Mohamed Choukri: For Bread Alone

The men in the café encouraged me to smoke kif and eat majoun . Daytimes it was kif and work, but at night it was majoun and fun. One of them said: It’s only the first time you take it that you throw up. He was right. I never felt sick again. Then when I drank wine for the first time, and was immediately ill, they told me the same thing about wine. The smokers and drinkers are always right. I had no trouble the second time I tried wine. The café owner saw nothing strange about a twelve-year-old boy who got drunk and smoked kif . He too drank and took hashish. I knew that what interested him was making money.

Some nights I slept on a bench in the café. Other times it was at the Spanish bakery nearby. One night I watched the workers amuse themselves. Five or six of them took hold of Yazidi the baker and got him to the floor. They gagged him with a handkerchief so he could not bite them. Then one of them let down his trousers and, squatting over Yazidi, began to rub his buttocks, his scrotum and his sex against Yazidi’s nose. Since I was afraid they might do the same thing to me, I decided to get out of the bakery quickly. The dangers of the streets on the way home were preferable, even though the distance seemed great at night when it was dark, and I was frightened.

The café owner lived in a house that was built against the café. Sometimes he would start to get drunk there, and go on to finish his spree at a brothel in Tetuan where he would stay until the next day, or even two or three days if he went to a brothel in another town. During this time his absence made it possible for me to indulge my taste for thievery.

I got into the habit of going into his house whenever I felt like it, and eating at table with his sons. When I was drunk, I slept at the café, otherwise I slept in the same room with them. I saw that the man beat his wife and children the same way as my father did. Even so, he was less bestial. Several times I saw him kiss his sons, and he held long, calm conversations with his wife. My father could speak only in shouts and slaps. Sometimes I did not go home to see my parents for more than a week. This way I escaped from the discord and wrangling.

I grew very thin and sickly. I saw that my mother’s belly was swelling again, and I thought to myself: This time I’m not going to stay at home to take care of the baby that’s going to come out. The belly grows, the time of screaming comes nearer. One day there it will be. Ouaaaaah! I stopped working. During the days while I was getting well, I spent my time catching birds in the orchard. I made a swing out of a heavy rope and hung it from a tree. Surprise! The swing gives me a delicious sensation. My sex stands up all by itself when I climb onto the swing. In the orchard there was a big tank full of water, and there I learned to swim. Early in the morning I would go out and look for things to steal: fruit, eggs, or hens. Whatever I found I sold to the baqal in our quarter. Each day the sight of certain living creatures produced great excitement in me: hens, goats, dogs and calves. Many hens died as a result of my experiments. I would have to muzzle a dog, or tie up a calf, but there was no need to take such precautions with a goat or a hen, and these were more satisfactory. I began to have pains in my chest, and mentioned them. They told me: You’re growing up, that’s all. I have a disturbing sensation in my nipples and in my sex, and when I squeeze the milk out of my sex, I feel as if I were being torn to pieces inside my body.

One morning I climbed a fig tree, and through its branches I saw Asiya, the daughter of the man who owned the orchard. She was coming along slowly towards the tank. Bad luck, I thought. She’s going to see me up here, and tell that father of hers. He’s like my father; he never smiles. She looked this way and that, stopped walking, and listened to the sounds around her. Then she continued hesitantly, looking in every direction as she went, taking her steps with great care. She untied the sash of her pyjamas and pulled off the jacket like a bird getting ready to fly. The whiteness of her skin burst forth. Again she turns and looks around. She is not in a hurry. She seems to be listening for something. I am overcome by anxiety. One fig falls out of my hand, and the one in my mouth suddenly goes down my throat. The basket leans to one side, and half the figs fall out. The sun has already appeared. The circle of red on the shining white mist of the sky was like an egg that had been broken onto a blue plate. The animals and birds and insects have begun their morning praise of Allah. When a donkey brays, its sound drowns out the songbirds, doves and roosters. She is undressing. Asiya, she is taking everything off. Her pyjamas slide down like a curtain falling. She’s all undressed. Asiya, she’s naked. Asiya’s naked. How bright she is! Full breasts, their points protruding. Below, black hairs outline a triangle. My trousers are too tight. They hurt in front. She takes two slow steps towards the tank. My discomfort in front grows worse and worse. Her long hair covers her from behind. She stoops over, and I am afraid she may break in two. Now her hair falls forward over her shoulders and no longer hides her back. Below the point where her white flesh divides there is a slight darkness. My mouth tastes as though I had been eating honey, and every part of me itches. My nipples ache and my trousers hurt. A sweet seizure, a feeling of release, and then delicious relaxation. I’m going to fall out of the tree. I almost fell. She still hesitates, then she steps into the water. The stone steps are slippery. I am afraid she may fall. I worry. She looks at the water and all around at the orchard. She scoops up water to her armpits and lets it run down. She lets it run over her breasts, and splashes a little between her thighs. Then she pours it over her head and jumps in.

I climb down from the tree and creep along the ground until I reach the pyjamas, which I seize and quickly hide among the bushes. Then I crawl again to the tree and climb back up, waiting and grinning. I devour the figs greedily, delighted with my game. She swims beautifully. The way she plunges beneath the surface and bobs up again reminds me of a wild duck. I had heard about the swimming prowess of mermaids, and it seemed to me that she was like one of them. She is on her belly, her back, now on one side, now the other. She pushes to the bottom of the pool, and comes up dancing like an empty bottle on top of the water. What a delight it is that she should not know I am here, that she should imagine herself completely alone!

She climbs out shivering, stares in astonishment, and begins to search wildly for her pyjamas, darting this way and that distractedly. When she sights them, she puts them on and dashes through the orchard. I am left laughing in the tree, but once again a donkey covers all sounds with his braying.

In the night I dreamed of Asiya, still unfastening her belt, still floating naked and darting like an eel along the bottom of the tank. I was swimming along with her, above her, below her and on both sides of her. We stood upright in the water for a moment, kissed and sank.

A little girl named Mounat pulled up her dress, crouched, and made water. She did not know I was watching. I wondered why her pink thing had no hairs around it. It was not pretty when she squatted down: it was as ugly as a toothless old mouth. And I saw our neighbour Saida changing her clothes. Her belly sticks out, not something you would want to touch. Her breasts are flabby. So much hanging flesh disgusts me. Things became clearer. I begin to make comparisons between beautiful things and ugly ones. It seemed to me that unless women had bodies like Asiya’s, they were ugly.

I am bothered every day by my sex. I scratch it slowly with my fingers as if it were a pimple not yet ready to burst. Then it fills and grows hard, until it is sweating and panting. Unless I reach pleasure during my reverie, I feel pain like two stones. I conjure up the picture of Asiya’s body. Never have I seen anything so lovely and desirable. I kiss her, suck her breasts, and she caresses me with her hands and her lips. I imagine her, I keep imagining her, I maintain her picture in the dream by an effort of will, until the liquid is forced out and I disappear into delight.