Horses of God (11 page)

We'd never seen the emir get so carried away. He realized this, and went on in a more subdued tone, but the light still gleamed in his eyes: “We must join forces and ask for God's help. They are already trembling at the sight of our beards—let us flaunt them! Let them hide away in their gilded cages with their vile offspring, their depraved wives and corrupt morals. They can slob about on their silk sofas with their fat pig bellies all they like, getting drunk on the sweat from our brows; the streets will be ours in the end. And they'll have to be accountable one way or another, down here or in heaven! We will not forgive them.” Then together we recited a graphic verse detailing the horror that awaited unbelievers in hell.

After the satanic paradise of Anfa, we drove through the chaos of the city. My only memories are of frazzled people in a hurry, endlessly blaring their horns. Drivers argued and shook their fists. Those on foot crossed wherever they could, however they could, and were quick to complain, too, when no one gave way. Police officers blew their whistles left, right, and center and the motorists couldn't care less. The emir was calmer
now and drove carefully. I noticed that city people weren't that different from us. Then we took the road to Fez, which went via Rabat. I must have been pretty tired because I slept almost all the way. When I woke up, I found Nabil's head resting on my shoulder. He was snoring lightly. I didn't move, so as not to disturb him. He hadn't slept a wink all night either. After Fez, we turned onto a small road that led to Imouzzer, a strange town where the houses had slanting roofs. The emir explained to us that winter was harsh in this region and these roofs allowed the snow to slide off. I thought that if there was a hole, it couldn't be plugged with branches or a plastic bag, because of the angle. We made our way to a thick forest, along bumpy tracks, and stopped in the middle of nowhere. We walked for a few hundred meters and suddenly came upon a lake. An impressive stretch of water, like a small sea imprisoned by possessive mountains. The emir said: “This is Dayt Aoua. The most beautiful place in the country.” I thought to myself that besides his religious qualities, the emir was a poet, too. He had us take several tents out of the minibus and showed us how to put them up, using stakes. It was hilarious; we were helpless with laughter when our first attempts proved far from adequate. Eventually the emir gave us a hand and we organized a proper camp. Since we had to sleep two to a tent, Nabil and I naturally chose to share. Blackie
objected because he didn't want to share with Fuad, claiming he snored, but he had no choice, since Hamid and Khalil had already paired up. We spread out our blankets. The shadows were so soft inside the tent I didn't want to leave it. Blackie was keen to light the fire. Even without coal, he managed it in no time at all. Most of us set about cooking the meal, as we were so hungry. And so began our holiday by the lake at Dayt Aoua.

The time we spent in the mountains will always be one of the happiest memories of my short life. I'd never seen so many trees in just one place; they were tall and majestic, their green branches caressed the scattered clouds. The emir knew all their names. He pointed out the umbrella pines; the eucalyptus, its bark streaked with sweet-smelling resin, whose roots could go very deep in search of water; and so many other kinds that lived serenely by the lake. We'd wake early in the morning. After prayers, which went on a long time, we'd make coffee and drink it together round the fire. We'd climb to the top of the mountain and do our exercises. That lasted several hours: warm-ups, kata, and combat. Then prayers and more prayers. Our exhausted bodies were at one with the sky, the earth, and the sparrows that dropped in to keep us company. We were so close to God and we could tell by their chirping that the birds felt it too. The more verses we recited, the louder
they'd sing. And it all formed a kind of offering we'd humbly place at the feet of our Lord. As the emir finished his speech and, one after the other, we all took turns to insult Satan and his cronies, he'd ask us to follow him on interminable runs. We'd be out of breath but none of us could match his pace; we'd crawl back to camp. Khalil ran off toward the water and plunged in like a fish. The others all followed him in, yelling wildly, and I was envious because I couldn't swim. I'd just paddle and wet my face. Emir Zaid would see me on my own and come to sit down beside me on the bank and I'd listen rapturously to his accounts of the brave deeds of the Prophet and his companions.

On the third day, some friends of the emir joined us. We didn't know them, but they seemed to know us. They stayed with us all day and part of the evening and then left, returning at dawn the next morning. They trained, ran, ate, and prayed with us. We went for walks in the forest and friendships were formed. Initially, Jaber, a very tall man with a square face and gimlet black eyes, didn't seem at all trustworthy. And yet he was friendly and seemed almost apologetic about his massive build. He became my friend. Saad, his cousin, had a distinctive beard down to his belly button. He got on well with Nabil. The other two, whose names I've forgotten, teamed up with Khalil, Blackie, Fuad, and my brother Hamid. In a few sessions, Jaber taught us to
handle a knife like the warriors in the days of the Jihad; he showed us the different positions to adopt in case of attack. And also how to anticipate a potential assault. The way to stick the blade in and which way to turn it; a twist of the wrist at a precise moment determined the degree of punishment inflicted on the infidel. We were exhilarated, and fully alert, because this was a matter of life and death. First we trained using reeds as knives, but by the end of the week we were fighting with real daggers. It was so exciting. We got a few scratches, but nothing serious. We were such good pupils that we were each given a knife of our own with a blade that flicked out from our sleeves if we pressed a button. It was a real gem; the knife I'd always dreamed of.

Night was quick to fall on Dayt Aoua. When the cicadas awoke, a black veil studded with jewels covered the mountains, the lake, the trees, and the birds' eyes. We'd gather round a campfire and sing praises to God. We'd pray and listen to the emir hold forth on the glorious epics of the past, on the battles we'd wage in order to raise the flag of Islam, which was constantly trampled underfoot all over the world, on the struggles the Lord demanded of us so that we might recover our dignity and restore our crumbling empire's prestige. And at the end lay paradise. As we went back to our tents to sleep, I saw, high up in the sky, split by a thin shaft of moonlight, an angel who was smiling at me.

In all this time, there was only one false note, which I deplore, because I let down my guard in the face of Satan's trickery. I ask God for forgiveness, because Nabil and I had sex. I'm not quite sure how it happened. We hadn't planned it, but there it was. To warm ourselves up, we'd huddled together in that tent where the ceiling was as low as a tomb's. I don't know if we were asleep, but our dulled minds were far away. The mountain air had something to do with it. Nabil's body brushing against mine gave me a shameful erection. He took my cock in his hand quite naturally and we kissed. We undressed and made love, without thinking. In silence. There, I've said it.

I KNEW HAMID
so well that the day he took me off to the café to talk about
serious matters
, I told him my answer was yes before the words were even out of his mouth. He looked at me, his eyes filled with tears, and stammered: “We have no choice.” I agreed, because someone had to make the sacrifice. That was the first time I'd ever seen dread in my brother's face. Here he was, the hero, the terror of Sidi Moumen, his voice breaking and his hands trembling. But I was calm. Maybe I hadn't yet grasped the gravity of the situation. Then that was it, we didn't talk about it again. I'd been the last to be told the date for the big event. A curious thing: none of my friends had refused to die. And yet dying was no small thing. Nabil, whom I'd thought was a coward, had said yes immediately, since he had no other ties besides us. He hadn't seen his mother in an eternity and was
none the worse for it. He'd banned her from coming to the shack. It was an irrevocable decision, which he'd made in front of everyone. He'd publicly disowned her, cutting the cord once and for all. But Tamu didn't give up; she couldn't reconcile herself to losing her only son. She'd come and hang around near where we lived—it was a heartbreaking sight. Seeing her sitting near the pump with her cake on her knees, Nabil remained adamant. She was waiting for a kid to walk by, who'd bring us the cake. Nabil would refuse it and send it back to her, or he'd say to the kid: “Take it home, you can have it.” Tamu looked on in silence. It didn't stop her coming back the next week with another cake and sitting down nearby. Nabil acted as if she didn't exist. He refused the baskets of food Abu Zoubeir gave us for our families, saying that he was an orphan. The master pretended to believe him, but the truth was he knew everything there was to know about us. Nabil would say that the day Tamu stopped selling her ass and repented of her sins, he'd think about it. He'd changed a lot. He'd hardened. His mother's profession was like a scar on his face. He was the son of Tamu. Tamu the whore. He was the son of a whore. The circle was complete. Even if no one talked about it, everybody thought it a bit. And there was that story that lingered on in the memory, gleefully repeated by all the old gossips. I don't know if it was true, but it had affected Nabil badly.

The day before he was born, his mother had taken a taxi to the hospital. As it was a long journey, she'd had time to talk to the driver, who was very chatty. When they arrived at the entrance, she asked him to help her carry her shopping bag, since she had to support her big belly, with the baby kicking about inside, impatient to see the light of day. The man agreed and helped her up the steps. At reception, the driver handed her back her bag and asked for the money for the ride.

Tamu barked: “What? You're leaving me?”

“Yes, madam, that's twenty dirhams.”

“And your baby? What about your baby?”

“What baby are you talking about?”

“The one you shoved in my belly, you moron.”

“I don't know you, lady. Is this a joke?”

Tamu put her hands over her ears and began to shout: “He's going to leave me. He's going to abandon his child. Call the police, this man is a coward!”

“You've lost your mind, woman. It's an asylum you need!”

Just as he was about to leave, giving up on the cab fare, the nurses restrained him until the arrival of the police, who immediately placed him in custody, in order to clarify the facts. His distraught family looked for him everywhere. He had a wife and three children, whom he loved. He led an easy life in the medina, since he was his own boss; he'd finished paying off the loan
for his taxi and things were looking up. It was two days before his brother and his wife tracked him down at police headquarters. Then they were told the painful news: the man in question was living a double life. He'd impregnated a young woman who'd just given birth to a delightful boy, whose paternity he was denying. His wife fainted and they revived her. They were advised to hire a lawyer, since the poor girl was pressing charges from her hospital bed. That was how things began to get complicated. The lawyer reassured them that, these days, they had modern techniques to establish paternity. The DNA tests proved conclusive. Indisputable even: it turned out the driver had been sterile from birth. But he had three children, who looked like him—especially the eldest, who was his exact double. How was that possible? After much prevarication, his wife finally confessed. She loved her husband more than anything in the world. And since she'd realized he could not have children, and might reject her, she'd slept with his brother. But only so she would have children who'd bear a likeness to her husband. The driver was exonerated and, upon leaving the police station, he drove his taxi to the edge of a cliff and went straight over. So Nabil's birth was tainted by an appalling tragedy, which did not bode well for the future. When bad luck gets into you in your mother's womb, it never lets go. But it was no good my trying to explain to my friend that the
blame lay with the people who'd cast us into this hole, that it wasn't Tamu's fault, because she'd had a child to feed, she was protecting herself as best she could, and ultimately she had no choice. He wouldn't listen to me. Or he'd just say: “We always have a choice.” There was no way, then, to soften his heart.

Blackie hadn't batted an eyelid, either, when Abu Zoubeir made him the terrible proposition. He joked about how happy he'd be to leave, because he'd never have to see his father's miserable face again. But I knew he was suffering, he was tired of having his little brother's death on his conscience. He wanted to be rid of that burden, to win back the identity he'd been stripped of and be Yussef again. A Yussef as free as the air. Shed his skin, embrace nothingness, be born again, somewhere else . . .

Fuad had worried about Ghizlane, but he could not refuse Abu Zoubeir's invitation. It was an honor they were doing him. To be chosen as a martyr with the keys to paradise wasn't something bestowed on just anyone. But he wanted to be sure that his friends would look after his little sister. He was all she had in the world. Their grandmother didn't have long to live and Ghizlane would be all alone in Douar Scouila. Abu Zoubeir vowed that she would be protected, that he'd take care of her personally, as if she were his own daughter. That made us both feel better.

As for Khalil the shoeshine, he'd long wanted to get away. If he couldn't make it to Paris, Madrid, or Milan, because he risked getting his eyes eaten by crabs, he'd accept a one-way ticket to paradise. Maybe there he could become a crooner for the houris and the angels . . .