Mohammed Mrabet - M'Hashish

Meanwhile Si Brahim got up and went over to his tape-recorder. He started to play the tape, and the words that came out sounded like frogs trying to speak. His mouth opened in surprise, and he stopped the machine and changed the speed. Then it sounded like birds chirping. He changed it back again and listened, but he could not understand a word that was coming from it. He shook his head and was about to turn the machine off.

What's the matter? said his friend. Let me hear it.

Si Brahim looked at the man, and decided that his head was full of kif. He shut off the tape-recorder. There's something wrong with it, he said. It's not playing right.

Leave it alone, the man told him. Why did you shut it off? Open it up and let it play. You invited me here to listen to Allah's words. Let me listen.

He understood that Si Brahim's son was playing a joke of some sort on his father, and so he decided to play too. Si Brahim started the machine going once again, and his friend said: Good. Now come and sit down. I'll fill you a pipe and we can listen.

Si Brahim was so upset and confused that he took the pipe and smoked it. And each time his friend passed it to him he took it, and they went on listening to the noises coming out of the machine. By the time the tape was halfway through, the kif was singing in Si Brahim's head. He thought that perhaps he was beginning to understand the sounds coming from the tape. From time to time the family would peer between the curtains into the room and see the two men sitting there, and they would turn away quickly to hide their laughter.

When the tape had finished playing, Si Brahim turned to his friend and said: Did you understand anything?

Understand? Of course. Didn't you?

Si Brahim scratched his chin. Not all of it, he said. The machine's not working right today.

It's a fine machine. It's working perfectly. I understood everything, his friend told him.

Then Si Brahim heard his family laughing in the next room. His wife was saying: Maybe this will teach him a lesson, and we can have a little peace at last.

By now Si Brahim's head was bursting with kif, and he misunderstood his wife's words, thinking she was complaining because he had smoked kif. He was very angry.

He got up and went to the door. You're wrong! he cried. I'm going to smoke whenever I want. And I'm going to learn how to cut the kif myself so that I can have it fresh every day. How do you like that, woman?

His friend was delighted to hear him saying this. When dinner was over he took Si Brahim back to the cafe, and they smoked until very late.

From then on Si Brahim spent all his time in cafes cutting and smoking kif. He was no longer interested in his tape-recorder, and so he gave it to his son.

When I had no job and nothing at all to do, I cut kif. It was the only way I could find to make any money. I'd sit in this cafe out in Beni Makada and clean the plants, bunch by bunch, and when the cafe filled up with smokers I sold it to them. In small packages, as much or as little as they wanted. Some liked it with a lot of tobacco and some liked it lighter. Because I knew how to make good kif, and I was making it for real smokers. They wouldn't have bought it if it hadn't been good. I used only the best part of the plant.

One day I'd just finished cutting, and I was playing a game of ronda with some friends. I had a leaf of tobacco left over, and I'd left it lying on the table. I was going to put it away later. Pretty soon a man walked into the cafe. A man with a turban and djellaba, and yellow slippers on his feet and a cane in his hand, like a Djibli. We looked at him and he sat down and ordered a Coca Cola, and paid the qahouaji, and we went on playing. And then he reached out and picked up my leaf of tobacco and looked at it, and said: Whose is this?

I told him it was mine, and he said he wanted to talk with me outside.

Where?

Outside.

All right. I got up and went out with him.

He had a car out there.

Get in, he says.

Who are you?

I'm from the Régie des Tabacs.

I get into the car and we drive to his office. There are three Frenchmen sitting there. And four Moroccans.

What's this one been doing they say.

I found him sitting in a café. With this leaf of tobacco. The Djibli shakes the leaf up and down.

One of the Frenchmen turns to me. He speaks Arabic. Do you smoke kif?

I tell him if somebody offers me some I smoke it. I tell him I usually smoke tobacco.

And this leaf. Where did you get it? he wants to know.

There was a man came into the café this morning. I never saw him before, I tell him. He cut his kif and when he was finished he had a leaf left over. I asked him if I could have it and he said to take it.

And what did you want of it? he says.

I tell him there are lots of men who smoke kif, and once in a while when they're cutting they need a little more tobacco. And I can help them out.

And you don't know it's a crime? C'est déjendu, ça! Then he begins to shake the leaf in my face.

Non, monsieur, I tell him. I thought it was alcohol that was forbidden for Moslems, not tobacco. Anyway, it's just one leaf, and I don't even know who it belongs to.

They take me out with them and put me into the car again, and drive me to a dungeon they used to have out there behind the barracks at Beni Makada. Six days there in the dark. No place to sleep except on the floor. And the floor's made of stone. After six whole days and nights they come again and open the door and tell me to come out. So I go out and they drive me up to the office again.

The Frenchman is looking at me, and he says they're going to let me off this time. Only I've got to pay a fine of five hundred pesetas.

Why? For a leaf of tobacco? I tell him you can buy a whole kilo for two hundred pesetas, and he's charging me five hundred for one leaf?

You'll pay it or you'll stay five months in jail, he says.

I'll pay, I tell him. Six days is enough.

I pay him the five hundred and he tells me to go on home.

At home the whole family begins asking me where I've been. I told them I'd been to Tetuan, so as not to worry them. I bathed and changed my clothes, and went to the café.

When I went in, the others all said: That was a low trick they played on you. They shouldn't do such things to people.

Nothing happened, I told them. And later that day I went out and bought two kilos of kif and brought it back to the café. There I got up onto the musicians' platform and spread it all out. I had three friends sitting around me, helping me get it ready fast. I called to the qahouaji and asked for four glasses of tea. I wanted them all to be in a good mood and work fast, so I gave them kif, and they smoked as they worked. While they were busy with the kif I got the tobacco ready. We finished at the same time, and then I began to cut. By the time the customers came in, it was all ready, so I didn't lose that day, at least.

In those times I could get a kilo of kif for a hundred and fifty pesetas. And a hundred more would buy a kilo of tobacco. I usually made about six hundred pesetas on a kilo of kif. But sometimes there was practically no kif in the city. I'd have none to sell and I'd be looking everywhere for it.

Once I went down to Emsallah on my bicycle to see a man who sometimes sold it to me. When I got near his house I saw a crowd of people outside. And then I saw the men from the Régie des Tabacs. I stood still and watched them bring out four sacks of kif, a hundred kilos each. And they carried out two hundred kilos of tobacco. The man and his brother were handcuffed. And there were two others with them. They piled the men and the kif and the tobacco into the truck and drove away. I felt sorry for them. It meant that each man would be five years in jail, and they would burn the kif and the tobacco. I felt sorry about all of it.