THE YOUNG POET, Wafiq Daraai, didn’t imagine things would turn out so badly. At first, he spoke with a derision that made him seem smart enough for his adoring fans to laugh at his clever gibes. But the moment Rahhal grabbed his throat and throttled it, he understood that matters had taken a turn his fertile poetic imagination hadn’t foreseen. He tried to set things right, to stop the game right there and beat an honorable retreat, but no! Rahhal had been seized by a sense of loftiness that plunged him into battle—a punch to the mouth, another to the temple, a roundhouse kick, and another one from the back; blows raining down here and there, but this was just a warm-up. Then came the moment of truth, when Wafiq found that Rahhal had grabbed his shirt collar to yank him down so his skinny knee could jab his face like a poisoned arrow—a hard knee like a sharpened rock breaking the surf slamming into it, like a knife piercing flesh and bone—resulting in a burst of red rivulets flowing from his mouth and nostrils.
Rahhal Laâouina—short, slight, with a rat-like face, and two narrow eyes—only resorted to violence when he felt suffocated and consumed by feelings of insignificance. All the way back to those distant childhood days, when it had occurred all of a sudden to Khaled Battout to pull him to the ground by his leg. Rahhal seized the moment when his perpetrator leaned over to execute his devious plan; he jerked Khaled’s head down, then quickly lifted his knee, bringing it up to his face, causing the blood to flow.
Same technique, same precision, same lightning-quick way of turning his adversary’s head a bit to the side, which allowed the knee to find just the right spot in the middle of the face. This was how Rahhal had always concluded his battles over the course of his twenty-five years. His decisive blow always came from the same source—the knee that was usually swiftly aimed at the face, specifically the face. Of course, Rahhal didn’t always resort to hitting. But when he did, things had to be done decisively.
It was just like when Khaled Battout used to harass him in school, just because, with no clear reason. He wasn’t a classmate or a neighbor who lived on the same street, nor was he competing for the attentions of one of the girls at school (since Rahhal quite naturally, innately perhaps, tried to remain as far as he could from girls). In fact, he wasn’t known to have any friends in class, or even any companions. What happened was that Khaled was joking around once with his pals when Rahhal passed in front of them. Khaled stopped him with an affected charm and suddenly began to talk to him, imitating a monkey trainer in Djemaa Lfnaa Square, asking him to do the school principal’s walk. Rahhal was flabbergasted and continued bewildered on his way with Khaled following behind, pointing his finger at him shouting, “Didn’t I tell you?” while his friends exploded with laughter.
But what had he said to them to cause such laughter? What awful joke was it? Was he telling them about the monkey that wears a school frock, dressed up in a schoolboy uniform? About the monkey he shook hands with in Djemaa Lfnaa Square, where the monkey trainers have their performance area? No one came forward to explain it to him. Once, Rahhal was standing in front of the entranceway to the school cafeteria waiting for his portion of the delicious lentil meal (the likes of which he had never tasted at home, nor in the popular food shops scattered about the ramshackle neighborhood of Ain Itti outside the city walls) when Khaled stood towering over him. Behind him were four of the most beautiful girls in the school. His obesity didn’t prevent him from performing an acrobatic leap. He did a pirouette in the air, then knelt on his right knee like a circus clown, leaning to one side as he gazed theatrically at his entourage before pointing at him:
“Didn’t I tell you??? And he likes lentils, too . . .”
The girls exploded with laughter. Rahhal wished that the ground would split open and swallow him up. Once again he couldn’t help but run away, putting as much distance as he could between himself and where he usually sat at the cafeteria door, rushing home, running as if expelled by his tribe. Oh damn, and the lentils? He forgot all about the hot, delicious lentil meal that the cook, Lalla Zubaida, would pour right onto the bread so he could take his portion and gulp it down on his way home. Rahhal did without the delicious lentils and spiced beans, renouncing the piece of tuna and cheese, and the thick strips of buffalo meat that he found difficult to chew. He gave all of that up and began to avoid the cafeteria altogether, no longer getting anywhere near its door until after he had scanned the area from afar with his two, rat-like eyes to make sure Khaled wasn’t there.