Mohammed Mrabet - M'Hashish

I went on to Tchar ej Jdid to see another man. He said the kif he had wasn't very good, but it was better than nothing. And tobacco? I asked him.

He said it was the best he could get. You can't get good kif or good tobacco either right now, he said. No matter how they try to bring it in, in a truck or a car, on a donkey or a bicycle, the gendarmes stop them and find it.

He wanted a hundred and fifty pesetas a kilo for it, and I bought five kilos, and a kilo and a half of tobacco. I put it into my beach bag, strapped the bag to the back of my bicycle, and started off. Then I noticed a car with two men in it behind me. Whichever street I took, the car stayed behind me. My heart began to go fast. I was sure they were from the Régie des Tabacs. I turned to the left and coasted down a steep hill, and the car turned too. I was looking out for an alley that would be too narrow for the car to get into, but wide enough for the bicycle. I kept going along, and they came on behind slowly.

I was still looking for an alley when I got to Val Flores. Then I saw a path leading down to the river, and I rode along it fast, and lost the car, and kept going until I was behind the poorhouse. Then I coasted on down to the bakery. I stopped and gave the beach bag to the baker, and got back onto the bicycle and rode around for a half hour or so, and then went back to the oven. The baker had taken the sack of kif out of the bag, filled another sack like it with ends of bread, and slipped it back into the beach bag. He gave it to me and I strapped it on to the bicycle and started out for the café.

Just as I'm getting to the café, the car with the two men drives up. I start to go in, but they begin yelling: Come here!

I just turn my head and look at them, and keep going.

They go on shouting.

I don't answer, and go into the café and sit down. They come in right behind me, and one of them takes hold of my beach bag.

I jerk it away and say: Take your hands off! What do you want with my bag? Who are you?

Then he shows me his papers from the Régie des Tabacs. He reaches out for the bag again. What have you got in there?

Nothing.

Let me look.

What for?

The qahouaji comes up and says: Give it to him, Mehdi. Let him look.

So I hand him the bag. He opens it and sees the bread, and the two men just look at each other.

You made it this time, he tells me. Maybe next time you won't.

When that happens, you can shave me without water, I tell him.

We will, he says, and they go out. Then I feel a lot better.

I got up and went back to the oven and gave the bread to the maallem, and took my kif and tobacco home. There was no more trouble, and I forgot about the Régie des Tabacs.

Aziz and I were trying to get together enough kif so that even when there wasn't any, we could still go on supplying our customers. A month or two later we had about a hundred and twenty-five kilos between us. We'd brought it from up in Beni Guerfat, and it was all at my house.

One afternoon we were sitting in the cafe, Aziz and I, and several friends. They were playing cards and I was cutting kif, when the men came in.

I had everything spread out in front of me. I was working hard and didn't know they were there.

They looked down at me and began to laugh. I just stared at them.

They picked up everything and wrapped it all in a newspaper. While they were busy doing that, Aziz slipped out and got onto his motorcycle. There were four men this time, and when they put me into the car they said: Now take us to your house.

When I heard that, my heart stopped. All right, I said.

They drove me home, and two of them went in with me. My brother was there, and he saw me with my face white, and whispered to me.

Aziz took it all. Don't worry.

I felt a little better.

The two men looked everywhere. Under the beds, in the chests and closets. Finally they went out to the car and told the others they couldn't find anything. Then they had an argument, and all four of them came in this time and began to look again. In each room they left everything in a heap on the floor, and finally they gave up.

Come on, they told me.

I'm not going to leave here until you help me put everything back the way it was, I told them.

They put the things back, and I went with them out to the car, and they took me to the office.

What? cried the Frenchman. You've got him again?

They unwrapped the newspaper and spread out the kif and the tobacco and the board and the knife and the sifter.

You got his tools this time, I see, the Frenchman said. Then he turned to me and began to tell me how young I was to be smoking kif. He told me I'd ruin my health and go crazy and catch all kinds of diseases.

When he finished I said: Kif doesn't drive you crazy. And it doesn't ruin your health. It doesn't hurt you at all if you eat well and sleep enough. What drives you crazy and ruins your health is not having any money.

That's enough! he cried. They never want to hear anybody talk about being poor.

If you don't like my words, I won't talk, I told him. You talk.

You know what we can do to you? We can give you five years in jail.

I told him: You haven't got the right to give me even one day in jail. I smoke kif, and now and then I go and buy a bunch and cut it and smoke it. I don't sell it. One bunch lasts me three or four days. Why don't you go after the men who sell it? You're punishing the ones you ought not to be paying any attention to, and letting the ones who ought to be punished go free.

Like who? said the Frenchman.

Like thieves and murderers and drunks. You don't catch them, but you run after people like me who are just sitting in cafés, not hurting anybody, not making any noise, just minding their own business.

One of the Moslems was looking at me. You like to talk, don't you? he said.

Let him talk, the Frenchman said. Go on, he told me.

If I do, you'll all be against me, I said.

Just go on, he said.

I don't drink alcohol, I told him. Besides, I'm very nervous. I smoke kif to keep calm. Even if somebody comes up and wants a fight, if I've smoked kif I don't pay any attention. I don't know whether I'm sitting down or standing up. If somebody hits me I don't feel it. So there's no way I can do harm to anybody. I just smoke kif and keep quiet. You ought to look for the men who have tons instead of one or two bunches.

TheFrenchman wanted to know if I could show him where these people lived who had tons. I said I was sorry, but I didn't know their addresses.

I live off the favors of other people, I told him. When a friend buys a bunch of kif, he buys me one, too. Now and then.

The Frenchman was just looking at me. Weigh the kif, he told his men, and they weighed it. He's got two hundred ten grams here, they said.

Weigh the tobacco.

A hundred twenty grams, they said. Then he turned to me. You know how much that means?

No. How much?

Two hundred ten grams of kif makes four thousand two hundred pesetas, and a hundred twenty grams of tobacco makes six thousand pesetas. That's ten thousand two hundred pesetas. We'll make it an even ten thousand.

I can pay it, I said. But there's one thing.

What's that?

I can pay it if you give me a job and let me pay a little each month. When it's all paid you can fire me.

I see, he said. Yes, yes. You're a very smart young man, aren't you? Vous êtes très intelligent, monsieur. Très intelligent.

He was angry, but I went on playing. Anybody who can walk and eat and get around in the world is intelligent, I told him. Even a donkey is intelligent.

Some of the Moslems laughed. Il se fiche de ma gueule, the Frenchman was complaining.

It's true! I told them. If a donkey wasn't intelligent, how could he know that arrah means go ahead and cho means stop? How would he know the difference?