A Riffians Tune (26 page)

Back from the market one day when summer was waning, finding my mother on the mend, I went to her bed on the floor and whispered, ‘Mother, it's time for me to go back to school,' but I felt that wasn't what she wanted to hear.

A
rriving at the school gates, I felt a swell of joy, but also a tinge of angst.
I'm in the right place. I know I am
, I told myself resolutely. Still, my mind dragged me five hundred miles away to my mother, Rabbia
and Amina lost between rocks, dreams and poverty.

Dinner time came and I was seated at a new table in the vast dining hall. It was packed with noisy, excitable boys reuniting after the long summer, but looking around, I didn't recognise one single face. New students had arrived, and a lot of the old guard had simply been swept aside, their places unceremoniously filled with newcomers.

Faissal and I were joined at our table by Abdu, a boy I had never seen before, but who spoke Tarifit. No sooner had he sat down than he breathlessly spilled his news. ‘Do you know, the school will be hit by a strike? The school will be closed!' he announced excitedly.

‘What?' I exclaimed, shocked. ‘Why? We just got here!'

I never managed to get more of an answer as, hearing the thumping and the raucous voices, a prefect quickly dispersed us. Abdu struck me as a mysterious, bold and brazen boy.

Professor Drissi, a stern man with an uncompromising outlook, soon found my nonconformist thinking to be particularly troublesome. In class, to straighten me out, he prescribed an essential list of approved books to read, analyse and report upon. Professor Drissi was confident that, navigating through this vast library of literature containing selected authors from North Africa and the Middle East to Islamabad and Kabul, I would soon join him on the straight path. Unbeknown to him, however, my focus was engaged elsewhere.

At a very early age, whilst a refugee in Algeria, I had seen a foreign family for the first time, an Italian family, a father, mother and their four children, all sitting around, not on the floor, but at a table. The children had scrunched small pieces of paper and thrown them at each other, laughing. I had stood transfixed, staring at their colourful clothes, their smart shoes and the fun they had playing their game. I had wished I could be one of them. Later, as a shepherd in the Rif mountain foothills, I had encountered French men holding their wives' hands; the women, poised and captivating, exuded an air of self-confidence like royalty. It was all a far cry from what I had seen around my village and in my own family.

I felt boxed in a crippling culture with which I couldn't identify and trapped by a local language barely recognisable in the wider world, a handicap that felt almost physical in its burden. I yearned to escape, like an unhatched chick, to break free from the constraints encasing me to my reality. But the ties were strong; how could I do it? The only solution I could see was to learn the French language, prestigious and known internationally, to give me the tool to break free from my bounds, to finally crack the shell and soar. Determined, I went to the Catholic convent run by two Franciscan Fathers and begged them to register me for the evening French lessons.

Professor Drissi went berserk when he was told that I had gone to a Catholic convent and registered for evening classes. He detained me after class, warned and reprimanded me.
You hypocrite!
I thought but didn't dare say.
Your children go to a French mission school where Arabic is not only not taught, but despised!

French classes started at seven o'clock and were held in an old traditional house in a quiet part of the old
medina
. Teachers, all French, were volunteers and included professors, doctors, accountants and nurses.

I enjoyed the lessons and to my delight, found myself progressing well under their tutorage, but it was not without a cost: I had to miss my evening meal. Missing my dinner three times a week in the middle of winter was hard to endure, and the hunger made the long nights in the unheated dormitory more arduous. Tired, hungry and weak, my loud, painful stomach rumblings gave me away wherever I went.

Oujdi was in the same dormitory as I and sneaked whatever bread was leftover from dinner for me, but he couldn't get the days straight. As we sat at different tables, he often forgot, and when he did remember, I had often been at dinner and didn't really need any leftover bread, however well intentioned it was.

To get to the evening class building, I had to cross three big, empty lots and a large cemetery. Leaving the school at six-thirty was not such a big problem, but coming back certainly was, especially during the winter when the evenings were menacingly dark. The lots were unlit, and dishevelled tramps and beggars slunk out of dark corners as my footfalls startled them. I walked through on high alert, always ready to run, and circumvented anyone who crossed my path, but crossing the cemetery was a different and altogether stranger story.

The cemetery was not a quiet or revered place, but a safe haven for sexual activity. I saw and heard people engaging in sexual encounters despite the gentle darkness of the night. It wasn't unusual for me to see a couple busily engaged while two or three other men waited at their feet. Yet passing through the cemetery, I felt safer than anywhere else on my journey, for everybody was busy.

One afternoon in June, I found the school had posted the timetable for the final year exams. I was shocked.
It's too soon! It feels like I've only been here a few weeks!
Dread and panic overwhelmed me; from then on, sleep proved to be practically unattainable. Professor Drissi was still expecting regular reports from readings covering hundreds of years of Islamic literature. Yet to my dismay, not one single book was relevant for the exams. Then there were the French classes; they took up three evenings a week, and with significant work to take home on the other evenings, I seriously contemplated whether it would be best to drop them altogether.
If I do
, I thought to myself,
how will I be able to tear the blanket from over my head?
Upon completing my exams, I left in a hurry for home before knowing the results and whether or not I would be able to return.

A
t home, I found everything off-colour and changed. My mother, completely grey, had degenerated, her legs and arms were no longer under her control, but she managed to move now and again with the help of a stick. Amina had grown taller and older, with the look of a woman. I expected to see Rabbia, but there was no sign of her.

‘Mother, where is Rabbia?' I asked.

‘She's in her house,' she replied.

‘Is she married?' I exclaimed in surprise.

‘Yes, but her husband is in prison.'

I didn't know Rabbia had married, and I had never met her husband or heard his name, Zgooda, mentioned. Naïvely, I had believed she disliked men.

‘What's he in prison for?' I asked.

‘Ask Rabbia,' my mother replied. I understood my mother disliked him.

Rabbia came and asked me to go with her to see her husband. ‘I haven't seen him since he was locked up six months ago,' she said.

‘I can't go now,' I said. ‘The harvest …' The harvest was worse than meagre, and I worked alone in the field, sickling, threshing and winnowing. Despite my mother's objections, I went with Rabbia to Nador to see her husband in prison. Rabbia barely recognised him. He looked as if he'd been in a concentration camp.

‘Zgooda, this is my brother, Jusef,' she said, taking his hand.

He looked at me through hazy eyes, and I could tell he hadn't had a good night's sleep in months. I wondered what he had done to deserve that.

As if reading my thoughts, Zgooda said, ‘I was convicted of stealing and selling a donkey. I found the beast astray, starving to death, and took it to the market to be saved and sold it for peanuts …'

Rabbia butted in and said, ‘The judge didn't understand the well-being of humans, let alone that of the donkey.'

‘The judge asked me, “Would you drive a car away and sell it if you found it abandoned?” “No, my Lord,” I said, “Cars don't starve. Cars are registered. The owner is identified. Donkeys are not numbered, and hundreds and hundreds are abandoned, because of old age, weakness, or simply illness,”' Zgooda said. ‘But the judge thought I was hot-headed, arrogant, and needed straightening in prison.'

Saddened by his story of injustice and Rabbia's disconsolate state, I turned to face the wall in the corner of the tiny room to give them a moment of privacy before we were ejected from the visiting area by a burly, unsympathetic guard. Rabbia was silent on the return journey, and I had no way to cheer her.

Upon finishing the harvest, I went to the factory nearby to look for a job. There was none, and I returned the following morning. Again, there was none. Tired of looking for jobs that didn't exist, I succumbed to my mother's nagging to go with her to see my uncle miles away.

I later found my mother hadn't been honest with me. While I had been working in the field, she had been preparing a visit to her brother and had never expressed to him her secret motive: she was determined to commit me to Samira, her niece. For her, love was a matter of legend and myth.

Though slightly paralysed, my mother made the best of her looks that she could, trying not to look old. She wore a white Indian-like sari covering the lower and upper parts of her body, and always split with a silk belt. She took a particular interest in her eyes and eyelashes. To line her eyes, she bought very dark blue stone, which she pulverised with extreme care. For her face, she used olive oil. To clean her teeth, she rubbed them with charcoal. Afterwards, she chewed bark, which reddened her mouth, gums, tongue and lips. Watching her, I wondered if she were looking for a lover or a new husband.

We left at two in the afternoon and arrived at twilight. Two fierce dogs met us. Samira and her mother, Jamila, usually emerged at the first bark of their dogs – curious to see who was there and happy to receive a visitor, but now there was no sign of either. I challenged the dogs and edged closer to the window, which I peppered with small stones. Peeved, Jamila peeked out of the window.

My mother had known Jamila, her brother's first wife, for many years. Though three wives had come after her, she bore no grudge against them, but rather felt sorry for them. Jamila was small in size, but had an attractive face, placid voice and generous nature. We soon realised Jamila was unhappy and noticed also the absence of Samira as we were ushered into the guest room and left wondering.

‘Where is Samira?' my mother asked when Jamila returned with tea, expecting Samira to come and sit beside me.

Jamila didn't answer, and I felt a real unease. My mother and Jamila looked at each other in dismay.

Jamila sighed and said, ‘Unknown to us, she got pregnant. We only realised when she ballooned to twice her size. Horrified, dishonoured and ashamed, my sons hunted the boy living just across the valley, and swore they'd kill him. Fearing for his life, he ran and hid in the mountains. His mother agreed to enter into a dishonourable wedding. I fought it, but I lost.

‘The boy's mother didn't want her son to get married to a non-virgin and took revenge. She humiliated Samira on her wedding day. Instead of carrying Samira on a horse from our house to hers, she put her on a jenny with a red cloth on it. Imagine all the people watching and talking about it! On her arrival, instead of entering through the main door, she was carried over the wall, and many men, unrelated to us, were called in to participate in the operation to keep her from falling. Instead of passing through to her husband's room by the door, she was pushed through the window. In the end, she fainted.

‘The following morning, there were no fireworks to celebrate her virginity, and there was no white flag to show her blood. There was no blood to show, to test or smell.'

My mother slumped with depression. She had come with a devious plot to marry me to Samira, and the plot had failed, by the grace of God. Our visit was not enjoyable and shorter than my mother had expected. I was relieved to come home and look for a job again.

I was bored and wanted to do something to make money, but how difficult it was! I decided to go back to the factory and offer myself for day work. I arrived at the gate and waited. Job seekers like me came here and waited for Mr Pepe, the manager of the factory, to open the gate and pick. If the gate remained closed until eleven, the jobless understood there was no job. The choice was either to go home or to join the bingo club.

The manager came, opened the gate, and recognised me, as I had been there before. ‘Are you a student?' he asked.

‘Yes, I am.'

‘Wait,' he said. He kept me waiting until ten o'clock, then he came and took me to a large pile of shredded yucca leaves and handed me a pitchfork. He asked me to heave the leaves into the air to dry them, then move them to another pile.

At first, it was fun; then it became a real chore. My hands blistered quickly, then popped, and my nostrils filled with dust. A nasty old man called Abdo-Kader, the one in charge, kept shouting at me every time I paused. He was extremely short, ugly and bearded, and his soul wasn't much better.

‘Is that all you can do today?' he called to me every ten minutes.

I was pushing a wheelbarrow, moving between two piles, when I heard hellacious screaming from inside the factory, where over one hundred men, women and children were working. I heard the wailing and the cries, ‘She's caught! She's caught!' I heard men yelling, ‘Papee! Papee!', as he was the only engineer who knew what to do. Hundreds of workers, terrified women and girls yelling, ran out of the factory.

It was Fadila, a big girl in her twenties, who had been feeding a huge grinding machine. She got her fingers caught under the press and was sucked in. Before Papee could shut off the machine, her entire body was minced. Blood, pieces of flesh and bones were splattered everywhere, on the floor, the machines and the walls. Papee shouted, ‘Everybody go home!'