Fouad Laroui - The Curious Case of Dassoukine's Trousers

“You addressed him with the informal tu ?”

“At the time, everyone tutoyer -ed each other.”

“Who’s ‘everyone’?”

“Everyone who knew how to read and write. And who spoke Moroccan.”

“You’re taking the piss out of us, etc. ”

Five minutes later:

“So I ask him: ‘Tell me, Tijani, how do you follow the cycles of demand, the needs of the consumers, the projections, all that?’ His eyes widen. ‘Or maybe it’s your FD who takes care of it? Or perhaps your XYZ?’ His eyes widen. ‘Unless there’s a secret journal here that monitors the market?’ His eyes widen. ‘But I go see Bouazza, of course!’ he cries. ‘For God’s sake!’ He can’t disclose any more, he has to slip out for an important business lunch — to which he forgets to invite me, the pig. Here I am on the sidewalk, the sun dripping from the heights of the blue sky. Qué calor! as the Colombians say. As if we were in a hammam at rush hour. I wipe my forehead with the sleeve of my shirt. My next rendezvous is with the governor, Si Ahmed, one of those brilliant technocrats recently nominated by the king to the head of important cities. I go by foot to the prefecture. It’s at the end of the avenue. The chaouch who stands guard before the imposing building starts chasing me like I’m some kind of scumbag, at least he’s about to, pitchfork raised, murderous eye, when he understands that I purport, me, a simple citizen, to go see the governor; stop there! I brandish my fake press pass, decorated with the colors of the national flag, threatening, and pass myself off as a special correspondent of Basri — might as well really go for it. Do you remember Driss Basri, who was minister of the interior at the time? Yeesh…The sole utterance of his name made men piss themselves; the sight of his face, from a distance, made women faint from fear; and the chaouch fell like flies when his emissaries presented themselves at the drawbridge.”

We interrupt Ali.

“We were all alive then. Today’s youth don’t want to believe us. They downplay it, the little bastards: come on, they say, he wasn’t so terrible, your Basri.”

“Our Basri? The dogs!”

Ali was starting to get irritated.

“May I continue?”

“Go on, go on.”

“So the chaouch , before perishing from terror, opens the front door for me and from one moment to the next I find myself in the office of Si Ahmed. His Excellency, who doesn’t hate being talked about, receives the hack journalist, the freelancer — but what did he know of it? — with kindness. He is welcoming, certainly, even courteous; but he is also a voluble visionary who deploys, to my stupefaction, relief maps, perhaps of Vauban, on a big meeting table. His hands flutter about: he points out this, shows me that, underlines, designates, regenerates, erases, constructs. He’s the demiurge, I swear! Next he shows me the aerial photos taken by drones belonging to the US Air Force, which maybe didn’t even exist at the time; he speaks to me of phantastic, phantasmic projects, perhaps even pharaonic, in any case there’s a ph somewhere in there. He gets heated, he sweats, he evaporates, more and more eloquent. Globalization is a game for him, his benchmark is millions of dollars, he’s met Bill Gates and slapped a Chinese man. All the same I end up interrupting: ‘Si Ahmed, this is all great, mais comment faites-vous …’”

“Him you vouvoyer ?”

“Yeah, because we were speaking in French, not Moroccan.”

“Bizarre, etc. ”

“ Five minutes later:

“‘Si Ahmed, this is all great, but how do you stay up to date with what happens in your wilaya? I mean, at the level of the average citizen? Your regular guys?’ His eyes widen. ‘Or perhaps it’s your secret police who take care of that?’ His eyes widen. ‘Or else, you stroll around incognito in your city, like Haroun Arachide did before in Baghdad?’ The governor throws his arms to the sky, appalled by my ignorance. ‘What do you mean, secret police? What are you talking about, Arachide? For everything I need to know, I consult Bouazza, of course!’”

“Again Bouazza?”

“The same. I don’t have time to mark my astonishment, Si Ahmed gets up, rolls out his six feet and two inches, crushes my dextral and excuses himself: he has to welcome Darryl F. Zanuck to convince him to transfer Hollywood to Khouribga — or at least to make a branch of it there. An ancient taxi, the kind that stays at the same speed even when it’s lost its wheels, quickly brings me to the Trade Union House where I meet the legendary Kafouyi…”

“Kafouyi himself?”

“…Kafouyi who directs the federation of local trade unions with an iron fist, Kafouyi who makes Les Bitumes du Tadla tremble when he raises his left foot, when he threatens to unleash…”

“Lightning, like Zeus?”

“…the famous general strike that will bring down global capitalism starting with Khouribga — it’s only a beginning, let’s continue the fight! The man, whom I telephoned from Si Ahmed’s office, awaits me resolutely in front of the building that houses The Trade Union —be afraid, bosses! Militant handshake, virile pat, the man receives me as though we had stormed the Winter Palace together. I go to make my little provocation…”

“You dared provoke the famous Kafouyi?”

“I did.”

“And you survived?”

“I did.”

“Well well, my colonel, etc .”

Five minutes later:

“So, I set right about provoking the old Kafouyi of the zmâlas: ‘Mr. Secretary General, you have been in power since the departure of the French, since the death of at least three popes, since the passing of the comet, that’s a bit long, no? People are saying that you cut yourself off from the laboring masses, people are whispering that the Trade Union House is like the palace of Sleeping Beauty — people are protesting that nothing has changed since the year of Typhus. So (I clear my voice) how do you know what the state of mind is of your adherents?’ His eyes widen. ‘How do you decide when it’s necessary to trigger a strike and when to stop it?’ His eyes widen. ‘How do you estimate the combativeness of your troops?’ He gathers his brow, irritated by my insolence: ‘I know very well what the workers are thinking, monsieur,’ he quakes. ‘All I have to do is talk to Bouazza!’ Hell and damnation! Again Bouazza? Who he? The large Kafouyi shows me to the door without ceremony, like a vulgar reformist, like the last of the Mensheviks, and without leaving me the time to ask him who he is, this famous Bouazza, to top it all off! Waiting for an unlikely taxi on the sidewalk, liquefied by the sun spreading over the city like a layer of magma, I think to myself that it’s obviously this Bouazza I need to interview instead of wasting my time with second fiddles — whether they be unlikely CEOs or a megalomaniac governor or the king of the syndicates. He is the one who is, without a doubt, ‘the man who matters’ in Khouribga, the one who makes things happen, one of the movers and shakers , as we say in good French. Before going on the hunt, I needed to cool myself down (it was 104 degrees F) and get a haircut. Desperate, I play the semaphore and a Peugeot survived from the band of Bonnot stops before me. I throw myself in. I collapse. The taxi driver kindly helps me out. ‘A good hairdresser? Well, you don’t have a choice, there’s only one in the city. It’s Bouazza.’”

Consternation in Café de l’Univers.

“What? A hairdresser? Oh misery, deception!”

“Our illusions, crushed!”

“We thought at least L’Orchestre rouge… ”