A Riffians Tune (31 page)

Before dawn, I was again knocking hard and loud on Uncle Mimoun's door. He was already up, looking smart, and was surprised to see me. I expected a pot of tea, but didn't get one. He seemed preoccupied.

‘I am going to Nador,' he said. ‘Mimount has been bleeding for weeks. A doctor needs to investigate the problem.' He paused for a few minutes and I could see he was thinking. ‘Your father would never forgive me if I withheld my help. A friend of mine, Mr Amakran, loaded with cash, will lend you a quarter of a million francs. I will be the guarantor. You can come with us and start now.'
This is too good to be true!
I thought. ‘A taxi will pick us up around ten o'clock.'

In a few leaps, I was home. Anxious, Amina wanted to understand why I was going back to a filthy town, Nador, in a crazy rush. ‘I will be back home before dark,' I promised. I saw her tears, but sprinted to catch Uncle Mimoun before the taxi arrived, as I knew he wouldn't wait for me.

In a royal blue Mercedes, I sat at the front beside the driver, who drove carelessly at an excessive speed, steering with one hand and holding a cigarette in the other. Uncle Mimoun sat at the back and gave his wife all the space she needed. She stretched her legs and put her head in his lap. He stroked her head and put a scarf on her face.
He is so close to his wife, with all his tenderness … did Uncle Mimoun really need a second wife?
I wondered.

Dropped at the doctor's surgery, we found the waiting room packed. ‘We'll be here for the whole day,' I said, watching men and women sitting on the chairs and lying on the floor. An old woman was doubled over, screaming with pain, her hand on her chest.

‘You will be first this afternoon,' the receptionist told us.

On top of her bleeding, Mimount complained of carsickness. Travelling from the doctor's surgery to a hotel was all she could bear. There we left her to sleep until early afternoon.

Uncle Mimoun and I went straight to Mr Amakran's warehouse, which was immense and busy. Mr Amakran struck me as a heavy man, fat and lazy; he never moved, but his brother, older but looking younger than he, took the orders and did the work. I watched a man confined at the very back of the shop to whom no one was allowed to talk or distract; he was the bookkeeper. He looked miserable, his head constantly hanging down over the papers, but from time to time, he lifted it. I wondered if this man was going to punch the glass encircling him, as sometimes his cheeks looked red and ready to burst. Mr Amakran kept his eyes on him.
To scratch a living, he has to be caged like Kamil's hamster, deprived of sun, sky and air
, I thought.

Mr Amakran ordered tea from the café on the corner, and the waiter arrived with two pots of tea and a tray full of glasses. Sitting around a low, narrow table, Uncle Mimoun and I, with Mr Amakran and his brother, drank tea, but I couldn't taste it, as I was nervous, wondering when the loan was going to be discussed. When the pot was almost empty, the rest of the tea, strong and cold, was poured in a glass and taken to the bookkeeper, like a dog given the crumbs.

‘My compliments; you have a good son,' said Mr Amakran to Uncle Mimoun.

‘Thank you. He is the son I never had. If he comes to you, would you recognise him and remember him?' Uncle Mimoun asked.

‘Absolutely!' replied Mr Amakran.

‘Please make a quarter of a million Moroccan francs available to him and put it on my account,' requested Uncle Mimoun.

‘Yes,' said Mr Amakran, but looked puzzled. ‘That amount of money for a young boy?' he murmured quietly.

‘Jusef is going to meet the daily ship from Malaga,' said Uncle Mimoun.

Mr Amakran understood the game immediately: black market currency trading. Turning to me, he gave me a deep, long look, as though seeing me for the first time. He then left his chair and went to his bookkeeper's office, disappeared for a few minutes and came back carrying a shabby suitcase. Mr Amakran, while never lifting his hand off his suitcase, took me to a large table and opened it.

I couldn't stifle the gasp that escaped from my mouth as I spied the largest variation of currencies I had ever seen in my life: Spanish, German, French and others I didn't even recognise. Mr Amakran looked on, amused at my astonishment. ‘Do you like it?' he chuckled.

‘If only it were mine!' I answered.

‘Never mind!' said Mr Amakran, who was well versed in foreign currency.

Looking at me, he hit a thick stack of French francs with his middle finger. ‘Avoid this currency,' he said. Lifting the index finger of his left hand, he pointed to a pile of German notes. ‘This bird,' he said, ‘never stops soaring,' and he ran back and forth, flapping his arms like birds' wings.

Mr Amakran thought I should know the currency traders as well as the tricks of the trade. ‘Did you ever hear of Mr Marosh?' he asked me.

‘Yes,' I replied, ‘when I was a child. He was cruel, a killer.'

‘Then I don't need to bore you,' he replied. ‘However, black market currency trading is full of Maroshes. If Newton discovered gravity, Marosh perfected cruelty. There is only one law in currency trading: make big money – and fast!'

From the outset, I had thought Mr Amakran was a holy man, but now I thought he had no soul. A gigantic grandfather clock chimed one and ended the talk and trading. The bookkeeper emerged from his cage while Uncle Mimoun and I rushed to the hotel with only enough time left for a quick lunch.

‘I am starving,' said Mimount when she saw us, ‘but I had awful nausea this morning. Maybe I should just fast,' she added.

‘Let's go,' said Uncle Mimoun, who was lying on the bed and seemed to have already had a short snooze.

On our way out, Mimount laid her hand on my shoulder. She needed support. Inside the restaurant, she was the only woman, and Uncle Mimoun tried to hide her. Conscious of the lack of other women, he sat Mimount facing the wall. She had never seen city beggars. When she turned to see where she was, as if she had just awakened from a deep coma, two male beggars standing outside the door of the restaurant caught her eye.

‘I can't swallow any more,' she said.

Uncle Mimoun looked at her and smiled. ‘You've seen nothing yet,' he said.

‘Has it to be like that?' she asked.

‘Nador has always been like that,' I told her, ‘but Fez is worse. It's time to move,' I reminded Uncle Mimoun.

He stood up, turned his shoulder and threw a scarf over his wife's head and around her neck. He moved first, and she dawdled behind him like a leashed dog. Mimount's consultation was not expected to last more than an hour. Doctors were very frugal with their time. Uncle Mimoun and I echoed the meeting time to each other: four o'clock at the taxi station.

I stepped into the bakery next to the doctor's surgery.
Two loaves would please Amina and save me the bother of baking for today
, I thought. Moving toward the market, I succumbed to the bargain offered by the grapes vendor, who was harassed and chased by the police wherever he went, as he could have been unlicensed or a tax dodger.

An eternity passed waiting for Uncle Mimoun to show up. Not conscious of how many grapes I had popped into my mouth, I finished the bag. Six o'clock struck, business died and spooks crept out to hunt. In the dark street, standing alone, I waited. And waited.

Uncle Mimoun and his wife appeared, but I couldn't fathom why both were beside themselves with fury. ‘Those two are mad!' the taxi driver told me.

‘They've just come out of the doctor's surgery,' I explained.

‘They should never have gone to see that quack doctor,' he said. In his late twenties, he was excited to be commissioned for a long journey.

‘What a beautiful Mercedes you drive,' I complimented him. Painted royal navy, freshly polished, the taxi had a diplomatic flair. As the driver was conscious of the value and the importance of his car, he made his way carefully, but as we left the paved road, we found the dirt road blocked by stone after stone, impassable. The driver and I tried to move them when suddenly, a pack of boys and girls stormed us from every direction. They dented the car, and we engaged in a stone fight, in which Uncle Mimoun joined. It was a disgraceful battle, but the boys and girls enjoyed it. Somehow, I enjoyed it as well.

At home at dinnertime, Amina pulled gossip from the past. ‘Mother used to call me a mindless chicken! Am I really?' she asked me.

‘Yes,' I teased her, not unravelling her motive.

‘Then find a husband for me!' she replied.

Seriously, I started looking for a husband for her. I went to Mr Kalid, who had no daughters, only sons. I suggested Amina as a wife for one of them. While waiting for his reply, I was horrified to discover that Amina had not been honest with me. She had already been fornicating with our cousin, Moha, temporarily on holiday from Germany. Before she knew it, she was pregnant, and tying her up with her lover proved to be difficult. Thick clothes could not hide a speedily growing baby indefinitely and local gossip hurt. Amina asked me to find an abortionist, but I refused.

* * *

ON THE TWENTY-FIRST OF
July, before the sun rose, I was standing at the front door of Mr Amakran's large store. Arriving on his own, without his brother, Mr Amakran didn't look at me, speak to me or greet me. He looked locked into a private world of his own and gave me the impression he didn't want to see me.
Is the offer still on the table?
I wondered, worried.

‘Good morning to you, Mr Amakran,' I said, moving closer to him, intending to shake his hand and jolt his memory.

‘Morning,' replied Mr Amakran, with a slow, heavy voice.

Neither my physical presence nor my voice jostled Mr Amakran's memory, despite Uncle Mimoun's express request that I be recognised. ‘Uncle Mimoun sends you his greeting,' I said, after a few seconds of loss. In fact, I lied. I hadn't seen Uncle Mimoun since the day Mimount had visited the doctor. As if a new sun had arisen or a dark curtain raised, Mr Amakran smiled and every muscle in his face and chin rippled.

‘Is your Uncle Mimoun in the town?' he asked.

‘No,' I said.

‘Pity,' he replied with a sigh. Mr Amakran could not forget his faithful comrade, Uncle Mimoun. As teenagers, just to be fed, they had fought together in the Spanish Civil War and often reminisced about hunting for Spanish girls.

I couldn't believe the heavy bundles of keys Mr Amakran carried on his belt, making him look like a prison warden. Mr Amakran picked the right key and unlocked his massive store. Once inside, I heard a gentle voice. ‘Tea and doughnuts, Uncle Amakran?' It was a boy from the café nearby who came every morning to serve him like a king, but with no official crown.

Before the tea and doughnuts were delivered, Mr Amakran's brother arrived, weaving through the aisles, inspecting the stock and jumping on the telephone whenever it rang. With a full plate of doughnuts and a glass of tea each, Mr Amakran, his brother and I sat around the same table as we had with Uncle Mimoun. The tea quenched my thirst and the honey-sweetened doughnuts revived my brain. I would have loved to have more. From the breakfast table, Mr Amakran and I moved to a far smaller table, under which Mr Amakran kept his cash. Notes of different currency were tied in bundles, and with just a small piece of paper indicating the exact amount.

‘I have counted each bundle six times, and my brother has counted eleven times. No one has ever said that I shorted him,' he said to me. Mr Amakran's extreme precision impressed me. In one single gesture, Mr Amakran handed me a quarter of a million Moroccan francs. I signed no paper. Mr Amakran knew I had to go quickly, so I split the bundles into two breast pockets, left and right, which made me ripe prey for a pickpocket.

I left Mr Amakran and joined a column of men, women and children, young and old, all heading to the town of Melilla, some in their private cars and others either by taxi or coach. It looked like an exodus, but Nador never emptied. A non-stop flood of people kept pouring in as well as out. To a tourist, the town looked like chaos; a war with no guns and peace with no tranquility.

In a coach full of people, there was just enough oxygen to survive, and most passengers were women, but, unlike those of Fez, they were unveiled, robust and strong. Very soon, I realised that everybody was carrying a basket. A teenage girl sitting beside me asked, ‘Where is your basket?'

‘I don't need one,' I answered.

Puzzled, the girl smiled. A basket was used as a disguise, but also the means for an officer, Moroccan or Spanish, to close his eyes and pocket a few hundred pesetas.

Different from most, with no basket in hand, I became worried I might be searched. My mouth felt dry and my eyes itchy. At the border, the queue was long, slow and degrading, and the officers chose whom to pick and search. Carrying no basket, I was quickly ushered along. People didn't matter; what they carried did.

Once beyond the Moroccan frontier and past the Spanish border guards, I remembered how a few years ago, my sister Sanaa had used me to visit Awisha, the Jewish witch, to fix her marital problem.
It wasn't kind of my sister to send me here
, I now realised.
Melilla was, and is, a risky and dangerous place.

The city centre faced the sea, though a tall row of palm trees stood between it and the gleaming Mediterranean beyond. The main boulevard running through the centre of the town split it in two, where shops of all kinds stood facing each other across the wide, busy street. The fortunes of the street ran from north to south in relation to how close premises were to the top end where, closest to the sea, chic cafés and exclusive banks thrived. At the bottom end, things were different, as beyond the end of the street lay a vast sprawling slum where Awisha lived and practised. Nothing had changed since the last time I was here.

Travellers leaving Africa, like those arriving from Europe, all passed through the city centre, from where the ship connecting the continents could be seen. There was no better place for a currency trader to sit than in the luxurious terraced cafés that lined the broad boulevard.