10

ALL I CAN SAY IS THAT mysterious things are happening. No news comes to us from the desert, neither bad nor not bad. It is June. Communications have been severed and the general is not responding to His Majesty, who had decided that he would personally bestow the medals that would decorate the chest of his great general, but he never showed up. His Majesty remained in his palace waiting for him for days, but nothing came except a telex saying that he and his army were tied up in the desert, forced to hold their positions. His Majesty was extremely angry. Usually he only put his wig on in the afternoon, but after receiving this unfortunate news he started putting it on as soon as he woke up. Perhaps it is his new way of receiving bad news. Now he spends his time walking around the palace gardens waiting for the general to appear. He has begun to reveal his true nature, and this is what I have been saying the whole time. My prediction concerning this dog had come true. I can read people better than anyone else can.

I consider the bird that smashed into my window during the night to be a bad omen. A general unease spreads over the palace, and over the city as well. The streets are empty, as if everyone’s hopes for a staggering victory have been dashed. Hatred seethes in the eyes of the few people out walking. There are burned and overturned buses that some protesters had attacked the previous night, stores whose doors have been bashed in, and smoke rising from the tires that the rioters had put in the middle of the street and lit on fire. For the first time, I see the square completely empty. From between the ribbons of rising smoke, an old man comes out carrying a sack on his back, searching for something among the fires. He picks up a babouche from the middle of the pile and proceeds to try it on for size, smiling.

It is true that people have been grumbling about the rise in prices for some time, and strange stories have reached the palace, of protest marches where villagers carry huge loaves of bread, but rather than complain of their hunger and their children’s hunger, they are shouting, “Long live the king!” and, “Freedom for the Sahara!” When have people ever complained of the rising cost of living like this? I don’t understand this form of protest. Surely it’s a trick by the politicians. This is generally what politicians do—they whip people into a frenzy from time to time so that it seems they bear no responsibility for the situation. What I like about His Majesty is that he considers what they do to be completely useless. Even though the politicians take advantage of every protest to present themselves as spokesmen in his name and saviors of His Majesty’s regime from peoples’ wickedness, when has a politician ever been interested in other peoples’ fates, especially those ambiguous multinational types of wealthy politicians who hang foreign flags inside their own palaces?

 

A dreary atmosphere falls over the palace, the streets, and the whole country. The king doesn’t leave his palace. He doesn’t receive anyone. His face is pale and lately he has neglected to put on his wig, after he had been wearing it on his head all day long, as I mentioned before. He seems almost entirely isolated. He doesn’t want to see anyone or hear so much as a word. The palace is silent. Is he comfortable with this state of affairs? You can no longer tell if he is happy or sad, as if he wears a mask that hides his true face from the few visitors he has. He no longer gives any indication of what he is feeling so I am unable to ascertain what’s going on inside his head. No doubt there are scary thoughts. He goes to the clock repairman’s workshop and watches him repair the thousands of clocks of different sizes and types that adorn every corner of the palace. Maybe he is starting to see that he has gone down the wrong path, but is there another one? I believe that every road is the wrong road. Why? Because you don’t know where you’ll end up when you start out. To me, this just seems to be how it is. I only wonder whether he feels some sort of regret because he let his general get away from him. His punishment will fit the crime, that much I hope.

A new guest came to stay at the palace. He was a French engineer who had come to plan a project to build a mosque overlooking the ocean. Although it was a fabulous idea, I didn’t understand how His Majesty could put aside the subject that was currently occupying him and direct his attention toward something else, such as the mosque. He was poring over the plans when the French engineer pointed to the highest part of the minaret and explained that sailors would be guided by the laser light affixed to the top, which would be visible from a distance of forty kilometers. His Majesty appeared to be convinced by the Frenchman’s explanation, if only to be done with the matter as quickly as possible. For the first time I saw him showing not the least concern, as if he had lost all interest. Out of politeness to the engineer, he nodded twice, but after the engineer left he fell silent again. He valued the engineer, which was why he was nice to him.

Many soldiers have fallen in the Sahara, and twice as many have been taken prisoner, yet the general is nowhere to be found. The time for fun and games has ended. Not more than two years ago, the atmosphere in the palace was cheerful. Now it is tense. There’s no comfort or relief. His Majesty’s health has deteriorated a great deal in the last few months. He takes his binoculars and focuses them in every direction. I don’t know what he’s looking at. Perhaps he is looking at the slaves frolicking in the Mechouar square without a care in the world, as if he were saying to himself, “Now that the house has fallen, is it possible to save the furniture?” One of his ministers came to him with a rug made of lion skin. He paid no attention to it and the man left disappointed. The soldiers quartered in the barracks haven’t received their pay in months and now they’re selling their uniforms and furniture in order to find the means to save themselves. And the ministers? Some of them have gone abroad claiming they needed medical treatment, while the ones who remain stopped going to meetings, where anything could happen, so as not to have to meet the gaze of His Majesty. If His Majesty did get angry at someone, it would be of no use to slaughter a lamb at his feet or appeal to a holy man for help. All of them know about the terrifying secret prisons he has recently built. For this reason they stay home, and the majority of them have, in fact, traveled abroad for medical treatment.

His interior minister was unable to escape. I had never seen such anger on the face of His Majesty as I saw that morning when he received him.

The interior minister entered with a downcast gaze as he usually did and said, “I have learned that Your Majesty is angry with me, but you must know that you won’t find a man more sincere than I in the entire kingdom.”

Even though this was not the time for joking around, he took the opportunity to add, “It’s true. In the entire kingdom you won’t find a man better at lying to its citizens than your minister of the interior.”

Finally, the king laughed. It was a short laugh, but it brought back a bit of his optimism. However, it didn’t take long for his depression to return.

He turned to his minister and said, “Tell me. You’re the one who gathers information on the rabble. What are they saying? Are there more seeds of rebellion?” Then he added, “Is building the mosque a good idea? Something to entertain the people and make them forget the difficulties we’re facing?”

The minister didn’t know how to respond, as if he had swallowed his tongue.

The king continued: “You’re the expert in these types of ruses. What do you suggest I do to divert peoples’ minds? Do you have a better idea than the mosque?”

I was dumbstruck. His Majesty was no longer sure of anything. I had never seen him ask anyone about anything, but now he was asking about everything and seeking counsel on every issue, as if the compass he had been using to guide himself all these years had broken. Nothing was as it once was, may God preserve him.

When I returned to the palace, His Majesty didn’t recognize me. He was in the middle of the palace courtyard bent over a small clock, fiddling with its insides. He asked what my job was, which took me completely by surprise. The king didn’t recognize me! I told him that I was Balloute, the court jester.

“Jester?”

“Yes, I make Your Majesty laugh.”

He gazed at me with a look of contempt, and said, “Shame on you! A man of your age laughing! Don’t you fear God? Satan is the one who laughs. He’s the one who invented laughter to fulfill one of his missions—to seduce the sons of Adam in this world so as to laugh at them in the next. Does God laugh? Have you ever heard of God laughing? Have you heard of angels laughing? There’s nothing uglier than when the sons of Adam lose their composure. What do you find so pleasing about a face that distorts what the Almighty has created, and who brays like a donkey?”

Then he headed for the clock repairman’s workshop.