Mohamed Choukri - For Bread Alone

All right. I’ll sleep a little.

I heard them shut the door and turn the key in the lock. Sallafa and Bouchra both lay asleep, Bouchra on her right side facing the wall. Sallafa lay on her stomach, with her face also towards the wall. She lay like someone who had been dragged out of the sea. It seemed to me that her buttocks needed to be given first-aid treatment. As I was dropping off to sleep, I heard her move. Then she said: Has that dog gone out?

Slowly I opened my eyes. She had got up and was turning on the light. So you weren’t asleep after all, I thought.

She stretched in such a way that she managed to project her bosom and her buttocks at the same time. Then she stood up straight and looked at me archly. Her eyes seemed half-asleep.

Are you asleep too? she asked me.

I pulled myself up into a sitting position. I’m just resting a little, I said.

She lifted the half-empty bottle of wine and indicated the two glasses on the table. Come into the other room so we won’t wake up Bouchra.

Shall I go in or not? I said to myself. Why not? She’s the boss here, the mistress of the house.

When I got to my feet I realized that my head was heavy. There was a dull pain in my right temple. I glanced at Bouchra, wondering if she too were awake. She’s attractive, but I don’t dare go near her.

What difference does it make? I thought. I’ll follow Sallafa into the other room. Women have their own system. They know how to act in such cases.

I walked into the room. It was a completely furnished bedroom, not at all what I had expected to see in a shack. In one corner there was a high pile of cartons. Perhaps they contained some of Qaabil’s contraband. She was sitting on the edge of the bed. I sat down on a couch facing her.

Sit over here by me, she told me.

I hesitated.

Are you afraid of Qaabil?

It’s not that, I finally said. I just met him. El Kebdani and I were in the street when they were shooting. We were on our way down from the Zoco de Fuera to the Saqqaya.

Even if he finds you here with me, he won’t do anything. I know him. A dog that barks.

He might not do anything, I was thinking, looking at her. He might just throw me out of the shack and go on living with you, if he loves you. And there’s no doubt he loves you. From what I’ve seen and heard, it’s you who manages him, and that means he loves you.

I rose and went to sit beside her on the bed. She filled the two glasses herself. Then she reached out to the table beside the bed and lit a cigarette. Her eyelashes were black and her eyes were bloodshot. She placed the cigarette between my lips and lit a second one. I thought of Lalla Harouda back at the brothel in Tetuan, and of how she had done the same thing. Today everything is different. Today is better than yesterday.

And if Bouchra should wake up? I said.

She’s my sister.

Your sister!

Well, like my sister.

Ah! I see.

She smiled as she looked at me. Her lips are tiny, like a ring for the finger. I had heard that a small mouth on a girl indicated a very tight sex. I smiled back at her. She finished her drink. I was thinking of the boy who had been shot by the police. She took my hand and lay back, looking up at the ceiling as she smoked. From time to time she squeezed my hand. She too must be thinking of something. Her hand is warm. Her long slim fingers seem made to nibble on. I lay down beside her and smoked, staring up at a doll that hung on the wall. I press her fragile hand, thinking of the boy who had come and tried in vain to get behind the booth with us. I felt sorry now that we had not let him in.

The short young man sprang, landing on top of the policeman. He pounds his head as if he were driving in a nail. The second policeman comes, and he is rolling on the pavement.

We stayed a while quietly, she with her hand in mine. I wondered if Qaabil enjoyed tranquil moments like this with her. She stirred. So did I. We looked at each other and smiled.

Wait, she said. I’ll undress. She snuffed out her cigarette in the ashtray. Ideas of ecstasy tickled the inside of my head as she pulled off her clothing. Her panties are pink and she wears no brassiere. Her breasts are tiny, like two lemons. My mind went back to the time when I had sucked the oranges on the tree woman at Oran.

Get undressed.

It’s better if I keep my clothes on. If Qaabil and el Kebdani should come back I wouldn’t have time to get dressed.

They won’t be back for another three or four hours, she said.

Where do you think they went?

I don’t know. He never tells me where he’s going. But whenever he goes out he stays a long time, especially if he has one of his friends with him, because then he feels more daring and does crazier things. Maybe they’ve gone to the whorehouse together. That’s what I think, if you want to know.

Her face was heart-shaped, white, with pink cheeks. It was also the face of a boy. I shut my eyes and let my head fall onto her warm breast. A pillow of flesh, I said to myself. I’ve got my head on a pillow that’s pulsing with life. All I could think of was the cushion under my head, and how beautifully it calmed the pain in my temple. She buried her fingers deep in my hair, and I reached out blindly for her head, forgetting that it had been shaved. The hard short hairs tickled my palm. When I rubbed them the wrong way they stood up. Why did he shave off her hair and eyebrows? He must have been jealous. I licked the hard nipples. Then with delight I began to suck on her right breast, filling my mouth with it. I could feel the tight hard part in the middle of the softness. When I tried to do the same with her left breast, she laughed, squirmed, and covered it with her hand. She tries to direct me back to the right breast, and I keep insisting on the left one. The left breast must be very sensitive. It becomes a game, and soon she cannot bear to have either breast touched. We go on for a little while with the game, both of us laughing.

I’m ticklish on that side.

You’re ticklish on both sides now.

She laughed and pulled off her panties. Then with a smile she unbuttoned my fly. The blind dragon rose up and stood rigid in her hand. She smoothed it briefly from its head to its roots, and set to work rubbing it against the lip between her legs. The hairs of the black triangle there are as rough as those on her scalp. The dragon feels the roughness as he scrapes his bald head on them.

I want to go inside, but she wants only to rub. She squeezes it, chokes it, measuring its size at one end and the other with her hand. I pulled away from her. Then she let me inside and hugged me with her arms and legs. I imagined talking to my sex: There you are, dragon! Blind and bald. This is your first combat in Tangier. Fix it so she’ll never forget you. Be strong whether you like it or not.

It was Bouchra’s voice that awoke me. Get up, Sallafa! Are you asleep?

I sat up quickly. Has el Kebdani come back? I asked her.

Not yet.

I went out into the larger room. From there I heard Sallafa saying to Bouchra: Hasn’t the pimp got here yet?

I’m afraid they may have arrested them and taken them to the police station, with all the trouble in the street.

They can take them all the way to Hell, Sallafa said.

I went into the latrine. My sex was limp and stuck to my thighs. I came out and sat down with Bouchra. She seemed preoccupied, even sad. I watched her. Something was bothering her. Sallafa bustled in, she looked at me, smiled, and came over to me, leaning above me. Then she took my face in her two hands, and stroked it. Finally she gave me a resounding kiss on the lips, the way one kisses a baby. I smiled.

She went into the latrine and shut the door. I remembered the day in Aïn Ketiout when the girl gave me brown bread with butter and honey and put perfume on me and kissed my lips, and I told her I was leaving with my family for Tetuan. Where can she be now? It’s a different situation here with Sallafa. I looked at Bouchra, sitting dejectedly with her elbows on her knees and her head between her hands. The way she sat reminded me of the way my mother had sat after she had heard that they had caught my father. Presently she got up, went to the phonograph and put on a record. Oukkeddibou Nafsi it was, with Om Kaltoum singing. It made me think of Aïn Khabbès in Tetuan and the hashish-smokers and drunks at the café where I had worked.