Laila Lalami - Secret Son

The rest of the piece was a description of the individual strikes on different campuses. “There’s enough information here,” Youssef said, “that they can identify me.”

Amin sat back, having finished reading, but remained thoughtfully silent. He lit another cigarette.

“Impossible,” Hatim said, shaking his head. “We didn’t give your name, and we didn’t say where you live or which campus you’re from. Don’t worry.”

“Of course I’m going to worry.”

“Don’t worry,” Hatim said, as though repeating the reassurance could make it come true. “I promise they can’t find you, based on what’s in here. Just consider what you’ve achieved for a moment. Your story is in the newspaper. Isn’t this important?”

Youssef wanted to believe Hatim. After all, he was only one of hundreds of demonstrators, and surely the police were not planning on tracking down every one of them? And they had already beaten him up. What else did they want?

“People need to know what the government does to the people whenever they speak up,” Hatim said.

Amin shrugged. “Everyone knows. They don’t need to read about it in the paper.”

“What’s this?” Hatim asked, his voice rising. “Are you on the state’s side now?”

“Of course not,” Amin said, raising his right palm up in defense. “Me, I’m just saying.”

Hatim’s voice suddenly softened. “I understand, my son. But it’s important to document what’s going on around us. How else will anything change? Have you seen Farid Benaboud’s article in Casablanca Magazine? ”

Youssef and Amin shook their heads.

Hatim clapped his hands. “Iwa, I can tell you: we did a much better job with these student demonstrations. Our newspaper is the mouthpiece of the people. We carry their stories and their concerns, not Benaboud. He didn’t have a full report in his magazine. He didn’t have original pictures. He didn’t even have any direct quotes from demonstrators. But the worst of it was that he accused the Party of starting trouble on the Casablanca Aïn-Chok campus and of letting the other student organizations take the fall on the day of the strikes. What lies! Attacking us when all we are doing is trying to help. But what can you expect from that … that … that …” He seemed to be looking for the right word. “That Jew,” he finally spat. “He wants to prevent the Party from making progress. But, by God, we will bring progress to this country whether Benaboud likes it or not.”

Youssef could not understand why Hatim hated Benaboud so much, and he did not know what to say, not having read the other magazine’s story anyhow. Someone called out to the waiter to bring two coffees and a plate of mille-feuilles . A jingle announced the end of the commercial break on TV. “The match is starting again,” Youssef said. Amin folded the paper and handed it to Hatim, then moved his ashtray back to its spot and flicked the ashes from his cigarette in it. Hatim took the hint and got up. Now they turned their attention back to the match, but it was hard to stay interested, since the outcome was in little doubt. “What do you think of the article?” Youssef asked.

“Hatim goes on about changing things, but who’s reading his paper? No one. And no one’s reading Benaboud, either. The only articles that matter are those that make it into Le Matin . If you’re not in Le Matin , you don’t exist. And in any case, half the country is illiterate. It’s what’s on TV that counts.”

Amin was right — none of the television channels had shown images of the strikes. It did not matter what anyone wrote.

PROFESSOR HAMMOUCHE WANTED the class to discuss immigration, but no one was in the mood to debate. “In that case,” she said, heaving a sigh, “we’ll set up two camps, one for and one against.” She randomly assigned people to each group and trudged through the hour-long debate, suggesting better adjectives, correcting subjunctive forms, or adjusting pronunciations. Youssef found himself in the group having to argue against emigration, even though he could not come up with any reasons why anyone should stay in the country. A life of dignity was in the realm of the imaginary: he was poor; there were few jobs and even fewer rights. Some people in Hay An Najat had tried hrig, and although hardly any of them had been heard from after leaving the country on a boat, he knew that if the chance arose, he, too, might be tempted to try his luck in Europe.

At the end of the class, Professor Hammouche passed around an assignment on family-law reforms. “You can work in groups of two or three,” she said, “so long as you turn in a full list of your arguments.” Youssef’s eye immediately fell on Alia’s back, on the cascades of soft brown hair he had wanted to run his fingers through from the first moment he saw her. He tapped her shoulder.

“We can work together,” he said, “if you like.”

Her eyes widened with surprise, but to his great relief, she smiled. “When do you want to do it?”

“How about next Friday?”

“ D’accord . I’ll give you my number and my address.”

“You want me to come to your house?” Youssef asked, incredulous.

“Of course,” she said, laughing. “Where else would we meet?”

What about your parents? he wanted to ask. What would they say if you brought a man to the house? In his neighborhood, no father would allow it because, as the hadith went, whenever a man is alone with a woman, Satan joins them as the third. But Alia did not seem to worry about such things. Using a pink feather pen, she wrote her address in large, loopy letters on a scrap of paper she handed to him. He gave her a confident smile, as though being asked to visit girls like Alia was something that happened to him every day.

Waiting for Friday turned out to be excruciatingly difficult, so Youssef distracted himself by going to the Oasis. He had just sat down with Amin when Maati slid into the chair across from them. “Remember the idiot who hit me?” he asked. He set his keys and mobile phone on the table.

“The one with the thick eyebrows?” Youssef asked.

Maati nodded. “He’s causing some trouble again. Up near Iqamat Al Hanan. Drinking beer at the street corner late at night, playing music on his boom box, being a nuisance. When Hatim described him to me, I knew exactly who he was talking about.”

Youssef picked up Maati’s new phone from the table. It was sturdy and slim, with a built-in camera and a colorful keypad — a nicer model than either Amin’s or Youssef’s mobiles, which they had bought secondhand at Derb Ghallef.

“What are you going to do?” Amin asked.

“Teach him a lesson.”

“Why?” Youssef asked, setting the phone back on the table.

“What do you mean, why?” Maati said. “Don’t you remember what he did to me?” He pointed to his forehead, to the scar that had begun to fade.

“But that was six months ago.”

“And I haven’t forgotten. Have you?”

Amin asked, “How are you going to find him?”

“I know exactly where he’ll be. Hatim pointed the place out to me. Are you coming with me and Abdelmajid?”

Youssef scratched his head. “Now?”

“Yes, now,” Maati said, grabbing his keys and phone. “What else are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” Youssef replied. “You’re taking it a bit far.”

Maati gave him a wounded look. “A-khouya, are you my friend or his?”

“Calm down,” Amin said. “Of course, we’re your friends.”

Youssef and Amin followed Maati out of the café into the street, where Abdelmajid was waiting for them. They walked up the hill, crossed the tarred road, and went down the other side. At length they came to a cluster of new developments that the government had hastily built in the past few years. Eyebrows was standing by the hanout.