Mohamed Choukri - For Bread Alone

What was the matter with that son of a bitch? Abdeslam demanded.

Nothing, I said. That was my father.

Your father!

Sebtaoui came up then, exclaiming:

Son of garbage! Son of a whore! What did he want with you?

It was his father.

His father! He turned to me.

Yes, my father. But you should have hit him harder. He’s a pig.

When we got to the end of the alley at El Talaa, I saw a drunk coming out of a house. It was a cold rainy night.

The rain will cut down the cold, said Abdeslam.

The drunk staggered past us. We heard a thud. He’s very drunk, Sebtaoui said. Then we saw the man struggling to get up. We went on to the same doorway he had come out of. A woman appeared, her breath stinking of alcohol, and showed us into the house. She took Abdeslam’s head between her hands and kissed him on the lips, slowly and noisily.

What did you bring me today? she began. What have you brought for your mother?

Anything, he told her. Whatever you want.

Sebtaoui walked into a brightly lit room from which came the sound of talking and laughter.

Abdeslam introduced me to the drunken woman. Mama, he said, this is a new friend.

She looked at me between half-shut lids.

He’s going to stay up with us tonight, he went on.

She took my head between her hands gently, and kissed my lips, making a smacking sound. You’re welcome in our house, she said, still touching my face, tilting her head back slightly and looking squarely into my eyes. What does this woman want of me? I wondered. Is she trying to put a spell on me, perhaps?

Abdeslam watched his mother, smiling. But is she really his mother? Or is he having fun with me? Perhaps she only brought him up.

Everybody go upstairs, she said.

Sebtaoui and I climbed the stairs to the floor above, leaving Abdeslam talking to his mother. A small girl came in carrying a tray. She placed a bottle of cognac on it, and went out. Nothing better than cognac on a cold night like this, said Sebtaoui.

That’s right, I said.

We had had a delicious dinner. The purse we had finally succeeded in stealing (thanks to a system whereby Sebtaoui opened the foreign woman’s handbag, Abdeslam reached in and removed the purse, and I was left with it) proved to have in it more than three thousand pesetas.

What’s happened to Abdeslam? I said finally.

He’s getting his mother to send out for three girls. A lot of them don’t whore publicly. They stay home and wait for the madame to get in touch with them. Some of them are married. Once in a while you’ll even find a virgin.

How can you sleep with a girl who’s still a virgin?

You can’t. She just comes along with the other girls. When it’s time to sleep, the madame either sends somebody along with the girl to see that she gets home, or lets her spend the night with her.

And suppose somebody wants a virgin? I said.

In that case, he pays what it costs.

How much, for instance?

He looked at me. Is that what you want? Do you want to break in a virgin?

No, I was just wondering.

You’d have to pay at least a thousand or fifteen hundred pesetas.

Doesn’t Abdeslam’s mother have any girls here in the house? I asked him. I thought I heard some girls talking in that room you went into.

She’s got two professionals here, yes, he said. They’re very pretty, too. But Abdeslam and I are fed up with them. There are other good ones who come once in a while. Tonight there’s only one outside girl down there, and she’s drinking cognac as fast as she can, to kill the pain in her tooth.

We heard the voices and laughter of girls from below. Here they are, said Sebtaoui. They’re coming up.

Abdeslam’s mother appeared, wreathed in smiles, and behind her came three girls wearing caftans. It’s a real wedding, I thought to myself.

The woman poured herself a glass of cognac and went out. Abdeslam brought in a carton of Virginia cigarettes. With no hesitating the girls sat down, one beside each of us. That was the first night.

For three days I did not go out into the street. Each morning the girls walked to the hammam to bathe. They would come back in the afternoon, clean, perfumed and painted. Sebtaoui and Abdeslam go out together. I prefer to stay in, asleep, or daydreaming, recalling scenes from Tangier, Tetuan or Oran. At night, life took on the flavour of eternity. In the three days I spent only three hundred pesetas. Sometimes Sida Aziza, Abdeslam’s mother, comes in to see me, to talk and drink and chainsmoke Virginia cigarettes, or even kif .

The fourth evening neither Abdeslam nor Sebtaoui came back, and Sida Aziza sent me out to look for them. Two hours later I returned, having failed to find them, and Sida Aziza sobbed when she saw me. They’ve been arrested, she declared. I had no idea of how to calm her. Now and then I murmured: I hope they haven’t caught them.

I thought of the things that could happen to my two companions. Sida Aziza came and went, back and forth, always carrying a full glass in her hand, until one in the morning. Sometimes she was sobbing, and sometimes laughing.

There’s a girl downstairs who’s going to sleep by herself. Do you want to sleep with her? Don’t give her anything. I’ll fix it up with her later.

I smiled. She drained her glass at one gulp, and said: You remind me of my brother Salam who died when he was about your age. He got hit by a car.

She refilled her glass, walked out of the room, and began to call: Yasmina! Come up!

I heard the two of them whispering outside the door, and I thought: She’s arranging it for me. The girl came in, smiling modestly. She wore a caftan and her perfume was strong.

It’s still very cold out, in spite of all the rain that’s fallen, she said. I mixed her cognac with limonada . We did not say very much. Her presence was an antidote to my boredom. I took her hand in mine, and said with my eyes and my smile:

There are a lot of things I don’t understand. And you, Yasmina?

The same with me. There are many things I don’t understand either, her eyes seemed to say.

It was the neighbours who forced a truce between my father and me. I went back to helping my mother run her vegetable stand. But I was forbidden to go out at night, which was unbearable. Nights were all I had, since I spent the entire day in the street with my mother.

One morning two secret policemen stood beside the vegetable stand: a Moroccan and a Spaniard. Come with us, said the Moroccan. I thought then of Abdeslam and Sebtaoui. Across from our stall Lalla Kinza sold mint. Her son was there. I asked him to mind the stall for me until I got back, or until my mother returned from the market.

They took me to the jefatura . Where are Abdeslam and Sebtaoui? the Moroccan asked me.

I don’t know them.

What do you mean, you don’t know them?

That’s right.

He slapped me twice and seized the front of my clothing with one hand, twisting it around. Listen! If you don’t tell us the truth, we’re going to put your face on the back of your head. You understand?

A Spanish policeman put his head out of an office and said: Take him to Señor Alvarez.

He was looking down when I went in. Then he slowly raised his head. Aha! So it’s you!

I remembered Aïn Khabbès. In the old days I gave his son Julio all the birds that had died in my traps, because they were not edible. And his wife used to send me to the baqal or take me to market with her to help carry the food back to her house.

Where does your family live now? he asked me.

In Trancats.

Does your mother still sell vegetables?

Yes.

And you. What do you do?

I help her at the stand.