Mohammed Achaari - The Arch and the Butterfly

There was a large wooden gallery and huge plants in the massive bar that overlooked the Koutoubia. Fatima, Layla and I sat at a small table near the counter and away from the noise of the guests who had spread around the swimming pool and filled the apartment’s balconies. We were discussing our common preoccupations when I felt that someone was looking in my direction; or, to be more precise, I felt a presence that was overpowering me. I expected someone to appear suddenly. This terrified me and I was unable to move, as I thought about Al-Firsiwi, my mother and Zulikha. Layla wondered what was wrong with me. I asked her to check if there was someone behind me or on the other side of the counter watching me. She told me she couldn’t see anyone.

I looked to the right, where the refrigerators and the shelves of cups and glasses were, and I saw him standing there, looking over the city with his dreamy expression and the bunch of stony grapes over his shoulder. I saw his broken arm and his adolescent size. The statue had all the dullness of granite dating back to the first century BC. I stood up trembling and approached it. I examined its right foot and found it had lost four toes, the same ones that were still on the statue’s plinth at the entrance to Walili.

‘It’s Bacchus! The Bacchus of Walili,’ I yelled in excitement.

A number of guests gathered round. Ahmad Majd arrived, clearly upset. Layla held on to me as Fatima examined the statue and took photos. I was overcome with a feeling I could not define, a mixture of joy, madness and fear.

Ahmad Majd shouted at me, saying, ‘Bacchus, Bacchus! And so what?’

I said, ‘Nothing, but we must take it. That’s all there is to it.’

Our host approached our group and asked, a smile frozen on his face, what was the matter. Fatima explained that it was simply an unexpected encounter with a person we knew. The Frenchman said, ‘I always like to play a role in unexpected encounters.’

Fatima pointed to Bacchus, saying, ‘He has been our friend for about a quarter of a century. In other words, ever since he disappeared from his family home in Walili.’

The Frenchman did not make any immediate comment, but his face rippled with a mounting tremor. He said this adolescent Bacchus was not considered an exceptional artistic achievement, despite the lyricism deriving from the lack of harmony between the age of the young man and the delicacy of his movements, which almost stripped the statue of its unworked feel. ‘Despite all that,’ he said, ‘I loved it at first sight when I saw it in Frankfurt. I must confess that it did not cost me much. I can honestly say it is the cheapest piece in my collection.’

We left the apartment after an extended argument over what to do. I insisted on staying to wait for the police to arrive so I could make a statement regarding Bacchus’s recovery. But the French host, Ahmad Majd and other guests suggested otherwise, so as to avoid ruining such a beautiful evening, especially since the owner was not denying the fact or distancing himself from the matter. They all said they knew nothing about the origins of the Bacchus statue, and they wondered if it would be possible to wait until the morning for the guests to leave and the festivities to end. Then we could do whatever was needed, quietly.

Ahmad Majd asked me whether I was more interested in Bacchus or the scandal.

‘Both,’ I said, and to be honest, I added, ‘I’m interested in the scandal, first and foremost.’

Finally, dragging my feet, I left the gallery, went in the direction of the swimming pool and then to the circular hall, and finally to the lift. I was unable to fully recover from the in-between condition I had experienced. I had the feeling I had found Bacchus and not found him; I was happy at this and not happy; I was surprised and not surprised. I thought of calling Al-Firsiwi but I wondered what I would get from doing so. I would probably succeed in destroying his legend regarding Bacchus, and then what? Wouldn’t it be better for him to continue believing that he had fooled us all? Was there something closer to the truth than lies, since both revealed each other?

People in front of me were getting into the crowded lifts, and whenever they became a single mass of heads and apologies, the doors would shut and a mysterious abyss would swallow them. I was about to derive a certain lesson from this evocative image when Layla pushed me into the abyss.

I surrendered to an enjoyable descent, wishing it would never end, when the lift doors opened to a large commotion. At the centre of it all, I saw Fatima bleeding from her nose and shouting. It took me time to understand that two men had grabbed her as she was leaving the lift, attacked her and taken away her camera.

We went straight to the police station, where I reported that I had found the statue of Bacchus that had been stolen a quarter of a century before, and named all the witnesses who had been with me. Fatima reported that she had been attacked and her digital camera stolen. She was convinced theft in such a luxurious place would not be for the money but because she had taken pictures of Bacchus in the ninth floor apartment, in the presence of prominent guests and the owner, the most famous perfume maker in the world.

I no longer had any desire to get anything out of this storm. All I wanted was to return to our room in Ahmad Majd’s house and hold Mai in my arms. I urged Layla to hurry home, assuring her that I did not want anything from this situation, neither a court case nor a victory. All I wanted was to embrace Mai. This sudden upheaval made me easy prey to a destructive fear. My heart constricted, and I imagined that I would not find Mai in her bed or that I would find her swimming in a pool of blood. I had a fit as I fought this fear. I did not know why the fits occurred at my moments of fear in particular.

Layla began spooling the lifeline of words that would help me breathe, throwing it out to the depths that had started to swallow me. I stretched out my arm to grab the rope, but my hand was going crooked and bending back. I tried to return it to its normal position with my other hand, but it too froze against my chest. I was totally tied up while Layla continued to talk about Mai, who had taken her first steps, unexpectedly, the previous day. ‘She stood and looked at me. I told her: come on, come to Mama, and she took one step, then another, and then walked all the way to where I was, without smiling or crying, as if she were doing something she had been doing for ages.’

I then saw a face looking at the car window. I saw a garden and a person running with a dog or away from it. Then I could not see anything except a white light, an overwhelming white light that gradually faded away, revealing objects and sounds. I saw Mai extending her tiny hand towards my face. The moment she touched it, I understood everything.

The police called us in the following day. They told us they had found no trace of a Roman statue in the apartment. I told the officer that we should be taken to court for making up a crime. He said amiably, ‘We don’t see any need for that. There’s no complaint against you.’

I smiled dumbly at the faces that surrounded me. Fatima led me out by the arm. I felt a heavy burden lifting off my chest. I might have been worried that Bacchus, in the event of his glorious return, would become a lawsuit that I would have to manage in connection with many things that were beyond me.

‘OK. The best thing is for all of us to retire to their corner, isn’t it?’ I asked Fatima.

She turned towards me and asked me with teary eyes what I meant.

I said that it was normal for such things to happen at the end of a muddled party, where one sees people and things that no one else sees.

Fatima said, ‘It was simple theft. Why are you trying to give it wings?’