Mohamed Choukri - For Bread Alone

They don’t know anything, I thought. All they know is how to be sorry for people and say hard luck.

At the hotel I found the watchman in the sala , joking with the cleaning woman as she scrubbed the floor. She dropped her rag, and they both turned to ask me what had happened to me.

I’m all right, I said, and I went upstairs. The door of my room was open. My things were not in their regular places. The whore who’s the daughter of a whore has played a good hand. Everything of any value is gone: my transistor, my alarm clock, five wrist-watches and a dozen cigarette-lighters.

I went downstairs to the sala . You didn’t see Naima when she went out, did you? I asked.

No. Why, is something wrong?

No, nothing, I said. But I think she’s gone for good, and without telling me goodbye.

But nothing happened?

I shook my head. Nothing’s happened. Then I went back upstairs to change my clothes. At least she left my clothes behind. Now she’ll probably begin a new life with another lover somewhere, just as she did with Hamid Zailachi and others long before that. Only a filthy whore like her could have done this. And yet, maybe it is just as well. Now I am forced to find a new pattern in my life, this one being finished.

That afternoon I went to the Café Moh. I had an Egyptian movie magazine with me, full of photographs of Arab actors and singers. I was in the habit of buying three or four of these publications each week, to look at the pictures of film stars wearing Oriental costumes. Sometimes I masturbated in front of the sexier dancing girls. Hamid Zailachi’s brother Abdelmalek would read me the captions when he felt in the mood. He had left his studies in Tetuan and come to Tangier, where he did nothing but smoke kif , eat majoun , drink wine, and look for whores and occasional boys. All the other men I knew in the café were illiterate. One of them could write his name, but with great difficulty. We all considered Abdelmalek the most important habitué of the café. He reads the Arabic periodicals to us in a strong, clear voice. If an article deals with the politics of an Arab country, the owner of the café shuts off the radio, and everyone listens intently. Sometimes he would stand up, lay aside the magazine or newspaper, and launch into a speech, merely to show off his learning. I noticed that he constantly quoted the Koran and the Hadith. Often one of us would interrupt him and ask for a clearer explanation. These were occasions for him to hold his knowledge over our heads, and he would make his explanation still more obscure. While he spoke, someone would hand him a pipe of kif . He would stop talking for a moment while he smoked, reach down to the table from where he stood and take a few sips of tea, and then continue from where he had left off. When he finished speaking, most of the men would congratulate him on his performance, and the owner of the café would hand him another glass of tea and some bread and butter. Some nights I invited him to eat with me in one of the restaurants. Afterwards we would go to a bar in the Zoco Chico to get drunk, or go and spend the night together with two whores in a brothel. I was very proud to appear in public with him.

That afternoon he was sitting with Grida, Mesari, and old Afiouna, who supplied the kif and majoun to the café. I asked for a glass of black coffee and bought five pesetas’ worth of kif from Afiouna. They were discussing King Farouk, Mohamed Neguib, and the actions of Gamal Abd el Nasser in the July Twenty-Third Revolution. I was interested. I smoked a pipe of kif , and filled another which I offered to Grida. He refused it. I held it out to Abdelmalek. He did not take it either.

Put your kif away, he told me. We’ve got plenty of our own.

We want to talk quietly now, without being interrupted, Mesari added.

I saw that they were excluding me from their company. The qahouaji set a glass of coffee on the table. I asked Afiouna to sell me two pieces of majoun , which I ate as I sipped the hot coffee.

Kemal the Turk came through the door, drunk. I tried to get him to sit with me, but he refused. Then he leaned over and whispered in French into my ear: I’ve got half a bottle of whisky. I’m going up onto the roof. Do you want a drink?

You go up first, so Moh won’t notice.

I continued to sip my coffee for a while after he had gone on. Then, taking the glass of coffee and the pipe with me, I climbed the stairs. I found him drinking out of the bottle.

Ah! Fill the sebsi for me, he said. I handed him the pipe and the kif so he could fill it himself. In return he gave me his bottle, and I took two swallows.

How are things? I asked him.

I’m still waiting for my family to send me the money to go back to Istanbul. He filled the pipe and handed it to me. I passed the bottle back to him. We went on drinking, smoking, and discussing our troubles, until all the whisky was gone.

What are you doing tonight? I asked him.

Nothing.

He hid the bottle under his jacket, and we went back downstairs. Abdelmalek was standing as usual, lecturing on the afternoon news broadcast in Arabic from London, which had just finished. My magazine was still lying on the table. I sat down and asked Kemal to have something with me. He excused himself, saying that he had an appointment with Mahmoud the Egyptian at the Café Dar Debbagh.

He’s going to lend me some money, he said.

Moh came up to us suddenly, remarking: I don’t like drunks in this place. Kemal, not understanding Arabic, answered: Es salaam, Monsieur Moh .

I burst out laughing. Kemal signalled goodbye and went out. Abdelmalek glared at me angrily and sat down.

Go on, go on, Si Abdelmalek, urged Afiouna.

How do you expect me to go on with that kid laughing?

I’m not a kid, I told him. And you talk about Mohamed Neguib and Gamal Abd el Nasser as if you had a conference with them every day. Where do you get all that stuff about them?

Shut up! Illiterate! he roared, beside himself. You want to talk about politics, you, when you can’t even write your name?

Mesari was trying to get Abdelmalek’s attention. Don’t listen to him, he told him. He’s drunk.

It seemed to me that this was a good opportunity to get in a blow at Abdelmalek and his group of friends. They wouldn’t smoke with me, I thought, and I began to cast about for the words that would most annoy him. I could think of nothing to say. My mind was heavy with kif, majoun , and whisky. I’ll have to ask him to go outside with me and fight. It’s the easiest way. It involves no thinking of any kind.

I’m illiterate and ignorant, I said. But you’re a liar. I’d rather be what I am than a liar like you.

Ah, get back to your pimping, he told me.

If you have a sexy sister, send her around. I’ll find her somebody, I said.

No arguments in this café, Moh cried angrily, looking at me.

Why do you say it just to me? I asked him. Because he’s a great professor and I’m only a stupid lout?

Come on, that’s enough, said Grida. Get together and cheat the devil.

But the devil is people, I told him.

Then I turned to Abdelmalek. Listen, Zailachi. Come outside and I’ll show you who the illiterate pimp is.

He jumped up and ran towards me. The three of them, Grida, Mesari and Afiouna, blocked his way, but he shoved them aside. I got up, holding my glass in my hand, and dashed the coffee into his face. He put his hands over his eyes. Someone grabbed me from behind.

Outside, Zailachi! I cried. The man behind me let me go.

Be sensible, Grida told me. This is no way to behave to somebody like him.

Who does he think he is here? He’s just a student who couldn’t stay in school, and now he’s come to Tangier to live like a tramp.