A Riffians Tune (34 page)

My mother had left four beautiful, heavy silver bracelets, and each sister had tried to steal at least one. They had fought over them like ferrets in a bag and to make a temporary truce, it had been decided the bracelets should stay at home, become a part of the house like the doors, hooks and stones until, of course, one of them managed to steal them away.

I knew how bitter the fight over the bracelets was. But, to raise money to trade again, I could think of no solution but to pawn those precious bracelets, despite knowing a battle would be waiting for me.

On the ninth of October, I got up well before dawn and after two hours of walking, caught the first coach coming from Oujda. It was nearly full; everyone was almost hypnotised by the beauty of nature and the power of the rising sun. The coach was fitted with a radio through which morning music added to the joy of the travellers. Hiding four bracelets in my school bag, I was careful and nervous. The road was dotted with police checkpoints.
What if they ask me where I got the four bracelets?
I worried. I would be accused of either illegal trading or stealing. Luckily, I sneaked through without being frisked.

Searching for jewellers in Nador, I found two, but they were not open yet. Waiting, I sat in a café, under a palm tree, keeping watch on the doors.

One jewellery shop owner came and slowly, delicately, opened his shop door, which had three locks and a massive padlock visibly hanging from the doorknob, a tangible sign of how hard it would be to break into his shop. I was his first client, and the jeweller looked happy, a smile spreading over his face.

‘I have four bracelets,' I said, ‘but I really don't want to sell them. Could you price them for me, please?'

‘Yes, show them to me.'

I pulled out the bracelets, one by one, and put them on the counter. The jeweller was impressed and looked at me suspiciously as if I were a thief. ‘Those are antique,' said the jeweller. ‘No one makes them anymore. They are heavy and beautifully engraved. I would guess that each one is worth fifty thousand Moroccan francs. This is a conservative estimate. Why not sell them?' he asked.

I hesitated, not knowing how to continue the conversation; a short silence ensued. ‘If you give me one hundred thousand francs, I will leave them with you until I redeem them, but I will pay you interest,' I offered.

With some skepticism, the jeweller agreed to the deal, and I went out with one hundred thousand Moroccan francs in my pocket
.
I felt reconstructed from the dust. On the coach to Melilla, I felt the hills looked higher, the sea wider and bluer, and my mind focused on how to kill Mr Marjosi.

Arriving in Melilla at midday, I had missed the morning trade. On my way to Café Morina, my saliva thickened and my throat dried; I needed water quickly. Before reaching the café, I stopped; hesitation took over.

From across the road, sitting on his chair, Mr Timsamani spotted me and called out, but his voice was lost in the wide road filled with cars and pedestrians. He kept waving. I crossed the road and looked for a free chair. The terrace was full of lazy old men come to discuss America and Russia, hell and heaven.

‘Hi! Hi!' shouted Mr Timsamani to me, and offered me a seat at his table.

‘You haven't traded for days,' he said.

‘I haven't,' I said.

‘A herd of travellers arrived two days ago and were desperate for Moroccan currency. The traders did very well,' he said. While he was still talking, Mr Marjosi arrived with a tray full of bottles of water and hot espresso steaming up into his face.

‘What can I get for you?' he asked me, his criminal eyes spinning fast.

‘Coffee,' I said.

It was almost one o'clock, and Mr Timsamani's Mercedes arrived to collect him. Full of trepidation, I glued myself to the terrace.

Later in the afternoon, like an earthquake, the ship's horn shook the air. Traders, as well as spectators, all dashed to meet the ship. It was jam-packed. As passengers poured down the gangplank, small traders like me were waiting at its foot whispering, ‘Exchange. Currency exchange.' Mr Timsamani, far away from the travellers and the traders, did business just by nodding his head. I watched him and admired his achievement.

Though travellers were desperate to convert their money and go home, pulling teeth would have been far easier than doing business with them. Shrewd bargaining reaped a profit, but the success of the day didn't extinguish the deep anger I felt for having to pawn my mother's bracelets. I couldn't be this miserable and leave Mr Marjosi happy.

* * *

THE JEWELLER'S FACE FELL
when just two weeks later I stepped into his shop and told him, ‘I am here to redeem my mother's bracelets.' He counted the stack that I handed him several times and said nothing.

‘What's the interest?' I asked him.

‘I won't charge you,' he replied. ‘You're the boy Mr Amakran spoke to me about.'

The jeweller's words touched me, but nothing could assuage my anger toward Mr Marjosi. I redeemed my mother's bracelets and went straight home.

I felt happy and so did the two dogs.
My mother would be pleased to see her bracelets back in the cubbyhole. How sad she would be if she had seen her bracelets pawned and worn by another woman.

I had just a week or, at the very most, ten days before returning to school. I endeavoured to sort out the fate of the two loyal and beautiful dogs, plus the quiet donkey, as there would be no one in the house once I left.

‘Do you need a donkey?' I asked Uncle Mimoun on a visit.

‘Of course I don't,' he shrugged.

‘Why not sell the donkey?' Mimount asked.

‘It's an old donkey. It dates from Father's days,' I said. ‘It has lost practically all its teeth. It's very slow chewing barley and straw. However, I will do some publicity through Baghdad. He might be able to sell it at the bingo club.'

‘Clever,' said Mimount. Uncle Mimoun didn't budge. ‘What about the dogs?' Mimount asked.

‘Maybe Uncle Mimoun would like to have one or both,' I suggested.

‘Let's stop talking about dogs,' he said shortly.

* * *

AMINA WAS IN LIMBO,
married, but unmarried, and sent a messenger to ask me to visit her. Reluctantly, I went. Waiting for a husband who might not even come home was painful to her; meanwhile her husband's father played like a rooster in the middle of four wives plus daughters-in-law.

After a two-day visit, I resumed my trade. I went to Melilla and sat on the Café Morina terrace. I felt a light chill in the air, indicating that summer was on its way out. I saw that the waiters' uniforms had changed to heavier clothes in a darker colour.

As the morning trade wore on, I ventured deeper into the sprawling slums. I took the main avenue past the Catholic cathedral until I reached the end, where deprived life began with the small shops. I took a narrow, right-hand street where very tiny cubicles cascaded one into another, and further down men, bored to death, were selling second-hand clothes laid on the ground. At a grocery shop, I stopped to buy a couple of bananas.

Passing the rag-cloth market, I descended the gentle hill until I reached the bottom, a large, dusty, open intersection. Here, I remembered the stack of melons and my pilgrimage to Awisha the witch. The flag of poverty and depravity flew high and the people bustling or sitting all looked like marionettes up to no good. At the entrance to a narrow street, a tiny boy with dark hair and a long neck barked like a parrot, ‘Girls! Girls! Brunette or blonde!'

Behind him, forty metres away, a middle-aged man stood still and eyed the boy. A few metres farther down, a second boy offered the same product, but he didn't look as smart as the first and his heart wasn't in the job. ‘Gun,' I murmured to myself, a little too loudly, on my way past.

Walking away, I felt a tugging on my jacket and whirled sharply like a dervish. ‘What are you up to?' I shouted, fist at the ready, Mr Marjosi in my mind.

‘I will provide you with a gun,' said the boy gently and confidently. ‘They are very cheap and come in all sizes to fit the pocket and the price.'

‘Show me one,' I said defiantly.

‘No, I can't, but I will put you in contact with a trader,' he said.

‘Who and where is he?'

‘He's a retired army officer,' replied the boy. Reading the doubt on my face, he added, ‘He's a very serious man.'

This boy is not as stupid as he looks
, I thought,
but he might lure me to a second Marjosi.
The thought of buying a gun, let alone pulling the trigger, worried me, but to be ‘raped' by a bully weighed on my pride.

* * *

THE NEXT DAY WHEN
I had decided, I went back to find the little boy, and to my surprise, there he was, identically the same, looking deeply bored. He moved slowly from the corner where he had been standing idle and rushed toward me. ‘Did you find what you wanted?' he asked.

‘No.'

‘Listen to me. Listen,' he whispered. ‘Coming down the street, you might have noticed a watch repair shop on your left. It's not always open. It's a front. Give me five minutes, and the trader will be there and the shop will open.' The boy spoke convincingly, so I made a sharp U-turn. A small shop with two narrow glass windows packed with cheap Japanese watches stood beside a Spanish butcher's. Dangling sausages were visible, and I smelled ham from metres away.

Peering through the window, I spied a short, fat woman, olive-skinned and dark-haired, busy polishing some watches with a white cloth. No man was visible inside.
Is this the shop?
I wondered. Despite my doubts, I entered. Immediately, a man stood before me. His wife joined him and both smiled as if they had known me since birth. The boy had certainly given them some description of me. The man, tall, heavily built, with extremely blue, unsettling eyes, hung over the counter and overshadowed his wife.

Fidgeting, I didn't know how to start. Sharply calibrating my movements, the woman asked me, ‘Is there anything that you want to see?' She smiled and closed rank with her husband, who was settled back into his armchair.

‘A pistol,' I whispered, my heart beating. The man carefully and gently pulled open a drawer full of pistols, all different sizes and origins. None looked dusty. They all looked shiny and surprisingly cheaply priced. With an impulse, my hand dove to the smallest pistol.
It's easy to hide
, I thought,
but maybe not easy to use
. The man took over and the demonstration was quick and exciting. I paid five hundred pesetas for a pistol the size of my palm.

‘The bullets?' I asked.

‘We don't sell them,' responded the wife with a crooked smile and pursed lips.

Quizzically, I looked up at the ceiling and then again at the woman. ‘Why not?' I asked politely.

‘Many reasons,' said the woman, eyes fixed on her husband.

‘The law,' the man said.

‘A pistol with no bullets is harmless,' said the woman.

I felt cheated. ‘Where can I buy bullets?' I asked incredulously.

‘One street over,' motioned the wife. ‘The shop has two glass windows, radios on one side and leather belts on the other.'

Angrily, I scrambled through the crowd, skirting some meaty and fat Spanish women, to the luxuriously stocked shop that the woman had described, with leather belts on one side and Philips radios on the other. Peering through the window, I spied two middle-aged men playing chess.

The shop was stuffed with merchandise both antique and modern, shirts and ties, women's pants, leather wallets, but mainly radios of all sizes. The men were glued to their chairs playing chess, unaware if I, or anyone else, was inside. Their complete silence was filled with light melancholic music emanating from invisible speakers.

One of them seemed to be deep in thought and was a slow player, so the other had a chance to lift up his head. ‘May I help you?' he called.

His partner interrupted his pondering and both advanced to the counter. They stood side by side, looking calm and patient, but eyed each other constantly, and they certainly wondered what I was up to. I pulled the pistol out of my left jacket pocket and asked, ‘Do you sell bullets to fit this gun?'

‘Yes,' replied one.

Though they had bullets to suit many types of pistol, they couldn't find the one that I needed. They kept searching and wrecking the drawers. While they were rummaging, they cracked jokes and I wondered whether they were in love with each other; they were never more than half a metre apart. Nothing could split them until a Siamese cat with a pink furry collar around its neck jumped on the counter. It was picked up and cuddled with affection by first one man, then the other.

A bullet, with the price and date marked upon it, was found, but looked just slightly bigger than the dropping of a full-sized mouse. The snag was the price, far higher than the price of the pistol itself. I wanted three bullets. The price of the second bullet was higher than the price of the first, and the price of the third, higher than the price of the second. I had never come across such nonsense and became visibly annoyed. ‘Why is the second bullet more expensive than the first?' I asked, my hands palms up.

‘The more bullets you carry, the more power you have, and we sell power,' said one of them, smiling. I wasn't able to purchase more than one bullet and was glad to get out of the shop and away from the two crooked men.

* * *

NOW ARMED, I FELT
strong enough to kill Mr Marjosi. Twice I planned to ambush him, but twice aborted. On my last trading day, the twenty-fifth of October, I arrived early at Café Morina and waited for the ship that never came, and no one knew why. It had either sunk or been cancelled. Mr Timsamani might have known about it. He showed up at eleven, only to leave immediately.

Without the ship, trade was paper-thin. Mr Marjosi was on duty, looking bored and sneering sarcastically. ‘It's a wicked day for wicked people,' he said loudly, referring to currency traders.
He wouldn't have said that had Mr Timsamani been around
, I thought.