The Arch and the Butterfly (33 page)

The official celebration ended about midnight. Ahmad Majd said after the opening party ended he would go up to the dream apartment on the ninth floor as a guest of the French owner, the perfumier, who had paid cash for the apartment without seeing it. I asked if it were possible for me to know the price of the apartment, but Ahmad Majd laughed, saying, ‘Can you just enjoy yourself and keep quiet?’

Fatima, Layla and I joined Ahmad. The apartment opened into a circular hall in the style of the Andalusian domes, and in the middle was a fountain of intertwining horses made of white marble, jets of water spouting from their mouths. A group of guests hovered around this piece of art, talking at length about the well-known British sculptor who had made it especially for the apartment. I had the impression I knew the sculptor, having seen him in a catalogue Fatima had brought me from an exhibit of major European sculptors a few years earlier in Strasbourg. Fatima confirmed my guess. She was open-mouthed in amazement: the sculpture cost more than all our apartments put together. Layla said she found the hall vulgar, and she was right. But her opinion in no way affected the mood of this second festivity, and I was surprised by Ahmad Majd’s anger, for he heard the comment as he was making room for himself among us. Nevertheless, I decided to stay in a good mood for the party and refrain from any cheap jibes. The most amazing thing in the apartment was the swimming pool. It stretched to the end of the balcony and gave the impression that the water was flowing in the street. Layla and I stood there for a long time admiring the illuminated swimming pool, which revealed a huge mosaic mural. We were looking at it in awe when our happy host approached us and explained that the mural was a Byzantine mosaic that had followed him for thirty years, from one house to another. He added, ‘I think it has finally settled down in this suspended paradise.’

Layla asked, ‘Where was it thirty years ago?’

‘I don’t know exactly. My business rep bought it at a British auction. So I imagine it was somewhere in the Middle East.’ Then he asked us if the reflection of the light on the mosaic bothered us from this angle, and Layla assured him there was no reflection at all. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to make sure. We placed a glass cover on the mural to protect it, and I feared it would reflect the rays.’

Layla said, ‘I’m just trying to imagine the void that the removal of this masterpiece left behind.’

Our host replied in a friendly tone, ‘It would be like any other void, my lady. A mere void.’

We spent a long time admiring the apartment, which felt like a museum. There were sculptures from the Far East, Persian miniatures, Turkish glassware, and a mix of textiles, leather and silver and copper vessels. There were also works by the major Orientalist painters, including Delacroix and Jacques Majorelle. Layla jokingly suggested stealing them. I told her there was certainly an electronic security system in place to protect the treasures, which had already been stolen once during their lifetime.

There was a large wooden gallery and huge plants in the massive bar that overlooked the Koutoubia. Fatima, Layla and I sat at a small table near the counter and away from the noise of the guests who had spread around the swimming pool and filled the apartment’s balconies. We were discussing our common preoccupations when I felt that someone was looking in my direction; or, to be more precise, I felt a presence that was overpowering me. I expected someone to appear suddenly. This terrified me and I was unable to move, as I thought about Al-Firsiwi, my mother and Zulikha. Layla wondered what was wrong with me. I asked her to check if there was someone behind me or on the other side of the counter watching me. She told me she couldn’t see anyone.

I looked to the right, where the refrigerators and the shelves of cups and glasses were, and I saw him standing there, looking over the city with his dreamy expression and the bunch of stony grapes over his shoulder. I saw his broken arm and his adolescent size. The statue had all the dullness of granite dating back to the first century BC. I stood up trembling and approached it. I examined its right foot and found it had lost four toes, the same ones that were still on the statue’s plinth at the entrance to Walili.

‘It’s Bacchus! The Bacchus of Walili,’ I yelled in excitement.

A number of guests gathered round. Ahmad Majd arrived, clearly upset. Layla held on to me as Fatima examined the statue and took photos. I was overcome with a feeling I could not define, a mixture of joy, madness and fear.

Ahmad Majd shouted at me, saying, ‘Bacchus, Bacchus! And so what?’

I said, ‘Nothing, but we must take it. That’s all there is to it.’

Our host approached our group and asked, a smile frozen on his face, what was the matter. Fatima explained that it was simply an unexpected encounter with a person we knew. The Frenchman said, ‘I always like to play a role in unexpected encounters.’

Fatima pointed to Bacchus, saying, ‘He has been our friend for about a quarter of a century. In other words, ever since he disappeared from his family home in Walili.’

The Frenchman did not make any immediate comment, but his face rippled with a mounting tremor. He said this adolescent Bacchus was not considered an exceptional artistic achievement, despite the lyricism deriving from the lack of harmony between the age of the young man and the delicacy of his movements, which almost stripped the statue of its unworked feel. ‘Despite all that,’ he said, ‘I loved it at first sight when I saw it in Frankfurt. I must confess that it did not cost me much. I can honestly say it is the cheapest piece in my collection.’

We left the apartment after an extended argument over what to do. I insisted on staying to wait for the police to arrive so I could make a statement regarding Bacchus’s recovery. But the French host, Ahmad Majd and other guests suggested otherwise, so as to avoid ruining such a beautiful evening, especially since the owner was not denying the fact or distancing himself from the matter. They all said they knew nothing about the origins of the Bacchus statue, and they wondered if it would be possible to wait until the morning for the guests to leave and the festivities to end. Then we could do whatever was needed, quietly.

Ahmad Majd asked me whether I was more interested in Bacchus or the scandal.

‘Both,’ I said, and to be honest, I added, ‘I’m interested in the scandal, first and foremost.’

Finally, dragging my feet, I left the gallery, went in the direction of the swimming pool and then to the circular hall, and finally to the lift. I was unable to fully recover from the in-between condition I had experienced. I had the feeling I had found Bacchus and not found him; I was happy at this and not happy; I was surprised and not surprised. I thought of calling Al-Firsiwi but I wondered what I would get from doing so. I would probably succeed in destroying his legend regarding Bacchus, and then what? Wouldn’t it be better for him to continue believing that he had fooled us all? Was there something closer to the truth than lies, since both revealed each other?

People in front of me were getting into the crowded lifts, and whenever they became a single mass of heads and apologies, the doors would shut and a mysterious abyss would swallow them. I was about to derive a certain lesson from this evocative image when Layla pushed me into the abyss.

I surrendered to an enjoyable descent, wishing it would never end, when the lift doors opened to a large commotion. At the centre of it all, I saw Fatima bleeding from her nose and shouting. It took me time to understand that two men had grabbed her as she was leaving the lift, attacked her and taken away her camera.

We went straight to the police station, where I reported that I had found the statue of Bacchus that had been stolen a quarter of a century before, and named all the witnesses who had been with me. Fatima reported that she had been attacked and her digital camera stolen. She was convinced theft in such a luxurious place would not be for the money but because she had taken pictures of Bacchus in the ninth floor apartment, in the presence of prominent guests and the owner, the most famous perfume maker in the world.

I no longer had any desire to get anything out of this storm. All I wanted was to return to our room in Ahmad Majd’s house and hold Mai in my arms. I urged Layla to hurry home, assuring her that I did not want anything from this situation, neither a court case nor a victory. All I wanted was to embrace Mai. This sudden upheaval made me easy prey to a destructive fear. My heart constricted, and I imagined that I would not find Mai in her bed or that I would find her swimming in a pool of blood. I had a fit as I fought this fear. I did not know why the fits occurred at my moments of fear in particular.

Layla began spooling the lifeline of words that would help me breathe, throwing it out to the depths that had started to swallow me. I stretched out my arm to grab the rope, but my hand was going crooked and bending back. I tried to return it to its normal position with my other hand, but it too froze against my chest. I was totally tied up while Layla continued to talk about Mai, who had taken her first steps, unexpectedly, the previous day. ‘She stood and looked at me. I told her: come on, come to Mama, and she took one step, then another, and then walked all the way to where I was, without smiling or crying, as if she were doing something she had been doing for ages.’

I then saw a face looking at the car window. I saw a garden and a person running with a dog or away from it. Then I could not see anything except a white light, an overwhelming white light that gradually faded away, revealing objects and sounds. I saw Mai extending her tiny hand towards my face. The moment she touched it, I understood everything.

The police called us in the following day. They told us they had found no trace of a Roman statue in the apartment. I told the officer that we should be taken to court for making up a crime. He said amiably, ‘We don’t see any need for that. There’s no complaint against you.’

I smiled dumbly at the faces that surrounded me. Fatima led me out by the arm. I felt a heavy burden lifting off my chest. I might have been worried that Bacchus, in the event of his glorious return, would become a lawsuit that I would have to manage in connection with many things that were beyond me.

‘OK. The best thing is for all of us to retire to their corner, isn’t it?’ I asked Fatima.

She turned towards me and asked me with teary eyes what I meant.

I said that it was normal for such things to happen at the end of a muddled party, where one sees people and things that no one else sees.

Fatima said, ‘It was simple theft. Why are you trying to give it wings?’

‘I was a stone’s throw from achieving my only victory over Al-Firsiwi, but I failed. His story about the courtyard of the village mosque will remain the most plausible.’

We got in the car, and Fatima hurried to wipe her face and get ready as she always did when she was overtaken by anger. She said, without any trace of hesitation in her voice, ‘I will never return to this country to live. I cannot live in a place I do not understand.’

I wished, deep inside, not to believe her, but I failed. Then I quickly felt better because her decision not to come back had nothing to do with me.

When we returned to Ahmad Majd’s house and I told Layla what happened, she reacted by quickly and determinedly packing our suitcases. We did not even need to discuss the matter. We put the suitcases in the car and left. She insisted on driving. I gave in, not wanting to upset her, but she begged me while I was sitting in the back with Mai never to drive again.

‘Promise me, I beg you, never to drive again.’

I told her frankly that I would never give up this poetic machine, and if a fit did not kill me while I was driving, it would while I was doing something else. ‘What’s the difference?’ I asked.

‘The difference is that you won’t be around for me to hate you.’

Layla drove in her deliberate, restrained manner while I played with Mai, teaching her sounds made by birds and animals and play-acting roles from cartoons that only the two of us knew. Mai was excited, and after more than an hour she became tired and began rubbing her eyes. Still she did not give in and concentrated her efforts on making me sleep, placing her cheek on my head the way her mother would do for her, then passing her fingers through my hair, insisting with her half words that I rest. Whenever I moved to evade this obligation, she got upset like a true mother and quickened the stroking of her fingers.

When Layla said we were approaching Settat, Mai said, ‘Shustt, shustt.’ The last thing I heard was Layla’s laughter. Then I woke up and heard her say, ‘We’ve arrived.’

I put Mai to bed and helped Layla get everything in order before going up to my apartment. I entered the large, empty space illuminated by the city lights, and took a deep breath.

2

I woke up exhausted for unknown reasons and thought: no one can do anything for anyone else. At that stage in my life, or that moment of the morning, I had the impression that I was a prisoner of situations I was not responsible for and was unable to get away from. Even when I had all the best intentions in the world to do something, I could not do it. I could not do anything for Fatima, I could not do anything for Al-Firsiwi, I could not save Bacchus and I could not go to Havana. I could not run away to a far-off island with Layla, yet I could not stop thinking of escape as the only way to start a new life.

I said all of that to Layla and she answered sharply, ‘A few months ago you could not think about a new place to live, and here you are now living in it and according to the ridiculous Japanese style of your dreams. Before that, there were loads of things you could not do, but sometimes they happened without a huge effort on your part.’