Махи Бинбин - Marrakech Noir

Masuda did not reply, she simply stared at him in amazement.

“It wanted some milk from a woman’s breast!” Najib said.

“What do you mean?”

“In order to submit and be shaped, it wanted some milk from a woman’s breast,” he explained.

“Have you found any?”

“Yes, there are lots of nursing mothers in the quarter.”

“Except in this household,” Masuda pointed out. “What did you do?”

“I approached an elderly woman and asked her to get me a few drops of a nursing mother’s milk. I told her it was a cure for a worker’s eye that had been pierced by a splinter.”

“So what happened?”

“The milk arrived, and I poured it over the clay. It immediately became fully malleable,” Najib told her. “It was like a truly beautiful woman suckling a truly beautiful baby.”

“So where is that statuette?”

“I’m keeping it for myself,” Najib said. “Moments of inspiration like that don’t happen all the time.”

Masuda stared at the potter, her eyes aflame, while he was distracted and still thinking about the statuette. Then, silently, she stood up and left. In the small hallway opposite his room, she paused and exposed her breasts to the distant stars, to the sultry breeze, to the mirage... “There’s no milk in these dangling breasts of mine!” she said aloud.

Slapping her thighs, she mumbled some unintelligible words and went downstairs again. By the bottom step she leaned her head against the wall, her body quivering, as she let out a hauntingly gruesome laugh mixed with tears.

The next morning, Badia got to hear about the clay that wanted a nursing mother’s milk. Screaming like a woman in mourning, she signaled to Masuda to stop. “I’m going to kill that wretch,” Badia growled, her eyes fixed on the potter’s window, “before he kills me!”

Going up to her bedroom, she closed the door and burst into tears.

Masuda followed her to her room and opened the door, prepared to get some answers. “What’s the point of crying?” she asked. “You can drown the entire house in tears, but not a single stone in the walls will pay me any attention!”

“So what?”

“I’ll plan something to put an end to this torture,” Masuda promised.

“Won’t that be risky?”

“What am I risking?” Masuda remarked. “A life that is already lost?”

So here was Badia, battling with her own noble self. That very same night, the first phase of the plan took place. Wearing a thin dress, she sat next to her husband. As was the case every night, he was stoned. She poured him some tea and caressed him.

“You seem to be in a good mood tonight,” Hasun said.

“When it’s this fresh, it opens up the soul.”

Her soft hand clutched his veined wrist and he surrendered himself to her. The scent of her ripe body overwhelmed him, and he inhaled the entire atmosphere; he felt sated.

“It’s as though you’ve never seen me before,” Badia said.

“I’m seeing you now as I want to see you.”

“Do you know what I want?” she asked him, stroking him and whispering in his ear.

“A gold bracelet?” he asked.

“No.”

“A ring or kaftan?”

“No.”

“So, what is it you want?”

“I want to dance for you.”

Another wave of intoxication enveloped the merchant’s head. She had arranged it all so that he would beg her for this prize.

“Please dance for me, Badia, please do,” he pleaded.

“Here, in the courtyard?”

“Yes, here in this wonderful atmosphere. Before I fall asleep in your arms.”

His speech was slurred, and his legs could hardly support him. Like a white cloud, the image of Badia’s body in her thin dress floated before Hasun’s eyes — coming close, then moving away. Her clothes revealed the spectacular details of her athletic body, and her dance was white-hot, only adding to his inner fire. The dance pulsated from every part of her body; there was no need for other rhythm. Her only goal was to be seen by the eyes of the one who inspired such feelings, not the sleepy eyes of a cracked seashell. The dancer was instinctively aware that other eyes were watching her from behind the window on the top floor, and through the crack in the door of the room next to the kitchen. Only someone with no emotions could fail to be drawn to such an exuberant display...

“Oh, I’m so tired,” Hasun mumbled.

That was the inert response of the feeble old man... but the same dance penetrated the heart of the young potter and fired up his very soul. The sensation moved to Najib’s fingers, which responded positively. He wasn’t afraid, hesitant, or nonchalant. What he needed now was a truly exceptional opportunity, one he had never encountered before, but which was certainly afire at that moment. He had a pressing urge to deal with clay right then.

Once the sleeping merchant started snoring loudly, satisfied with the nighttime performance, Badia slunk out and went to the room alongside their bedroom. Wrapping herself in a brown coat, she stood there for a moment, listening. She could hear cautious footsteps. Does anyone else hear them? she wondered. She looked out into the pitch darkness outside the room but couldn’t see anything. Even so, through the total silence she managed to hear the riad’s door being opened from the inside. The hand involved knew the bolts very well and closed it carefully. Could anyone else be opening the door at this time of night? Why was he leaving his room, going downstairs, departing? Was he running away from her? Running away after such penetration of the very depths of their souls?

The potter left the riad’s alley in Mawqif and headed for the workshop in Tabhirt, followed by a shadowy figure wrapped in a coat. The streets were deserted besides a few stray night creatures. The young potter was in a hurry, like an arrow shot from a bow. He felt a pain inside him, this burning need to work with the clay, and all the while the shadow was trailing him from a distance. When he entered the shop and turned on the lights, he spotted a lump of clay that seemed ready for kneading and shaping. He bent over it with all the enthusiasm of a lover. His soul was overflowing, his fingers were poised and ready, and the picture was still shining in his heart and imagination. Just as Badia’s body had been dancing a short while earlier, so now were his fingers dancing as they gently molded the body of clay. The statuette was gently stroked into shape, as though it were being formed spontaneously from his passion. One stroke and the basic features were in place; another stroke and the gesture was there; another and the pulse of movement was added; a series of concentrated, interlinked strokes and the statuette was finally ready, enveloped in its own halo of light. The potter was so happy that he burst into song in celebration of this heavenly presence, while the watching shadow sneaked a look through a crack in the door. The statuette did not look anything like its model, since the artist had been wary about his hidden passion being revealed. This was a statuette based on an imagined conception of love, keeping the real shape ambiguous while preserving the essence. Here was the symbol that embraced every conceivable aspect of symbols without revealing the inner secret.

With the approach of dawn the potter carried his new statuette — this symbol — to the oven for heating. He finally saw the person who’d been watching him.

“This statuette doesn’t look like me at all,” the shadow muttered. “So, it’s not for me. The wretch is still ignoring me in spite of the flame that I aroused.”

Underneath her coat, this relentless shadow was clutching the hilt of a dagger. The young potter had hardly emerged from the pottery’s threshold before the blade was thrust into his chest, aimed at his heart. His blood gushed out to moisten the new statuette, which he continued to clutch to himself in the fervor of his passion, as his life exerted itself fully in its confrontation with the finality of death. Then, everything collapsed and he crashed to the floor, the clay mixing with his freshly spilled blood. The shadow now slipped away, the bloody dagger concealed under the wrap. She disappeared into the gloom of the predawn morning.