The Elusive Fox, Page 7

  “Thanks,” I replied, “but I’m living in Dyabat now.”

  “Leave your hut there and come stay with us. But you seem to prefer isolation.”

  “It’s a strange world there; that’s why I’ve preferred to explore it. Maybe I can store something in my memory, so at some point in the future I can write a novel or something about that world.”

  “Great! Do you write?”

  “A few short stories,” I replied.

  “I’m a writer too. I write poetry, but I don’t publish it. I’ll read to you later. This girl doesn’t understand such things, but she’s a great cook even though she cheats.”

  The music blared all of a sudden, Jimi Hendrix’s voice. I recognized it at once, unmistakable. Azeddine’s body shuddered; he was no longer as rigid as he had been. His expression changed suddenly, and he looked much more cheerful. I never realized music could have that effect on a human being. Azeddine now turned into someone else: strong, engaging, and daring. Fatima rolled the joint gently between her hands, then lit it and handed it to him. He inhaled, then handed it to me. Guitar sound was filling the whole place, insinuating its way amid the kif smoke in the air and maybe extending to the outside space as well.

  “Hendrix is a creative genius,” Azeddine said. “He’s a writer, and he writes with the guitar. He paints extraordinary paintings and hovers in dream space, especially when you’re high listening to him.”

  Nodding in agreement, I passed the cigarette to Fatima. Closing my lips, I gave the smoke that I had breathed in a chance to circulate deep inside this body that belonged neither to the fox nor to me.

  I used to get this feeling a lot, imagining the body as a mere cart for carrying something that might be the soul. But the soul is part of God’s purview, and so it might be something else. By now the smoke was permeating the cart’s turning wheels in order to squeeze whatever that particular thing might be. I told myself that the body was simply a tool for defending that thing, the one that exists in everything, even in the sound of the guitar. The body is a shield, whether it’s this body of mine or any other bodies of living creatures. That other thing, the one that might be called the soul—by which I mean the human soul, animal soul, the soul of scent, of sound, of sunshine, of the entire universe, which can only be God—that other thing is very strange indeed. If we proceed through the eternal labyrinth, it can only lead to one of two things: denial or proof, doubt or certainty.

  “What are you thinking about?” Azeddine asked. “I feel I’m in a special state. Do you?”

  “Me too.” I replied. “Sometimes I feel bewildered, and it makes me nervous. I withdrew from the rest of the flock.”

  “Do you call people a flock?” Azeddine asked. “Bravo! They really are a flock.”

  “Every time I smoke hashish or kif, my throat feels dry and I get hungry.”

  “Ask for some lemonade,” Azeddine suggested. “Anything you want. I told you not to worry about anything. I realize you’re a poor teacher. I’m sure you also have a family to take care of. Don’t think I’m stupid and don’t understand such things.”

  “I’ve some money. I’ll go and get a beer.”

  “Good idea,” he said. “Why don’t you ask us to drink with you? Do you think I’m a bigot in a lion’s skin?”

  With that, Azeddine stood up and paid the store-owner. We went to a small bar that he knew well. Fatima was drinking in silence. She had completely changed; the quick temper that I knew her for had totally vanished. Azeddine was not the kind of man to play the lapdog in front of women. He was tough and nice at the same time. In the short time I’d known him, I’d noticed that he had a lot of self-confidence, the very thing that the flock lacked. The image I’d created of him at first—a spoiled, stupid, rich boy with no confidence in either himself or other people—had completely disappeared. It was only now that I realized why he was so taciturn and shy. The silence was simply a process of observation, a preliminary assessment before making a move or saying a word. Even so, I felt he was at ease with me. At the very least he had found someone to whom he could talk about his project—Jacques Audiberti as a playwright. Any discussion of such things with other people would be a kind of insanity. In this frigid land of Morocco, people usually only talk about their vaginas and the houses or farms they will own. In such cases, people like Azeddine have no choice but to remain silent, to listen and contemplate their own internal pains, and all because the flock is becoming more and more stupid and degenerate, desiring to forcibly impose such values on the minority that has its own sufferings to bear in addition to those of the flock.

  “The same again. Very cold.”

  “Coming up!” the waiter replied.

  “Could you get us some sardines, please?” Azeddine asked.

  He looked at me. “You were going to celebrate by yourself,” he said, “but why don’t we have a drink together?”

  “I didn’t think you . . .” I replied, and then paused. “Sometimes I have reservations about humanity; in fact, not sometimes, but always . . .”

  “That’s the way I am as well,” Azeddine said. “She was the one who introduced us to each other. I don’t know a thing about this female.”

  “I didn’t realize,” Fatima said.

  “And when in your life have you ever known anything?” Azeddine asked her.

  No room for surprise. I watched as she gazed at the bar and then stretched out her hand out to bring the beer glass to her mouth. The waiter brought us three cold beers. In the various corners of the bar, fishermen were drinking wine and talking quietly; they are undoubtedly kept on a tight rein by the local authorities. By contrast in Casablanca, even shoeshiners can drink; when they have drunk half a bottle of wine, they can behave like caids, mayors, or ministers. It is only when they wake up in a police station cell or else with their heads in bandages after a fight involving a knife, bottle, or cup, that they assume their true personalities . . .

  After the second beer, I started to feel good. Azeddine seemed happy as well. He told Fatima to roll another joint.

  “Before the evening’s over,” I told him, “we’re going to be out of it.”

  “Genuine consciousness can only be lost via wine or hashish,” he told me, “whereas fake consciousness is still fake without any need to get drunk. But that only becomes clear when someone has something to drink or gets stoned. What I mean is that we’re going to feel really tired this evening. Even so, I adore the night world; through it, I can enter the absolute. If we carry on like this, the night may well slip through my fingers.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “As long as you’re with me, you won’t miss anything. I know the town and everything that happens here. Don’t worry. If you get tired, you can go to sleep. I told you that my house is yours. And don’t tell me you’re planning to go back to Dyabat tonight.”

  The waiter brought three more cold beers without being asked and opened them with a professional waiter’s normal dexterity.

  “Why did you do that?” Azeddine asked the waiter. “Why put yourself to so much trouble?”

  “When your father owned this bar, sir,” he replied, “days were good. I owe you for that.”

  “I’ve got money,” Azeddine said. “Don’t trouble yourself.”

  “May God give you more. It’s no bother. I owe you. . . .”

  “Your father owned this bar?” I asked Azeddine.

  He nodded, then turned toward Fatima who was staring in amazement at some pictures on the wall to the left of the bar.

  “Drink your beer,” he told her. “We’ll go home. It’s 5 p.m. You can cook us a tasty tagine in the teacher’s honor. The best thing you’ve done in your life is to introduce me to a friend whose friendship may well last for a lifetime.”

  “Not at all!” I replied. “I hope that’s what happens. We may actually have the same temperament. In any case, it’s a distinct advantage for us to share the same degree of suffering in this flock-based society.”

  “Once a
gain, I assure you they really are a flock. Only a fox can live among them.”

  I shifted my backside on the stool; my bushy tail was about to rip my pants. Touching my nose and mouth, I sneezed. Everything stayed the same; no snout or tail appeared. Thank God for that at least; it would have given the game away, and right in front of a young man who respects me. I realized that the fox had selected a particular place and hidden itself there.

  “It’s better for you this way,” I told myself. “You’re the example. Come out and hide, both at the appropriate moment. Please don’t give me away.”

  I watched the fox in its chosen spot as it opened its eyes in a clearly languid fashion, then closed them again.

  “Tonight,” I heard the ewe telling me, “I’m going to prepare the best tagine you’ve ever tasted.”

  “I didn’t know you were such a good cook!”

  “How long were we together,” she asked, “so you could have known that much about me?”

  “It’s better for you not to know her,” Azeddine said. “She’s a cheat and thinks she’s smarter than everyone else.”

  Azeddine’s words made her laugh; she was apparently not offended. I watched as he drank his beer in one swallow, then got up calmly.

  “Let’s go” he said. “We need to have everything ready before dark.”

  I did as he said, but Fatima needed help. We left the bar and walked along narrow alleys, some empty, others crowded with people. We reached an old-fashioned door with a bronze door knocker. Rather than knock on the door, Azeddine chose to give it a kick. We climbed a stone staircase and found ourselves in a wide living room with a colorful Moroccan carpet on the floor.

  “Feel free,” Azeddine told me. “Your room is over there. Do you want to look at it now?”

  “Later,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “The girl sleeps with me in my room,” he went on. “We usually sleep in the living room. As you already know, when you stay up late, you never know how or where you slept.”

  “That’s happened to me many times,” I told him.

  “I slept in a dumpster once,” Azeddine said, “after I’d been bothered by some idiots.”

  “Me too. It’s weird how similar our lives have been!”

  Just then the fox spoke to me. “Don’t exaggerate just to please him.”

  “Okay,” I replied.

  “What’s that you’re saying?” Azeddine asked.

  “I said I’d had the same experience,” I told him, “and that it was weird.”

  “Please take a seat,” said Azeddine. “That box over there is full of wine bottles. If you want to smoke or listen to some music, feel free. I’ll be out for a minute.”

  Fatima was sitting in front of me, leafing through some magazines that were scattered all over the carpet. Actually, she was not sitting, but rather lying on her stomach.

  “Take good care of the teacher,” Azeddine told Fatima while he was still standing there. “If he wants to eat, you’re familiar enough with the kitchen. If anyone I respect comes, let him in. But I don’t want any crazy or stupid people inside this house.”

  With that, Azeddine left. Fatima stood up and turned on the stereo cassette player—Nina Simone’s soft voice. I had no objections, and lay down on my back. As I smoked, I stared at the ceiling. Soon afterwards I fell asleep and only woke up when I heard Azeddine’s voice.

  “Let the teacher rest,” he was saying. “Don’t wake him up.”

  There were other voices too, along with music and the smell of kif and hashish.

  When I opened my eyes, I found the living room crowded with male and female hippies. No one looked at me or paid me any attention. I liked that; it was very unusual. When I spotted a hippy stretched out on the floor, either sound asleep or high on hashish, I felt even more relaxed. No one was paying any attention to anyone else. Opening my eyes wide, I continued checking on the situation I was in. Azeddine was sitting next to my head, without observing or paying attention to anyone. He seemed to be chatting to someone on his right.

  “Have you had enough rest?” he asked me.

  “Yes, thanks, quite enough,” I replied. “I’ve no idea how I came to fall asleep.”

  “You were probably exhausted from the night before last night.”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “Do you want a drink or smoke?”

  “I need to go to the bathroom first. I’m still in a different world.”

  “Which one?” Azeddine asked. “You’re still in our world. As for that other world, I don’t know how it will deal with this entire flock, the one that’s faded away and died, and the one that’s still alive.”

  “When I’ve washed my face, I’ll try to blend in. You’ve certainly tried it yourself.”

  In the bathroom, Fatima kept grabbing me by the hair.

  “Sleepyhead! Wake up! You won’t be able to get to sleep tonight. I tried to wake you up, but Azeddine kept stopping me. I was telling him that you won’t be able to get to sleep tonight.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m used to that. I love watching the dawn light at the beach.”

  She left me alone. I put my head under the tap; drops of water ran down my back, and I felt refreshed. I had had enough of pouring water over my head, so I dried my hair with a clean towel that was hanging on the door.

  “Now you’re a different human being,” the fox told me. “I must let you behave the way you want.”

  I asked myself how I can want anything; for that matter, how can anyone on earth want anything? I worked out that the flock is what decides for us what we want. Oh, how I wish that just a small percentage of what the flock wants could be realized during the course of this life! It never stops wanting and stays that way until it has to depart for the great divide without ever achieving all the things it wants. Genuine will involves what is good. Evil will is whatever the flock can manage to achieve; it exerts every possible effort to bring it about. Forgive me if I’m mixing apples and oranges here; words inevitably invoke other words. Let me go back to the bathroom, blow my nose, run the tap again, wash my face, and get back to telling the story of what happened.

  Fatima came back to the bathroom and pushed the door open.

  “Are you sleeping in there?” she asked. “You’re taking a while.”

  “I was blowing my nose,” I replied.

  “When we were kids, we used to eat our snot,” she said. “It was salty and tasted good. Whenever I did it, my mother used to hit me.”

  “How disgusting!” I said, “A girl shouldn’t talk like that.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” she asked. “I’m not showing off. All Moroccan girls have eaten their snot when they were younger, but now they’re not proud of it. They have eaten worse things than that. I knew some of my friends who’ve done that before, but now they have jobs, they dress nicely and have learned how to speak French. I’m not like them. Why should I lie to you? Will you marry me?”

  “Get out,” I said. “I need to pee.”

  “Okay. It was Azeddine who sent me.”

  She disappeared. I made a few gesticulations in the air inside the bathroom, feeling as though I had been born anew—a feeling that human beings only experience on rare occasions. Such moments will sometimes pass without anyone even noticing; so instead of people taking advantage of them, they flit away amid the mechanical mayhem of life in the flock. Such moments as these are happy ones, and I’m well-aware that they never last. Some emergency will crop up and ruin everything; at least, that is what my past experiences have taught me. So let these be moments of precious clarity.

  From the other side of the door, I heard Fatima’s voice piercing through the loud music. “Ali! Come on! Your glass is waiting.”

  I went back to the living room and sat in the spot where I had stretched out before. The door leading to the stairs was ajar. In the corner of the room, I noticed Salma; I could not believe my eyes. I told Azeddine that I knew her, and he responded that she was stupid, although
that did not stop her from being beautiful.

  “Do you want her?” he asked. “Go over to her then.”

  “She knows me. She’s slept with me. It looks as though she hasn’t noticed me yet.”

  “She showed up with those three men while you were in the bathroom.”

  I kept looking at her while sipping from the glass that Azeddine had handed me. The wine had a particular taste to it, a bit strange. I lit a cigarette, still staring straight at Salma. Eventually she raised her head and looked over in my direction. She stared hard at me through the haze of kif and hashish smoke to make sure she was not mistaken. Then she actually stood up, walked over, and threw herself on me without anyone noticing. Azeddine was the only one who looked at her, but he soon went back to the world of the living room.

  “Ali! Where did you disappear?” she asked me. “I’ve been searching for you.”

  “Have you come from the town?” I asked.

  “Yes, with some friends. I left a party there.”

  “It’s better for people to change location from time to time.”

  “You’re right,” she replied. “And people as well. That’s what I’ve always tried to do.”

  “Me too. But I rarely change women until they decide to drop me.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, when it comes to places and men, it’s all easy and feasible.”

  I asked Azeddine to pour her a glass of wine. He told me that she did not drink but occasionally smoked hashish. I asked him to double-check that she was not lying. When he handed her the glass of wine, she refused and said she preferred to smoke. He brought her a pipe from somewhere; she seemed to have been smoking a lot of hashish earlier on. I could not possibly be wrong on that score, especially since I had only just woken up. I was wavering between a desire to join the group and a lingering wish to lag behind. But what was the point of lagging behind? It was nighttime, when only God Himself could see me. At such a time no one knows me; only God is aware that I have a fox inside me. Friends and relatives who know you (or claim to know you well) are precisely the ones to wake up the fox inside you, however hard you try to keep it hidden. At moments like this, all the fox has to do is to relax and sleep. If it needs to wake up, the task will not be as difficult as we might imagine.