Tahar Ben Jelloun - A Palace in the Old Village

Mohammed was somewhat shaken, and perplexed, but he trusted his intuition: she would come.

For all the others, he left a message, which he had always refused to do when he was in France: The house is ready, it’s big, you each have your room — come, I’m expecting you so we can celebrate Eid al-Kebir together: I’ve bought six sheep, so you’ll each have your own. You’ll see how handsome and spacious the house is, full of light and sweet smells. May God keep you! I’m looking forward to seeing you! If you drive down, be careful! The whole village is expecting you! We’ll finally be able to live as one big happy family! He dialed Jamila again, leaving a message when she didn’t pick up, speaking, perhaps, into a void: Jamila, my daughter, it’s your father calling you. I didn’t understand what you just told me. I’m waiting for you in the house, in the village, for the feast of Eid al-Kebir. It’s a family reunion, so come without your husband! I’m counting on you!

I spoke to their machines, Mohammed told his wife. I hope those things will transmit my messages without changing them — unless they add that children should obey their father!

Mohammed was absolutely certain: his family reunion would indeed take place. He would finally have his happy ending.

The evening before the festival, he asked one of his nephews, the deaf-mute shepherd, to wait at the entrance to the village for the arriving visitors, to show them the rest of the way. Meanwhile Mohammed sat in his armchair, in the shade near the front door of the house, and waited. He fiddled with some prayer beads, trying to be patient, and gradually grew calmer, although he still felt twinges of anxiety. His wife had already gone to bed back in their old house, and Mohammed felt a little lonely, not abandoned, exactly, but rather misunderstood. Why isn’t she here, by my side? Why would she rather sleep, when the children will soon be arriving? She must be tired, she must have her reasons. Perhaps she’ll be overjoyed tomorrow to see all of them reunited with us in this beautiful house, and she’ll thank me. It’s not our custom to say thank you, but we show our satisfaction with a gesture or a smile.

Strange … I don’t remember ever laughing with my wife. No great peals of mirth like some people have, no familiarity. We don’t talk much. I can’t remember ever having any long discussions with her, either. I think we agree about everything. We’ve never had an argument. That’s normal — we’re married. That’s what marriage is: the wife agrees with her husband. That’s how it is with us anyway. But now, tonight, I don’t understand why she isn’t with me. Doesn’t she like the house? She hasn’t said anything to me. I guess she thinks it’s too big. Maybe she’s right, but a family house should be large. I know it doesn’t look like any other house in the village. My wife fears the evil eye, and this house can be seen from all sides. She must be tired, or else she’s praying to God to guide our children here. I know her; she’s not trying to be mean to me; she’s just busy making sure our plan succeeds: burning incense, pouring milk in the corners of each room, hanging a talisman on the sole tree in the village, circling a slaughtered rooster seven times, hiring a few benevolent sorcerers to protect us from bad luck, envy, jealousy, problems created by our enemies.

I can’t think of any enemies; I don’t have any. It’s shadows that pass by and leave their foul odour behind — I’ve never done a thing to make enemies. I’m so modest, so simple, that others don’t bother envying me, I’m too small for jealousy to notice. My wife believes otherwise, she has always practised those rituals and they don’t bother me. It’s best to be careful — you never know. The evil eye! Even the Prophet, it seems, knew about that. Can an eye look with hatred or envy at someone and bring him down? It’s impossible, yet … I do believe in it, but I don’t want to believe in it too much. One day a fellow at the mosque looked at me hard and said, You, they’re after you. I turned around but there was no one there, and he laughed at me. No, it’s an eye that’s after you, a big evil eye. It’s obvious, someone’s jealous and wants to hurt you, so here, take these plant leaves, put them in a teapot, and drink their essence; it will drive away the evil eye. If you want, come see me. I’ve even got an herb that fights fear, yes, it’s true, and for once it’s foreigners that made the discovery — in Italy, I heard.

No one came. No sound of a car engine, no cloud of dust, nothing. The silence was unnatural. No birds or insects flew by. Nothing moved. Everything froze in place. It was as if the whole world had gone quiet. The silence inside Mohammed was engulfing that of the world. He was there, his heart full of questions and expectation, with only one prayer, murmured like a last wish. Leaning to one side, the house cast a shadow that made it even more imposing, almost threatening. In the bright sky, the twinkling stars left Mohammed feeling rather dizzy, as if he were on a voyage, suspended between heaven and earth, and gazing up at them he thought he saw people, roads, streaks of white. He stared at the moon but could not see a single one of his children there. People say you can see loved ones in the moon. Mohammed couldn’t find anything familiar. The moon was opaque. He let himself drift off, dozed a little. Impossible to really fall asleep. He was watching, his eye on the horizon; his head felt heavy, and there was sadness in his heart. He couldn’t feel his legs anymore but didn’t care.

Waiting was a painful ordeal, yet not without hope. Mohammed had rarely waited for anyone, and he remembered how he’d haunted the corridors of Moroccan and French government buildings as well as the halls of the hospital where his wife had given birth. He hadn’t paced up and down but found a bench and stayed there. Once a nurse had asked him if he wanted to see his child being born. No, madame, that’s just not done!

There he was, and for a few seconds he forgot what he was doing. His goodness was that of a man who does not know how to lie. Even for a joke, to make his children laugh, Mohammed had never lied. He was good and paid no mind to what others said. A kind man, with a single weakness written all over his face. One of his daughters had once told him, It’s so obvious that you’re a pushover! It was just a remark, not an insult; a child would not disrespect her father, it’s not done. Mohammed had wondered why children these days would consider kindness a sign of weakness. Did one have to be hard, authoritarian, and unjust to be strong, respected, admired?

Waiting for the night to end, as if all would become simple in the morning. Waiting for dawn, the sky’s pallor and fatigue, and the resolution to begin the first prayer of the day. Waiting for one’s eyes to close on the light at last for the last time. Waiting, and saying nothing. Not protesting or growing impatient, withdrawing into the silence, into that expectation whose end he could not see. Getting through the night the way one gets through a police barricade or an ordeal. Going to the end of the night, crossing frozen lakes, climbing mountains, passing from one tree to another, steering clear of the big rocks, the wild animals, the wicked people, avoiding interrogations, and above all, not feeling any regret or exhaustion. Making the night a friend, a companion, steeping oneself in its dust and its lassitude.

The woman was white, wrapped in a white veil. Approaching Mohammed, she held out her right hand, signalling him to follow her, and wide-eyed, he went along with this strange invitation. The woman was light on her feet, walking on tiptoe like a dancer; she took one of Mohammed’s thick, callused hands in her cold grasp and drew him after her as if afraid of losing him along the way. He followed her, smiling, and perhaps even happy. He had become light too. He knew all this was a dream and prayed, If only it doesn’t stop, and then he felt ashamed. In fact, it was a dream within a different dream. He had been thinking about an angel who would bring his children back to him. Mohammed and his guide soon found themselves in what appeared to be a deserted oasis, where everything was blue: sky, earth, water, palm trees, fruit, carpets. He looked at the woman, studying this face that seemed vaguely familiar, for she had the grace and lithe elegance of his wife when they first married. He also saw a resemblance to one of his daughters, but when he went closer to the woman, everything changed, and her face became one that he had never seen before. Gently, she took off his clothes, invited him to enter a bathtub, washed him, scrubbed his back, added rose water to the bath, and while drying him stroked his shoulders, arms, and hands, which she delicately kissed. After handing him a white linen djellaba, she led him to a large sofa, where she sat down beside him and fed him fruit. After drinking some almond milk, Mohammed fell serenely asleep, gently caressed by the beautiful stranger. The dream within the dream drifted away with the night.