Tahar Ben Jelloun: A Palace in the Old Village

The hero of this book passes “from one time to another, one life to another,” changing “centuries, countries, customs.” His disorientation is reflected in his misreading of the realities around him: there are things he cannot understand, and their importance completely escapes him. Since an American reader may well be similarly unfamiliar with some of the historical and cultural references in Ben Jelloun’s novel, I have provided a few endnotes to explain these allusions, which are marked in the text by an asterisk.

WHEN MOHAMMED HAD FINISHED his evening prayer, he stayed sitting with his legs tucked beneath him on the small synthetic rug, gazing at a plastic made-in-China clock on the wall. He was looking, not at the hands, but at the picture surrounding the clock face: a crowd of people all in white, circling the Kaaba* beneath a blue sky thronged with birds and angels.

He was remembering his own pilgrimage, which had left him with mixed feelings. Although he’d been happy and deeply moved while praying, he’d been affected just as strongly by the oppressive lack of privacy and the rough way some pilgrims behaved. He could not understand why they were always shoving and stumbling into one another, occasionally even causing accidents that proved fatal.

He’d quickly learned that holy places disrupt ordinary perceptions. People are no longer themselves; they lose their bearings. Falling easily into trances, they lose consciousness as well, thus inviting a death much glorified in the ravings of charlatans. Such pilgrims die beneath the feet of stronger men, giants who trample others savagely, forging ahead without even a glance back to see what they’ve left in their wake, pressing on, their eyes and faces lifted heavenward as if such barbaric fervor had been demanded from on high. The weakest victims die, lying bloody in the dust. No eye falls upon them to offer a last prayer.

In holy places overrun within the space of a few days by more than two million Muslims — all intent on washing away their sins before returning home content, brimming with the virtues bestowed by their faith — these scenes were inevitable. It was not a pretty sight. Mohammed had always been afraid of crowds. In the grip of fanaticism, crowds become dangerous. It’s best to avoid them, shun all confrontation, and escape being swept up in their momentum. At the factory, he would go on strike with his comrades but did not parade through the streets waving a sign.

Mohammed dreamed of a solitary springtime pilgrimage with only a few members of his tribe, just friends and family. Dreading violent situations, he was afraid of dying while in Mecca but was probably alone in his fear, for such a death sent one’s soul straight to heaven. He never mentioned his dread of being crushed to death by fanatical feet, but he kept out of their way and studied them. What does such a foot look like? It’s dirty, sometimes bare, sometimes shod in a shabby babouche . Mohammed had encountered some of those wearers of dilapidated babouches . They were not from his country and spoke an Arab dialect he found impenetrable. Wherever did they come from? To Mohammed, a Muslim was an Arab or a Berber. He found it difficult to consider those other pilgrims Muslims. They were Africans, Chinese, Turks. All the pilgrims had fire in their eyes — the flame of faith, the passion of Islam. Why, he wondered, was his own gaze steady and serene? It was simply his temperament.

He had looked forward to that trip for a long time, had dreamed about it, even a bit too much, perhaps, just because he had no other grand projects in his life. He thought about his children’s future, but this pained him, leaving him distressed and bewildered. So he performed his prayers and rituals in a strangely quiet way.

One morning, after emerging from the Great Mosque, he had not found his brand-new babouches , made by a craftsman in Fez. Astonished at having been robbed by another pilgrim, he could neither understand nor accept this. But he soon forgot his anger when one of the men who shared his room told him that every day, gangs attacked pilgrims to steal their money.

When a thief is captured, the man added, he gets his hand cut off. In fact, at the noon prayer today a few hands will be chopped off in public — you’re invited to the show! A week ago they flogged a Yemeni for disrespecting the son of a prince, and last year they condemned a Christian to death — I think he was Italian — after they caught him with the daughter of an important Saudi family. A Muslim woman mustn’t associate with — that is, be alone with — a non-Muslim, much less marry him. Oh no, they don’t joke around here, they’ve got their laws: they claim they’re in the Koran and they enforce them! We don’t argue, us — we haven’t the right. We come to meditate at the tomb of our beloved Prophet, we pray, we perform our rituals, and we go on home; that is, if we don’t die trampled or missing a hand, because they can make mistakes and accuse you of stealing, and then your hand’s gone in a flash, it’s called swift justice, no time to think things over, and in any case, around here thinking is strongly discouraged, because here we give ourselves to God without any doubts or hesitation: we belong to God and God does what he wants with us. You got that, my friend?

Mohammed felt that lopping off a hand for stealing a slipper was too harsh, even cruel. He stared at his open hands for a long time and thought, Without them, I would have been nothing, not even a beggar. May Allah protect us from evil and misfortune!

A beggar held out his stump to him; Mohammed slipped some money into his pocket. He would have liked to talk with him, to learn his story. Perhaps he’d lost his hand in an accident or been the victim of some mistake — but the beggar had vanished.

Whenever Mohammed told people back home about his pilgrimage, he got into trouble. Bachir, who had an opinion about everything, gave him a lecture between sips of a nice cool beer: A Muslim must not criticise what happens during the hajj. Leave that to the enemies of Islam, those who want to see us perpetually underdeveloped, in rags, dirty and inhuman. Now they’ve managed to label all Muslims terrorists! It’s simple: we’re doomed to stagnate or to slide backward, so criticism, forget about it, even if what you say is true — or else we’ll stop calling you Hajji!

Mohammed had the last word, though, in his soft voice: If we don’t criticise ourselves, we’ll never get anywhere. Well, I’ll keep quiet and wish you bon voyage, a good pilgrimage, but me, if I go back, it won’t be during the main hajj. I’ll choose the little one, the umrah . Besides, you know, we need to learn tolerance. For example: you drink, but I never mention it, that’s your business and I’m not going to scold you — so stop criticising those who have the courage to criticise themselves!

A big buzzing fly roused Mohammed from his reverie and kept blindly bumping into the wall. He would have liked to rescue it but hadn’t the energy. The fly went around and around in that room as if it too were a prisoner. Mohammed bowed his head. He seemed to be answering a call, listening to a voice — a sort of whisper escaping from a crack in the plaster, a fissure the wallpaper from the sixties could no longer seal up. The apartment building was in such disrepair that both the municipality and the public housing authority had dropped it from their rolls; it needed too much work, especially since the chaotic arrival of huge numbers of new African immigrants.