A Riffians Tune (39 page)

‘I'm going to Europe,' I said.

He pressed the buzzer under his desk, and I was whisked out. I grabbed Faissal's hand and followed the corridor to the exit sign. Faissal bathed himself in the late afternoon light, but raising a smile proved impossible. He embarked on bitter criticism. ‘Had the school provided us with protection, we would not be left to the mercy of the thugs. You see the police in the street, but still feel unsafe. To study, you have to pay and hide.' He kept murmuring until he lost his balance and was nearly hit by the mirror of a huge lorry at the hand of a careless driver.

‘Keep away from the road!' I shouted, but Faissal's ears were deafened by his own tirade, just as his eyes were blinded by what he had gone through that day. Pulled back to the pavement, he took a deep breath and his mind came alive.

‘Are we going to tell the others what we've encountered and where we've been?' he asked.

‘Don't be silly!' I replied. ‘We'll lose Professor Nassiri if we do. He's an academic and ultra-sensitive. He would be terrified to be accused of forming a clandestine political cell.'

‘Chickens don't form political parties!' said Faissal with a roaring laugh.

‘See you soon. See you soon,' we echoed each other. Faissal went east to join Najib, and I went west, hoping Ali would be back from his shop.

Ali was not in the room when I arrived. He had come earlier and had started peeling potatoes and onions. A dirty knife was left on the floor, and the red bucket was full of water.
Ali is very tidy
, I thought.
Once he is in, he never goes out again.
Time passed, but no Ali.

Worried, I knocked on the landlady's door. ‘Have you seen Ali?' I asked.

‘I had a long chat with him late this afternoon,' she said.

Back in the room, I finished the cooking Ali had started and waited for him. He arrived, looking perplexed.

‘What's the matter?' I asked.

‘The landlady came while I was cutting onions, and she poured my family history and genealogy on me,' he said.

‘Did she get it right?' I asked.

‘Not all, but a lot. My father's first wife was a divorcee, she said, and that was true. I have a brother in France, working as a farmer, she said, and I have. She said my young sister got married too young and, in fact, she is not yet married, but she has always wished and talked of nothing but getting married since she was seven. We've often teased her.'

‘She's just a mad witch!' I told him. ‘She advised me to go and look for my mother, that she is still alive! My mother is dead and dust.'

A sharp knock on the door was heard, followed by a voice. ‘Jusef! Is Ali back?' shouted the landlady.

‘Yes,' I replied. I was anxious to go back to my books. Ali threw his tinny, tiny transistor radio around his neck and swayed with the music like a drunk.

The disc jockey reminded his listeners to reduce the volume of the music, as students might be nearby, struggling with their exams. He gave the date, place and the exam subjects, orals and written. A quiet anxiety seeped through my skin.

Kadija heard the announcement and wanted me to know. She knew I lived far away, but not exactly where. She rushed to Najib's home nearby and insisted Faissal inform me right away. As she left, Faissal told me later, Najib scowled and mumbled, ‘She has a crush on him, doesn't she?'

O
n the twenty-fourth of May, I awakened struggling to breathe. Inhaling was hard and painful; it felt as if my lungs were tethered to the floor and had lost the power to expand. At first, I thought I was lying in a bad position. I stood up and walked around the garage, but it made absolutely no difference. A day passed, and the pain tightened its anchor.

‘You look like an old man,' said Ali, watching me bent over, trying to dampen the agony.

In unbearable pain, I went to the hospital a few miles away; arriving early in the morning, the queue seemed more than a mile long, with men, women and children of all ages shouting and fighting. A policeman was shoving patients into line with his baton. A tall tent was set up for women. In pain, they were careless about how they undressed or who might be watching them.

Obsessed with sheltering the women's tent from men's eyes, the policeman, baton at the ready, shouted at the men, ‘Don't look at the tent!'

He came and shoved me out of the queue and said, ‘Don't gaze at the tent! Turn your head! You are dying and still you are twisting that giraffe's neck to watch women!'

I felt furious. ‘You are here to keep order, not to police men's eyes!' I told him and went back to the queue. He moved away.

To treat the thick crowd of patients, there was just one French woman doctor and one male Moroccan nurse. I didn't like the look of the doctor, and didn't expect too much from her either. She was thin as a plucked chicken with skin to match, wore pyjama-like clothes and flip-flops on her feet that made her unable to move. She looked sluggish and lazy. In this endless queue, I had no chance of seeing the doctor, but was lucky to see the nurse, who took my temperature. The gate of the hospital closed like an iron curtain, and many were turned away.

Leaving the hospital, I was glad to find Abdu sitting outside waiting for me, but he looked deeply depressed. He immediately noticed my restricted breathing.

‘Was it your lungs that brought you here?' he asked me.

‘Correct,' I answered.

‘You might have tuberculosis,' said Abdu.

‘I'm worried. Time is crucial, and I have very little money left,' I said. ‘I'll need all I have to spend on doctors and drugs, so I might write to Rabbia to lend me some money. I hate that, but if it's the only way to stay alive, I'll have to do it.'

‘One day, you will not recognise me or talk to me. You might even try to avoid me,' Abdu then told me.

‘Are you going to fail your exams?' I asked, thinking of what had happened to my cousin, Ahmed.

‘No. I've been told that I have a venereal disease. Madness might crown my life.'

‘Some madness is desirable. It allows you to laugh at yourself and enjoy people different from you,' I said, not believing him. Abdu didn't laugh at my joke, became visibly upset and his fingers twitched. Trying to cheer him, I had failed.

‘What type of drugs has the nurse given you?' asked Abdu.

‘None,' I answered.

‘What are you reading?' Abdu enquired.

‘Physics, maths, biology. When I am bored, Simone de Beauvoir. Unfortunately, my French is not good enough yet,' I said.

I left Abdu and went to the private clinic of Dr Salah in Batha, the most affluent part of town. The waiting room was cluttered with men and women, veiled and unveiled. The air was stuffy with mouths and noses exhaling carbon dioxide, and the atmosphere was spooky. A middle-aged woman screamed with pain, her hand resting on the bottom of her tummy, her back bowed forward, but her screams didn't bother the doctor. A little girl, about eleven, was roaming the room. Her left arm was swollen and grey, with a deep gaping cut.

‘What's wrong with your arm?' I asked her.

‘My brother attacked me with a knife,' she sobbed.

‘My son is a monster,' added her mother, overhearing. ‘Because of him, his father left me.'

‘You should starve him,' bellowed the woman sitting beside me.

‘How could I?' asked his mother. ‘He rules the house with a kitchen knife in his hand.'

‘Is he really your son?' another curious woman asked.

‘Yes, he came from the pit of my womb,' she said.

‘You bore a brute!' an old woman who looked a thousand years old quietly said. ‘Hang him from the ceiling by his ears!' she counselled with a wicked laugh.

The mother looked hurt. A middle-aged woman leaned over and whispered into her ear, ‘Forgive her,' she said. ‘She is my mother.'

‘The older they get, the more wicked they grow!' cried the old woman.

Dr Salah opened the door, called the girl, and her mother followed. His thunderous pronouncement was heard. ‘This girl needs a tetanus shot!'

A woman stood up, bobbed through the room and glued her ears to the doctor's door. ‘You're a busy-body!' a small, thin woman shouted at her.

‘Mind your own business or I'll sit on you!' the woman retorted. The mother came out, her eyes weepy and her hands firmly holding a prescription.

With a gruff voice, the nurse called me, ‘Jusef!'

Sitting in his leather and mahogany chair facing the door, Dr Salah observed his patients from the moment their feet slipped over the threshold. I had heard that by the time they reached his desk and sat in the low, intimidating chair across from him, he had already made a primary diagnosis and opinion. I sat down full of hope, but his telediagnosis had failed.

‘You should be in school, young lad,' he said. ‘You have been skiving, are now in trouble, and need a medical certificate to cover up!'

‘I am not skiving, but barred from school,' I answered.

I coughed, and the doctor realised this was not a skiving case. Though he had a small x-ray cabinet, he disliked using it in case it affected him. I stood in the tight-fitting box and he began reading. The diagnosis was quick, sharp and bad.

‘You have diseased lungs,' he said. ‘I suppose you don't want to go to the hospital, as no one does, but if you wish to go, I will write a letter for you. Whether they would take you in a month or a year, I can only guess.'

‘Private treatment?' I asked.

‘Yes, but it is costly, lengthy and ineffective.' He slung the prescription across the desk and said. ‘Come back in two weeks. You are significantly underweight and malnourished. Eat more, especially grapes.'

Armed with the presciption I rushed to the pharmacy nearby, five minutes before it closed. ‘Is that all for you?' the pharmacist asked me, reading the prescription with a magnifying glass.

‘Yes,' I answered.

The pharmacist nodded, pulled the drugs out and threw them chaotically on the counter. Looking at the growing stack, I became terrified. Paying the rent and buying food was all I could cope with. I paid for the drugs and was left with nothing to live on.

Back in the garage, I found a letter from Kadija lying on my blanket. She had come with Faissal and Najib. The exam method had changed, and they had come to inform me. Cut off from the world, I hadn't heard of the change. Ali's radio played rattling music most of the time, so I rarely heard the news.

I felt sad to have missed Kadija's visit, although both garage and the street were an embarrassment. I slowly picked up the letter. ‘If I pass my exams, I will fight to get a scholarship to study law at Paris University. Would you like to come with me?' she wrote.

The letter shook me. I was ill and on the brink of destitution. I toyed with the letter. Reality.
It would be easier to ride a rhino in this garage than untangle the web woven around Kadija by her parents
, I thought.
She is beautiful, sweet and intelligent
. I dwelled on the dream until I fell asleep.

A violent pounding vibrated the entire garage. The landlady heard the thundering knock and hurried to catch the hooligan. I scurried, a kitchen knife in my hand, thinking I was being attacked by a thug. It was Abdu. Focusing on his face, I couldn't fathom what the last few days had done to him.

He looked aged, his forehead ridged in grooves, and his unshaven beard faded with heavy, thick dust. ‘Are you all right?' I asked with surprise.

‘Why?' he replied. Inside the garage, he refused to sit down. Out of the blue, he burst into tears.

This is not the Abdu I know
.

‘I want to be a martyr,' he told me.

‘A Martyr? Martyr!' I shouted.

‘Yes! Yes, boy!' he responded.

The word ‘martyr' disturbed me. I made some distorted, uncomfortable faces and subjected him to some burning looks that pierced deeply into his skull. ‘Is there any cause worth more than your life?' I asked him.

‘The life I would like isn't the one I am living. Why not at least die the way I wish?'

‘Martyrs come to a terrible death,' I said, clenching my teeth.

‘Pain is not intrinsic to martyrdom, but to death itself, whether you are a king or queen, prince or princess, young or old, rich or poor. The only way man can overcome the pain of death is by death itself. I prefer my body to be pierced by bullets rather than capitulate to a swarm of flies, a pool of worms, bacteria and germs,' explained Abdu.

‘Why don't you unload your heart in a book?' I asked.

‘In a book, stupid boy! Intelligent in class and living in a filthy garage!' he told me. ‘God wanted to explain his bothers with man in one book, he couldn't, and he ended by writing many books! He neither resolved his problem with man nor finished his books! My heart is full and heavier than any book could ever express.'

* * *

TWO AND A HALF WEEKS
passed, and despite suffering badly, I didn't return to be re-examined. The doctor's fees were high and the cost of medicine prohibitive. I had finished all my drugs, and yet my breathing was still restricted. I looked like a vampire escaped from the graveyard. Desperately short of money, I began composing a letter to Rabbia that took me hours to finish.

Dear Rabbia,

I know that you have always wished to build a house in Sabbab. I am happy and willing to sell you my share for any money that you could send to me. If my share is added to yours, you will be the major landowner and the rest is between you and the other sisters to swap.

According to the medical tests, my lungs are diseased, and I need more treatment. I have started, but as I am out of money, am unable to continue. Because thugs have closed the school, I am no longer boarded there, but hiding from them in a garage. If my proposal is agreeable, use Uncle Mimoun and Mrs Malani as witnesses.