Mohammed Achaari - The Arch and the Butterfly

‘We will begin our actual visit with the cemetery, as everything begins and ends with cemeteries. One can only properly understand a city through its graves. From there you can clearly make out the scheme of excavations. The war — your war, as you well know — was the key to this historical discovery. War is the other key to understanding cities and geography. For this city we are indebted to World War I, which razed many of your cities. Consider the creative fertilisation between intersecting ruins.

‘German prisoners of war, among them Hans Roeder, my wife Diotima’s grandfather, excavated Walili from the bowels of the earth with the help of the local inhabitants of this mountain, descendants, most certainly, of extinct Roman lines. All that matters is genealogy. All the destruction and the extinction that befall civilisations do not matter, as long as there are descendants to one day remove the stones and soil from whatever is left. Every being God has created on the face of this earth is searching ruins for something that has been or will be lost. It was Lyautey who brought the German prisoners here for this mission.

‘He was a sly fox and a clever manipulator of memory. But believe me, it was the children, especially Fertassa’s children, who dug up the first features of this city while at play. One of them might have even pulled out a stone with inscriptions on it or a piece of mosaic while looking for something to burn. Who knows!

‘One day in the 1920s, Zarhoun opened its eyes and saw General Lyautey observing the whiteness of the city from the Cave of the Pigeons high up there, while down below on the plain that stretched to the banks of Wadi Khaman, his military regiment, his scholars and the broken-down prisoners were busy opening up this space before you. It is primarily important for the north-eastern region and the areas surrounding the Triumphal Arch and the Forum. From there the famous bronze and white marble statues and dozens of artefacts were dug up, some of which were destroyed while others are still there. When you go to the capital, ask about a forsaken museum located in Barihi Alley. There you will be able to see the collection of bronzes which includes Juba II, Cato, the handsome youth, the old fisherman and the horseman, Bacchus and the horse, the attacking dog, the bull, the head of Eros sleeping, and many others which escaped with their skins from this land. You will also see a marble statue of King Ptolemy that was not found here, but you will understand from his white gaze that he would not have survived long. All those works were taken to the capital to be close to Lyautey’s residence. Had they remained here, they would, today, be no more than detailed descriptions in a police report, as happened with Brother Bacchus.

‘Will the excavations continue? Of course they will, especially at the hands of the Dumyati scholars, those experts in magic, in order to extract the forgotten treasures with the help of the blood of the rosy hand — the hand of luck — and the magic word. Let’s forget about it. You’ll never understand it, so concentrate with me on the site!

‘I’m saying confusing and mysterious things? Yes, madam, when I open the tap, I can’t control the gush. The waters of the sea would not suffice to tell you all that this head has been through.

‘Over there are the recently discovered Idrissi baths. You can have a look inside. It is all that archaeology has found to date from the Islamic period. Idriss I was more interested in building a bath to perform the major ablutions than in establishing a dynasty. This is a state that has been performing its ablutions since the dawn of creation without ever achieving the purity it aspired to.

‘Three centuries before Christ, Walili appeared in its Punic guise, and in 25 BC the Emperor Augustus appointed my dear brother Juba II head of this kingdom. He was an Amazight freeman who had been brought up in Rome and married Cleopatra’s daughter, according to the norms of that time, before ascending the throne. That is exactly what I did, being raised in Germany and marrying the daughter of a German Kaiser before ending up in this hole!

‘Here the Amazight dynasty might have flourished and filled the world, and we wouldn’t have had an Idriss I and an Idriss II, but the Amazigh have no luck. As soon as Ptolemy ascended the throne following the death of his father, Juba II, the Romans fomented strife in Walili, and Caligula ordered Ptolemy’s assassination. He then put an end to Aedemon’s rebellion with the help of the Roman army, backed by local alliances and betrayals. The only thing that has destroyed us Amazigh has been betrayal, from Ptolemy to Abd al-Karim al-Khattabi.

‘Now look towards the ruins of the eternal triangle: the governor’s residence, the Tribunal and the Triumphal Arch. Consider this severe grandeur, which witnessed a succession of kings, governors, merchants and wise men. There is nothing left of this teeming life, yet this magnificence still shines through the cracks in the ruins, a testimony to the everlasting, a reflection of that dormant force that life leaves behind even after it ends.

‘Here you will meet a certain piercing look that has been directed at us since time immemorial, and directed at this moment as we proceed along the trace, or the trace of a trace. We come after archaeologists, prisoners of war and anonymous workers who all raised fresh soil for this day, to provide us with an eternal moment on the soil of yesteryear. We follow them as they raise the columns of the palace or the curvature of the arch, as if they were pulling them from the belly of the war they left behind. Among them was my wife’s grandfather, who, according to what Diotima read in his little notebook, buried in an accessible location his hat and a book of poetry he had written during the war and during the excavations of Juba II’s realm. That place was supposedly a low-ceilinged room not too distant from the arch, where there is the wonderfully carved statue of a supine male with an eternal, stony erection.

‘You will soon realise that the penis as a fertility symbol is carved in many places, which means finding the notebook would require the mobilisation of other prisoners of war, all for a work of dubious value.

‘Forgive me, but I nevertheless advise the women, in case they find a carving of this kind, to place their hands on it and wish for something related to the subject. My wife used to do so, and she attributed many of our delicious adventures to that practice. I personally cannot believe that I made love in this low-ceilinged room, given that I am not such a bohemian. It was most probably because Diotima made such a wish while holding the carving. How else could we find her grandfather’s book other than looking for it in places that turned us upside down? Who knows? Her grandfather might not have buried anything in these spots. He might have made such a declaration only to add a mysterious touch to his ordeal and minimise the humiliation of imprisonment.

‘Diotima learned this path by heart, its names, its role, its doves, its olive presses and its mosaics, before she even stepped on this land, using Roeder’s notebook that the family had kept after his death. The first time we met I talked to her about Walili. As soon as I spoke that name, she took it as a blinding sign from fate that made her agree to marry me without hesitation. She thus fell into the snares of the house of Firsiwi. Only that decisive shot set her free.

‘We are now in the north-eastern quarter where the nobles’ homes are found. We will head eastwards, close to the home of the procession of Venus. Let’s go in, if you don’t mind, and consider this wonderful mosaic. One section shows Hylas, Hercules’s companion, by a spring where he has come to drink. But he is being abducted by two water nymphs who are overcome by his beauty. One of them grips his chin and the other his wrist. The artist added two scenes, one representing a hunter who has shot a bird with an arrow. This led to his arrest and his being tied down and flogged. The second scene shows the same person being tried and condemned to be thrown to wild beasts.