Horses of God (7 page)

Some temporary arrangements endure. The few weeks that Ghizlane and Fuad were meant to stay with Mi-Lalla turned into months, then into years. Halima came to see them less and less and they were none the worse for it. Her children avoided her. They'd be out when they knew she was coming. Soon the visits were limited to holidays and then they stopped for good. No one suffered too much, except perhaps Ghizlane, a little. She confided this to Mi-Lalla, who had a talent for soothing aching hearts with her magical phrase: “Tomorrow's light will open a different door.” One tomorrow followed another and it turned out she was right: time eventually eased the little girl's distress.

Fuad now had a mobile stall measuring nearly one square meter, mounted on wheels that a blacksmith friend had made with great skill. He sold sweets, chocolates from Spain, lollipops, and Ghizlane's cakes. He'd set himself up at the entrance to the only school in the vicinity, and business was good.

Ghizlane had learned how to embroider and was working for the nuns, who provided her with fabric and good-quality thread. She'd make tablecloths, napkins, sheets, pillowcases, handkerchiefs, and linen of all kinds. You'd sometimes see luxury cars parked near the house. Women in European clothes, smelling strongly of perfume, would come to place orders with her. Mi-Lalla would tell her she ought to give some thought to
her own trousseau, too, and Ghizlane would pretend to be annoyed.

I'd see her on Tuesdays, which was market day, and we'd go out together, wandering round the tent stalls that had been put up overnight. Douar Scouila's customary chaos would be multiplied a hundredfold. Men would jostle with beasts in happy confusion. And they'd be shouting, squabbling, laughing, guzzling, and belching all round the great mounds of brightly colored spices displayed on the ground, part of a vast throng: street vendors crying their wares, vying to make themselves heard above the din, chickens with their legs tied together cackling round farmers, braying donkeys collapsing under overloaded carts, a chanting chorus of blind men warning of Judgment Day. I knew every one of the thieves who operated round there. They weaved through the crowd, sharp-eyed and quick with their hands. We'd observe their maneuvering with glee: a deft slit of the razor on a back trouser pocket and they'd shadow their victim, patiently waiting for the wallet to drop. Ghizlane would laugh and give me a little tap on the back. Midday already. The aroma of grilled sausages, snail soup, and puréed broad beans was making us hungry. We'd buy ourselves a sandwich and devour it under a tree. Refreshed, we'd plunge back into the fray. Stopping by the fortunetellers was obligatory, because Ghizlane was eager to
find out everything there was to know. Those lowlifes were like weeds sprouting all over our misery. According to them, poverty would soon be abolished and love would reign supreme in Douar Scouila. They all but promised the resurrection of the dead. Ghizlane lapped up the good things foretold by the cards. Her eyes would light up the way they did in front of a fabric stall, when she'd start fingering and rummaging through the brightly colored materials, giving me a great many knowledgeable explanations about the provenance of the different wools, cottons, cloths, and satins. She'd criticize the prices and wouldn't buy much in the end. Or she'd spend hours haggling over a reel of thread. I'd be laughing and embarrassed at the same time. Sometimes she made me go to the barber—he too operated from a tent—because she thought I needed a haircut. Sitting on a stool, she waited, smiling at me in the mirror. She said that short hair really suited me; she thought I looked handsome. I thought she was beautiful too, but I didn't have the guts to say so. I once managed to stammer a compliment about her long black hair. She smiled. Walking side by side, our hands would brush and we'd pretend not to notice; we acted as if the shivers we felt were just chance, or the coolness of the morning. We'd stop at the stall selling sunflower seeds and buy ourselves a cone. She'd slip a note into my pocket, since she knew I was broke and
thought it more proper for the man to pay. And she'd refuse to take it back. So we'd go on, wandering aimlessly, lingering in a crowd that had formed round a singer performing with his tam-tam. If she could have, she'd have danced with him. And the day would pass, as if in a dream. We'd be on our way home before sunset. Ghizlane didn't like to leave Mi-Lalla on her own too long; she was getting old and had more and more trouble keeping herself occupied. We'd bring her nougat, which she adored, though she could only suck it, since the stumps still clinging to her gums were about to fall out. If she'd had a good week, Ghizlane would bring her a scarf, a turban, or a prayer mat showing a sparkling Mecca. Mi-Lalla would instantly sniff back her tears. With age, she'd become very emotional.

That last evening, before the big day, we'd come back from the souk without saying much. Ghizlane hadn't laughed the whole walk home, which had gone quickly for me. She must have noticed the anguish my eyes couldn't hide. I'd have liked to walk and walk. I'd have liked to feel her slender fingers touch mine one last time, but we were already home. Right outside her house in the dark shadow of the blind alley, I took my courage in both hands and kissed her.

WHEN THE LIVING
think about me, they open up a small window into their world. And I slip through on the quiet, not making a sound. I take care not to frighten them, otherwise they'll balk, throw up the dread walls of oblivion, and leave me confined in my purgatory, where I'm dying of boredom. That's why, as much as possible, I resist the temptation to intervene in earthly affairs. You're surprised, aren't you, that a wandering soul can interfere in the world of the living? Well, you'll just have to take my word for it. I'm not allowed to reveal any more than that. What I can say is that we possess a limited number of signs that we place along the paths of our nearest and dearest. So, as long as they bother to reflect on them, we have at least some scope for influencing particular situations. This can come about in different ways. Messages in dreams
are the easiest for them to read, but on occasion, I admit, they can be quite disconcerting.

Sometimes I'm overcome by the urge to scream when I find misguided dreamers following in my footsteps; I have to force myself to abide by our rules. I want to tell them: all the promises they make you, however enticing, simply lead to death. So I suffer, in silence, and try to keep my demons in check. I sometimes tell myself that perhaps being unable to intervene fully and change things is itself hell, because I've been on fire since the day I died. Abu Zoubeir lied when he said we'd go straight to paradise. He used to say we'd already suffered our share of Gehenna in Sidi Moumen and therefore nothing worse could happen to us. And even that the faith he was instilling in us day after day was forging the shield that would enable us to step clear over the seven heavens to reach the light. He'd describe each stage, with its pitfalls, its temptations, its doubts and delirium. To hear him tell it, you could have sworn he'd died and come back to life ten times over, so intimately did he know every detail of the great journey, so deep was the conviction in his eyes as he related it.

In another garage, in another slum, there's the photo of me that Abu Zoubeir pinned to the wall alongside photos of the other martyrs: Nabil smiling beatifically; Khalil with a fixed grin; Blackie, his dark complexion
gone, staring with his wide protruding eyes and making a victory sign; and my brother Hamid, true to form, displaying all the swagger of a born leader. This way, Abu Zoubeir glorifies us forever in the fight against the infidels. Looking at our portraits, other boys will dream of justice and sacrifice, as we once did, watching videos of the Palestinian or Chechen martyrs.

Abu Zoubeir, our spiritual guide, wasn't always religious. For a long time he'd led a debauched life, which he didn't attempt to hide. On the contrary, he'd use it to convince us of the virtues of abstinence. He could be completely objective because he'd been down that road. Like many of the chosen ones who'd been touched by grace, he'd fought a relentless battle against the mediocrity of vice. Being close to the light, he was now filled with inexpressible bliss, an inner peace superior in every way to that produced by hashish. Abu Zoubeir knew the right words, the greedy words to implant in the memory, which, as they grow, ingest all the waste piled up there. He'd been born and raised in Douar Lahjar, a shantytown even more run-down than ours, if it's possible to compare derelictions. His encounter with God took place in Kenitra prison, where he spent the best part of a decade. He didn't like to talk about his crime, but we knew that rape and fraud were involved. It was a period of his life he described as supremely wayward. He used to say that prison had
saved him from himself; having the luck to meet men of faith there was a gift from heaven. So he felt obliged to give back some of the blessings he'd received. His new purpose was to help us purify our souls, to lead us on to the path of righteousness. In fact, that path led straight to death, our own and that of our fellow man, whom we were meant to love. Slam into a blind wall, surrounded by nothingness, where there's only regret, remorse, solitude, and desolation. Slam, slam, slam . . .

It felt good, being in the garage. The prayer mats on the walls were embroidered with verses from the Koran, in gold-thread calligraphy. The sparse furniture consisted of a raffia mat, a low table, a television, and a bookcase. Sitting cross-legged, dressed all in white, his beard carefully trimmed, Abu Zoubeir radiated a strange light. When his eyes rested on one of us, we had the impression he was reading our hearts, like a book. He had a sixth sense for discerning our innermost thoughts, our doubts, and our questions, to which he had clear and precise answers.

How old were we when those meetings began? Fifteen, maybe sixteen. Hamid was the first to start visiting Abu Zoubeir. I'd see them nattering away for hours over by the cesspools, near where we'd buried Morad. Hamid seemed fascinated by the eloquent conversation of his friend, whom he referred to as a guardian angel. To me he was more like a demon. In the beginning, I hated
him, because my brother didn't notice me anymore, he ignored me. It was as if, overnight, I'd ceased to exist. Hamid was no longer interested in the Sunday games, or the fights that came after. Or even in his own business, which wasn't doing well. The boys he employed at the dump were stealing from him with complete impunity; but he couldn't care less. He'd lost all authority over the glue sniffers and his other flunkies, who'd gone freelance. Worse, he'd stopped getting high and, to crown it all, he'd begun to pray five times a day. The transformation was complete. Yemma was happy because he'd taken a job selling shoes in the city with a friend of Abu Zoubeir's. Nothing was the same as before. He'd bore the pants off us with his piety. On Fridays, he'd go to the mosque and take his place in the front row next to Abu Zoubeir, who'd then give a speech. He let his beard grow; he was the shadow of his former self. Gone was the dandy always up for a fight, sharp as a razor, organizing his own life and everyone else's. Mine especially. I'd grown up and could look after myself now, but I missed him. If, in a game, I made a spectacular save, I'd glance around for him, in case he was admiring my exploits from afar. I needed his applause, his yelling, his sudden storming of the field to give me a hug. But he wasn't there. His time was divided between the shop, the garage, and home, where he only came to eat. Gone, too, was the gaiety he usually spread around the table, the
ridiculous stories that had Yemma in stitches. He could even extract a smile from my father's mummified face. He'd jeer at my brothers and no one would be able to get a word in edgeways, he was always so talkative, so funny. All that was gone. He managed to spin a kind of austere web that gradually entangled us all. We couldn't watch TV in peace because he'd be doing our heads in with his diatribes about the American-Zionist conspiracy that was brainwashing us all, corrupting our morals and insidiously infecting each one of us. Yemma didn't understand a word he was saying, but depriving her of her Egyptian and Brazilian soaps was out of the question. So, just to irritate us, he'd start noisily reciting the Koran in the room next door.

As time passed, Hamid would come home less and less. Eventually he set himself up in a shack near the garage, lent to him by Abu Zoubeir. That hurt a lot, because he left a gaping hole at home. I went on loving him in spite of it all. He was still my idol, on a par with Yachine, my soccer hero. I'd get up at dawn to go and meet him before he left for work. He'd take me to Belkabir's, a stallholder who made doughnuts that were second to none. Sitting behind a vast frying pan, the man with the spreading paunch would fling rounds of sticky dough into boiling oil. They'd instantly swell as they floated, giving off an exquisite smell. We'd buy a big crisp ring of them and take it
to the café, order mint tea and happily munch away. Hamid said I ought to find myself a job so I'd be able to feed myself properly. He'd have a word with Abu Zoubeir, who had friends everywhere. I agreed, because I adored doughnuts. Sometimes he'd put me off my food by talking about hell so early in the morning. He'd insist that on the day of the Last Judgment the infidels would be thrown into vats of boiling oil, that their skin would keep growing back so they'd carry on frying and the suffering would be atrocious. That gave me goose bumps. I told him I believed in God and I'd never get fried like a doughnut. That's how I became an apprentice mechanic with Ba Moussa. A grubby job, but one I was conscientious about. And since Nabil was bored and kept hanging around the bikes I was fixing, he was taken on too. Together, we made a great team. So much so that Ba Moussa, who was an inveterate kif smoker, came to rely on us and we became
professionals
.