready to nip.
There's something wrong with my trip here, something with Sanaa as well. Do I need to go through all this just to be able to pay for schoolbooks? Awisha has no magic for Sanaa, yet my sister needs to believe in something magic. I can't give her Awisha's balls to poison her husband.

Still waiting for the bus, I spied what looked, from a distance, like a pig's dropping. I picked it up, tried to wad it in my hand, and it didn't crumble. It was a piece of burnt rubber. I wrapped it up and put it in my pocket.

The bus arrived and was only half full. Going out from Spanish Africa to Morocco was easier; no one bothered me. For the Spanish, I was one problem less. For Moroccans, I was worthless, carrying no goods.

Very little transport was available from Nador to Zaio so late in the afternoon. Travellers preferred early morning and avoided the spooky late afternoon. There were a few taxis, but they charged higher prices and didn't move until they were full. A taxi broker shouted, ‘Berkan! Berkan!'

‘A seat for Zaio?' I asked.

‘Yes,' he responded, ‘but full price,' even though Zaio was halfway to Berkan.

Leaving the town, the taxi was half-empty, but an arrangement had been made to pick up contraband on the outskirts. One smuggler was a distinctive, good-looking woman, full of energy and charm. She chatted all the way to me, and wanted to know what had taken me to Melilla. I told her the truth: magic and Awisha.

‘Your sister should just do the same as her husband,' she told me.

She asked to be dropped several miles before reaching Zaio, in the vast desert of Sabra. It was completely dark, and no house or light was visible. Everyone wondered where she would go. She carried some blankets and a few loaves of bread. The driver dropped me in the middle of the village, in a eucalyptus grove, opposite a café.

* * *

SANAA SMILED AND LOOKED
happy when she opened the door and realised it was me, late that night. She was in a hurry to hear what Awisha had said, had done, and what magic I had brought her.

‘Things will get better and settled, Awisha said,' I lied.

‘Is that all she said?' she asked.

‘Your husband is harassed by a
bagra
,' I said.

‘I knew that!' she exclaimed and clapped her hands. ‘It's not his fault. But who is this
bagra
?' She tried to blame some women, but her mind couldn't settle on any particular one. ‘I'll find out,' she assured herself. ‘Anything else?'

‘Yes. She gave me this magic.' I plucked the piece of burnt rubber from my pocket and handed it to her.

‘What is it?'

‘I don't know.' She looked at it in awe. ‘A very small pinch should be burned from time to time,' I said.

Sanaa ran to the kitchen, pinched off a tiny piece and burned it. ‘What a stench!' I exclaimed. The rubber released a horrific smell. Sanaa liked it, and the odour was so repulsive that it awakened her husband.

I was glad to leave; my mother and I walked about four hours through a valley, over the mountain, across several hills before reaching the long sloping valley that led home. My mother lost her breath several times and had to rest. I had never known she was asthmatic.

She collapsed the moment we arrived. I saw her breathing fast, with her mouth open and her tongue peeking out. I wondered if she were shuttling between life and death. My mother had been driven by compassion to make the journey to Sanaa, but Sanaa had tricked me; she never paid me.

* * *

THE TIME TO RESUME
school was at my doorstep, but I was still at home. I had no money to travel, to buy clothes, books or for medical care. I had five brothers-in-law, three of whom were teachers; the other two were in Frankfurt. They had never offered a penny when I first went to school, and I wouldn't go to them cap in hand.

Not hesitating, I found myself pounding on Uncle Mimoun's door. Luckily, he was at home, surprised to see me, and invited me in. He had a guestroom and, in the middle, a massive radio and battery to match with an antenna strung through the window to the outside, a flag of wealth. When Mimount heard I was there, she joined us, but her presence made it embarrassing for me to explain the motive for my visit.

‘Can I borrow some money from you?' I asked Uncle Mimoun. A long, deep silence followed. I didn't know what was bubbling in his head.

‘How and when would you repay me?'

‘I don't know.'

I left with no idea what he was thinking, but, nevertheless, any hope was much better than none.

Later on, Uncle Mimoun popped in unexpectedly. He came with Mimount and his rifle on his shoulder to show who he was. He would have carried a cannon if he could, or were allowed. Mimount was gracious and chatty. No dinner was offered, just tea with barley bread, but no butter. The snack was nearly over, and still I had no idea if Uncle Mimoun would lend me any money or not.

After the meal, while everybody was in a good mood, Uncle Mimoun thrust his hand in his breast pocket and handed me thirty dirhams. Neither my mother nor sisters knew the reason for it. ‘This is the price for your flute that your uncle destroyed,' said Mimount. ‘He's always felt guily about it,' she added. Uncle Mimoun and Mimount went home, and I was asked to explain the mysterious thirty dirhams.

T
he night before leaving for school, I talked with Rabbia. She was deeply unhappy with herself and her life, and with our parents for giving birth to her.

‘How is your herbalist career progressing with Mrs Malani?' I asked, hoping to change her mood.

‘Mrs Malani uses a variety of herbs and some are very delicate, but now everything is dry and dead. She loves to walk the mountains and survey the hills.'

‘What about your soul stitching?' I asked.

‘I despise people; I look at their skin, their eyes, their lips and their tongues. Rarely do I see harmony. Usually it's a fountain of hatred, doubt, sex, abuse and crime.'

I packed a small case with a few books and clothes, and trudged the deserted gravel road in the early morning to Moulay-Rachid, two hours away. I left worried that Rabbia might kill someone or herself. Extremely thirsty, I could see only dust and desert around and ahead. At Moulay-Rachid, I took a siesta under a eucalyptus tree and waited for the coach coming from the east, heading north to Nador. The first coach was full. The second came and was full, but the aisles were free. I paid for a seat, but didn't get one.

From Nador, I took the night coach to Fez, a long, lonely journey. Arriving at Bab Ftouh evoked an old anxiety; a feeling of insecurity grabbed me. I threw my luggage on my back and headed to Tazzi's house. I passed the door of the Rssif Mosque, and remembered the nights I had spent there, wrapped in cold air. I reached the house and made a beeline to my tiny old room, where Rammani, Taji, Omar and I had spent our last days together. The light was on, but the door had a new lock. I knew my old friends wouldn't be here. Others would be.

I waited until the caretaker came. The new caretaker was an old man with a white beard who looked religious and wore a tall Fezzi hat. After checking my ID, he said, ‘You are sharing the room with two people. Wait until they come to let you in.'

More space
, I thought to myself. I squatted near the door and waited for them. Nabil came first and opened the door for me. The first thing I saw were posters of half-naked men and women all over the walls. The two best corners were already taken. I had to content myself with the end of the room, close to the door and exposed to the draft.