A Riffians Tune (13 page)

Kamil was shocked to discover that Moussa, in the space of a few short weeks, had become a heavy smoker. Moussa and Samir became close pals, and I felt like an outsider. They often wouldn't return to the room until late in the evening. I joined them and bought a full packet of cigarettes, but to my surprise and secret relief, I felt nauseated, dizzy and ill after my second cigarette. By smoking, I had broken my covenant with my mother; I had promised nicotine would never pass my lips. Even though I knew I would never smoke another cigarette, I couldn't help but feel ashamed and guilty.

After weeks of wasted journeys, though still hopeful, I become frustrated, and Samir was deeply embittered and despondent over the situation. He cursed his father, his grandfather, his great-grandfather and his religion. I felt deeply indignant to hear him swearing at religion, but Samir's anger came in waves, wave after wave, like a tsunami.

One morning, back from my daily pilgrimage, I found Kamil profusely coughing blood. ‘Why does blood come out every time I cough?' he asked me, bewildered.

‘Is this the first time?' I asked.

‘No,' he replied hoarsely.

‘You might have injured either your stomach or throat,' I suggested. ‘Have you eaten anything rough? A piece of prickly pear?'

‘No,' he shook his head.

‘Mrs Malani often gave me olive oil at home to treat a wide range of ailments,' I said. ‘I wonder if it would be of any use for you. Let me go and buy some olive oil; that might soothe your stomach and cough.' I hurried to the closest shop, which resembled a pigeon-hole, and asked for two hundred and fifty millilitres of olive oil.

‘Do you have a bottle or a container to put the oil in?' asked the shopkeeper.

‘No,' I replied.

From a dirty corner, he picked up an empty bottle and poured the oil into it. The bottle had no lid, so he tore a piece of an old newspaper, wadded it up, and stuck it into the bottle.

Back in the room, I advised Kamil to sup it from the bottle. The oil soothed his cough.

Unless we start to cook, the same thing might befall me
, I thought to myself. Determined, I went to the bazaar and bought a second-hand kerosene cooker, but the owner was crooked. He tricked me into paying twice. I argued with him, but he shook his fist at me.

‘Look where I am and who I am! I am a Fezzi in Fez!' he shouted. ‘And you! Look where you're from! You don't speak Darija!' I backed off, feeling conned, humiliated and insulted.

The vegetable market wasn't far, and I bought some potatoes, onions and half a kilo of camel mince which had been mixed with onions and coriander. I had never tasted camel mince before.

‘You're mad!' exclaimed Moussa when I arrived with a basket. ‘We can't pay for that! Take it back!'

Kamil was pleased, but didn't support me or shush his brother.

Samir, downcast, asked, ‘Are we going to stay here forever?'

With no enthusiasm or interest from anyone, I found cooking a chore. To wash the potatoes, I had to go to the ground floor, past the tanners who always felt the need to impart their sarcasm and philosophical musings. ‘Him and his potatoes!' called one of the pluckers derisively.

‘Let's call him “Potato”!' one woman mocked, her face covered and peering through a narrow window in her veil.

All the pluckers sang together, ‘Potato! Potato!'

I couldn't take any more, stopped in the middle and shouted, ‘Slave! Do you know your master?' Like hens, they hunkered down to their work.

To add to my frustration, I had a real difficulty with the cooker; it kept switching off and going out. I sat beside it and pumped it constantly until a weak flame steadied. I fried the camel meat with the leftover olive oil and added the potatoes and onions. The aroma of cooking brought sudden excitement from Moussa and Samir, who rushed out to buy two loaves of bread to complement the meal. After weeks of only white bread, the hot meal tasted delicious, and Kamil felt much better, but was still coughing blood.

To our surprise, the landlord burst into our room that evening and announced, ‘I have to increase the rent because you use a lot of water and don't switch the light off early, at nine o'clock.'

‘We need the light,' I said. ‘The
funduq
is too noisy during the day. We need to do some reading.'

Furious, the landlord looked at me, raised his hand and pointed his finger in my face, nearly poking my nose. ‘Do your reading in the street, under the lamp-post. The light is free there!' he barked.

‘Do you want us to drink less water as well?' I asked.

‘Olive oil and water are both measured and sold by the litre. Neither is free,' he said. He looked at me again, fumed, and pierced me with his stare. ‘You spend hours scraping a few potatoes under the water, the caretaker told me.'

‘The potatoes are covered with soil, and need to be washed,' I answered.

‘Peel them!' he retorted. He shrugged his shoulders and murmured, ‘I never thought people could eat unpeeled potatoes. As far as I know, only pigs do.' He slammed the door and went away.

Still not registered at the school, I wondered if staying in the
funduq
was wise. The landlord hadn't specified the amount of increase and had left us to guess. Kamil was too weak to face a change, and it was nearly the end of October. The registration and exams might be posted at any time.
This is not a time for turmoil
, I thought. I suggested we accept the increase, but said, ‘We must bargain with him.'

Kamil laughed aloud and said, ‘Bargaining is impossible in Fez!'

‘Why?' I asked.

‘Bargaining is bluffing. You never know how much to offer, as the asking price is usually at least five hundred percent. Whatever you suggest, you will be conned. Conned.'

Kamil's words worried me and reminded me of what Maroine's father had said to me: ‘Fez is a town of conners.' Trying to come to a decision, we debated until dawn. Had the landlord known that the light was on all night, we would have been evicted.

At eight o'clock in the morning, Kamil and I slipped out to the Scientific Assembly. We entered the building and felt like intruders; no one was around, just endless empty corridors. Posters were scattered on the walls. Kamil read the poster. ‘The academic year starts Sunday the 1st of November and all registered and returning students must join their respective year and class'. The posters mentioned nothing about new arrivals. That terrified me.

I stayed aimlessly wandering around the building for the rest of the morning in the hope an official might suddenly appear from behind one of the beautiful, closed doors. It was twelve-thirty, and no official had so far ventured out of his room – assuming they were actually in their rooms.
Every office must have its own private bathroom. No one feels the need to venture out to relieve his bladder or bowels
, I thought. Around a quarter to one, a middle-aged man left his office to go home for lunch. He was short, plump and hooded, and moved energetically. Giddy with relief at seeing someone, I rushed up to him.

‘I am new here,' I said. ‘I have come from the north. I want to join the school and be registered. Is it possible?'

‘Yes,' he answered with a firm, sharp voice. ‘Come tomorrow.'

Excited, I sprinted back to the room, pushing through the crowds to tell Moussa and Samir the good news. Full of hope, Moussa, Samir and I went early the following morning to register. The main door, made with solid wood and a decorative iron cross in the middle, was closed. A big window, facing the street, opened late in the morning, and an old hooded man, with pen and brown paper, peeked out and yelled, ‘Registration!'

Boys of all ages, from all towns and tribes, swarmed, scrambled and pushed each other to get to the window of hope. It was like a day of pilgrimage, a day of salvation, everyone pushing to reach the window to touch the Holy Stone. Moussa, Samir and I tried to stay together, but got separated. I tried several times to reach the window to give the officer my name and got thrown back. It felt like being caught in the current of the sea, impossible to get out of it. The wave carried me, and I didn't know where I was going to be dropped. It got to be almost mid-day, lunchtime, and the crowd was only getting thicker. Not giving up, I reached the window, but just as I was shouting my name, the officer gathered his papers and shut it.

The shutter was slammed closed, the magic window and hope with it. The swelled crowd was left to look at each other. I searched for Samir and found him in an envious mood. He looked relieved when I told him I hadn't been luckier than he had.

On our way back to the room, we bought two round loaves of white bread, some sugar and a bunch of mint. That was our dinner for the day.

Our entire afternoon and evening were spent discussing how to reach the window and the officer. ‘Just getting there earlier won't do,' I said. We engineered a trick that we thought would help us navigate through the determined crowd and reach the window. To be on the safe side, we decided to test it. We carried out the test in the room – two against one and one against two. Kamil was tolerant until Moussa knocked down our little table and broke all the glasses.

A yell filled the room. ‘There's glass in my heel!' shouted Moussa.

‘Try to walk!' coached Kamil.

Moussa tried, and the splinter dug in deeper. He yelled again, louder.

‘Can I see your heel?' I asked. Passing my hand over it, I pulled a piece of glass from his heel. The blood spurted out. Moussa felt a sharp pain whenever he put his heel on the ground.

‘Be brave! Be brave!' counselled Kamil.

‘Speak for yourself!' retorted Moussa. The more he tried to walk, the more pain he felt. Moussa's problem made us forget our trick.

Just as I tried to find out if Moussa still had another piece of glass in his heel, the landlord shouted, ‘Light off! Light off!' We switched the light off.

Before the cobblers started, I was awake. The office was supposed to open at ten o'clock, and I was there before seven. The streets were quiet and empty; all I could hear was the echo of my own footsteps. When I arrived, the swelling crowd of students was blocking the street.

At eleven, the window was still closed. Two policemen arrived; one was armed with a pistol; the other carried a baton and handcuffs. The armed policeman shouted, ‘Order! Order!' and the crowd queued. He stood near the window with his colleague at the end of the queue. At eleven-fifteen, the window was still closed. The queue became purposeless, but that didn't stop it from getting longer and longer by the minute.

At lunchtime, the crowd dispersed. Moussa was simply disabled, so on our way back to the
funduq
, I bought a needle and tweezers (shepherd's tools). Neither Moussa nor Samir knew their purpose.

‘Show me your heel,' I asked Moussa. It looked swollen and red. I recalled my father's horrible advice. As a little boy, playing around, a very heavy stone had fallen on my big toe. My father had looked at it, bleeding, and had advised me to urinate on it, which I had. My toenail became infected and subsequently fell off.

Gently, I pricked the sore spot with the needle and felt a small solid sliver. To free it, I delicately peeled the skin aside. As soon as I could see the splinter, I picked it out with tweezers.

‘Here's the devil!' I exclaimed and felt like a surgeon, holding the nasty piece of glass up for all to see. ‘Try walking now,' I instructed.

Cautiously at first, the memory of pain fresh in his mind, Moussa put his foot on the floor, then gave it his full weight. A smile spread across his face as he gingerly paced the floor, then jumped, free of pain.

While I was having lunch, a teacup in my right hand, biting a piece of bread in my left, the landlord and his son burst into the room. ‘This is your electricity bill,' said the son, as it was obvious his father couldn't read. The bill covered the electricity we had used after ten at night, but none of us understood the bill. To us, it was gibberish.

‘You didn't tell us not to use the electricity after ten o'clock when we took the room,' I said. ‘This restriction limits our only chance to pass our entrance exams.'

The plea didn't go down well with the father. He singled me out as a troublemaker. ‘It's you who keeps the light on late. I wouldn't charge the others more if you leave.' He and his son swept away, and a strange silence filled the room.

Angry, I put down my tea and bread, put my shoes on and said, ‘Let's go to be registered.' I expected Kamil, Moussa and Samir to support me against the landlord, but they didn't. I had no idea why. Leaving them behind, I headed to the registration window.

Two policemen were already standing near the door, and the window was open. To pretend I wasn't afraid of them, I asked what time it was. I was told the time and sat on the street below the window. In no time, the street was full and the policemen began organising the crowd into a queue. Being there first, and in time, didn't mean being first to be registered. The power of the crowd, like the waves of the sea, could easily displace anyone, but the policemen remembered me and called me to start the queue in front of the window. When the officer came to the window, he peeked out, looked at the crowd, shook his head, grabbed some brown paper and a pen.

‘Your ID, boy,' he demanded.

‘Here it is, sir,' I said, pulling it out of my pocket.

He looked at me, glanced at my photo and said, ‘That's not you.' His voice was loud, and the policemen heard him. They both butted in to check my face and the photo. They looked puzzled.

It was an old photo, from when I was skin-headed to inhibit fleas; I was also wearing a little square hat, making my head look small and dark. Now I had very long hair, and my cheeks practically touched each other.

‘Is there anyone in the crowd who knows you?' the policeman asked.