Махи Бинбин - Marrakech Noir

The thieving pair were Chleuhs themselves. But they considered themselves to be different from the poor and backward Chleuhs from Errachidia and Ouarzazate, since Ali and Ibrahim had been born and raised close to two cities: Essaouira on one side and Marrakech on the other. They were fortunate that they’d been raised in a village close to Marrakech, the center of Moroccan civilization. A city of achievements and the pride of the Berbers. A city open to all cultures. You only had to wander across Jemaa el-Fnaa to see the whole world, and you could hear half the world’s languages while sitting in the humblest café. Being from Marrakech filled them with a particular pride. How could that damned Chelh be working in this heavenly villa amid all this bliss when he was from the godforsaken wasteland between Errachidia and Ouarzazate? The train didn’t even go there.

Ali was still caught up in his dreams of having a woman to warm his body. He was nearing thirty and he still hadn’t enjoyed the pleasure of daily sex that the faqih said marriage provided.

Ibrahim turned to him again, once more snapping him out of his reverie. “Focus, Ali. We’re here to look for Hmad the Chelh and we haven’t found him yet.”

“And where will we find him in the middle of all this racket — with guests, servers, and suspiciously locked rooms?”

“We’ll ask the owner of the house,” Ibrahim suggested.

“There’s an idea, we’ll ask the owner of the house.”

They went over to a group of people surrounding Marilyn Monroe but were roundly ignored. The music was loud and most people were occupied with their companions. They finally asked a drunk Moroccan girl and she pointed at someone else in the circle around Marilyn, saying: “He’s over there, his name is Gerard.”

Ali and Ibrahim turned toward Gerard, who was leaning against Marilyn’s shoulder with his ass glued to her thighs.

“Bonsoir, monsieur,” Ibrahim greeted.

“Bonsoir,” Gerard replied.

“Nous cherchons Hmad Chelh?”

“Il est là ; c’est Marilyn, ma drag queen préférée ,” Gerard said before turning away.

Ali whispered to Ibrahim: “Did you understand anything?”

“He says that Hmad is Marilyn.”

“This damned Chelh is mocking us. He’s a fairy and a faggot!” Ali seethed. “We’re going to blackmail him and expose him to the neighborhood, or maybe to all of Marrakech, if he doesn’t pay up. We’re going to take so much money from him in exchange for our silence. Just like we did with Nadia the dancer. She paid us for months before she disappeared from Riad Zitoun. Where did that fornicator go? These people are transgressing beyond bounds.”

“Infidels,” Ibrahim said.

Thoughts raced through Ali’s brain. He remembered his mother warning him about the consequences of leading a life of debauchery. He pictured his older brother warning him about what some boys do with each other, recalled the faqih declaring the secret practice of homosexuality to be haram and the gravest of sins. He suddenly smelled a strange fragrance that was neither perfume nor alcohol. A queer aroma that he remembered trailing behind Hajj pilgrims when they returned from Mecca. Or like the smell of the mosque — that pleasant smell of old books, cheap incense, and shoes.

Ali drew the knife that he always kept in his pocket. The knife that he used to threaten old people with before he had repented before God. He flung himself at Hmad the Chelh, chanting: “For ye practice your lusts on men in preference to women: ye are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds!”

The faqih had explained this verse to them only a few days before, describing all the punishments for homosexuality, and explaining that God rejoiced on His throne when sexual deviants were stoned.

Ali threw himself on Hmad the Chelh, aiming several sharp stabs at his stomach. Hmad staggered before he fell to the white floor covered in his own blood. Gerard threw himself on top of Hmad, screaming hysterically and kissing Hmad. A great tumult arose. It seemed as if everyone in that heavenly villa awoke from their drunkenness.

Ibrahim roared at his friend in shock: “What have you done, you brute?”

Ali didn’t hear anyone. He didn’t see anything. He was only dreaming of heaven... of the huge quantities of red wine... the wonderful food... and the women... And he called out, hysterically: “They are the people transgressing beyond bounds... infidels!... They are the people transgressing beyond bounds... infidels!”

Translated from Arabic by Jennifer Pineo-Dunn

Douar el-Askar

They call me Scheherazade, a nickname Philip gave me to stress the fact that with my fingertips I tell tales as magical as The Thousand and One Nights . I adopted the name because it seemed to suit me even more than my own name, which I preferred to completely forget, convinced that deep inside every woman lies a Scheherazade. If the tales of Scheherazade were a shield for her against death, the language of my fingertips was, for me, a shield against poverty.

The language of fingertips, like any other language, can be be learned and mastered with some perseverance, and a gifted person can even practice it creatively. I discovered my talent by chance, as often happens with discoveries. Some would consider me a whore, for it is easy to cast judgment, but I do not consider myself so. You can define me as follows: an ambitious, somewhat smart girl, who life blessed with a gorgeous physical body, but who had been denied the material means needed for well-being. There are those who would see this as a definition of whoredom, or at least a hint at it. But in Marrakech, beautiful rich women are called princesses, while beautiful poor ones are called whores.

I said I was smart, but my intelligence was not the kind that would benefit one in their education, though I reached the baccalaureate level without great effort. What I mean is daily-life smartness, which some would call heart smartness. I don’t like the latter label because I’ve got a silly heart, or otherwise it wouldn’t have fallen for our neighbor Saeed — the drug dealer. I forgot to tell you that I am from Douar el-Askar, a neighborhood that hosts soldiers’ families and hordes of laborers who work in the local food industry factories — particularly with apricots and olives. It’s one of those suburban neighborhoods that sprang up like mushrooms outside the Old Medina of Marrakech. The city that was once red before turning as black as my own days.

I am sorry if I sound scatterbrained — jumping from the rooster to the donkey, as Philip would say. Let’s go back to daily-life smartness. I realized at some point that success in school was no longer equivalent to success in life. That had once been the case, but our generation began to learn only as much as was helpful to engage early in the battleground of life. No one wanted to end up like Mahjoub el-Wafi, who studied medicine for twelve years only to open a clinic in Tameslouht. Poor thing! He would get his payment in chickens and eggs from the people of the neighboring douars ... that’s why I decided to be more practical than Dr. el-Wafi. So I asked myself the following question: what career guarantees a bright future?

After a prolonged consideration of things, I opted for a career in massage: relaxing massage... weight-reduction massage... Thai massage, Chinese... or even satanic massage. What’s important is that it was an independent occupation that could be exercised in luxury hotels, beauty salons, and even private homes. It didn’t require specific tools — just trained fingertips and some basic oils. Most importantly, it was in demand among the well-to-do. Being with the poor makes one poor, as Saeed says.