Since Abd al-Rahman had come home from his long spell in prison he had been observing Hajj Muhammad’s expressions closely. Whenever he bent over to give his father’s veined hands a son’s obedient kiss, he noticed them shaking with affection. For the first time he discovered something new, something he had refused to acknowledge throughout the many years past. His eyes missed that former intimate feeling between father and son, and he found himself confronting a new feature in that familiar face that had previously filled both his eyes and heart. There was something new as well about his father’s voice, one that had filled the whole house and its many rooms in days past with echoes of his power and authority. As his lips brushed his father’s hands, formerly agents of violence and instigators of both good and evil, there too he sensed that something was new and different.
Abd al-Rahman now discovered a wrinkled face, as long as it was broad, with deep creases extending across his pale cheeks and a beard in which white hair now overwhelmed black. The lips looked pale as well, time having sucked out of them all rays of hope, subtle sensitivities, and profound longings. Light had gone out of the eyes, and they had lost their gleam, almost as though they could not bother to focus. Veins now appeared prominently on his neck, which had previously looked full and well nourished. The hands were now thin, and dark veins showed through the skin. And the posture was stooped, as though in preparation for full prostration in prayer.
Abd al-Rahman also noticed changes in the way his father neglected his dress; his clothing had faded and no longer appeared neat and elegant. In fact, his garments suggested poverty and gave an impression of adversity rather than respect and admiration.
Hajj Muhammad’s personality had changed too. Old age seemed to have caught him unawares. Abd al-Rahman had the feeling that his father had deteriorated rapidly, robbed of his pride and self-esteem, not to mention his energy and his habit of hard work. He stayed in the house and no longer visited the country farm to check on the peasants’ productivity. He no longer supervised the business to see how things were developing, nor did he visit Abd al-Ghani’s shop to make sure the work was being done properly and profits were being made. He even stopped regularly attending homily sessions at the mosque, something he had done throughout his life; now he would go only occasionally. When the nights turned cold, he now preferred to perform the evening and sunset prayers at home.
Abd al-Rahman and his mother were the only ones to notice these changes. In fact, Khaduj was even more aware of the impact of old age because it was she who spent hours with Hajj Muhammad when no one else was around. She could sense the great difference between the powerful young man he had once been, who could make full use of his youth and prowess, and the man whose energy now dwindled at night like a flower that opens only in daylight. Now she lived with her memories of Hajj Muhammad, the man who had filled her life with his manhood, her hearing with his powerful voice, and her feelings with his noisy breathing that reverberated as she slept beside him. Inside her, she sensed the melodies of youth that made her feel comfortable and warm. She had lived her life with those regular grunts, which had become weaker over time, accompanied by coughing fits that seemed to come from a dark cave.
Khaduj’s mind was beset by grim thoughts as she spent long hours sitting and nursing her concerns. In spite of her anxieties, she did not feel able to share them with anyone, including her own sons. Her only consolation came in the form of a prayer that she repeated whenever needed: ‘God bring us a safe release!’
One morning, when Hajj Muhammad woke alone, he could not get up out of the bed; he had spent a sleepless night awake. He had a splitting headache, his temperature was up, and a burning sensation was making him feel as though his stomach were on fire. It all felt as if a powerful force were tying him to his bed.
Abd al-Ghani did not dare visit his father; he simply asked about him and his mother before taking off for the shop. Mahmud did not dare ask either, but simply questioned his mother, Yasmine; she too made do with asking Khaduj in a whisper about her husband. All she heard in reply was the usual prayer: ‘God bring us a safe release!’
But Abd al-Rahman did dare. When he learned from his mother that Hajj Muhammad had spent a restless night, he entered his father’s room, took hold of his hand to feel his pulse, and felt his temperature. He realised that his father had a fever, and his condition warranted care and attention. Hajj Muhammad was not fully conscious, so he could not talk to him. He told Khaduj that they had to call in a doctor.
But his mother was totally against the idea. She had never been able to comprehend the issues which she considered the province of men, but even so she was not prepared to decide whether Abd al-Rahman had the right to call in a doctor.
‘A doctor?’ she asked herself. ‘What’s the point of calling in a Christian doctor? If Hajj Muhammad could, he’d visit the shrines of Mawlay Idris or Sidi Ali Bu-Ghalib and be cured on the spot. His devout belief in the saints always makes a cure that much easier. Ah me, if only Lalla Shama would visit us, she could take his handkerchief to Mawlay Idris’s shrine and dip it in the pure water at Sidi Ali Bu-Ghalib’s sanctuary.’
When she returned from her reverie, Abd al-Rahman was still staring anxiously at her, waiting for an answer. ‘We need to call a doctor,’ he pressed. ‘He has a high temperature.’
‘A doctor?’
‘Yes, a doctor.’
Khaduj felt uneasy in the face of her son’s insistence. She still said nothing, but the word ‘doctor’ went on ringing in her ears.
‘I’m going to call a doctor now,’ Abd al-Rahman decided.
Khaduj felt that she had to say something. ‘That’s not a good idea,’ she told him. ‘He’s just feeling a bit weak, so we’ll give him something hot to drink and send some of his clothes to the shrines of Mawlay Idris and Sidi Ali Bu-Ghalib.’
This sent Abd al-Rahman into a rage. He raised his voice so loud that it roused his father.
‘What’s all this fuss about?’ Hajj Muhammad asked in his semiconscious, feverish state. ‘Don’t you realise I’m here…? Have a little shame!’ It cost him so much effort that he collapsed into a faint again, his voice petering away to nothing, but still echoing inside his feverish mind.
Khaduj could not take any more and left the room, her heart pained. Tears ran from her eyes, which she dabbed with the edge of her scarf. Abd al-Rahman followed her out, disturbed by her distress. He would have cried too, had he not realised that he was the man here, the one who was supposed to remain firm in adversity. He looked pleadingly at his mother, as though to tell her without words, ‘Dear mother, the doctor will know how to cure him and can give him some medicine.’
But she was stern. ‘Please, Abd al-Rahman, leave me alone, and your father as well. God alone will cure him. If he knew you were going to call a doctor, he’d certainly stop you.’
Abd al-Rahman could not think of a way of arguing with his own mother, but, as he gave way to her, he felt a bitter sorrow. And as he left the house, he could not rid himself of the strong sense of something wrong that had overwhelmed him as he argued with his mother both silently and out loud. He began wandering aimlessly, letting the force of habit guide his steps.
‘We’re still a long way from being able to distinguish between modern medicine and hot drinks,’ he thought, ‘even though those drinks have done away with thousands of souls. They’re a generation with “the past” inscribed on their foreheads. But it’s a past that’s over, dead; we’ve buried it.’
As he came to himself again, another voice inside him said, ‘He’s my father… It’s my responsibility to save him. It may be the past with regard to the realities of life today, but I still have to devote my entire being, my whole existence, to my own present, using the seed of revolution that is growing inside my soul.’
‘But your responsibility’s over,’ the present came back to counter him. ‘You can’t transform the past into the future. You can’t bring a statue to life – unless you’re either a clown or an artist.’
‘But my father—’
‘What have fathers and sons to do with the law of life?’
‘It’s my task to change history.’
‘Your task is to stand facing the stream to make sure it doesn’t go straight from past to future.’
‘So, then, am I a nihilist…? Totally negative?’
‘No, you’re an existentialist, and positive. Your will is not conditioned by the past that is over, but rather by the future to come. So, respond to your will, and stop burning your energy trying to resurrect the past.’
This inner conversation was suddenly interrupted by a loud bray from a donkey that had collided with a Bedouin, earning a strong rap on its muzzle.
Hours later Abd al-Rahman went home again, feeling no need or desire to know how his father was. Nevertheless, he gave his mother an enquiring look, but failed to find any sign of the tragedy he had seen earlier in the day. Now her expression looked hopeful.
‘Is my father feeling better?’ he asked eagerly.
‘God be praised,’ she said, ‘he woke up and had something to eat.’
‘He ate something?’
‘Yes, eggs and yogurt.’
Abd al-Rahman looked surprised.
‘Yes, he was hungry, thank God!’ Khaduj went on. ‘I told you. Doctors, what do they know? God is the only doctor. How many times have we been sick, and God alone has cured us?’
‘No doctor, no medicines?’
‘We dealt with it ourselves. Lalla Fatima, the Prophet’s descendant, gave us a medicine she made from her own supply of herbs. Her hands are indeed blessed. God and her good fortune can cure us of any disease.’
Abd al-Rahman said nothing, but simply gave his mother a languid stare, as though a heavy weight prevented his eyelids from lifting. In his ears he heard a loud voice saying, ‘The past, the past, the past…’
By next morning, Hajj Muhammad was no longer feverish, but the illness had left its mark on his frail body and injured soul. When he greeted Abd al-Rahman that morning, he was eager to see his son. He felt the fever had put a distance between himself and his children, and that he had spent years and years away from his world, his home, and his family. He was especially keen to talk to Abd al-Rahman, being still fond of him in spite of their disagreements and the fundamental differences between them. He could not help admiring and respecting his son and harbouring a belief in the rightness of his son’s ideas, which he was incapable of shutting out.
He looked fit and well as he gave Abd al-Rahman a welcoming smile, as if he had never had a fever. Abd al-Rahman was filled with hope, a warm feeling he put into a fervent kiss that he planted on the feeble hand that the fever had left looking like a piece of torn cloth, devoid of life.
His father’s appearance spurred Abd al-Rahman to open his heart. ‘I was determined to call a doctor to treat you,’ he said.
Hajj Muhammad shuddered, as though the fever had returned. ‘Doctor?’ he said. ‘No doctor’s hand has ever touched me. How could you think of bringing in a Christian doctor to treat me? No, no, never think of such a thing again.’
Abd al-Rahman was crushed, and all hope vanished from his expression. Staring at the floor, he felt giddy. The colours of the mosaic on the walls seemed to dance before his eyes, the greens, blues, reds, and whites all blending with each other. Defeated, all he could think to do was utter some words of encouragement.
‘God be praised for your recovery,’ he said with a broad smile. ‘You’re fine now, and won’t need a doctor.’ Planting a cold kiss on the feeble hand, he left the room, as that same terrible voice echoed in his ears: ‘The past, the past, the past…’