The Elusive Fox, Page 4

  I nodded.

  “You’re a lucky man!” said `Abduh in Arabic. He was sitting on a chair but kept shifting his entire body with long arms dangling. “That bitch hasn’t said a single word to me. I only met them this morning.”

  “Why don’t you have something to drink?” she suggested in poor French.

  “I had a beer not long ago.”

  “Oh,” she said, “I don’t like alcohol. My father belongs to an anti-alcohol group in Sweden.”

  The square was almost devoid of Moroccans. Groups of hippies made their way across it, with and without shoes. In front of the café, there were some cars with a variety of foreign license plates; they were not luxurious or modern, but the rugged kind that can put up with any kind of road. I finished the cake and lit a cigarette. From inside the café, I could hear the TV blaring; there were some words in Egyptian dialect, but I could not make out a single sentence. It was obviously one of those Egyptian movies about love, the Prophet’s biography, or famous figures in Islamic history, they being the favorite topics for Eastern Arabs or, at any rate, what is regularly shown on Rabat’s TV channel.

  `Abduh kept trying his best to attract the girls’ attention, speaking in a Parisian French accent and occasionally in English as well. The girls kept smiling.

  “You don’t have much to say,” the Swedish girl told him. “You look as though you’re suffering somehow. You’re so gloomy.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I’m sad because I don’t have any money. Somebody stole it.” (That’s what the fox told her, not me. If you happened to frisk me, you’d spit in my face.)

  “This bitch isn’t like the other ones I’ve met here,” Ali said. “She’s crazy and very pretty. Don’t you think so? She’s fond of someone who lives in a shack near Dyabat who has been raving on and on to her about religious stuff.”

  “What’s he doing in that shack?”

  “It’s just that he’s illiterate. He begs in Jamaa Lafna in Marrakesh, then comes back to the shack and . . . manages to kid stupid women like this that he’s a prophet. You should take her away from him. You deserve her more than he does.”

  “She’s really cute. She looks a bit weird too.”

  “She’s nuts! There are too many crazy people in Essaouira.”

  “They are not crazy. If they were, they would not have been touring the entire world without a single penny in their pockets. They’re really smart. Their upbringing is different from ours.”

  “You may be right. You’re a teacher, so you know more about those things.”

  As he talked, he kept fidgeting; once in a while, his long, thin arms would take over the communication.

  “`Abduh,” one of the girls asked, “are you going to come to Dyabat with us?”

  “Sure. Every night there are parties in the open air.”

  “We know that.”

  “Have you ever visited Dyabat?” `Abduh asked me.

  “No,” I replied, “but I’ve heard about it.”

  “It’s a fishing village. All the hippies live there; it’s dirt-cheap. You can rent a shack and be as free as you want. It’s better than the hotels here. I know how hotel owners operate, not to mention police harassment. In Dyabat, even the gendarmes get stoned so they can join us in making passes at the hippy girls. But the girls resent them. I have never seen a gendarme manage to land a single one of them.”

  A cart passed by carrying a folk band and bags of flour and sugar. The musicians were playing, while a man in woman’s clothing was shaking his backside. A few people were clustered around the cart clapping, and a few children as well. Occasions like this usually attract lots of children, but at this time of night most parents prefer to keep their doors closed with children inside.

  The waiter came over, and each of us paid for his drink. When we all stood up, she latched on to me. She was wearing a loose-fitting, colored dress; to me she looked like a gypsy or even something nonhuman—anything but, in fact. As long as the imagination can envisage things at will, it can muster any kind of being to represent her.

  “Of course. You’re going to come to Dyabat with us, right? Have you been there before?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a beautiful village. But I prefer another place near it called ‘An-Nab.’” A man called Omar lives there. He has a close relationship with God and talks to him like Moses. Don’t you think that’s wonderful? He might be in Marrakesh now. Sometimes he’s away for three or four days a week, and occasionally it’s even longer. Do you know this young man with us?”

  “Not much.”

  “I’m not happy with him.”

  “He is a poor, miserable young man.”

  “More than that, he looks like a liar.”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “I’m just guessing. Come on, let’s get in the car with the girls. I don’t own a car even though I’m not poor.”

  We all squeezed into the back seat, and once again she nestled up to me. She felt warm and had a special scent to her. Her body felt fresh and inviting. The very idea made me shiver all over. All the barriers separating human beings collapsed. That eternal entity that haunts us while we’re alive now called; we may try to escape it, but it haunts us nevertheless. I could not stop myself raising my arm and encircling her neck and hair. She surrendered and put her head on my shoulder. `Abduh was still fooling around. I had no idea what he was saying because I was dreaming of something else. As the car passed through the Taghart neighborhood on the road to Agadir, the girls’ voices kept getting louder and blending with each other.

  “My name’s Salma.” she told me in a low voice.

  “Salma Lagerlöf.”

  “Oh, you know the name. She’s the writer, the Nobel Prize winner. She’s from my country. I had this hunch that you’d know everything; it didn’t let me down. It can never be wrong. Have you read any of her work?”

  “Yes.”

  “What have you read?”

  “I can’t remember any more.”

  “Have you read any other Swedish authors?”

  “Yes, but I don’t remember their names. I remember Salma because Arabs use the name.”

  “Right, that’s true.”

  “Yes!”

  The car turned on to a dirt road between overgrown trees. There were a lot of potholes, so the car was having a difficult time. Salma’s head kept bumping my chin. She heard my teeth chattering and sat up straight. Even so, she still seemed fresh; beneath the thin dress she was wearing, her body still felt warm and soft. Her bodily warmth was being transferred to mine and getting warmer by the second. On either side of the road, the trees lined up in the car’s headlights. Elena handed us a joint; I took a drag, then handed it to Salma. She took a deep puff, then gave it back to one of the girls. Soon after, we arrived at the Dyabat village beach. There was a series of small buildings huddled together in the dark. `Abduh jumped out and so did we. The sound of music echoed through the quiet night, and the sea waves glistened beyond the trees.

  “Shall we go to the Danish girl’s house,” one of the girls asked, “or to those other folk? She always gives new people a warm welcome.”

  As she talked about “those other folk”, she pointed to an isolated old building, a mansion a few meters from where we were standing; the music we could hear was coming from there. No one bothered to answer her question, but we simply started walking toward the mansion. I was at the back, and Salma was glued to my side. I did not realize that she was barefoot, but then her foot crashed against a stone and she yelled. We found ourselves facing a big gate. We made our way down some stone steps and walked in the dark along narrow streets. There were buildings on either side, but we could not tell whether they were houses or shops. No one was around. We got closer to the source of the music, and I started hearing human voices mixed with the sound of drums. Eventually we reached a square where a group of male and female hippies were gathered. It was circular in shape; in the middle was a fire burning wood and branches t
hat managed to light up the whole place.

  “Let’s sit,” Salma suggested. “Here’s better. I don’t like crowds.”

  I agreed without saying a word. She sat on the ground and so did I, while the other girls sat a bit further away from us, behind the circle of people clustered around the fire.

  “No doubt, this is the way primitive people used to do things,” I thought. “It’s all assembled here now: water, air, fire, and the earth I’m sitting on.”

  Salma began nodding her head in time with the music. Her hair was flying all over the place and covered her face. But then she stopped and moved closer to me. I kept staring at the strange world all around me. Some people were asleep, while others were dancing and singing in a language I did not understand. Several couples were clutching each other without attracting anyone else’s attention. Salma lay down on her back and put her head on my thigh. I did not like that and dearly wished that it could be the other way round. If we were behaving like everyone else, I would have been thrusting my hands between her breasts. She felt a particular sensation and turned over on the ground. Now I too stretched out on my back, and she moved until we were face to face. I gave her a hug, and we became entwined, two in one. However, a muscular man carrying a bucket stood right in front of us.

  “You’re from Casablanca, right?” he asked, handing me the bucket. “My name’s Mustafa, and I’m from Marrakesh. Welcome. How did you manage to get this one?”

  “Do you all know her?”

  “Who does not know this little fool? She’s beautiful, though. I wish she’d fall in love with me. She’s not like the other girls. Help yourself, take some ma’ jun, it helps in bed.”

  Salma put her hand in the bucket and grabbed some ma’ jun.

  “I love ma’ jun,” she said. “How about you?”

  “Me too!”

  I followed her lead. The man went over to another group. My tongue kept searching my mouth for the remains of the ma’ jun. I adored its taste. I kept staring at the fire, the people all around me, and the shadows reflected on the walls with their fading whitewash. Everyone was sitting, but three people kept vaulting over people’s heads. I had no idea what they were doing or saying. These were rituals I knew nothing about. Apart from the music, everything else was normal, except for the extraordinary beauty of some of the girls. As long as a beautiful female was by my side, I preferred lying on my back and staring up at the stars. Salma did the same thing. I sensed that she was still chewing on something.

  “Tasty, isn’t it?” I said.

  “Great, awesome,” Salma replied. “I love it. It is better than LSD. I don’t like synthetic stuff. I like it natural. But then, I’m not a drug addict.”

  “I’m like you,” I said. “But I like a drink occasionally.”

  “I have the impression,” she commented, “that you could give up drugs, but not drinking.”

  “People can never give up drink,” I replied. “It’s like sex, air, water, and food.”

  “I didn’t realize that,” she said. “Didn’t I say a while ago that you know a lot of stuff? Even so, I won’t drink.”

  Rhythms always spread in space; once in a while there’s a short break. Then the music starts again, and voices get louder. We paid no attention to all that. When I brushed Salma’s eyelids with my fingers, she closed her eyes. For sure, she was not asleep. My eyelids felt heavy as well. The stars started to dance in the sky before my very eyes. When the darkness began to turn into iridescent colors, I decided to close my eyes and let my fingers do whatever they wanted with Salma’s body. She was quiet and warm, desirable and wise, full and fresh, a dreamer and other things as well; the rest can come from your imagination. Later I opened my eyes to the first rays of sunlight. There were only about ten people left, stretched out on the ground, and ashes in the middle of the square. Every couple was a unit. Following their lead, I put my head underneath Salma’s armpit so as avoid those first rays of sunshine . . .

  5

  A FEW DAYS LATER, I left the hotel and rented a house in the village for a much cheaper price. Whenever life becomes cheaper here, time gets extended. What do I have to do in Casablanca? There is no one in particular waiting for me there; just a dirty room, toilet, and shower; a sponge mattress to sleep on, a rug, and books piled all over the floor. What else? Three or four female teachers who love me a lot at the beginning of the month. They help me squander my miserable paycheck for the first few days. Oh, my God! How they love to drink, especially when it is free! But again I ask, what else is there to do in Casablanca? Spend the whole night with friends, going from one bar to the next. No night ever passes without fights involving hands, legs, and tongues. They are all trying to write, and the lucky few who get published are the ones who fall prey when everyone gets plastered.

  It is the sixties, and I have no idea what things will be like in the seventies and eighties. Will new generations emerge just like this one? Will everything be repeated? I have often asked myself that question while standing in front of the students. What will become of those male and female hippies later in life? Let’s leave the answer to the next two decades. One should always look to the future, but that is precisely what people habitually refuse to do, and that is the root cause of all their daily problems. Just look back at the past, and then contemplate the future. Indeed, let us do just that even though nothing is certain for us. By indulging in such an exercise, we move closer to situating our own selves within their own authentic frameworks. The people all around us either give us a boost or bring us crashing down; most often they blow up the balloon and then pop it. Here life is completely different from that of the flock of sheep. The one thing they have in common is stealing. Every day we hear that a door has had its lock broken. The hippies are not the ones responsible; it’s the flock that sneaks in from the suburbs, imposing its own code of behavior on this tranquil, peaceful world. I was sure they would not be the ones to force the lock on the house I had rented; they knew that I did not own a camera or a recorder. More often than not they are aware of everything there is to know about everyone here. A young drug dealer once told me, “The people who commit these crimes don’t come from Essaouira. They’re all from surrounding villages. The only things the people you see around here are bothered about are hashish and women. Many people from Essaouira have met European and American women and gone away with them, never to return. That was what God wanted for them. This city has no factories, nothing. You’ve noticed that for yourself. Even fishing isn’t all that profitable. From selling hashish, I can make double what I’d get if I went out in a fishing boat, even during a very good fishing season. Do you understand? But I’ll never steal.”

  “I’ve nothing worth stealing in any case,” I said.

  “I’m not talking about you,” he replied, “They can smell rabbits from far away, as far as their villages. They know what they’re doing. But let one of them try their tricks on me. I’ll rip his guts out. Neither death nor jail can stand in the face of people’s honor.”

  With that he pulled out his knife, a real butcher’s knife that gleamed in the sunlight, then put it away again. I recalled the knife in Camus’s novel The Stranger and told myself that the French had defamed us to the world. In André Gide’s Si le grain ne meurt, he may have said that Arabs possess something different, but Camus turned that something into a knife held in his hand. So it’s all about things. Arabs have to have something to distinguish them, whatever it may be. I hope your mind can help you understand. So enough of this young man and his knife. I need to throw myself into the waves. It is ten in the morning.

  The village was quiet. A woman was bending over and planting something, while another kept her face hidden from me. That’s alright. Go rain somewhere else; I don’t need you. What I need is sand and water.

  I was strolling across the grass between the trees. A donkey raised its head and stared at me. It kept on staring; behind it was a chicken, and beyond that a hut alongside a tree. Once I had crossed the
area, I reached an open space where some twenty completely naked people were sunbathing and talking. Beyond this tree-lined space stretched the sea. It was a lovely spot. None of them paid me any attention. I followed their lead and took off my clothes. When I spotted naked female hippies playing around on the sand, I had a weird feeling. Closing my eyes, I ran toward the sea. My mouth tasted salty, and my body felt cold. After swimming for a while, I went back to my clothes pile. Stretching out on the sand, I rolled over. As I turned on to my stomach, the sand felt warm; when Eros was aroused inside me, I lay on my back with my eyes tight shut. This was something I had never actually imagined, the kind of thing you might dream about between four walls when you get back home after an exhausting day’s work. You can keep on dreaming until they carry you away to your grave.

  I don’t mean to upset anyone. That’s why I am saying that the sun was hot that morning, and so was the sand; the water was cold, my mouth tasted salty. Not only that, but we have to satisfy all her desires in order to get to the heaven from which she expelled us. She was the one who initially expelled us, and she will be the one to restore us to it if we respect her to the very end. What power! I slipped my hand into the pile of clothes and grabbed the matches. I lit her cigarette so she would admit me to heaven tomorrow on the Day of Judgment. I noticed a kind of satisfaction in her eyes, and that made me happy. At least I had guaranteed myself a place in heaven.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I saw you one evening at the Café Hippy. Don’t you remember me?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “I drank from your cup of tea.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “I’m sure you don’t remember. You were very distracted that day. We’d all been smoking. Thanks again.”

  She went away and joined two other girls, along with a young man who was chatting and drawing something on the sand. I closed my eyes again. I could hear birds twittering everywhere on the trees, talk, and laughter. The hot sun was scorching my skin. Total relaxation and a craving for a long, deathlike slumber. Needless to say, I’m not sure that death really is a deep sleep, or if, once the soul departs the body, it becomes self-aware and escapes the state of unawareness that it has to endure here on earth, that thin veil that only sophists, ascetics, and prophets could tear away before their souls departed their bodies.