Махи Бинбин - Marrakech Noir

Three years they waited, weaving together strands of hope.

Their initial hesitant search efforts transformed into a full-scale protest and then into an understanding that more action was needed to find out the fate of their imprisoned relatives. The first mission that the families undertook, with Mama Aicha among them, was to see the governor of the city.

At first, the governor was the epitome of politeness. He explained to them that they lived, thanks be to God, in a nation of laws. Even the most violent criminals were punished according to the law. If they thought that their relatives, whom they claimed had been locked up by the state, were not guilty, then they should look for them away from the centers of power, because the state did not detain people without trial, and apart from the civil prison at Boulmharez, it had no other place dedicated to this function. “Therefore I advise you,” the governor concluded sternly, “to look for your sons far away from us here. Each one of you must do so on his or her own. It’s strictly forbidden to gather like this without authorization. This country has laws, and we can’t permit you to keep spreading misinformation and disorder like this.”

The governor’s answer stripped away all remnants of fear from inside Mama Aicha, and she felt a strange power coursing through her body and in her soul. She immediately snapped back at him in a tone that was at once strident and aggressive: “That’s why we came to you, sir, because you’re the governor for His Majesty in Marrakech. You’re the representative of the king here. You’re the chief of this city and its protector. If our sons have died, in God’s name give us their bodies so we can bury them, and if they’re still alive, issue the orders to release them from prison so we can see them. It’s been more than three years now since they disappeared.”

“That’s enough! Go home or I’ll have you and everyone with you thrown in jail. I was clear with you. I won’t tolerate this kind of disrespect against the state.”

They left the governor’s building. When they paused outside the door to collect themselves, Mama Aicha addressed the group: “Worse than the jail they threaten us with is what we put up with every moment. Isn’t our running frantically through the streets like lost dogs worse than jail? Isn’t their kicking us out in this way a punishment no different than torture? Isn’t the agony of waiting a kind of death that is slowly creeping up on us? As for me, neither jail nor death frightens me. I will go look for my son, either to get him out of prison or to enter it myself.”

“Wherever you go, Aicha, we go with you,” said one of the other mothers, “to give credibility to these calls for change.”

“In that case, let’s go back to Jemaa el-Fnaa. We’ll stage a sit-in in front of the commissariat. We’ll demand that they tell us where they took our sons.”

They occupied the area and were dispersed right away. They returned the following day, the following week, the following month. They always returned. Sometimes the police weren’t enough to break up the protest. They arrested them. They arrested Mama Aicha and the other mothers more than once, and then they let them go after a day or two. Mama Aicha always came out even fiercer, more determined. She no longer cared about dying, and she was no longer afraid of being arrested.

When she returned home one evening, she noticed under the door a piece of green paper folded into the shape of an envelope. On the back was a circular seal. She opened it and saw that there was writing on it. A shudder went through her in spite of the August heat. Her feelings swung between happiness and sadness — she didn’t know how to read, yet she knew that the letter was from her son. She couldn’t wait for her husband to return. She tucked the letter into her bosom and hurried off toward his store in Souk Semmarine. She didn’t answer him when he asked, surprised, why she had come, as she had never visited him in his shop before. Out of breath, she handed the letter to him.

“It’s from Aziz.”

“How do you know? Who told you it’s from him?” he asked.

“I felt it with my heart.”

“Oh, Aicha, it is from him. They’ve transferred him and all his comrades from the secret underground cell to the Ghbila Prison in Casablanca. It’s now possible to visit him. He says that we can go on Saturday morning.”

“That’s tomorrow!” she exclaimed.

They didn’t sleep that night. They went into the kitchen together and prepared Aziz’s favorite dish: tharid with chicken, onion, and raisins. They went to the wardrobe and selected some of his favorite clothes: his light summer shirt, a new pair of jeans which he’d worn only once or twice before his arrest, clean underwear, and his Adidas sneakers. Before dawn they were at the train station.

They arrived at the prison early in the morning and stood in the line of families which stretched along the whole length of the massive wall, waiting to be called to enter the visiting room. As the hours passed, Mama Aicha counted each second. She kept her eyes fixed on the mouth of the guard, following the movement of his lips with rapt attention, afraid that he would speak their names and they wouldn’t hear him. She was assailed by anxiety that the workday would end before they would be allowed to visit. Finally they reached the visiting room. She stuck her head between the bars on the outer window to search with her own eyes for the face of her son among the nearly identical heads behind the second window. Shaved heads, sallow faces that showed their bones, bulging eyes. Before she was able to speak to her son, the screen was lowered and the visit came to an end. She pounded her fist against the window and shouted with all her might: “I’m not leaving this room! I didn’t see my son and I didn’t speak to him!”

Her anger was contagious, spreading to the other remaining families so that they, too, refused to leave in protest of the shortness of the visiting time. Ten minutes was barely enough time to raise the screen and lower it again. The whole prison mobilized to deal with this emergency. The administrators bargained with the families, but they would not accept; they threatened the families, to no avail. A SWAT team surrounded the visiting room to force the families out at gunpoint. They arrested some of the fathers and forbade the rest of those waiting in line from visiting again. Immediately after that, the prisoners announced an indefinite hunger strike, demanding that the conditions of the prison be improved and the date for a trial be set.

The women resolved that the men should stay out of any active confrontations. They could watch from afar and help with communications. Mama Aicha went out into the streets, joining hands with mothers and wives advocating for the improvement of prison conditions and the acceleration of the announcement of a court date. They staged a sit-in at the Ministry of Justice. They forced their way into the meetings of political parties. They pressured their leaders to end their silence. They brought petitions and proclamations to the newspapers. They went to the colleges and universities to inform the students about the plight of their imprisoned sons.

A few of the prisoners were released to ease some of the tension. Then the trial came. The sentences ranged from five years to life. Aziz’s lot was twenty years in jail. After this, the prisoners launched another hunger strike, protesting the even worse conditions of the prison to which they were moved after the trial.

Mama Aicha’s house in el-Rahba el-Kadima alley became a regular meeting place for the mothers and wives of those imprisoned, where they strategized and planned counterattacks that would expose jails and jailers alike. In her small house in the heart of ancient Marrakech, a plan was formed to occupy Assounna Mosque, the largest mosque in the capital of Rabat. They staged a sit-in there one Friday immediately after prayers.